B
acking is the same with betting. Laying is bookmaking, which stands
for offering odds to bettors. By laying at short odds and backing at
higher odds, sports traders are able to make money either in-play or
even before kick-off! What’s more, sports trading can be applied in
almost any sports market, even in financial and political betting or in
special bets, such as TV shows and music contents!
Personally, I went full-time sports
trading in 2004 and quit in 2007. During those years I traded millions
in horse racing markets and gained experience that helped me make the
move to stock and forex trading. At the peak of my sports trading career
I traded 3 millions of euros in a single month.
Read on to find out how I started, my
bankroll requirements, my advice on money management and tips on how to
improve your predictions and how to use betting charts.
How I started sports trading
I found betting exchanges in 2004. I
used to bet the regular way in online bookmakers till then and like
most, I initially found it difficult to understand what is going on in a
betting exchange. Odds were moving up or down, there were money waiting
to be ‘matched’ and we could act as bookmakers ourselves! A total chaos
that drove me away in the beginning.
Little did I know that I would return a couple of weeks later and become a full-time sports trader!
That happened when I bumped into a video
online, where a sports trader explained how he was making money by
trading horse racing betting odds. He bragged that he rarely had a losing day! You know the saying: when something seems too good to be true, it’s because it is.
Adam Todd, the sports trader in
question, made me spent considerable time on comprehending betting
exchange’s mechanics. Finally, after watching his video over and over
again, I pulled the plug and deposited my first 500 euros in Betfair. That was my first and only deposit I made in the betting exchange.
The kind of trading that Adam showed and I built my skills upon, is called scalping.
Scalping is trading miniscule odds movements, making small but constant
profits. Imagine buying oranges for $2 and selling them for $2.04 ten
seconds later. Yes, scalping is trading on steroids.
You need speed for scalping.
No, a 24Mbps internet connection does not guarantee the speed I am
talking about. It’s the lowest ping you should be after. Ever played a
video game online and experienced lag? Those milliseconds that cost you a
virtual ‘kill’ may mean hundreds of dollars in sports trading and
scalping in particular.
Now comes the best part: I began
scalping with a 56Kbps dial-up internet connection. Odds were refreshing
every 2 seconds minimum. At times, I submitted orders and didn’t know
what was happening for about 5 or 10 seconds! Talking about dark ages.
Even under those circumstances, I managed to double my bankroll during the first month of sports trading. Yet, it was obvious I was handicapping myself.
What to avoid in sports trading
Upon installing a broadband internet connection a month later, my winrate skyrocketed. I did have losing days, but never did I have a losing month, like Adam. Skillful traders could actually make money in almost every horse race!
The best handicappers and sports bettors
could not beat that. The best sports betting strategy can have days in
the red. Sports trading was an entirely different beast.
Losing money when scalping
meant you didn’t trade well. You made bad predictions, you chased your
losses or you had bad internet connection. I cannot think of another
reason to lose money. No, the rule of “cutting your losses short and
letting your winners run” does not apply in scalping. That’s because you
always cut your losses short and you seldom let winners run in
scalping. Thus, if you do not cut your losses early on, you are not
scalping but gambling.
- Bad predictions: In scalping, much like in trading, you make money when you predict odds movements correctly. If you constantly trade in the wrong direction, you are going to be broke. In scalping, that means you suffer many small losses instead of scoring many small wins. By improving your predictions in scalping, you increase the win/lose ratio, not the money won/lost per trade. This means you will ultimately have a lot more winning trades, yet the net amount won per each trade will remain about the same. I’ll explain later how I improved my predictions in horse racing and in pretty much any other market I traded.
- Chasing your losses: This is lack of discipline. Being a scalper, sports trader, a position trader or an investor, chasing your losses is one of the biggest leaks. This leak can and will bring any profitable strategy to its knees. Chasing losses is found in any form of gambling, therefore if you caught yourself doing that, you are not ready yet for sports trading. Because of the high betting frequency in sports trading, your lack of discipline can have a devastating result in a much shorter time. Make sure you are not prone to tilting and losing temper, before delving into sports trading.
- Bad internet connection: This doesn’t need much explanation. If your internet goes down during a trading session, you are toast. You should have a backup plan in case of that emergency, which usually includes a backup internet connection. That second connection does not need to be that fast but it should be reliable. You are only going to close your open trades with that.
In fact, there is another reason to lose
money in sports trading before the horse race starts, but I needed a
headline instead of a bulleted list to address it.
Never go in-play when sports trading
‘Unreal’ horse went on to win the race and left me with an open trade that cost me my entire bankroll. Pretty unreal, indeed!
Unless you were supposed to trade
in-play, letting a trade open on the race’s official starting time is a
recipe for disaster. But why would you do that in the first place?
- You are losing more than you expected in the regular trading session and are looking to gamble a bit to recoup losses quickly.
- You are aiming for that one tick to get out of the market but odds seem to have come to a halt.
- Races start on specific time, which you missed. Although today’s trading software set alarms on for you to avoid that error, you’d be surprised how often traders neglect keeping an eye on their clock!
Whatever the reason you are willing to
let a trade go in-play, restrain yourself from doing it ever again!
Accept your loss, take your one-tick-less profit and move on to the next
horse race. Trading never ends, the next opportunity is just a click away.
You have no excuse to put your bankroll in such a high-risk environment.
Even if you trade in-play, you still need to be disciplined enough to trade out with a hefty loss.
In-play sports trading demands a different approach and certainly puts you in a severe disadvantage when you are risking 50% or 100% of your trading capital! And speaking of capital, let’s now say a few words on money management.
How much money do you need for sports trading?
As little as possible! Since you are
reading this, I assume you are at best an amateur when it comes to
sports trading. Therefore, you should invest the minimum amount of money until you become familiar with sports trading. Why?
Because, as they say, you are going to
lose that money – consider it a tuition towards your trading studies.
So, why spend much when a few hundred dollars can teach you the same lessons?
I myself began with just 500 euros,
although I had studied about financial trading and chart analysis, while
have proven myself that I was disciplined enough in gambling. What
makes you think you are going to win from Day One, without ever reading a
trading book?
Remember that practice beats every book, but you do need some background to get your feet off the ground.
After allocating a specific amount of money for your trading endeavors, you should manage that money properly. How to do that? Jump over to my sports trading’s money management article. Then come back.
Did you read that?
Ok, now you know perfectly well what I
did, in order to become a successful sports trader and get interviewed
by popular sports websites. In fact, this particular interview of mine has become quite popular and you can find more details of my sports trading career in that post.
A career that ended in 2007.
The curse of a professional gambler
Gambling and investing usually present themselves with many money-making opportunities. Unfortunately, those opportunities do not seem to last for long.
When word is out and more fishermen jump
into the pod, fish become extinct. The edge is severely affected and
sometimes the market has balanced itself so much, that there’s no edge
at all anymore! On the other hand, old strategies fail while new ones
prosper!
That’s what happened in my sports
trading. More traders with fast internet connections joined the party,
more astute bettors converted to traders and more sophisticated trading
systems emerged to beat the old-fashioned ones. I had to evolve, much
like I evolved after casinos barred me from playing blackjack (due to me
card counting).
And that is the curse of a professional gambler: Adapt or die.
I adapted by taking a look at another
opportunity emerging at those times. That opportunity would allow me to
go back to playing cards again..to buy ebook to learn more on how to trade mail gisttablet01@gmail.com
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