Finished

I started trading on Betfair back in January. Through that month I made over £300 profit and thing were going brilliantly. In February I lost a bit on a Man Utd game but was still in profit overall for the year. Since then I have made and lost small amounts, but have constantly making small profit overall. However its just too awkward to trade games when you haven't got them in front of you - and seeing as I haven't got Sky Sports this is most games!

I also realised that I wasn't enjoying watching football anymore - if I was trading on it I was always keeping an eye on the odds rather than the game, and if I wasn't trading and there was an early goal then I was annoyed that I missed an oppurtunity to make a profit.

So I've decided to stop this whole thing (or put it on hold until I get round to buying Sky Sports at least!). I've had 2 and a half months of ups and downs, but at the end of the day I've come out with a profit so there have been more ups than downs.

If anyone wants to read a similar blog, or is thinking about actually trading on Betfair take a look at Mark's blog here. He's the guy who showed me how Betfair works in the first place and is a lot more professional in his approach to it than I have been!

Good luck to anyone who does trade on Betfair - I've shown that money can be made from it but its just not for me anymore. I've just withdrawn my funds from my account and I'm sure I'll find a way to waste the money I've made soon! My account is still open on there so never say never - keep your eyes peeled and I might be back writing this blog in the future.

Back on track

P/L since last blog: £18.46
Monthly P/L: £3.68

I'm back in profit for the month after last weeks terrible run of Champions league games. It should be much bigger but for a screw up on yesterdays cricket world cup opener between West Indies and Pakistan. I'd watched England's two warm up matches to get a feel for how the games would pan out and I was fairly confident of securing a tidy profit over the course of the tournament. But I took my eye off the ball yesterday and was made to pay big time for my over expectancy of what Pakistan's middle order could do. With Yousuf, Inzamam and Akmal losing their wickets in the space of 20 runs I was staring a big loss in the face. I took it in the knowledge that there are going to be plenty more games for me to make it back on over the next month and a half.
I made a small profit on today's Kenya - Canada match and it could've been a bit more but I played it safe after yesterdays match.
My next port of call was deciding on a football match to trade. I only fancied doing one and it was a choice between Man City - Chelsea, Aston Villa - Arsenal and Tottenham - Braga. Because of all the press speculation about Stuart Pearce's job at Man City I could see him getting a good performance from his players in response so decided to give that one a miss. I decided to avoid the Arsenal match too because I find Aston Villa a bit too unpredictable under Martin O'Neill. So I decided to trade the Tottenham game.
After 24 minutes of Tottenham dominance Huddlestone scored an own goal and I was kicking myself for trading the game, especially with both Chelsea and Arsenal being 1-0 up already. However I kept the faith and soon they were back on level terms and then Berbatov added his second to put them in the lead. I got out of my initial trades at half time for a profit. However Tottenham were really looking good so I put some more money on the overs/unders which had done well for me last week, expecting Tottenham to get a couple more in the second half. When Braga scored again it was a shock but good for me, as Tottenham pushed for a winner and soon got it securing me a profit of over £70 for the game.
I'm happy with today's results, but disappointed with yesterday. The Ireland - Zimbabwe match tomorrow in the cricket could prove to be interesting so I might have a look at that if I get the chance. Hopefully I will have learnt from my mistakes and be able to secure a nice profit from it.

A down and up week

P/L since last blog: £38.16
Monthly P/L: £14.78

I haven't had a lot of time to update the blog recently for various reasons but it has been quite a busy week trading. It began with the Champions League games on Tuesday and Wednesday - I had planned on only doing one each night but on both occasions decided to trade two - Liverpool v Barcelona, Chelsea v Porto, Man Utd v Lille, and AC Milan v Celtic. Anyway I soon regretted that as I lost money on all of them to set myself up for a big loss.
After that I decided to sit out Thursdays Newcastle game and was soon kicking myself as they took a 3-0 lead within the half hour. I traded a bit towards the end of the game getting in and out for a small profit and then repeated the tactic for the late Tottenham game. This worked a treat and I made back £25 - bearing in mind this was the first time I had actually done 'in-play' trading rather than just laying the draw I was quite happy.
Saturday bought the Six Nations and normally I would have left this alone, but decided to have a look and trade small stakes, which again worked very well. I made another decent profit on the Wales and Ireland games. Man Utd - Middlesbrough made me more profit on Saturday evening, but this was reduced by the Chelsea - Tottenham match on Sunday.
So, had I left the Champions League alone I would've been looking at a profit of over £50 for the week, but at the same time if I had left it alone I probably wouldn't have touched the rugby.
I don't have a brilliant knowledge of rugby tactics but by trading small, low risk stakes I was able to make a nice profit from it and this might provide me with another source of trading in future as the odds tend to fluctuate more often than in football, allowing me to get out of any difficulties I may find myslef in!
Next Saturdays off limits for trading because its St Patricks day and the day England reclaim the Six Nations (can never be too optimistic!) so its a day on the Guinness and away from trading. I might have a dabble on the midweek football and hopefully put myself back in the green for the month.

Slowly but surely...

P/L since last blog: £3.78
Monthly P/L: £23.38

Well a profit is better than a loss I suppose. I was in two minds whether to trade tonights Championship game between Preston and Southampton but decided to go for it about a minute after kick off. Preston were favourites before the game and I was hoping for an early goal from them to leave with a profit. However the weather at Deepdale was awful which made play difficult and Preston were never really in it during the first half with Southampton making (and missing) a host of chances. However on the stroke of half time Preston took the lead against the run of play. Because Southampton had dominated and were looking strong the odds didn't go up on the draw as much as I'd have liked, but I wasn't going to hang around and risk a profit no matter how small as Southampton seemed like the much stronger team. I got out during half time for the small profit and was proved right when Southampton soon equalised in the second half. Preston went on to win comfortably but by that time I had switched off my laptop and left with the win.
Champions league tomorrow and Wednesday so I'm hoping to trade the Chelsea - Porto game tomorrow and AC Milan - Celtic on Wednesday both of which were draws from the first leg so hopefully the home team will be looking to close out the game early in both cases.

March Targets

P/L since last blog: £19.60
Monthly P/L: £19.60

After a disastrous month in February I was hoping for a good start to March to get me back on track. I watched the early Liverpool - Man Utd game in the pub and so didn't trade on it. I was still out during the afternoon so missed out on the main bulk of Premiership action. I was back in time for the Portsmouth - Chelsea match and traded it. I didn't have too long to wait before I was in profit with Drogba scoring just after the half hour mark. Despite the temptation to hang about for a Chelsea second I've learnt my lesson from last month and took my winnings straight away. The final whistle has just gone, and I could have hung about for the second goal and a bigger profit, but I'm happy with the profit and would rather make smaller profits regularly than lose a lot in search of the big win.

I've set myself a target for this month to get my profit for the year back to where it was before the Man Utd - Reading match (which was £338.85), meaning that my target for March is a profit of £215.96. This is doable but it will mean trading more games than I did in February (only traded 7 games during the whole month), and being more careful than I have been. I'm going to Barcelona for the Andorra - England match later this month so that will rule out trading on the group of mid-week internationals, but there are internationals the weekend before as well as a number of televised FA Cup games and Champions League matches coming up, the first of which is this week, so keep an eye open for more updates soon.

Clawing it back

P/L since last blog: £12.34
Monthly P/L: £196.41

OK. After my last blog entry I felt like a real idiot. Nearly wiping out my entire trading profit in one game. I know it taught me a lesson but I'd still rather have the profit!
I got back into trading on the following Tuesday night with the televised Man Utd - Lille game, but again nothing was going my way. I got out shortly after half time and had my fingers crossed for a 0-0. But Giggs' controversial free kick put an end to that idea. Still hoping Lille's appeal against it is held up to see if I can get a refund from Betfair!
This was the first time I'd lost money on back to back games and I was feeling very pessimistic about my trading future. I always said that if my profit drops back down to break even point I'll get out -something obviously wouldn't be working and I'm not stupid enough to risk my own money.
I sat out the weekend's games because of the distraction of the six nations and the fact I wasn't feeling too well.

So mentally I was preparing tonights Reading - Man Utd game (the replay of the game where I made my mistakes) to be my last game. It was televised and so depending on the way the game looked I was ready to ride on the 0-0 until the odds dropped to my overall break even point before getting out and writing my last blog entry on this page.
But before the majority of fans at the Madejski had taken their seat Man Utd were one nil up and I was looking at a profit. I wasn't going to make the same mistake as before and prepared to trade out for a small profit. As I was working out how to maximise this they added a second and was relieved that I hadn't got round to submitting my bet. And then it happened again! The 'Suspended' watermark had barely been removed when they banged in a third and I was looking at a guaranteed £40 profit. I traded out and am currently feeling very happy.
The win barely starts to make a dent on the red figure for the month but shows that I can still win money on games. I won't be about to trade any games tomorrow so February ends on a high despite nearly 200 quid loss for the month. Overall profit for the year is currently standing at around the 120 pound mark, and my goal for March is to clean up the mess made this month.

Bad losses

P/L since last blog: £200.58
Monthly P/L: £208.75

This weekend was meant to be fantastic for trading, with three televised FA Cup games and Chelsea playing a Championship side. and everything was going great at halfways through the Man Utd-Reading match.
Up until this point Arsenal had drawn with Blackburn, which had lost me money but fortunately I had covered 0-0 so the loss was minimal. The Chelsea game went my way, with them scoring in the first half securing a profit. I waited until the second goal went in before trading out for a win which put me back in profit for the month.
Then came the Man Utd - Reading game. With Man Utd taking the lead at the end of the first half I was ready to trade out for another profit, and leave myself at about fifty quid up for the month. However I was greedy. The odds didn't seem to be moving in my favour much, and I decided to wait for their inevitable second goal to make myself a very nice profit. When Reading scored I was gutted, but with Man Utd ever threatening I assumed that they would grab the winner. It never came, and before I knew it the final whistle had blown without me betting back on the draw. A huge loss and all because I was greedy.
A valuable lesson learnt, and this loss has set me back about a months worth of trading. I wouldn't have minded so much if had come in a boring 0-0 but with a chance to leave for a profit earlier in the game I can't help feeling very stupid.
But as they say 'Every cloud has a silver lining', and I've got some replays to look forward to to claim some money back! Still over £100 in profit for the year, but should be much more.
Muppet

Euro Victory

P/L since last blog: £39.49
Monthly P/L: £8.17

With there being no European matches in January, I decided to use tonights Zulte-Waregem - Newcastle game as my first venture into Europe. It was shown on Channel 5 and when the first half ended 0-0 I could see another loss on the cards trading wise, despite Newcastle being the by far the better team.
Fortunately an early own goal by the Belgians put me into an all green position but I decided to wait a bit and try to maximise my profits from the game. With the odds on a draw starting to level out I took my eye off the game to bet back on the draw. The minute I submitted my bet Newcastle were awarded a penalty and all betting was suspended before my bet could be matched. Once Martins had knocked it in I traded out straight away for a brilliant profit, which virtually cancels out Saturdays loss, and sets me up for a hopefully very profitable FA Cup weekend.

Bad Start to February

P/L since last blog: £47.66
Monthly P/L: £47.66

After not trading last weekend because I was away I was planning on trading the midweek international friendlies, but for various reasons didn't in the end. On reflection this was a good choice. The previous weekend had very few early goals (Liverpool-Everton ended 0-0 and the Arsenal match had late scorers, but Manchester Utd match on Sunday would've worked out well for me) and the two Tuesday games that I had my eye on (Wales-Ireland and Brazil-Portugal) would have also dented my bank (I wouldn't have traded Wednesday anyway as wanted to enjoy the England match - although after the way we played I may as well have traded!).
I had planned on trading on the usual suspects on yesterday which would've given me a good start to February with Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool all going a goal ahead before half time. However after heavy night on Friday and the distraction of the six nations I didn't trade on any of them.
So my first trade of February came in today's Arsenal-Wigan match and proved disastrous. Arsenal seemed to have a host of chances but couldn't convert anything and then Heskey knocked one in for Wigan. With the odds on a draw plummeting I waited until just after half time before leaving with a heavy loss. The game is still in play as I write this, so I don't know whether I've made the right decision or not. There doesn't seem to be too many good games this week, apart from the FA cup midweek replays, but both of these could go the wrong way on current form.
Next weekend the FA Cup fifth round starts with a number of televised games, and so this should give me an opportunity to claw back from a bad start to the month and put myself back in the green.

End of first month

P/L since last blog: £42.20
Monthly P/L: £320.60

After messing up on the Liverpool game by leaving the game too early I was hoping for profits of both the Man Utd and Chelsea games tonight. I didn't have long to wait and traded out after the first goal in both matches (both fairly early in the first half) for a profit that neutralised yesterdays loss, increased my bank and gave me plenty of time to catch the second half of the Arsenal-Tottenham match in the pub.

Its been a month since I started trading and its been brilliant so far with over £300 profit. I've traded 23 games and made profit on 19 of them. The games I've lost money on have been:
Aston Villa-Chelsea - Lost money because I didn't cover 0-0 and hung on for Chelsea goal far too long.
Tottenham-Newcastle - Got out at half time because I had things to do.
Man City-Sheffield Wed - Messed about with Bet Angel and placed bet accidentally
West Ham-Liverpool - Got out at half time because I had things to do.

So from the 4 I can put the first error down to inexperience (since then I have covered 0-0's so that any losses are cut down), the Man City match down to being stupid, and the other two because I didn't give myself time to trade the whole match (both had goals before the 60th minute). So I could really have avoided (or cut down) losses on all of the games if I had been more sensible.
That said the only 0-0 that I traded on all month was the Villa-Chelsea game so I probably did get a bit lucky with my choice of games.

So why is noone else doing this??
The majority of other trading blogs I've read have said they avoid football, or trade on overs and unders to make their profits.

Have I just got lucky? Someone posted a comment on this blog the other day asking if I have system for choosing the games that I trade on. The answer is not really. I try to trade games with Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool etc who are likely to score in the first half and unlikely to lose their lead. So far this has worked better than expected.
But, as I have only been doing this for a month, I am far from being experienced and would appreciate any links to other blogs/forums where people have made (or lost) money from using this system just so that I can know what I am letting myself in for. Any feedback is welcome.

But as they say 'Make hay while the sun shines' which I intend to do for the time being and look forward to another profitable month in February.

I'm not about this coming weekend so trading will have to be put on hold for a bit, but with plenty of internationals next week hopefully the month will get off to a good start.

A small loss

P/L since last blog: £23.00
Monthly P/L: £275.40

I traded the West Ham-Liverpool game tonight, but I was going out at nine oclock and had only really intended trading up until about 60 minutes anyway. However I left to go out at half time, taking a loss with me, just to catch a glimpse of Sky Sports when I arrived in the pub to see that Kuyt had scored. If I'd have hung on for a minute longer I'd have been looking at a profit, but had just missed out. A bit disappointed but its not the end of the world.

Technical Difficulties

P/L since last blog: £37.70
Monthly P/L: £298.40

This past weekend should've been a good one for trading with three televised FA Cup games but after switching on my laptop before Luton-Blackburn I discovered my Internet was down. Blackburn went on to dominate and this would've guaranteed me a profit. After speaking to an NTL 'Technical Support' representative whose lack of knowledge of English was only matched by his lack of technical knowledge I arranged for an engineer to come to sort it on Tuesday morning.
I watched the Man Utd-Portsmouth game at a mates house and managed to trade on it. Although this is where my 37.70 profit came from I wish I hadn't traded it. I felt that United would destroy Portsmouth within the first half, but after 2 disallowed goals and a 0-0 scoreline I was staring a big loss in the face and was in two minds whether to stay in or leave taking a big loss. The longer I hung on the more certain I was United would score but with less than fifteen minutes left I could've lost a lot. Fortunately Ferguson bought on some chubby scouser who managed to knock one in and I cut and ran straight away. I didn't really care about the win, and was more relieved that I'd avoided the loss.
Still feeling a bit dodgy after the United game I decided just to watch Chelsea-Nottingham Forest without trading and enjoy the match.
Anyway the engineer came this morning and sorted my broadband so might trade West Ham-Liverpool tonight.

New Blog & the story so far

After setting up a blog on MySpace, I realised that it was a bit rubbish as you have to be signed in to make comments and my PC seemed to run slowly when I was posting/previewing blogs so I've moved here. My previous blog entry here is an archive of all my old blog entries from my MySpace blog.

If you can't be bothered to read all of the stuff from the MySpace blog here is a bit of an update.

On Boxing Day I was introduced to trading on betfair by Mark (see his site here), who trades on a number of different sports. As he had made quite a lot of money off it I decided that I fancied a piece of it and began looking into ways for beginners to get into trading. I don't own Sky in my flat and can't be bothered with watching hours of sport just for the sake of trading (never been very interested in horse racing anyway). So I decided to trade on soccer, which I would probably be watching/listening to anyway.

My tactics are simple. I choose my match, and lay the draw before it starts (I know some might say its better to wait for 5 minutes for the odds to drop, but I don't want to end up ruing a missed opportunity because of an early goal) and then wait for a goal, and then bet on the draw, after the odds have increased. After a mishap on the Chelsea-Villa game which ended 0-0 I now also put a small bet on the no score draw to cover any losses.
As a rule I won't trade past 60 mins, but have stopped trading before and after that point depending on how I feel about the game.
After my first weekend of placing small bets and getting comfortable with Betfair I began trading 'properly'.
This was about 3 weeks ago now, and so far I am £260.70 in profit. This is despite a number of mishaps (not covering myself on the previously mentioned Chelsea-Villa game and messing up a bet by losing concentration while using BetAngel) but you only learn from experience. Some good results have given me a nice bank to trade with, and so I hope this blog will be showing a lot more green in future.
I know some people might say this isn't proper trading because I'm not trading on a constantly fluctuating market like horse racing or American football, but its working for me so far and I'm happy with the way its going. A number of televised FA Cup games coming up this weekend so I'll post then once I've traded on them.

Old Blog Posts from MySpace

Daily P/L: £26.99 Monthly P/L: £260.70 Before the Tottenham-Arsenal game I'd decided just to trade to the first goal or bail at half time if it was nil nil. The odds were close on both teams which virtually guaranteed profit matter who scored first (and I covered myself on 0-0 result), although it would probably be a fairly small profit. I laid the draw at 3.5 and waited for a goal. Once it had gone in I hung on a bit for odds to settle and then bet at just about 4.6 to make a small profit. As I did Tottenham got a free kick. I cancelled the bet (fortunately still unmatched), Huddlestone whipped it in, Baptista got his first of 3, I bet back on the draw at much better odds and took nearly 30 quid profit for just over 20 minutes listening to the football. Fortunate that I got as much as I did but can't complain. 11:51 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Never in doubt Current mood: productive Daily P/L: £21.35 Monthly P/L: £236.71 Despite everyone saying how bad Chelsea were and the potential banana skin in tonights game against Wycombe, I had a feeling Wycombe wouldn't be able to perform at the Bridge. Layed the draw and took my money and ran after Shevchenko's first. After the weekend off trading its nice to be back winning again. Arsenal-Tottenham tomorrow will hopefully carry on the trend. 9:06 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Wednesday, January 17, 2007 Amateur Current mood: relieved Daily P/L: £18.35 Monthly P/L: £215.36 Since the last post I've traded on 2 games both in the FA Cup 3rd round replays. Today Newcastle v Birmingham and yesterday Man City v Sheffield Wednesday. I should've posted yesterday but was too pissed off with myself with the mistake I'd made. Basically my browser was having problems refreshing pages on Betfair during the game so I was using Bet Angel Basic to keep up to date with the odds. Because the game was a bit slow I started to mess about with the Bet Angel interface which I haven't really used before. At some point I must've selected the green button next to either Sheffield Wednesday or Man City by accident. I looked back 5 mins later and realised that I had potential to lose quite a bit if it was a draw, even though I'd still be in profit if either won. I bailed out, and lost a bit of money on it. About 30 seconds later just to rub salt in the wound Man City scored which would've guaranteed me another 18 quid profit no matter what the result. So todays result was bittersweet, mainly just trying to cover yesterdays mistake. I was planning on stopping trading at half time in todays game anyway, for a small profit, but Birmingham carried on well and popped in another just before that to make me a bit happier about the situation. Lesson Learnt! 9:30 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Monday, January 15, 2007 League 2 risks Current mood: chipper Daily P/L: £17.16 Monthly P/L: £211.16 After debating whether to trade on the Walsall-Grimsby game and weighing up the chances of a profit (Walsall almost certain to win, and have been scoring regularly in the first half so far this season) against the fact that I couldn't actually follow the match live (My flat hasn't got Sky Sports and BBC online coverage is a few minutes behind the live game), I bit the bullet and decided to trade on it, hoping that Walsall score early so I could take my profits and leave. They got the goal after 27 minutes, so I got out straight away (could've hung on for more profit but too risky without being able to see the game live), taking just over £17 profit regardless of the result, and taking my overall winnings since the start of the month back past the £200 mark. Nice. 8:51 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, January 14, 2007 First week of trading Current mood: thoughtful Weekend P/L: £81.37 Monthly P/L: £194.00 I began trading on Betfair just over a week ago, last Saturday. After making about 18 quid off small bets, and beginning to get comfortable with what I was doing, I upped my stakes and have since had a very profitable time. Before yesterday and the first weekend of Premiership trading I had made £112.63 on the FA Cup and midweek games. Yesterday Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd all did the job for me taking my profit to slightly over two hundred pounds. I felt a bit dubious about trading on the Tottenham-Newcastle match today, as I had a feeling the odds could go a bit flat, as it should've been a close game (as it turned out it was). But I put money on it anyway and could've made money on it if I'd waited for a couple of minutes more, but backed out early making a small loss on it. However with weekend winnings of over £80 and overall winnings for just over a week of trading standing at nearly £200, I am very happy with the way things are going so far. Next week doesn't have too many good games for trading on, so it might be a while before my next post. But the Walsall-Grimbsy match tomorrow evening could be tempting... 7:47 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Jumping on the bandwagon Current mood: optimistic After a month or so of looking at other people's MySpace decided to make one of my own. As you can see its a complete waste of a website but I'm hopefully gonna make good use of this blog to make up for it. Most of the people reading this won't care about anything after this point so you may as well stop now. Anyway, as the story goes... I know a guy called Mark, who like me, likes the thought of making easy money. He's been into gambling on horses and sports in general for a while now. I saw him on boxing day and he introduced me to trading on BetFair. He'd signed up for it a couple of months ago and had made a good amount of profit so far. I was interested and he explained how its done - basically there's no bookmaker, just people betting against each other and specifying their own odds. You don't just have the option of betting on an outcome but also laying (betting against it). Mark bets on a lot of different sports while they are in play, and while this seemed like a good way of making money, it is also time consuming, and the markets are often too volatile for beginners. (If you want to have a look at his site go to www.markiverson.com. His blog's quite interesting if you fancy getting into this sort of thing and is kind of what I want to achieve with this blog). Anyway, I looked into less time-consuming ways of trading on BetFair and found a method of betting on football that basically is: Before a game lay (bet against) a draw. If someone scores during the game then the odds on the draw will get bigger. At this point bet on the draw. This means that you are betting both for and against the draw, and so whatever the outcome you will make a profit. Its obviously not as simple as just that otherwise everyone would be doing it already, but with a bit of common sense and not being greedy you can make a lot of money off it. Just like I copied the rest of the world in making a MySpace page, I'm going to copy Mark by making a blog detailing my profits and (hopefully no) losses of trading on BetFair. Enjoy!