Betfair Exchange - What Have I Learnt?

Betfair Intro

Having written a few articles on Betfair trading and continuing to daily trade the betting markets I thought it about time I jotted (typed) down some more of my thoughts. 

For those of you completely new to exchange betting please check out the laying and exchange advice article at the betting school.

In this blog, I look at pre-race exchange trading, It’s less risky than laying horses outright or betting in play, and should enable you to make a profit in the long term.

The key to profitable trading is striking a very fine balance, this balance can take a long time to master. 

You need to be flexible and disciplined in equal measure if you want to build a profitable trading career, and make money on Betfair (or any exchange). 

The first action to take is to sign up for a new betting exchange account, once you have this you can start to investigate the joys of trading.

Betfair Trading Mindset

So as a person are you flexible or disciplined? I suspect one of those traits is pre-eminent. but hopefully, you have a degree of both, Being intransigent or ill-disciplined need to be cast aside

All of us have attributes and foibles, some of these help us in our careers and personal life and others hinder us. 

We can be forced to alleviate some of our poor habits (by wives, girlfriends, bosses, police, etc) or we can take action ourselves so that we benefit both spiritually and financially.  

If you give yourself an MOT on your personality and discover where you excel and where you struggle. 

Much of successful trading is in the mind, your habits, your awareness, and your complete personality plays a pivotal role. 

If you know yourself or spend time learning about yourself this will stand you in good stead for your trading life, you need to be brutally honest about your skills and faults. 

Now if the above sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo (15 years ago it would have sounded nonsense to me as well) just google "Trading Mindset" and you will find a host of helpful articles, blogs, and information about the mind and trading

When you open the Betfair trading platform you need to consider:

1 The figures on the screen.

2. The way your brain reacts to that screen information.

Do Gamblers Struggle When Trading

When you trade you can at times be cutting your potential profit. Daily you will have scenarios where a selection looks nailed on to win.

Having backed the horse early at 5.0 you have seen it supported all the way into 2.0. Your potential profit is £40, yet as a trader you must be disciplined and lay/trade that bet.

You cannot afford to let that bet go without trading out, if the horse despite your confidence loses then you have lost £10, as opposed to guaranteeing a pre-race profit, albeit a smaller profit than if it did win. 

Never let the trade go in play, you will be risking your hard-earned accumulated funds, it is just not what traders do.

You may well be proved right on many occasions, but the losses you incur when you are wrong will be so negative to both your bank and your peace of mind.

Trading is not boom or bust as gambling can be – but an accumulation of funds over a period of time. No single trade should risk wiping out your bank, no daily losses should impact your betting bank to a great degree.

Betfair Trading Bank

You need to protect your trading bank at all times.

Of course, you will have losing trades, it's like saying the traffic lights will never be red on your daily commute, you will lose, but the amount you lose should be easily manageable in relation to your betting bank.

If we look at the reverse and pronounce that with careful money management you will never need to top up your Betfair funds, imagine that, once you have initially deposited that is it!!

You will need to deposit on a betting exchange, you can do this and take advantage of any negotiated OLBG free bets.

The amount you initially deposit should not be a worry, only deposit what you can afford.

You should only deposit funds that are specifically for trading or make sure that your trading and gambling accounts are completely separate.

Your protection of these funds should be your overriding aim. 

If you are disciplined you should never be in a position where you HAVE to deposit future funds.

You may wish to but never be forced to by previous trading errors. 

Start with small trades and increase your bank slowly and surely. 

Betfair Exchange Trading Knowledge

Some say you can trade the figures in front of you without any knowledge of the event, that is possible, but to do it successfully over a period of time having knowledge of the sport and its particular nuances is much more advisable than trading blindly.

You will make more successful trades if you know about the event or sport you are specializing in. 

A practical example of this if you were trading a horse and knew that the jockey on your horse was competing hard for the jockeys' championship and many of his rides were being supported by punters despite the form of the horse,  having this knowledge in advance will allow your decision making to be more accurate than someone who had no idea that the figures were being affected in this way. 

In bookmaking terms the horse was being overbet because of the jockey on board. 

Another example could be team news in a football match, 1 player tends to score a larger percentage of his team's goals, what would happen to the price of his team if others knew he was injured, but you didn't!

As super investor and all-round sage Warren Buffet once said "I never invest in anything I don't understand", as sports traders we should do the same.

Learn as much as you can, read Betfair trading books, learn Betfair trading strategies, check the olbg forum betting exchange threads.

Betting Exchange Reminders

Be adaptable

Be selective and sure of each trade.

Check all 4 exchanges for variation of prices.

Check betting percentages of an event.

Check the form of selections.

Check key personnel within the event you are trading

Check the forecast prices from reputable tissue providers.

Check tipsters for their influence on prices.

Do not allow one trade to ruin your trading bank.

Do not be disturbed.

Do not let losing trades affect future trades.

Do not try to trade every event

Follow exchange markets over a period of time.

Have more than one exchange account in case of an outage.

Keep records of your trading successes and failures.

Learn to scratch trades and do not let it affect you.

Study the event you wish to trade.

Understand the correlation between bookmakers and betting exchanges.

Understand the nature of exchange odds.

Watch where possible the event you are trading.