The Beginning

Welcome to my new blog.

This blog will tell the tale of my efforts to change my life through trading and match betting on Betfair and occasionally Betdaq. My efforts to pay off my debts and make enough profit to leave my detested job and either trade full time or give me the breathing room to find my true path in life.

People say money isn't everything and it can't buy you happiness but lets face it, the lack of money can severely limit your options and bring a lot of misery.

I decided to write this blog after following many of the other trading blogs. I think it may help me stay disciplined and it may help others avoid my mistakes.

First a little about me and the story so far …

I came to Betfair in August '07 when I discovered a a section on the moneysavingexpert.com forums about matched betting. Matched betting being fairly straight forward I quickly was able to the full roundup of the UK. And European bookies that were operating at the time and built myself a profit of £1400 in a couple of months. I had quite a lot of stake money so I was able to do this very quickly. When I had completed the UK. And European bookies I found I was hesitant to get involved with the US Bookies due to the larger amounts needed to complete the bonuses offered. So I was at an impasse.

I started to look for other ways to make money on Betfair and turned to laying horses. I had this ill conceived notion that horses with odds of 30-40 would hardly ever win and I could make money laying them. Hehehe yes I know what your thinking. It started of really well and I made several hundred pounds in a few days and began to, foolishly, lay larger and larger amounts until I layed £30 on a horse at 34, which won the race. £990 gone in one race. I was stunned as the glaring flaw in my plan was brutally shown to me. What happens when they WIN the race. I continued on at greatly reduced stakes and would see the cycle repeated over and over again, I would win for days on end and then 1 or sometimes 2 losses would wipe out all my profit. I concluded that laying horses with little knowledge of horse racing itself was a lost cause.

I had noticed people talking about trading on forums and websites and began too look into it. I tried it out on the horse racing markets but struggled to follow the flow of price movements to scalp the races and with no knowledge of the horses involved could not predict drifters or steamers. I ended up losing money on this as well.

In February '08 I spotted a post on a forum that stated some statistics that most football matches are still 0-0 after 10 minutes and that this caused a predictable drop in the over/under markets, most notably the over/under 2.5 goals market. Now I know nothing about football , and have never liked the game or been a follower of it of any kind. I began to watch the over/under 2.5 markets in play and did notice the under 2.5 price would descend steadily while no goal was scored and a goal in the first 10 mins was indeed rare. I had a bank of about £200 left from my previous efforts and I began to trade these markets. I would back unders just before match kick off and set a lay in place 10 ticks lower. If the market did not reach the lay by 10 mins in I would lay at the current price and hedge. If a goal was scored before I could lay out then I would hedge out red for a loss and move on to the next match. This worked very well and I began making a regular profit and employing larger and larger stakes. I'm sorry to say that bankroll management and discipline were lacking and I would often use stakes of 50-100% of bank and not red out after a goal in the hope that I could recover without a loss. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it did not, but most of the time it worked. My bank rapidly shot into 4 figures and kept climbing.

I had setbacks along the way there's no denying that. I backed unders on a West Ham v Tottenham(I think) for £3k and the market did not go in-play. As we all know this can be a regular occurrence on Betfair. So I was stuck with a £3k bet on unders and a 2 goals before HT made it look bleak. After HT there were no goals and things were looking hopeful when a goal in the last 10 mins put paid to it and I was £3k down. I soldiered on with constant wins and some losses big and small. The more I won the more I staked and the more I won. Bankroll management pah!, Discipline whatever! .

On the Saturday morning of the last weekend in April I had £8.2k in my account. By the end of the Sunday night I had £481 left. So many early goals , so much chasing , so much lost to desperation and foolishness. I was shocked at what had happened. How could it all have gone so wrong?.

I tried to figure out what had happened, analyze my mistake and move on. I increased my bank to £2.5k over the next couple of weeks but began to lose discipline again and once again I was back below £500. by this time the main football season had finished and I was relying on smaller leagues, friendlies and competition matches for my trading options. I also began looking into other sports like tennis for opportunities. I would win and lose over and over, and then I began doing something I said I wouldn't do. When after a loosing streak my bank dropped to £230ish I thought “it'll take forever to get back to a decent amount with that little, I'll deposit some money to bring it up to £1k and withdraw it again when my profit is up to £1k, No problem”. What was I thinking?. I had sworn never to use my own money for this, all along I had been using profits started with match betting. I never wanted to risk my own money. I have no idea where my head was at this point but you can guess what happened next.

It worked at first. Deposit, bring myself back up to a decent level, withdraw, cool!. Then it stopped working. I began to loose, deposit more, win and then loose, deposit more, win and then loose. By late October I was red by £4.5k!!!. I greatly reduced my stakes and soldiered on. I made myself be more disciplined. I swore to deposit no more money and just work with what I have.

Up until February '09 I had been swinging back and forward between £50 and £150 pounds in my bank. A far cry from what I had been using a year previously. I had a good, if undisciplined run in February, and worked my bank up to £650 and then lost a chunk on a couple of trades that did not go my way. I think that had been a turning point and I began to use only 10-20% of bank stakes. Some would say that is too much, they may be right, we'll see. This staking plan has already minimized losses and kept my bank healthy, although discipline does slip sometimes but for the most part I'm on course.

Where do I hope to go from here?

My goals are still the same Clear my debts( a little larger now LOL) and put enough in the bank to leave my job and start a new life. I currently drive a van for a large company and I detest it. I loathe driving 4 wheels as I much prefer two wheeled transport especially in a city where there are so many muppets on the road and the traffic is so bad, but being out and about on my own is head and shoulders above working indoors with management on my back all the time about pointless rubbish, so it's the best of all possible options right now.. I think that my dislike of my current circumstances contributed greatly to my desperate foolishness over the past year and had a detrimental effect on any kind of discipline. I have realized that unless I stay focused I will never succeed at my goals.

Currently I have debts of approx. £12k (not all from Betfair I hasten to add) and need £15k in the bank after that as that would be a bit more than a years net wage for me. I could not consider quitting work without that safety net. Fortunately I'm single with no dependents so it's only my life I'm messing up if I fail. LOL!.

I trade mainly over/under 2.5 goals and tennis match odds and fortunately there are quite a few trading opportunities each day just now. I can even trade at work using my Eee PC and a 3g connection while in my van although not as effectively.

My short term goal at the moment is to reach £600 pounds and I'm almost there. At this target I'll withdraw £400 to begin a matched betting operation with a friend of mine. He is not able to matched bet himself but for a share of the profit I can use his him as a proxy and I will be able to to a full sweep of the bookies currently offering bonuses without falling foul of the one account per ip address/person/household rule that they all have. I will continue trading on my own Betfair account with the remaining £200. I can run these two operations concurrently and matched betting these days has been greatly simplified by the use of websites like Bet72.com and Mbassist.co.uk, which compare bookie odds and Betfair odds to keep you updated about good match opportunities. When I first started matched betting I had to trawl through every match market in every league in every sport to find a match and it was time consuming, using these two websites greatly speeds up the process.

I'm not sure what time frame this will take. I'm not setting any goals like '£500 to £30k in a year', it will take as long as it takes. I firmly believe that there is money to be made on trading and matched betting but it will not be a get rich quick scheme and it will require patience and discipline to slowly increase the profit you make. This is where the majority of people, including me so far, fall down.

I want to succeed.!!

I think thats enough for now. Sorry for the long first post but I had a lot to get out. I will update regularly on my prgoress and I've put links to some of the sites I've mentioned at the side and to some of the blogs I read regularly.

Feel free to leave a comment. I welcome encouragement and constructive criticism.

Cheers.