Small loss but good idea?

As I said yesterday I have decided to trade over the weekend. I had a couple of straight bets, which lead to a small loss of about £50 for the day. I placed all the bets before racing started so that I could concentrate on my trading.

I have been reading several form posts and blogs about trading for some time now and this has led to me rethinking the way I trade. I normally only look for small price movements of say a tick or two. Although this has proved profitable it has not proved massively profitable.

Therefore, today I slashed my trading stakes to £200 and set about looking for some longer term trades. If the markets were looking stagnant I reverted to my 'scalping' style though I was always on the look out for longer trends.

As you can see from the image below there were a lot of races where I just closed out for no loss and no profit, however, considering my stake size I was quite happy with some of the profits I achieved. The highlight being the 16.10 where I won over £7. The number of losing races were kept down though I was disappointed I lost so much when I did lose but overall I think the new style looks promising.

As long as all the racing is on tomorrow I will be back trading again and will again be looking to implement today's strategy. So on the day a small loss of about £30 thanks to the straight bets not doing any good but overall I think the day was a success!

Quick round up

This weeks racing has been pretty moderate when looking at the whole week. The days in which I have got involved in have not been great. There have been various abandonment's though I think next week there is going to be a heap of them with the cold weather I mentioned in the previous post.

When the racing is like this Discipline is key and you need to be careful as you can soon lose track and more importantly money. That is why I have been using reduced stakes and been trying to be prudent with my in-running betting.

Looking back on the month it has lived up to expectations of being a hard month to pick winners with the heavy ground and a lot of poor quality midweek racing, so as I said discipline is key and keeping your head above water is the most important thing.

We have to be thankful for the AW racing and this can prove to be good in-running fodder. The races are often extremely difficult to work out pre-race but most of the races are extremely pace dependant, most especially at Southwell, where any leader that gets an easy lead is proving very hard to peg back at the moment (my 25.0 in-running yesterday on Aureate was pleasing proof of this!).

The only race I liked the look of today was the 3.10 at Catterick, the novice hurdle. Despite a lot of professionals tipping Palm Reader, I was more than happy to take him on under a penalty, as the form of his last time out victory is moderate. I had a slight preference for Be Brief after a good run behind Tarablaze last time, but in the end decided to split my stake between Be Brief and Time For Rupert (Paul Webber's only runner).

I still can't work out why Time For Rupert touched 12's IR but he won very well and is yet another boost to the form of Bensalem, who I am very keen on for the 3-mile novice hurdle at the Festival. He's crying out for a proper test of stamina after getting outspeeded by Diamond Harry last week.

So you heard it here first - get on Bensalem for the Festival!!!

I shall be trading over the weekend as usual and am planning on trying out some new ideas so I will probably be using reduced stakes. I am also likely to have a few bets so check back to see how I get on.

Thanks for the comment on the last post - any other questions just ask!

Have a good weekend!

Its Cold Outside

Today has seen the loss of Chepstow and prospects do not look good for the start of February. I am expecting a lot of cancellations as the forecasters are predicting a cold snap with winds coming in from Russia and with it the chance of heavy snow falls over large parts of the country. Add in the wind and they are saying that temperatures won't be rising above freezing in the day time.

Summer still feels a longtime away and that will only last 3 days!!!

Leading from the front - yet again

Well it happened again today - Southwell was on and again I was looking for those leaders winning. I hope anyone who has been following the blog has been following this advice of late as it will have paid very well over the last few meetings.

Today was my first day back after my break as I mentioned in my last post. As I have had a few days away from it recently I thought I should take things steady to begin with which meant there were not really any fireworks or much of not to be quite honest in the first couple of hours of today's racing.

However, then came the 3.20 and Aureate - it got of to a good start and was soon leading though taking a keen hold. With the last 2 meetings showing a definite bias towards the leaders I thought odds of 25.0 was far to generous and I clicked to back - unfortunately I only got £5 matched at that price and could only get another £2 matched at 13.5

Before the off I had a little bit on Take Me There at 3.6 and as you can see I was taking things steady there with just £11 on it.

Aureate was headed over a furlong out however it came it was second wind and managed to get up to score by a head and beat El Diego who as you can see from the screen shot traded as low as 1.02!!!!

So all in all that race went very well and to be honest was the only highlight of the day, the rest of the day was not upto much, about breaking even on it but the big win in the 15.20 meant it was a £150 day which I will take everyday of the week!

Sorry I messed up the screenshot and you can't see Aureate fully but you can see the bets I placed.

I will be back posting regularly so please continue to read on and give me any advice you want or ask anything you want!

Short Holiday

I seem to be saying this a lot since I started this blog but I am sorry for the lack of updates of late. As you will know I try to trade on the Weekend however this weekend I was offered a chance to go Paintballing and it is something I have wanted to do for a long time so I went rather than trade and bet.

It was great fun and I would highly recommend it to everyone - I am away as I write this and will be until Wednesday. I really need to knuckle down though when I return and promise to get back to regular daily postings and will start covering other topics beside just betting.

Hope you are having a good time of it and please check back on Thursday!

Poll Results

With yet more racing cancelled and the quality of the racing that was left on the AW not being great and the going at the other meeting being Heavy I got on with finishing off some of the job I mentioned the other day.

Tomorrow's weather doesn't look great so I may try and get my jobs finished off and not bother with tomorrow if there are cancellations. Hopefully next week will be back to normal.

So today I will just do a quick discussion on the poll results that I conducted this week and am most grateful for people taking the time to vote.

As we all know there are many ways to use Betfair and it looks from the results most of you use the site in several ways. The main ways are to Back, Lay and Trade. Obviously there are other ways to use Betfair and it can be used in conjunction with other sites to make a profit but I personally don't do that.

As you will know I look to Back and Lay in the week and trade on the weekends. I find this arrangement works well for me though I will review it in time and see if I might be better trading in the week as well as betting. I enjoy all three disciplines as it challenges you in many different ways.

It would be quite interesting to know if those of you who just do one of the main 3 have actually tried doing some of the others and if not why not? Also it would be interesting to know if you tried them but decided to say stop laying but carry on with backing and trading.

I started out as I guess a lot of people do thinking that laying is the easiest way to make money - well how hard can it be to pick a loser??? Well once you actually start doing it you soon realise that it isn't as easy as you first thought. But try and pick a winner and they never win - lol.

So after getting stung on the laying front I went back to straight backing, then after reading through some of the other blogs and forums around I got into trading and slowly ended up getting back to laying be much more selectively than I was at first. I then started to venture inplay.

I still just use my home ATR and RUK pictures but really must get to an exchange shop one of these days and see if there really is as much as an advantage to be had as people say. Anyone any views on them?

Finally, I would like to say it is good to see there is a mixture to what everyone does as we really could not operate without one group. Traders, need backers and layers and vice versa - we really are just one big happy family feeding Betfair!



. Tomorrow doens

Late again

Hi,

Sorry for the late update - I had hoped to do this post before yesterday's evening racing as I had a big word for Harald Bluetooth but I was running late and had a function to go to so I am sorry I didn't get chance to give the info I had.

Although a good day it was frustrating at times as I made some stupid errors. I had £50 on Don't Stop Me Now pre-race with a fixed odds bookie at 11/10, as I thought the form of her last run when just touched off by West With The Wind was easily strong enough for her to take care of today's bunch, especially with her receiving so much weight and being ridden by a most promising conditional jockey. Victory was never really in doubt from flagfall.

I just messed around in-running for the first part of the afternoon, I was pleased with my discipline backing a couple of winners rounding the home turn, but then got stung with a lay that found far more than looked like it would. However, I pulled things around with a bet in-running on Plush at Wolves. I was going to back it pre-race, but a fast pace is essential for this hold-up performer and thus I was right to wait until I could see that the leaders had hared off in front, playing right into Plush's hands, who bolted in for excellent trainer, Tom Dascombe.

So all in all a decent enough day and one I have to be happy with. Next time I will try to get the info up before the race!

Leading from the front part 2

Just a quick post as I have some other stuff to do this morning. I had planned to do this post after racing yesterday but I ended up watching all the coverage of the inauguration from America - the 'beast' seriously can't do much more than 1 mile to the gallon!!!!

Anyway, last Thursday I did a post about the leader bias at Southwell and how I used it to my advantage. Well I was on the look out for it again yesterday and it was still there even if it took some jockeys until the last to realise!

I had a good day being able to get some nice prices on the leaders, I messed up the screen grab below but the profit on the winner was £66. I am not sure how Spencer's mount was 4.1 when I laid it, I wish I had laid more, but don't we all when one gets beat. I also backed the second horse in order to cover my position incase we were caught up front. I just wish I had had more on at 9.0 on the leader!!!

The leader bias was there all day and I got some nice price on Spencers mount in the last. I will be keeping an eye out for it again next time they race at Southwell and I hope you do as well!

Photo Betting

The racing this week is looking very much at the mercy of the weather and it doesn't look like the weather will be showing much mercy!

With meetings being cancelled left right and centre I decided to get several jobs done that I have been putting off for a long time this morning rather than spend it reading form.

I had one bet advised to me this morning and that ran last, however, I don't blame the tipster as the horse was Pulled Up as it was clearly not right. The horse went off at 5/4 but I got the morning price which was 3.2. The horse was Antilla and was running at Wolvs. I will be keeping my eye out for it next time as it was clearly not right today and was being pulled up within a few furlongs. I think it will be a bet for me next time.

The rest of the day was pretty much a non event I did a couple of bets on the 14.50 as you can see below but thanks to getting some generous odds in the photo finish I managed to come away with a small profit on the race and earlier on in the day someone was again giving what I considered huge odds in what I thought was a clear cut finish so I put a bit on to 'buy' money.

Tomorrow could be a day off as it doesn't look to promising weather wise. I will get a post up soon on some of my views and horses to watch for at Cheltenham.

Hope you all had a profitable day!

The Weather Strikes Again

Just when I thought we were turning the corner the weather has stuck again!

Lingfield's card today was called off yesterday not long after I did my post and this was then followed up by the Fairyhouse meeting that was called off on Sunday and rescheduled for Tuesday also being called off.

Things don't look overly promising for the other meetings on Tuesday with inspections planned at both Leicester and Sedgefield on Tuesday morning ahead of racing.

Fingers crossed they go ahead - the number of meetings lost already this year must be some kind of record!

If it isn't the frost it is the rain!

Today's racing was looking like a promising day with a total of 5 meetings on but then the weather decided to put pay to that and caused three meetings to be canceled - unfortunately the two cards that remained were the ones I had not got around to looking at. So rather than spend all morning trying to find some bets for the sake of it I decided to go out for a walk as it was a lovely morning and with a whole afternoon ahead of me in front of the computer trying to trade the remaining two card I thought it best to get some fresh air.

On days where there is not much racing on I find it best to not really set yourself much of a target. With 13 races I decided £50 should be easily achievable, averaging just £4 a race which is only one or two ticks a race. Well as you can see below I traded on 12 of the races and managed a little over £50 which is pleasing enough as I was able to spend time between races catching up on other jobs as I only trade the 5minutes before the off.



Lets hope that the weather gives us all a break and we can get back to normal after what has been a dire period of cancellation after cancellation. It is also back to my main bread and better of betting tomorrow as I find Mondays markets particularly weak and thus much harder to trade.

Good look for the week ahead!

Just a quick post

Hello to anyone who is reading my posts. I am just going to do a very quick post today as I want to watch the Arsenal v Hull game on Sky.

Today was a great days racing and one to enjoy. I can't say I enjoyed it hugely at times as when trading the pre race markets I was caught by a few big orders that came into the market and cost me. I did some straight betting today with the bookmakers and on Betdaq that went ok but nothing really to write home about, the tipsters weren't up to much really and my own bets didn't exactly all go to plan.

On weekends I like to really have a go at trading the pre race markets as the markets are a lot better than during the week. In the week you see a lot of what I call spoofing where someone will put up an amount, usually several thousand to try and push the price in the direction they want. On the weekend with a lot more people punting the markets are so liquid they can't get away with this.

Overall it was a good days trading but as I said before I was caught by a good few large orders coming into the market which wiped out my profit on the race and led to small 'actual' losses. If I have say £30 green on a race and that gets reduced to £5, I count that as a £25 loss even though I haven't actually lost anything if you get what I mean????

Anyway here is my P/L from my trading account today.


Hope you had a good day - time for a beer and the football - enjoy!

Slow API

I am sure many of you are aware of the recent (well last 7 months) issues with slow response times from the Betfair API.

As I understand it Betfair altered something yesterday and that seems to have made things a lot worse for me. Now obviously this doesn't have any impact on my straight betting but with no selections given out from the services I subscribe and thew fact I was out last night and didn't have time to study today's racing, I decided to give trying to do any pre race or inrunning stuff a miss.

I bet the person/bot that made the error off back Faintly Hopeful before the off at odds down to 2.22 when it was a 200.0 chance wish they had given the day a miss as well!

I will be back tomorrow for what should be a good weekend of betting and trading! Drop me a comment if you want as I am hoping someone at least is reading this :)

Leading from the front

Today was a day of good luck and bad luck!

The day was going pretty slowly but it was becoming apparent that the leaders at Southwell were proving to be very hard to catch so I looked to back them inrunning and then lay off to ensure I didn't lose, this worked quite well as you can see below.


However a race later my bet on Johnee Joblot at Thurles went astray when the horse came to the last race cantering all over the others and looking sure to get up and win me a nice amount. However, in what proved to be a crazy period the horse ran out at the final fence and my money was down the pan.


Things quickly improved in the next race though when I clicked to back Just Smudge and got matched at 3.2 which was very nice. I quickly laid off my bet at 1.13 to ensure I couldn't lose on the race and ended up picking up a further £80 odd.

Just when I thought things were back on track I got done again this time at Ludlow where my prerace bet given to me by one of the tipping services I use was home and hosed only for the jockey to 'fall' off in the last couple of meters when it was well clear leaving the horse in second, who had been matched for about £300 at 1000.0, to come through and pick up one of the most unlikely of wins!

On the whole a respectable enough day but boy did things go against me at times!

First bet for the Blog and its a Winner!

Every way I looked at yesterday’s novice hurdle at Newbury, every way I imagined the race being run, Mad Max was going to win. The sticky ground was a minor concern, but these are the type of races in which I like to have a proper bet. Only 4 or 5 horses with any realistic chance and on tried and tested form, one horse stands heads and shoulders above the rest.

There was plenty of evens, 10/11 and 5/6 on Mad Max in the morning and since I rated him about a 2/5 or 1/3 shot, this illustrated that this was one of those times to bet odds-on. The key to betting at short prices is to make sure that you have as many factors as possible covered and no major doubts.

Mad Max has beaten Karabak on the bridle on his sole hurdle start at Ascot. Karabak then came out and thrashed Mahonia at Cheltenham. Prior to that race, Mahonia had beaten Medermit easily and then Medermit came out to win the G2 Kennel Gate Hurdle at Ascot, beating Dee Eee Williams. Dee Eee Williams had previously just beaten Shoreacres (Mad Max’s main rival on form today), so on a simplistic level, Mad Max had around 10-lengths in hand on Shoreacres today.

The only other main rival in today’s betting, Cockney Trucker, was all out to beat Unfurled (rated 118), so since Mad Max is no doubt going to be a 140+ horse, Cockney Trucker in my eyes represented no danger whatsoever.

Mad Max jumped and travelled supremely well on his hurdling debut, his bumper form backed up the strength of his form, so I thought this was one of those races for a proper bet.

It’s nice when it works out! Obviously you are always susceptible to an improver in a novice hurdle, but I really couldn’t see anything coming out of the woodwork on this occasion. It will be fascinating to see where Mad Max ends up at Cheltenham.

I had several bets with fixed odds bookmakers, but here’s my Betdaq bet...

(Click on image to make it bigger)

Hello World

Hello to the world!

This is my first post on my new blog and would like to welcome all readers to it.

The blog which I plan to update on a near daily basis will follow my adventure as I try to make a living by betting and trading on horse racing via the traditional bookmakers and betting exchanges.

I have been involved in betting on horses for several years now and have always wanted to try and make a go of it full time as I feel I have the knowledge and ability to make it pay. Furthermore, I have been trading using the two main betting exchanges, Betfair and Betdaq for several years now on a part time basis. Mainly weekends and evenings.

Although I have a good knowledge of form I also use a few tipping services which I feel suit my style to help supplement my own personal selections.

As the title of the blog suggests I have been 'Credit Crunched'. I have lost my job and while I am in the process of getting a new one I will be trying what I have always wanted to do, betting and trading for a living. Hopefully I will be able to make this pay and not need to get a job ever again but in case that doesn't happen I am still looking for a new job but by the looks of how the economy and country is going I can't see that happening anytime soon.

Anyway I shall stop waffling on and hope you will join me on what is sure to be a roller coaster ride - hold on tight!