Betfair scalping for beginners

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Orange77
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Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:55 am

An amazing thread and many thanks to all the contributors. Particular thanks to JG.

I am about 8 months into racing, only two weeks on Bet Angel and whilst I am sure it has the key to my improvement through 'scalps' and automations I am just not getting parts of it.

Great updates and once again. Thanks!

Julian
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Hi Julian

You might want to have a play in practice mode with this spreadsheet, using random stops and offsets, and letting the spreadsheet enter the market at random:

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2085

You'll probably make a loss, but it might give you an insight into what works and doesn't work...

Jeff
Iron
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Let's say you've got a pre-off football market that's flat as a pancake.

Would this scalping technique work there?

Thanks

Jeff
badboyal42
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2011 11:11 am

hi ya ladies and gents lay or back bets dont work. you should do places bets had 1.5 on your trigger bet and bet £10 stake. if you get one horse on each race you should get back £1.50p each bet your trigger goes off. so if you have 13 horse in a race and 3 horse get to 1.5 on ur odds ur win £4.50p on each meeting

please take note that you should have more than and £100 in bank
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

It's said that that if you trade at random on Betfair, offering money and using a stoploss of x points and an offset of y points, you'll almost break even long term (commission will stop you breaking even).

I decided this evening to investigate this, using data from the financial markets.

I downloaded data relating to 42,500 one minute bars from the FTSE 100. This gives a mixture of everything you'd encounter in a Betfair market - prices swinging wildly in your favour and wildly against you, as well as the market going absolutely nowhere.

If you'd sold at the open of each bar and bought at the close, you'd have lost just 851 ticks. Given that the absolute value of the difference between the high and lows came to 144,385, that loss is due to chance rather than a negative bias IMHO. So that's roughly the situation you're in on Betfair if you offer money to the market and take the available price when you close (excluding commission).

But if you could close every trade with an offer of money (I know that's a big if!), you could add 42,500 ticks of profit to that 851 tick loss figure!

It's given me pause for thought about the power of simply randomly offering money on both sides of the book (something that goes against my trend following instincts! :lol: )...

What do you guys think?

Jeff
Iron
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I don't currently scalp.

I'm sure it's profitable if you know what you're doing, but my concerns are as follows:

A. Let's say I offer money to the market and someone accepts it. In a purely random market, that wouldn't give me an edge (even if there were no commission), as the other guy would be equally likely to get a better price as a worse price if he'd instead waited till the market moved (assuming also that whether you get matched when you offer money is down to random chance).

So my challenge is to find situations in which markets are more likely to basically go nowhere than normal distribution would predict. There are some situations where the market is stuck in a very tight range, but IMHO most of the time things aren't clear-cut. And if I'm merely guessing whether or not I have an edge, surely I'm gambling and will lose long term.

B. If I'm scalping and offer money on both sides of the book, I have a limited upside and an unlimited downside. If the market spikes in my favour, I make one tick. If it spikes against me, I could easily lose 5 ticks. If this happens often enough, it could wipe out my gains.

Can anyone convert me and help me see the light? :)

Thanks

Jeff
Iron
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A forum member who wishes to remain anonymous sent me the following a while back:

'People think that trading is smooth like ballett, entry position, wait for market to move, exit position, smiley face. Its just not like that. It gets messy out there, its like war where you're ducking and diving all the bullets and you really dont have time to analyse everything or a lot at all really. In the space of 1 minute my hand can have placed 10 bets on both sides of the market on 2 different horses and in that time I barely have time to think. This is the reality of trading on Betfair. It doesnt matter how much you KNOW, its what you DO, you can know everything about surfing but that doesnt mean you can do it. You have to just get in the water as much as possible and get tossed around by the waves and over time you'll develop a feel for it. Simple as that really :)'

I think it's important to just respond to what you see, rather than over-thinking your trading. That said, I think it's better to enter the market with a well-defined strategy, rather than simply relying on your gut.

What do you guys think?

Jeff
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superfrank
Posts: 2762
Joined: Fri Aug 14, 2009 8:28 pm

I agree with the above anon. scalping is a bit of a black art and it works much better at certain times and you need to be able to react quickly while keeping calm.

btw Jeff, scalping is not normally offering money on both sides - I call that static scalping.
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Euler
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Location: Bet Angel HQ

It's funny because I don't see trading as a battle at all. I have some well defined strategies in hand and deploy them if the time is right. The market always contains profit, it's just getting it that is the issue! However if you wait for the right moment each market usually throws up a few opportunties. I generally sit and wait for an opportunity to occur and then take advantage of it. If you try and get something from every market all the time you will dilute your over all chance of achieveing something so I sit and wait for the right conditions to emerge and then do something.
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superfrank
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That's good advice for all trading styles. Whether it's sub-second scalping or a long-term bet you have to be patient and wait for high probability opportunities then be decisive. That wait could be less than a second or many years!
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Euler
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Sometimes doing nothing is actually doing something.
Iron
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Some people may find it surprising that you say that, given your 9 figure turnover. :)

What percentage of the time would you say you're in trades, compared to just observing the market?

Jeff
Euler wrote:Sometimes doing nothing is actually doing something.
enzabella2009
Posts: 747
Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:58 pm

Ferru123 wrote:Some people may find it surprising that you say that, given your 9 figure turnover. :)

What percentage of the time would you say you're in trades, compared to just observing the market?

Jeff
Euler wrote:Sometimes doing nothing is actually doing something.
good advice also for self-destructing newbies..
It`s the same principale of when you are cutting your losses, you are actually making a profit..
Iron
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Another bit of advice for newbies: Remember that markets generally follow the path of least resistance...

Jeff
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LeTiss
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Joined: Fri May 08, 2009 6:04 pm

Ferru123 wrote:Another bit of advice for newbies: Remember that markets generally follow the path of least resistance...

Jeff
You're a confusing poster Jeff

You offer lots of great advice to traders, especially newbies. Yet, your personal trading appears to be within the practice mode
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