Betfair Trader?

[Scripophilist]

I used to do the financials a lot but I no longer do, I can price the market very accurately but somebody out there has a much better price feed than me and therefore I can not compete. The market is pretty gappy and shows little true value but overall the volume stinks, it's not liquid enough to put in some traditional trading strategies.

My bread and butter is on the horse racing, excellent volume, tight spreads and plenty of opportunity. Also every 10 minutes in the afternoon you get £0.5-£1.5m in turnover which produces plenty of quality opportunities. Usually there are around 20 races a day. Then in the evening I will usually do the football.

I've tended to find that traditional financial market participants are the best at trading on Betfair because they understand the sort of strategies that you can apply to these markets, traditional punters have great difficulty in adjusting based on their prior perceptions of a 'gamble'.

To be honest if you are serious about using the markets you need a decent trading platform else you will be made into mincemeat by those that are using them. Bet Angel basic is fine if you what to play around with the concept but if you trial the professional version then that will give you a much clearer objective of just what you can do.

 

[Lord Flasheart]

Nice post scrip Can u please explain the difference between betangel basic and pro in laymans terms. I am using basic for the first time and wanted to know are the features that are worth having. I have a professional trading platform for the markets and plan to use that to guide me at on the betfair over/under finantial markets

 

[Visaria]

My FTSE trading on Betfair has hardly changed through my whole trading of 6 years.

Have Betfair offered FTSE hourlies for 6 years?

 

[akinkead72]

Does anybody have information on the Ftse And Dow Hourly Back Both sides bets where you choose the odds!
Basically the way i see it is that yo ucan back both sides and pick your own odds, does anybody play these bets or know how they work?
Thanks, Andrew

 

[Lord Flasheart]

you can with modt spread firms and betfair. I use www.binarybet.com

 

[Visaria]

Does anybody have information on the Ftse And Dow Hourly Back Both sides bets where you choose the odds!
Basically the way i see it is that yo ucan back both sides and pick your own odds, does anybody play these bets or know how they work?
Thanks, Andrew

Sounds more like something Ladbrokes does....

 

[Lord Flasheart]

surely thats what betfair is

 

[Scripophilist]

"Basically the way i see it is that yo ucan back both sides and pick your own odds, does anybody play these bets or know how they work?"

You need to go to Betfair to do this, previous two posters seem to have grabbed the wrong end of the stick. From my reading of your post you want to make the odds not take them. Betfair will allow you to do this.

I often sit here in the morning filling gaps on the Betfair financials, It's the easiest jobbing role in the world.

 

[akinkead72]

basically what i want to do is Back the upside and the downside on the hourly FTSE bets, but will they let pick my own odds of maybe between 3-5? and if they do what would be the highest stake that betfair would accept without problems? i'm trying to develop a strategy that i can work with to make decent profits!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks, Andrew

 

[Lord Flasheart]

Betfair will allow you to set your own odds every hour. However as it is an exchange you may not get many takers. You can however put in as much as you like,but often the biggest price will only have a few pounds available to be taken. Have a look www.betfair.com Why do you want to be up all night to trade the uk markets

 

[Ferru]

Hi. Can you please explain how 70%-80% of random trades will be profitable? I would have thought the figure would be 50%, as there is a 50% chance of the price moving up, and a 50 % chance of it moving down.

Regards

Jeff

On the contrary I think these markets are much more tradable than the conventional financial markets. There are no transaction charges and volume is compressed to just before the start of an event meaning good liquidity. If you trade at random about 70-80% of trades will complete profitably.

Liquidity on financials is poor though, so I stick to the high liquidity events.

 

[BinarySoft Chris]

Hi. Can you please explain how 70%-80% of random trades will be profitable? I would have thought the figure would be 50%, as there is a 50% chance of the price moving up, and a 50 % chance of it moving down.

Regards

Jeff

Yeah I've always been baffled by Peter Webb's "random trades" theory!

 

[Trader333]

It is all to do with volatility in the market. If you plot the movement in price you can almost draw a line through the middle of the range and then place a bet when the market moves to one extreme of the range then an opposite bet at the other end. Tennis is very good for this with the odds changing for each player quite dramatically during the match but it also works on horse racing as well.


Paul

 

[Scripophilist]

The answer is simple, all prices in a betting market are definately related. In a stock market they are not necessarily related. As Paul says, there is also a lot of volatility and this can help get your order filled. I can get astonishing fill rates, near 100%, without any skill, but of course, trading at random does not ensure profitability at all. Some people assume that because you get over 50% you are sure to make money. Conversely you could still make money even if you lost 90% of trades, it's all a question of style.

 

[BinarySoft Chris]

For the purposes of simplicity - in a market with 100% efficiency and zero transaction/commission charges, then surely trading purely at random will result in exactly zero return (on average) over the long term?

 

[Scripophilist]

Unfortunately such a market doesn't exist!

 

[BinarySoft Chris]

Indeed - but can you explain how you got to the "70%-80%" figure, and why that figure in particular?

I could continually buy at 50 and then sell at 51, and around say 98% of the time I would get the sell order filled (and thus 98% of trades would be profitable). However, on the 2% of occasions it would get left unfilled (and the market expired), meaning that the average return would drop substantially (back down to 0% in a fully efficient market) - i.e. what does saying that "98% of trades are profitable" in this situation actually achieve?

 

[Scripophilist]

I guess you are playing dumb on purpose as every trader knows that your need a positive expectancy regardless of your win %. I'm not sure what your point is to be honest.

 

[BinarySoft Chris]

If you trade at random about 70-80% of trades will complete profitably.

Here you seem to be implying that the financial markets on Betfair have an advantage that 70%-80% of trades are profitable - I was wondering how you got to this figure, and how that is actually an advantage? The other loss-making 20%-30% of trades could result in a zero (or negative) expected return...

 

[Ferru]

Hi Paul

So to clarify, are you saying that the figure is correct because 70-80% of the time the market will eventually move to where you need it to be to create a profitable trade?

Jeff

It is all to do with volatility in the market. If you plot the movement in price you can almost draw a line through the middle of the range and then place a bet when the market moves to one extreme of the range then an opposite bet at the other end. Tennis is very good for this with the odds changing for each player quite dramatically during the match but it also works on horse racing as well.


Paul