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TALKING TRADING - Weekly update
TheEdge949
Member Posts: 5,579
It's not the ideal time to be trading sports for me as typically I prefer the football markets. However, I am running through some strategies that I feel will yield profits over the long run and thought that I might record the results here.
The aim initially is to use a £5 stake to enter the desired market and then exit for approximately 20 -25% profit each time. I realise that initially any profit will be small, that's fine, the beauty of trading is that the entry stake is scaleable. What works at £5 will work at any other stake. All successful trades are deducted 5% commission by the exchange with nothing to pay on losing markets. Professional traders do pay a much higher % however.
All potential profits are quoted net of commission for ease of recording P&L figures.
So today I have looked at the 3 football games and have decided that the best chance of a successful trade is the over/under 2.5 goals market in the Frosinone V Inter game which I have backed at 1.76 for a potential profit of £3.61. If this game is 0-0 at half time I shall trade out for a loss
Also I have placed a trade in the Huddersfield V Wigan Superleague game tomorrow laying the hosts at 3.06 for a potential liability of -£10.25.
I did this early because I was sure that the liability would rise as the market developed and sure enough if I placed that trade now the liability would be around -£11.50. The plan here is to keep the position unless Huddersfield go more than 10 points ahead at which time I trade out and take a loss. Also any Huddersfield lead after 65 minutes will see the position closed with a loss.
The Premier League markets over the weekend offer some decent spots which I shall examine more closely overnight. However, a word of caution for people looking to trade the Villa Liverpool game on the Monday. This might well be a dead rubber by the time this kicks off as both teams may well have secured CL places with nothing else at stake. that makes the current 1.74 - 1.76 on Liverpool seem way to short and the 4.4 - 4.5 on Villa overly generous. ONE TO AVOID EARLY unless you want to gamble.
C U Soon.
The aim initially is to use a £5 stake to enter the desired market and then exit for approximately 20 -25% profit each time. I realise that initially any profit will be small, that's fine, the beauty of trading is that the entry stake is scaleable. What works at £5 will work at any other stake. All successful trades are deducted 5% commission by the exchange with nothing to pay on losing markets. Professional traders do pay a much higher % however.
All potential profits are quoted net of commission for ease of recording P&L figures.
So today I have looked at the 3 football games and have decided that the best chance of a successful trade is the over/under 2.5 goals market in the Frosinone V Inter game which I have backed at 1.76 for a potential profit of £3.61. If this game is 0-0 at half time I shall trade out for a loss
Also I have placed a trade in the Huddersfield V Wigan Superleague game tomorrow laying the hosts at 3.06 for a potential liability of -£10.25.
I did this early because I was sure that the liability would rise as the market developed and sure enough if I placed that trade now the liability would be around -£11.50. The plan here is to keep the position unless Huddersfield go more than 10 points ahead at which time I trade out and take a loss. Also any Huddersfield lead after 65 minutes will see the position closed with a loss.
The Premier League markets over the weekend offer some decent spots which I shall examine more closely overnight. However, a word of caution for people looking to trade the Villa Liverpool game on the Monday. This might well be a dead rubber by the time this kicks off as both teams may well have secured CL places with nothing else at stake. that makes the current 1.74 - 1.76 on Liverpool seem way to short and the 4.4 - 4.5 on Villa overly generous. ONE TO AVOID EARLY unless you want to gamble.
C U Soon.
Comments
I'll follow these with interest, good luck Mark.
Sports trading particularly on football is actually very simple, inexpensive to trial and has a plethora of strategies.
OK why is football easy to trade, well firstly and most importantly anybody who has watched a reasonable amount of football can read the game and understand how events on the field can impact the way a market moves. This allows us to trade with more confidence than somebody trading purely on statistical analysis.
Also the sheer volume of matches across the top 20 or so leagues gives us ample opportunities to trade which is good because as traders we are not interested in who wins or how many goals are scored and such like.
No we decide on what markets we want to trade, we enter at our desired point and trade out at either a set time, a set profit or a loss if the market has moved against us.
Ideally we are never in the market beyond 15 minutes depending on which trading strategy we choose to employ. I personally use over/ under 1.5 / 2.5 / 3.5 goals, Lay the draw, Lay the underdog, Lay the winning team and Back the winning team as my usual trading strategies depending upon which one offers the best chance of a profit at a particular time. I might even employ 2 or 3 over the course of a game but each is an independent trade.
You can usually never be in debt to anybody because you need the funds in your account to either cover your stake if you are backing a position or to cover your liability if you are laying a position. You can trade from £2 upwards and if you find you like it and are successful you can simply scale up. A strategy with a 85% strike rate is the same whether you enter the market for£2 or £10,000 although with super high figures ensuring that there is enough liquidity in the market is essential. Not that that is anything I need to worry about.
The trading screen is simple and shows you the exact max profit or loss before you confirm the action so no nasty surprises and there is always a cash out showing you exact profit or loss at any given time until that market closes. So you always know where you stand.
There are excellent free resources that cover the plethora of markets and strategies. Ben has been producing great tutorials on You Tube under Sports Trading Life. Also I would recommend watching some of the videos by Trading The Market. If you watch Sports trading Life try and watch anything over 18 months old as the new batch feature XG software applications which detract greatly from the simpleness of basic strategy.
When you think you have a handle on a couple of strategies, its best to watch and re watch and re re watch, I watch the same half dozen every other day until it becomes automatic. Open an account, deposit £50 try 25 £2 trades and see where you are.
Like poker it's about understanding the game, being disciplined and sensible staking.
If you really think you'd like to try it in your own time feel free to PM me and I'll do my best to answer any questions.
The trade on the Inter game was closed shortly after the 1st goal for a £1.28 or a 25.3% net profit so that was mission accomplished.
As far as tomorrows football goes I shall be looking to get into some of the markets if and when my criteria are met. So those will be posted live so to speak.
Anyway. Boing. Zebedee says it's time for bed.
Well there's little value in the markets in the Prem due to a combination of games with little on the outcome and restrictive prices on the others due to a huge odds on for the faves.
Forrest V Chelsea this evening may offer some chance to trade, probably on the goals markets, but that aside, unless some of the games are close after 70 minutes it looks like a quiet day in the markets for me.
As I type I've just cashed out my Rugby league trade for a £1 or 20% profit well before kick off. The biggest problem trading rugby league is that there is so little liquidity in the markets with only very small amounts in play this means that prices are very slow to move and big trades don't happen as traders can't get matched.
Anyway have a successful day whether you are trading or betting.
C U Later.
(relates to event settlement date)
2024-05-10 00:00
2024-05-11 18:45
Football: £6.39 |
Rugby League: £0.99
Total P&L: £7.38
Football
Showing 1 - 5 of 5 markets
Market
Start time Settled date Profit/Loss (£)
Football / Bournemouth v Brentford : Over/Under 4.5 Goals
11-May-24 15:00 11-May-24 17:03 1.22
Football / Newcastle v Brighton : Over/Under 4.5 Goals
11-May-24 15:00 11-May-24 17:00 2.77
Football / Bournemouth v Brentford : Over/Under 1.5 Goals
11-May-24 15:00 11-May-24 16:49 -0.35
Football / Tottenham v Burnley : Over/Under 2.5 Goals
11-May-24 15:00 11-May-24 16:43 1.47
Football / Frosinone v Inter : Over/Under 2.5 Goals
10-May-24 19:45 10-May-24 21:24 1.28
Profit and Loss is shown net of commission.
All times are UKT ? unless otherwise stated.
Betting Profit & Loss
Mark Godwin 12-May-2024 21:48
Period:
Just for Today
(relates to event settlement date)
2024-05-12 00:00
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) to
2024-05-12 21:48
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm)
Download to Spreadsheet ?
Football: £6.12
Total P&L: £6.12
Football
Showing 1 - 5 of 5 markets
Market
Start time Settled date Profit/Loss (£)
Football / Juventus v Salernitana : Over/Under 1.5 Goals
12-May-24 17:00 12-May-24 18:56 0.43
Football / Man Utd v Arsenal : Over/Under 5.5 Goals
12-May-24 16:30 12-May-24 18:26 2.24
Football / West Brom v Southampton : Over/Under 4.5 Goals
12-May-24 14:15 12-May-24 16:15 2.31
Football / Norwich v Leeds : Over/Under 2.5 Goals
12-May-24 12:00 12-May-24 13:54 0.56
Football / Lazio v Empoli : Over/Under 2.5 Goals
12-May-24 11:30 12-May-24 13:31 0.58
Profit and Loss is shown net of commission.
All times are UKT ? unless otherwise stated.
C U tomorrow.
Not much tonight. We have 1 game in the Premier League, 1 in La Liga, 2 in Serie A and 1 from the Polish Ekstraklasa.
The Aston Villa v Liverpool game is not the dead rubber it could have been as Villa need a result to ensure C.L. qualification.
The early market indicators here are that goals are expected with over 4.5 as short as 3.05 (2/1) to back or 3.1 (85/40) to lay.
The current market trend also has Liverpool as a 1.8 (4/5) favourite with Villa 4.2 (16/5)
In Spain Barca can go 2nd with a win but Sociedad can go 6th above Betis and into a ECL place with a draw or better.
Barca are as you would expect favourites @ 1.8 (4/5) with Sociedad 5 (4/1)
The markets expect this to be a tighter affair with over / under 2.5 goals currently trading at 1.84 and 2.16 respectively.
In Italy Lecce need a point to ensure survival but Udinese can leap over 3 teams and out of the bottom 3 with a win.
Udinese are surprisingly for the away side a favourite @ 2.56 (8/5)
The markets do not expect many goals here with prices reflecting a trend towards a low scoring game.
Fiorentina v Monza however is a dead rubber with nothing to play for and with a European final on the horizon you have to question how committed Fiorentina will be.
Fiorentina are heavy odds on here 1.59 (4/7) and the goals markets are steady around the over / under 2.5 indicating a wait and see approach.
Meanwhile in the Polish Ekstraklasa, Radomiak Radom and Ruch Chorzow have nothing to play for, the home side are safe in mid table and the visitors already relegated.
I don't see any viable trades here. Low liquidity in a dead rubber and only the exchanges streaming service to watch it on means unless a late lay the draw opportunity appears it's a non starter from me.
GOLF
If you believe the early markets it's a straight shoot out between Scottie Scheffler 5.8 and Rory McIlroy 9.4. Brooks Koepka at 17.5 is the 3rd fave and the rest may as well go home.
That's with £300,000 already matched in the market.
For me the only true value with a decent risk / reward ratio is to lay the 1st and 2nd favourites and hope neither binks it.
It could be that other value may appear closer to the tee off but seriously this is so skewed right now.
The top 5/8/10/20 markets would be where decent trading opportunities are to be found but these will develop late in the 12 hours before the 1st tee off time. However, keep monitoring as sometimes 1 slips through that's going to steam.
Have a profitable day.
C U later.
Fiorentina V Monza K.O 19.45 I've layed over 4.5 goals for £5 @ 5.8
Aston Villa V Liverpool K.O 20.00 I intend to back over 2.5 goals here but want to leg in after 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes for £1.25 each time.
Betting Profit & Loss
Mark Godwin 13-May-2024 22:58
Period:
Just for Today
(relates to event settlement date)
2024-05-13 00:00
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) to
2024-05-13 22:58
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm)
Download to Spreadsheet ?
Football: £0.60
Total P&L: £0.60
Football
Showing 1 - 4 of 4 markets
Market
Start time Settled date Profit/Loss (£)
Football / Aston Villa v Liverpool : Over/Under 6.5 Goals
13-May-24 20:00 13-May-24 22:02 -0.61
Football / Fiorentina v AC Monza : Over/Under 4.5 Goals
13-May-24 19:45 13-May-24 21:42 -0.68
Football / Aston Villa v Liverpool : Over/Under 3.5 Goals
13-May-24 20:00 13-May-24 21:10 0.66
Football / Lecce v Udinese : Over/Under 3.5 Goals
13-May-24 17:30 13-May-24 19:25 1.23
Profit and Loss is shown net of commission.
Well I was in control on the Serie A matches. Yes traded out for a loss as per the strategy when Monza decided to score their first away goal in about 7 weeks but had it nicely covered by the Fiorentina game.
Over to Villa V Liverpool and cue the mayhem. my plan to leg in after 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes on over 2.5 goals was scuppered by the Martinez howler in the opening moments. No problem i will switch to the over 3.5 goals market and just trade that, I put the first tranche in and OMG another goal.
Ok trade out and reasses. I do and decide that over 6.5goals should be safe so I lay that For a fiver with a potential for £27 liability. Just as this trade is matched it goes 1-2 and now I have a decision. As it stands I can trade out and take a £4.25 loss or I can ride it out until half time but another goal will probably cost me over £12 in losses.
I back my judgement and thanks to some errant finishing I get to half time and trade out for a loss of only 61p. As it transpires that was the best call I made all night as within 2 minutes of the 2nd half starting a fourth goal goes in.
So, a really difficult night, but in the end I didn't record a loss and even managed a miniscule profit.
What pleased me the most was that I had the discipline when it was going badly not to try and recover the potential losses by trying some fancy insurance trades but just to follow the strategy, accept that losses are a part of trading and get out and move on.
Total P&L to date + £14.35
Goals Markets
Early markets show expected goal fests at Spurs, although obviously not by them, Rangers and Real Madrid. Over 3.5 goals is odds on in the first 2 games and evens in the Real game. Legging in is going to be interesting if the games pan out as expected, as scores of traders queue to get matched.
The First Half Goals Markets may offer better value for those wanting their over 1.5 and 2.5 fix.
The games at Osasuna and Girona are expected to be slightly more sedate affairs.
Match Odds Markets.
Not unexpectedly Man City 1.39, Rangers 1.18 and Real Madrid 1.24 are heavy favourites. Ideally from a trading perspective all these 3 falling behind in the first 10 minutes would be great.
Girona are also odds on at 1.73 so could be a back the favourite spot.
Osasuna and Mallorca are both bouncing between 2.9 and 3.05 so the markets at this time can't split them. Possible scalping opportunity here for those who get their kicks that way.
Correct Score Markets
The games at Girona and Osasuna are pretty standard prices but the other 3 are offering little value to back and in nearly every selection, ridiculous liability for layers, if you get it wrong.
I for one wont bother thank you, although "any other win" might be the best back option if you do fancy having a go.
Lesson learned and onto the next session on Weds featuring English and Scottish Premier Leagues, WSL, La Liga, Ligue 1, Italian Cup and Danish Super League action.
Betting Profit & Loss
Mark Godwin 15-May-2024 00:08
Period:
Just for Today
(relates to event settlement date)
2024-05-14 00:00
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) to
2024-05-15 00:00
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm)
Download to Spreadsheet ?
Football: -£3.87
Total P&L: -£3.87
Football
Showing 1 - 7 of 7 markets
Market
Start time Settled date Profit/Loss (£)
Football / Girona v Villarreal : Over/Under 4.5 Goals
14-May-24 21:00 14-May-24 22:56 1.07
Football / Tottenham v Man City : Over/Under 5.5 Goals
14-May-24 20:00 14-May-24 21:59 2.57
Football / Tottenham v Man City : Over/Under 3.5 Goals
14-May-24 20:00 14-May-24 21:58 -1.39
Football / Tottenham v Man City : Match Odds
14-May-24 20:00 14-May-24 21:58 2.13
Football / Tottenham v Man City : First Half Goals 1.5
14-May-24 20:00 14-May-24 20:45 -2.00
Football / Osasuna v Mallorca : Over/Under 3.5 Goals
14-May-24 18:30 14-May-24 20:23 -3.54
Football / Rangers v Dundee : First Half Goals 1.5
14-May-24 19:30 14-May-24 20:13 -2.71
Profit and Loss is shown net of commission.
All times are UKT ? unless otherwise stated.
Current P&L + £10.48
Betting Profit & Loss
Mark Godwin 15-May-2024 22:17
Period:
Just for Today
(relates to event settlement date)
2024-05-15 00:00
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm) to
2024-05-15 22:19
(yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm)
Download to Spreadsheet ?
Football: £6.88
Total P&L: £6.88
Football
Showing 1 - 8 of 8 markets
Market
Start time Settled date Profit/Loss (£)
Football / Getafe v Atletico Madrid : Over/Under 2.5 Goals
15-May-24 21:00 15-May-24 22:11 -0.60
Football / Man Utd v Newcastle : Over/Under 5.5 Goals
15-May-24 20:00 15-May-24 21:58 1.51
Football / Man Utd v Newcastle : Match Odds
15-May-24 20:00 15-May-24 21:57 -0.71
Football / Brighton v Chelsea : Over/Under 5.5 Goals
15-May-24 19:45 15-May-24 21:53 3.18
Football / St Johnstone v Ross Co : Over/Under 2.5 Goals
15-May-24 19:45 15-May-24 21:43 1.32
Football / Sevilla v Cadiz : Over/Under 1.5 Goals
15-May-24 18:30 15-May-24 20:32 -0.90
Football / Rayo Vallecano v Granada : Over/Under 4.5 Goals
15-May-24 18:30 15-May-24 20:30 1.71
Football / Kilmarnock v Celtic : First Half Goals 1.5
15-May-24 19:30 15-May-24 19:46 1.37
Profit and Loss is shown net of commission.
All times are UKT ? unless otherwise stated.
Current P&L +£17.29
You cant be sure your profitable without the right analysis if you need to win x% of the time to be profitible which is the gist I get by skimming this then you would need the following formula
Test of proportions
A-B/squareroot(B*(1-B)/N)
A= your result proportion so say you won exactly 80% of the time then A=8/10 or 0.8
B would be the breakeven number so if you needed to win a third of the time to break even then B would be 1/3
Now if you do this maths and get a figure above two you can be confident that it is highly likely you are profitable. if you can do this and get a number above 3 applying the formula correctly you can be near certain.
if your getting an answer which is less then 1 then your results are not significant at all and could easily be luck.
Unless less then 1 means less <-2 in which case its highly probable your losing.
anything between 1 and -1 and results are more or less meaningless cant conclude much.
anything above 1 but less then 2 and you can say kinda likely but its not really enough to go.
Now their is also formulas for chance of ruin I dont know these of the top of my head but I did actually study that before and do have the books to look up the formulas for that.
Now for a true win rate we would then deduct the number of scratch (break even) trades from the number of non losing trades and repeat the formula above.
Not sexy but it's accurate.
Oh and an overall break even percentage (the % of trades we have to win to maintain our bank) is not possible to calculate because the liability is a different amount each time as is the trade out figure. So we are back to averaging again.
For arguments sake lets say that the average win on a £5 trade is 20% so that's a £1 and the average loss on a £5 trade is £3. We would need to have 4 successful trades for each unsuccessful trade to turn a profit. So that would require an 80% success rate assuming level stakes to win over time and 75% would be break even.
The biggest difference between success and failure in sports trading is not necessarily in trade selection or even in strategy although this helps. It is in reducing those losses by pre empting the movement of the market and trading out sooner.
In the above example reducing the average loss to £2.75 from £3 will produce a huge difference over many trades.
That's why my aim is anything over 80%. Unless I start taking on ridiculous liability or lose my discipline, that should see the ultimate plan through to fruition.
It is very easy to get wrong impressions if not recording your results. If you are recording your results its very easy to get the wrong impression due to variance.
I cannot comment on whether you are a profitable sports better, it is hypothetically possible you could be there are certainly people who do make a decent living from sports betting.
However it is easy to get the wrong impression, eg if I take my spin and go results from party last night it would be overwhelmingly implying that I am a strong winning player, if I took my spin and go results from today it would overwhelmingly imply I am a losing player.
Since they have changed the format merged two player pools and reduced rake back I have not played a lot on party plus I have limited time due to other commitments.
My sample size for this year (defined as Jan 1st onwards) let alone for the last two days is not enough to confirm that I am or am not a winning player.
I could confidently conclude that I am not been outplayed by the playerpool at large, as I do have a very strong statistical significance to say I win more then one third of the time. in spin and goes there are 3 players and its winner take all unless you hit a large jackpot spin.
Now I have been profitable this year on party, and right now it is fine to leave it at that. However hypothetically if I decided not to work (currently this is taking on random shifts here and there) and that i was going to play spin and goes on party for a living this would be a major major issue.
You are right the statistics test I mentioned the test of proportions would be inappropriate if you have wildly different returns for bets. My using this for spin and goes isnt terrible because I can get the likihood of any spin amount and factor that in.
you would likely in your case then be better of averaging out your results and applying basic confidence intervals to conclude a range of results in which you can be x% confident that your win rate is between A and B.
not sure if you know how to work out standard deviation which you would need for that I can explain it all but you would probably stand much more chance getting it from a youtube video.
I dont understand sports betting on a proper level and would need to know the exact details of the type of betting you are doing to confidently recommend the right statistics test.
just you should be testing for statistical significance if you want to be approaching this as if you are profitable better. Statistical significance is basically how confident you can be that your results are not just random variance/ good luck bad luck etc.