Thursday 15th March 2007

Well the Sports Trader has had another slow but solid day. I traded just 8 horse races, 1 football match and 2 Premier League darts matches and ended the day with just 1 losing trade.

My day had several interruptions which accounted for the lack of trading today. I started with 3 small winning trades on horse races. My first trade of any significance was the 16:00 at Cheltenham where I laid Moncadou for £11 @ 7.00 to result in a profit of £11.

My only losing trade of the day was in the 16:15 at Hexham where I had backed Innisfree for £27 @ 1.25 when leading only to see him start to fade and then make a mistake at the final fence to cost me a loss of £27.

My best result of the day came next in the 16:40 at Cheltenham. I just watched the race and looked for horses that appeared to be travelling badly and with lays available. I decided to keep watching Garde Champetre as he was being held up towards the back of the field and had already been hampered. He started coming under pressure just before coming into the home straight. At this point I laid him for £432 @ 17.00. I immediately put up a back @ 25.00 and was matched for £75. I then put up other backs and got matched for another £23 at varying prices. With 3 furlongs to go my liability was safe and I stopped my covering backs to result in a profit on the race of £333.

I followed up with a small winning trade and then my final race trade of the day was in the 17:30 at Hexham where I laid Uneven Line for £60 @ 7.60 and then baked back £31 at an average price of 8.50 to leave me with a profit of £29.

My race trading had finished with a profit of £352.

I watched some of the AZ Alkmaar v Newcastle match and got involved well after both goals had already been scored. I started with a back of the under 2.5 goals for £5 @ 3.78 and £5 @ 3.00 and laid this off @ 3.05. With 6 minutes left on the clock I backed the unders again for £200 @ 1.60. I laid off £3 @ 1.52 and then £197 @ 1.42. I then partially greened up with lays of £20 @ 1.30. this secured me a profit on the unders for £31.

With less than two minutes plus injury time remaining I switched my attention to the No third goal market and backed this for £166 @ 1.35. I laid off £130 @ 1.20 and £10 @ 1.35 to result in a profit of £29.

I had to go out a couple of times in the evening to take, and bring back,my daughter to her Rainbow club so I missed the first Premier League darts match of the evening. Because of my football trading I also missed the second darts match of the night so I started trading in the Barneveld v Priestley match by laying Barney for £5 @ 10.00 and £32 @ 40.00 to result in a profit of £37.

The last darts match of the night was the Taylor v Lloyd match. I only had one trade and that was to back Taylor in the -3.5 leg handicap market for £50 @ 1.70 and lay off @ 1.20 to result in a profit of £25.

My day had finished with a total profit of £473.

For all the followers of Dave Stewart's Horsegraphs.com it was good to see him get another big win by backing Oscar Park in the last race on the Cheltenham card. At his advised price which was easily obtainable on the Daq his win would have been 42 points but even at SP the return was 22 points.

Comments

[Paul]

Good results Ray,

I was sick and tired by the time I sat down to trade at 3pm which resulted in some very sloppy horse trading on my part.
My mood was not improved by Betfair putting the Benfica PSG match in-play 20 minutes early. All unmatched bets were cancelled and by the time Betfair realised their mistake and re-opened the pre-event market, the liquidity was lost and I had little opportunity to trade out of my position. How can I be expected to trade on a normal pre-event market, an erroneous 5 minute in-play market, another 15 minute low volume pre-event market and a second normal in-play market. And Betfair let all the bets stand!! They should have voided them all. Bunch of jokers.

I feel better for my rant.

Good luck to you.

Paul (in Lux)

[Paul]

Oh I forgot, a hard earned +£61 for the horses, a stressful +£15 for the 4 European Football Matches
Paul (in Lux)

[Evren]

Greetings. Based on your own bloggings, it seems that you're not very good at picking up the winners at races as most of your losses occur when you back a horse, even with low odds, to win the race. Most of your fortune comes from the fact that you have an extremely big bank, enabling you to lay the obvious lossers at very high odds. For example, out of 1170 pounds you've won in the reecnt 2 days, 778 pounds of it was the result of your technique of the "lay the certain loser at highest odds". When you laid Garde Champetre with 432 pounds @ 17 yesterday, you had a liability of 7344 pounds. Not many traders have such a large bank!

Anyway, who am I to critique your strategy, cause you've won more than 30,000 pounds in recent few monthes.

Kindest regards

[Richard]

Ray, should we be worried about the future of in-running betting? The subject was raised in the Houses of Parliment yesterday and i believe it is on the Gambling Commissions agenda later in the year. I personally make a decent 2nd income with in-running horse racing betting and that's with the delays...should i be worried this source of income will be taken away by so called do-gooders?

[Brian]

Richard

Ray is waiting for Russ Wiseman to report back after he had a couple of meetings with ATR last week. He surely must have a feel for whats going on behind the scenes. I agree that unless something is done they are talking like they want it banned like the bent telephone comps on ITV.

Ray, very impressed at how you keep backing the unders. If Pele, George Best & Maradona were on the park you'd still do it. Admire your bottle mate.

Brian

[Ray]

Hi Paul,

I find trading on the big races is always harder, I think it is because there are so many players.

Sorry to hear about your football trading yesterday. I know it is very frustrating when something like that happens.

I hope things go better for you taoday, Good Luck.

Ray

[Ray]

Hi Evren,

I am mainly an in-running trader, so I do not set out in a race with any preconceived ideas of which horse will win. I just take events as they come and if there is a lay or back that seems right I take it. My last few bir profits have come from laying big priced losers but if I had seen a chance with as big a certainty of winning I would have taken them as well. I think when trading in the bigger races most people are concentrating on backing the leading horse to win, which means it is harder to get on these potential winners, but that leaves me to pick up the lays on losers.

Remember I started with a trading bank of £200 so my trading style has obviously changed a lot since then and I would say that the longer you have been trading for and the bigger your bank gets the easier this job becomes.

My biggest winners over the last year have been backing the winner.

Good Luck with your trading.

Ray

[Ray]

H Richard,

I have read the report on the whole debate form the other night. You will see the critism has come from one failed trader with an axe to grind against Betfair.

The betting exchanges are a major success story for the UK and I am sure that most politicians will see the debate for what it is and leave the in-running betting as it is. It would be so easy for the exchanges to move their operations overseas and escape all forms of taxation which would cost the exchequer a great deal of money. The exchanges all display a wealth warning about delays in 'live' televised events. If in-running betting was outlawed it would have a serious effect on pre event betting as many take a position and then lay off their liability in-running.

I always have, in the back of my mind the thought that we may lose this type of betting in the future but I think it is unlikely to happen.

Ray

[Ray]

Hi Brian,

You are correct I would still back the unders just think of the starting price that you would get as most would have the opposite view to me and therefore the odds on offer would be too high.

I don't think the demise of ATRxtra is connected with the debate of on in-running betting. If that was the case it would be the normal ATR channel that would have been scraped.
Ray

[Brian]

Hi Ray

Greedy boy wanting a better price on the unders.

Interesting that AMRAC have signed up Ascot. I wonder how far ahead or behind they will be of ATR's pictures?

Please, please try and squeeze a comment out of Russ on ATR. Its only fair after trying Matt Chapman and Boycie.

Brian