Merry Christmas

The Sports Trader would just like to wish a Very Merry Christmas to all readers and fellow traders. I hope you all get what you have asked for at Christmas and the very best of luck with your trading in the future.

Whilst on here I will just update my trading results for the last two weeks.

Week Ending 16th December 2007 -  This proved to be a very tough week of trading for me and I had to miss quite a lot of trading due to family commitments. I did still end the week with a profit of £539.

Week Ending 23rd December 2007 - A much better week of trading but again many missed trading opportunities due to my children's busy social commitments for the festive period. I finished the week with a profit of £1206.

As many of you know I do trade on the under 2.5 goals market quite heavily. I have over the past two weeks been looking at trading this market in a different way, which, to date, has been giving some very good results. I will continue using small stakes with this method and if the results continue to be consistent I will raise stakes and detail the method on my blog. I will also look to totally automate this method of trading, but to do this I will need the help of one of the many Bot experts that are around.  

Comments

[Clive]

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY PEACEFUL 2008 Ray. Looking forward to seeing your new method for the 2.5 goals !! All the best Clive Southampton

[Ray]

Thanks Clive, I will give updates on my new method once I know they are sustainable.

Good Luck and Merry Christmas,

Ray

[Sand Racer]

Happy christmas Ray. Happy hunting in 2008.

[Wizardgold]

Merry Christmas to you also Ray. I am also looking forward to seeing you new look at the unders market. I am in testing mode myself at the moment with the unders. Checking that there is value in the way I was trading on the unders, seeing as I didn't have much success with a 1% a day challenge for myself. I want to see how much I have to make on the successful trades to make sure I am winning overall. Also how to limit the losses when things don't go right.

Though it could have been greed that got me. As I generally got stuffed when I tried to add to the more than 1% I had already got on the day. I think that the most important part of the unders trading is deciding what to do if an early goal goes in.

[Ray]

Hi Sandracer,

Thanks and I hope your all-weather racing goes well during 2008.

Ray

[Ray]

Hi Wizard,

My new method is combining my under 2.5 goal strategy with a system of making 1% / trade. I have always thought that by combining a high strike rate with a good staking strategy it will be possible to make a lot of money and at the moment I think this will work well. I will post updates when I have proven this system over a long run of trades.

Ray

[nick]

Ray,nice to read your latest news.I would like to thank you for the trading advice that you have given me.I intend to implement a number of ideas that you have mentioned in your previous posts.Once again may prosperity continue to smile on you in 2008.

[Ray]

Hi Nick,

Thank you for your comments. I hope 2008 treats you well and that you trade very profitably.

Ray

[WIzardgold]

Ray
In terms of automating, most of the bots if not all of them tend to work with Betfair rather that with Betdaq that you do your trading with, how will you get around that difficulty.

I have been looking at the stats for the unders 2.5 and I have found that so far this season in the Premiership
At 5 minutes 93% of games are still nil - nil
At 10 minutes 82% are still nil - nil
At 15 minutes 68% are still nil - nil
At 20 minutes 61% are still nil - nil
At 25 minutes 56% are still nil - nil

Seems that a good strategy would be to try and be greened up by 10 mins as 82% is a pretty good strike rate. If you get odds of 1.90 then you would make a profit according to the value calculator on betcalc.com of 55.80 per 1 amount bet be it pounds or Euros. 52.70 if you get odds of 1.85.

If you can combine that with the losses being reduced by trading out when there is an early goal. It seems like it could be a a winner.

Mind you the amount of winnings will not be the full amount because we are trading out, so it is kind of necessary to reduce the liability on the early goal games.

Also more could be taken out of a game by doing a quick in and out after the first goal has been scored.

The other thing is whether you trade out gradually during the first 10 or 15 mins as the odds come down or if you lay it all off in one go at the desired time.

In BetIE there is a hedging facility which helps you set the amount you want to win by percentage, amount profit target or by max liability. Very handy.
Or you could use the LazIE bet tool and go for a certain number of ticks profit.

In BinarySoft BDI which has a different approach you could know exactly how much you will make per tick and put in the market orders just after you have put in your primary back bet. I quite like the BinarySoft way of working as it is the same amount per tick of movement 1-100 compared to the Betfair prices where the ticks above 2 are worth more than the ticks below 2. ie the change 2.02 -> 2.04 compared to 1.99 -> 1.98

Just a few thoughts Ray but you are the maestro in this area. What do you think??

[WIzardgold]

On the part about using betcalc.com to work out the profitability and the value of a bet compared to the probability the numbers are based on profit over 100 matches

[Ray]

Hi Wizard,

Thanks for your reply and the benefit of your expertise in these markets.

I have been trading my new system on Betfair but I am sure that I can get a bot to work with Betdaq. You may have read the new blog called Betbot which uses bots on Betdaq.

I have always thought that trading the under 2.5 goals market is the most predictable and safe market to trade so my intention is to automate trading around 20% of my bank by backing the unders and then setting an offset lay trade which will give me an all green postion of 1% profit on the overs and 2% profit on the unders. These trades can often take less than a minute to fully execute. I have been repeating this perhaps 3 or 4 times l match which then gives a very good return / match. I also look to trade around the times that we know the price will fall at it's fastest rate to eliminate as much risk as possible.

I have traded on 3 matches today and increased my starting bank by 30% on the day. If I could continue to refine this way of trading the profit potential will be brilliant.

I will post up my results once I am happy that the system will work over a long period.

Good Luck.

Ray

[keane from fareast]

hi ray,

merry x'mas (belated)

long time no hear from ur blogs... anyway wish u all d best in d coming new year 2008!!

c u again!
keane

[Godfrey Hoopington-Charles]

Hi Ray

Would you be interested in linking my blog to your blog. let me know if you are interested.
Cheers

[Godfrey Hoopington-Charles]

address is:

http://thebrigadiersblog.blogspot.com/

[Dublin Goat]

Ray

Where you gone???

Happy 2008 and I trust you have no 90 minute goals to send you over 2.5 this year.

I have nearly completed my 12months without a punt. Use to be >100 per day online.
Debts are dramatically falling and life is great. I take my hat off to you and wish you well...... I will simply stick to a £5 hit on the National once a year!

Enjoy
GOAT

[Ray]

Hi DB,

Happy New Year to you too.

No disaters on the under 2.5 goals market, thankfully.

Well done on your year without a punt. A happy life is far better than one of stress and disappointment.

I have so much going on in lfe with my children and my impending court case against the tax man that something has had to be left out for a while. When I have got the time I willbe back with the blog. I am continuing trading and have been busy trialing a new way of attacking the under 2.5 goals market.

Good Luck

Ray

[The Gambler.]

All the best and Happy New Year. :-).

[Ray]

Hi John,

Thanks and a Happy New Year to you. I hope your amazing winning run continues.

I'll be in touch soon.

Ray

[Dub Goat]

Ray

Any chance you could post again your superb guide to getting bank charges back? I think the original post was back in June sometime but I cant find it.

I need to hit my crowd this year as I never got around to it.... pure lazyness on my part.

Thanks
DG

[Ray]

Hi DB,

This is the link to the article you wanted on Reclaiming Bank Charges: http://thesportstrader.lastminuteliving.com/the_sports_trader/2007/05/thursday_10th_m.html

Good Luck

Ray

[Gareth]

Happy New Year Ray.

All the best

Gareth.

[Brian]

Hi Ray,

Not sure if any of this info will be useful to you, but I have used a program called BetMarket Scanner, which is a cheap piece of software that records live odds on betfair, You may find it useful for researching your 2.5 goals system?
I have a most of Oct 07 Over/Under 2.5 goals data if you want a copy of them? you'll need to use Excel to view and sort the data.

Bri

[Ray]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the advice and yes, I would be interested in the data you collected, thanks.

Good Luck.

Ray

[adam]

hellooo
what happened ray ,it seems that you're not in a mood anymore we miss you're updates and betfairtrader as well shame
all the best
adam

[aidan]

very interesting site this, well done