My first Betfair Trade – Basic Scalping

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Dallas
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One of the first things most people will hear about and want to try when beginning to trade is ‘Scalping’. This method involves backing and laying for small 1 or 2 tick price movements, you don’t even need to predict the longer-term direction of a selections odds your just looking to get in and out with each back and lay as quickly and as many times as possible by trading the turnover of volume.

With speed being of the essence with this type of trading Bet Angel has several tools and features available to help you. Using some of these tools its possible you can make complete trades (back, lay & green up) all with just one click of your mouse.

This thread will detail some of the ways the software can be used to help you scalp the markets, starting with some basic scalping methods before moving on to look at how to use some of the additional features avaliable.

Make Market Button

Perhaps the easiest way to start ‘scalping’ without even needing to set anything up is with the ‘Make Market’ button which is available on the one click grid screen.

This one button will instruct the software to place both a back and lay bet simultaneously on that selection one tick apart - if both bets gets matched you will have secured a small profit, this can then be repeated as many or few times as you wish and on as many different selections as you want…
All you need to do is decide which runner to scalp and when to do it.

Identifying a runner to scalp.

For the best chance of successfully having both bets matched its important to try and identify the best runner to scalp.

First your looking for one whose price is quite steady (not one that’s odds are drifting or steaming). In the 1st image below the runner ‘Rupert Bear’ is just one of a few runners whose odds are currently very steady, this can be seen from its micro chart. Once you have identified a runner whose odds look steady the next thing to check for is the amount of unmatched money there is waiting either side of its current price, as your bets will be queued behind this you’ll be wanting to see a similar amount waiting on both the back and lay side. On ‘Rupert Bear’ there happens to be £154 one side and £166 on the other so is about as close as you can get. If both sides had very small amounts of money waiting to be matched this would be even better as you would be instantly near the front of the que with both your back and lay bets – the worst time is when their is a small amount one side and a large amount other like the runner ‘Dulhallowcounty’ in the image.

So, at this moment in time ‘Rupert Bear’ would be ideal runner to try and scalp using the ‘Make Market’ button. When clicking the ‘Make Market’ button a back and lay bet will simultaneously be placed 1 tick apart either side of the current price, these will be shown in the unmatched area at the bottom of your screen until matched when they will disappear.

Just for illustration purposes I have added a ladder of ‘Rupert Bear’ to the side of the one-click grid, just so you can see how your bets would appear on their after the ‘Make Market’ button is clicked.

When you have finished scalping a market you have the option of leaving any profits on just the runner/s you have traded on or to ‘Green Up’ and spread that equally across all runners so you profit no matter who wins.

Looking at the bottom image at the moment I can leave things as they are and profit £25 only if ‘Rupert Bear’ wins and lose nothing if any other runner wins or with the ‘Green’ box ticked its showing me I can ‘Green up’ for an equal profit of £1.87 no matter which runner wins – to do this I just need to click on the figure shown in the trade profit column once and the software will do this for me.

To see a tutorial of the 'Make Market' scalping button being used see this video link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9_V5jU3qTg&t=136s
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Dallas
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For a little more control and/or flexibility when scalping another option is to use the ‘Global Settings’ of Bet Angel, for full details on using ‘Global Settings’ please see this thread viewtopic.php?f=47&t=12259

With ‘Global Settings’ enabled you can now specify the number of ticks you want to ‘scalp’ with (known as tick offsets), If you want to just offset the bet or offset the bet with greening and if the offset is too be placed at the same time as the opening bet or only after its been matched/part-matched.

Any combination of the above can be used on either the ‘Ladder’ OR ‘One-Click’ trading screens by UNCROSSING the ‘Cog’ icon to enable global settings on that trading screen then specifying the options you want to use.

1 Tick Scalping with Greening

Let’s start this time by setting up a 1 tick scalp with automatic greening (This will work similar to the make market button except now it’s also greening up each scalp for you. Meaning you can complete a full trade - back, lay and green up OR lay, back and green up with just a single click of the mouse). All you need to do is decide on a time to place your opening bet and the software does the rest. Remember this can be repeated as many times as you want and on as many selections as you want.

First, we need to tell the software what we want to do, to do this select the option of ‘Offset bet with Greening’ then enter the number of tick we want to offset (scalp). The top image below highlights these options in the ‘Global Settings’ area at the top left corner of the screen.

Once set up just as before when scalping with the ‘Make Market’ button we are still looking for a selections price to be as steady as possible and with a similar amount of unmatched money waiting on both sides. We know on the one-click screen the micro charts can be used for this but on the ladder screen the easiest way to tell if a price is steady is by looking at the traded volume (shown in the right column for each selection), the orange bars and figures show all the money matched at each price for that selection since the market opened and the green bars show the amounts traded at those prices during last 60 secs, so the closer and tighter these are the better for this type of scalping - something that has been moving up and down, traded a dozens of different prices and is generally all over the place should definitely be avoided!

Once a selection has been identified as having a steady price for this example its ‘Desert Retreat’ to place your opening bet click on either the back or lay column at the current price of that selection and add your bet to the waiting money. In the top image below I have placed a lay bet of £50 @ 3.45 and the software has automatically calculated and immediately placed the offset back bet adjusted to the amount needed to green up @ 3.50, if both these are matched I will have scalped 1 tick, greened up and made an equal profit no matter which of the selections wins. This can be repeated over and over on any selection as you want.

It does not matter if I place a back or lay bet first whichever is done the software will automatically place the opposite for you.

If you wish to use the One-Click screen to do this the bottom image shows how to do this using the same settings in the ‘Global Settings’ area and enabling them by unticking the ‘Cog’ icon.

Have a play about in practice mode and experiment with using different offsets with and without greening and you’ll soon see just how easy it is to get started with some quick and simple scalping.
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Dallas
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For the final post of this thread I’ll look at another well used and handy feature especially when scalping and also a slightly different method of scalping than what’s been shown in the earlier posts of this thread.

The feature thats going to be used this time is the ‘Fill or Kill’ option which is enabled within the ‘Global Settings’ area by ticking the fill or kill box and specifying the number of seconds to be used.

Once enabled Fill or kill works quiet simply as follows you place your opening bet and if its matched great there is nothing for the fill or kill to do, but if it’s not filled (matched) within the number of seconds you have specified then it is killed (cancelled) automatically for you.

When used with any of the offset options it also has a 2nd function, which is the offset bet will ONLY be placed once your opening bet is matched.

‘Directional Scalping’

We now have the option of scalping in a slightly different way, (still using just a single click) but rather than looking for a steady price in a tight range and placing both bets at the same time now we are now looking to ‘scalp’ the price as it moves along in one direction – known as ‘Directional Scalping’.

The set up used here is the same ‘offset with greening’ 1 tick as the previous post but with the option Fill or Kill enabled and set to 10 secs.

When ‘Directional Scalping’ its best done using the ladder screen as you ll have a better view of the market for this style of trading. The first thing you need to do is find a selection that is trending gently in one direction or another, you don’t want something that’s moving too sharply as these can snap back at any moment and possibly leave you looking at several ticks loss, by finding something that has a more gentle trend if the price does start to reverse after matching the opening bet (but before your offset is matched) then you should have plenty of time to exit and take a small 2-3 tick loss before beginning the process again if the situation allows.

In the top image below the runner ‘Page of Wands’ on the 3rd ladder has been identified as steadily shortening in price all day so is a perfect to directional scalp. As it continues to shorten by offering money to the market with a back bet first if the price moves before its matched the bet will be killed after 10 secs and another bet can be placed.

*If it was gently drifting you would be looking to offer a lay bet first and if matched have the back bet offset*

In the bottom image below, you will see the opening bet has now been matched and the offset with greening has been placed 1 tick lower. As soon as that’s matched and the scalp is complete if the selection looks like it’s continuing to shortening then the process can be repeated. All the time looking to get in and out as fast as possible picking up another tick profit each time both sides are successfully matched.

To see a video tutorial demonstrating ‘Directional Scalping’ click the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdL5HBUQF-E

One option so far not covered in this thread is using a ‘Stop Loss’ this is also part of the global settings area and can be used whenever offsetting is selected (including when scalping).
A stop loss is the opposite of an offset bet and is where Bet Angel will automatically exit your trade for you if it begins to move against you. To see some examples of stop losses being used and how to set them up effectively please see this thread
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=11746
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