How long will it take to learn to trade

We were all new to Bet Angel once. Ask any question you like here and fellow forum members promise not to laugh. Betfair trading made simple.

How many markets did you trade before you started being consistantly profitable?

500
16
19%
1000
7
8%
2000
2
2%
3000
5
6%
4500
2
2%
6000
4
5%
7500
6
7%
9000
3
3%
10000+
41
48%
 
Total votes: 86
mobius
Posts: 203
Joined: Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:15 am

Pepperpot - look at the screen recording section. I use flashback express (it's free) (https://www.flashbackrecorder.com/express/) - others brands are available. Somewhere on the forum I've explained how I use it. You can record your days hard work and watch it at 4times speed or rerecord at 4x and then watch at 16x. You can see your good moves and agonise over your bad moves very quickly - WITHOUT the pressure of trading. Saves time and MONEY in the long run! ;)
Pepperpot
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2017 11:11 am

Thankyou. I will look into this.
User avatar
brimson25
Posts: 504
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2017 11:42 am

I did Peter's course in January.

I have another side of my business (betting on lower division Scottish football) which is mature and which I enjoy.

The trading - well. I'm still at the false dawn stage I think. Days go by and I win consistently - and then BANG, one race goes wrong - there goes my profit. My results yesterday were something like:

+3
+5
-3
+2
+1
-4
-35
+11
+2

I realise this pattern is typical of idiots like me, but there you go.

My ROI since January is c. -30% on trading. I can absorb this because the betting has worked over the same period (and is at much bigger stakes). But I do wonder at what point I decide it's not for me. Not quite yet, I think.

Finally. a word of admiration for Northbound on two points - first, the capacity to enjoy trading. I don't enjoy losing - and I haven't really enjoyed the experience yet. Second, the discipline for using small stakes. It's hard to graft for several hours, have a great day - and end up with £4.30....

So, I don't know how many markets it takes. I hope not too many more for me!
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

brimson25 wrote:
Thu Nov 22, 2018 12:06 pm
Finally. a word of admiration for Northbound on two points - first, the capacity to enjoy trading. I don't enjoy losing - and I haven't really enjoyed the experience yet. Second, the discipline for using small stakes.
Thanks brimson25.

A lot has changed (improved) since my posts one year ago. The two things you mentioned remain.

Although I stopped trading horses manually and found better results on other sports / approaches.
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brimson25
Posts: 504
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2017 11:42 am

May I asked why you stopped horses?
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

brimson25 wrote:
Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:00 pm
May I asked why you stopped horses?
Because I’m useless at it and found that my time was better spent building software to gather data and analyse it. Also I’m getting way better results at manually trading football.

Horse trading hasn’t been ditched entirely. Data mining for 1+ year led me to a couple of +EV entry/exit points. Only around 10 trades per month. Wins and losses, but overall profitable almost every month. I leave it entirely to my software to execute.

May I ask you something. You have a +EV strategy betting on football. I’m sure it has losing streaks, as any winning strategy does. How come you are able to tolerate losses on football betting, but struggle with losses on horse trading?
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brimson25
Posts: 504
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2017 11:42 am

Really good question.

First, it's confidence. I know I will lose 40% of bets. Just as I know I will be profitable. I've done it for years.

Second, I don't watch the games. I sometimes don't even check the results until the next day. So the process - the research and the thinking etc. - is very separate from the result.

As the know, with trading, you can literally see the red numbers rushing past sometimes. It just feels worse.
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

That’s a very good point.

Also the noise in horse markets doesn’t help at all, especially if you’re new.

Now I can understand why some people in the forum advised newbies to start with a different sport, much better a sport they know and are passionate about.
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brimson25
Posts: 504
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2017 11:42 am

Do you manually trade inplay?

I just wonder if there's enough football around? Sounds absurd but racing allows you to turn your money over very quickly
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

I do manually trade in-play football.

I also do pick my spots/situations very carefully, so won’t trade too many matches.

It doesn’t bother me, because football can be scaled massively. Just read about Psychoff and you’ll understand.

In fact this is probably one reason why we both failed at preoff horses: trying to trade every race.

Perhaps we should try a different approach whereas we start by specialising in one specific situation.

Perhaps setup Guardian alerts to ring when a horse priced 2.00-3.00 starts dropping quickly in price. Trade only those steamers. Ignore all other markets/situations until we nail that one.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

brimson25 wrote:
Thu Nov 22, 2018 2:37 pm
Do you manually trade inplay?

I just wonder if there's enough football around? Sounds absurd but racing allows you to turn your money over very quickly
Plenty of football around, the only problem is it all goes off at once :) Plus racing goes off at reasonable hours so your working day is at a sensible time. I'd much rather trade football as it's more predictable than horses but weekday afternoon matches are so iliquid and saturdays far too manic to fit in all those matches :(
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

spreadbetting wrote:
Thu Nov 22, 2018 4:47 pm
saturdays far too manic to fit in all those matches :(
Unless you start with a specific inplay stats scenario, get a livescore API subscription, build a bot that sends you Telegram alerts when that scenario occurs. And only trade those scenarios.
Locatat45
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2018 3:27 pm

Though I'm still a newbie, I think my focus right now is to study and master the market at least to a reasonable level before I start trading. If it takes me 1 month to do that good for me, it it's 3 months, not so bad also.
arbitrage16
Posts: 532
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 7:27 pm

Locatat45 wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:36 am
master the market...If it takes me 1 month to do that good for me, it it's 3 months, not so bad also.
LOL
User avatar
ShaunWhite
Posts: 9731
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am

arbitrage16 wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:57 pm
Locatat45 wrote:
Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:36 am
master the market...If it takes me 1 month to do that good for me, it it's 3 months, not so bad also.
LOL
tbf he did say 'to a reasonable level'. He should have enough idea to have a not too lossy try in that time.
But I agree with what you were pointing out, like poker it takes 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.
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