Matched betting vs Trading
-
Hi all, first post on here so be gentle!
I found this site a few weeks ago and have been following it since with steady results thanks very much. I had no idea there were so many offers from the bookies that could keep you going. I assumed it was just the registration bonus and then nothing else!
I stumbled across matched betting after doing some bonus bagging to build up my Betfair account. I’ve been dabbling with pre-race horse trading for about a year with mixed results, as per most newbies I guess. I just wondered how other people have ended up doing all this matched betting. Are you aspiring traders, failed traders, punters who also do matched betting etc etc?
My feelings are that although this matched betting is great, it’s quite effort intensive for sometimes only a few quid. If I could get the hang of trading that’s where I see a real life changing second income. Am I wrong?
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
+0February 15, 2016 at 1:26 pm
-
-
New to matched betting?
My Matched Betting Academy is the best place to get started. Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.
Learning the fundamentals takes 10-15 minutes and you’ll make £15 in the process.
This is risk free
Trading can make you thousands (or lose) haha+0I know people reckon you need a trading app(like Betangel or Geeks toy),and some people do make a living out of Betfair trading,google Caan Berry, he seems to be doing ok for himself and has some good advice and videos on trading horses pre race,I’ve never done it but may do when the time comes that I’ve been gubbed from every bookie and just have Betfair left,but I would certainly watch a stack of videos and/or books before diving in with both feet.
+0
I just back and layed a horse for the WH offer at 5.5/5.6, more than happy with my minimal qualifying loss. Then the price of said horse plummeted and it could be layed for 4.5, which would have meant a nice £4 or so profit on a £25 bet.
The skill of trading is presumably to be able to reads markets, identify trends and spot when a price is going to go one way or the other, as per my recent bet.
I did watch a few BetAngel YouTube videos a while back and he made it look rather simply, but then I suppose he would given he is selling the software!
I doubt that we have many (successful) traders amongst our ranks, but it would be interesting to hear about how profitable it actually is.
@beaser – I would class myself as an occasional punter, prior to finding match betting. I would also contest that it is a lot of effort for only a few quid. SOME deals are that way (i.e. you need to place 5 separate bets to get a free bet…) but you can just sidestep these if you feel they are not worth the time/effort. Once you have been doing this a while it almost becomes second nature – same regular offers most weeks, you know what time to do what, where and for how much…January was worth £700 to me (and that was with a “£100 error” and several of my free bets being (unsuccessfully) punted rather than matched for guaranteed profit). YMMV 🙂
+0Yeah that Peter Webb bloke(betangel owner) makes it look easy,also the Cann Berry videos are worth a watch, he seems more down to earth than Webb,and his “story” was flipping burgers at 17 to now being a successful BF trader.
Matched betting is defo worth it over the month tho doing all the offers,£200 per month for starters is easy achieved, more if you get stuck in.
+0
Yes, sorry I’ll rephrase what I said. Some of the free bets are bordering on not worth the effort to my mind. For example 888 were doing £10 pre game and £10 in play gives a £5 free of which about £3 is profit. To spend time setting up bets and then remembering to bet in play is a real inconvenience.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m hooked. There’s a very tidy tax free little income to be made here with some effort. This blog has been a great place to educate myself so thanks guys
+0
Holy thread revival! ?
Anyone on here done any trading – I’m specifically interested in pre race trading on the horses. I am considering getting one of the API programmes mentioned above and would appreciate any advice/experience.
Recently I have been trying to gauge whether certain Betfred/Totesport price boosts have been worth backing when they come out (usually hours before the race) with a view to laying a lot later nearer the off for a nice arb. I am no market expert, nor a particularly great student of Form or reading a racecard but (albeit from too small a sample size to draw any meaningful conclusions!) I am doing quite well with it.
I have therefore turned my attention to trading and watched a lot of Caan Berry’s YouTube videos. Interesting stuff and it has made me want to give it a go. Small stakes at first.
So, anyone got any experience in this area?
+0I don’t have any experience of this type of trading, but used to do a bit of day trading US stocks using technical analysis a long time ago. I wasn’t that good at it to tell you the truth, but got to know quite a lot of people in that industry.
What I found was that some people could do well trading shares, futures etc but they were few and far between the vast majority of people lost money. There were a lot of people and companies selling all kinds of courses and software to help you win. I was told that most of these people also did not make anything actually trading, but instead made all their profits selling goods and services to wannabe traders.
I would imagine sports trading is fairly similar, ie most people loose, a few people make a bit, and the odd one makes a lot. The ones that do make a decent living though are the ones selling the services.
If you start small Tony and see how things go, you might be one of the lucky or gifted ones and do well out of it. If you have made a decent amount out of matched betting, then perhaps you could use some of this profit to buy one of the systems advertised on YouTube.
Would be good if you could let us know how you get on and what your experiences are, if you can combine your knowledge of horse racing with your knowledge of price movement you could find you have an edge.
Good luck and I hope it goes well for you.
+0
Thanks Dave – I am intending to keep meticulous records (OCD!) and may even start a wee blog (seems to be the done thing, haha) so more than happy to share progress.
Interesting to hear that you were a day trader – what made you pack that in? Was boredom anything to do with it? I ask as I think that once the novelty of trading wears off I can see it becoming fairly mundane.
The API software seems relatively inexpensive, only problem is that the “better” two (Bet Angel and Geeks Toy) only seem to work on Windows and I am a Mac user (currently). Need to read up on sorting that out so I can trial one or both of them for a while in practice mode to see if it’s all its cracked up to be.
Cheers
+0Reason I packed in the day trading was as I said earlier I was not that good at it, also got friendly with a guy who trained traders for a large brokerage house in New York, he told me they used to get all their trainees to start playing on line poker (similar skill set required). He got me started playing on line poker, and I did fairly well at it, (not talking about hundreds of thousands, I was not that good). I did however make tens of thousands, but this was back when on line poker was very new, and it was not that difficult to make money.
As time went by the poorer players bust out, also on line gaming legislation changes in the United States made it far more difficult for the average player to play on line. Lots of hoops to jump through, only profitable players would do all this, So a lot of fish disappeared, also I had spent a lot of time learning limit holdem, and no limit was the new kid on the block, and I didn’t find that as enjoyable not really sure why.
From what I have read there is still money to be made playing on line poker, but I’m sure its a lot more difficult then when I started out.
It may sound boring but its very difficult to make a lot of money quickly, most people would be better off investing long term and letting compound interest work for you, I have made far more money over the years doing that then anything else I have tried doing.
+0
I’ve been using Bet Angel for a while now and I think it’s the best of the software on offer. I took the free trials for most of the others, they all do a very similar job and it mostly boils down to aestetics (lasted a day on Geeks toy for this reason alone. Horrible interface!)
There’s ways to get any of them to run on a mac. Just set up a VPS or google for free ways of doing it.
+0
@Dave_Jones Online poker eh – me too. If you were primarily a limit holdem player than I can understand why the swings of no limit would not appeal. Gotta be able to ride out the variance in that game.
@Starlord – Have to say that of those I have looked at, Bet Angel does seem to be the ‘best looking’ of the lot. Currently pricing up windows laptops as I need a new laptop anyway, but I will google those free ways you mention as well, cheers. How are you finding trading… been at it long? Is it what you thought it would be, etc…? I am very keen to hear how others have faired. Cheers+0
It’s certainly preferable to waiting and hoping that a good bookie offer comes along and that you won’t be gubbed for taking part!
I’ve been at it properly for a couple of months and I’m about break even on the horses. I know that doesn’t sound great but you need to spend time just being in the markets and getting a feel for what’s going on. I can definitely see how i will be able to turn a good profit at some point soon. The opportunities are there to see but I need to improve my discipline and execution.
At first I was trying to scalp the last 5 mins before the off but realised that I can’t handle that style of trading. The problem was I would take 1 tick profits but let the reds drift 3 or 4 ticks before bailing out of a trade. It meant I would have to be right an awful lot more than I’m wrong. The past few weeks I’ve been trying to identify swings in the market. Sure, you may lose a few ticks if you call it wrong but when you get it right you can just let the profits ride.
I’d recommend looking up steve howe and tony hargraves. Very different styles but good eye openers. Along with caan berry as somebody else mentioned.
Good luck mate
+0
Cheers for that – exactly the kind of thing I was after! I have already read that a lot of it is to do with discipline, which is echoed by what you have shared. I will look up those other 2 blokes tonight and do some more reading.
Thanks for posting, really appreciate the insights 🙂
+0
Interesting stuff lads, enjoyed reading your comments. In the same boat as you Tony, looking for something to throw profits into. A fan of Caen Berry.
To be honest what I would love to find is a trading tipster service. When I first started as a sports bettor I was just tailing tipsters, I went from blindly following tips to seeing and understanding why they were choosing the picks they made. As well as earning money with them I learned how to bet proper myself and nowadays I can turn a profit on my own.
Would love to get into trading in the same way – ‘learn by doing’.
+0Breaking even for the last couple of months is very good Starlord, anybody who thinks they can go straight into something like this and make lots of money is fooling themselves. If it was that easy everybody would be doing it, a great deal of trading either shares, or sports trading price movements is down to psychology. Its important that you find something you are comfortable with, and it sounds like you have.
There is a saying that is used in share trading, its to let your profits run and cut your losses quickly. Most people, especially when they start out, do the exact opposite.
+0
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
