Paulo Rebelo is a football trader who is quite well known in his native country of Portugal.
In Portugal he has appeared on national television several times and runs the popular betting/trading website https://www.academiadasapostas.com/
Picture courtesy of www.paulorebelotrader.com/en
At the age of 17 Paulo Rebelo began studying the stock markets. Before going on to study at university.
Rebelo notes that he left university after the first semester as he was disappointed by what was taught. He began to study economics and began to develop and test theories on the stock exchange.
Failing to get a job in portfolio management due his age, lack of experience and no degree Rebelo returned to university.
The Betting Begins
When Paulo returned to college his interest in sports betting began. Consistent results and profits were made from “simple statistical analyzes” in Paulo’s own words.
Sports trading became a major focus of his.
After about a year of betting Paulo Rebelo found Betfair. He realised that he could apply everything he had learnt from studying the financial markets to the Betfair markets.
Rebelo eventually developed his own database and created a model which was able to identify profitable odds in the Betfair markets.
Picture courtesy of https://www.paulorebelotrader.com/en/paulo-rebelo-diary/
Live trading was Paulo’s next focus and he writes “after identifying, analyzing and correction of some mistakes done, I managed to step-by-step profit with live games. When I started winning consistently I dedicated myself exclusively to trading live.”
There is quite a lot of material from Paulo Rebelo available online. Although it is not perfectly translated into English there are still some useful bits of information and insights to be read.
You can learn more about Paulo Rebelo in the links below.
Dobbing stands for “double or bust” it is a Betfair trading strategy used on the horse racing markets.
The Dobbing Betfair strategy involves backing a horse pre race and having a lay bet matched in-play at half the odds of the initial stake.
Double or bust
The aim of a Dob (double or bust) bet is to make a profit that is even to your stake essentially doubling it.
Lets take a look at an example of a potential Dob bet.
In the above image you can see that I have put in a potential back bet of £100 on Bonnie Gals at odds of 5.00.
I have also placed a potential lay bet of £200 at odds of 2.5. If both of these bets were matched you can see that this would equal a profit of £95.00 (£100 – 5% commission) across all outcomes.
If the lay bet is not matched in-play then you would lose your stake, this is where the bust part of the name Dob (double or bust) comes from.
Dobbing essentially works like a straight betting method where you are getting odds of 1.95 ( After 5% commission) on every bet.
Dobbing Betfair Trading Strategy
How to find a good Dobbing Horse?
The double or bust strategy is one that is quite popular so there are a number of good resources available online.
Patternform for example has an excellent page showing you the historical percentages for horses that have dobbed in the past.
An example of the Patternform Dobbing overview.
This is a good starting point when looking for a horse that will potentially Dob in-play.
There are several factors to take into account when choosing horses that will be a successful Dob trade.
For example you might look at filtering horses that have historically dobbed 75% of the time, look at whether they favour specific courses, Are they likely to lead the race? Weather conditions? Do specific odds ranges work better?
Patternform Pace Card
The pace card is another excellent resource fromPatternformwhich gives you an indication of likely front runners in a race.
There are a few different variants of this method with some people opting to try to take more then 100% profit on there stake and others taking less. The most common method however seems to be for people to aim for basically an even money bet minus the commission.
Dobbing can be a profitable angle to consider when looking at trading the horse racing markets and might be something to consider having in your trading arsenal.
Mastering Tennis Trading is a book written by respected professional tennis trader Dan Weston.
Dan Weston has written articles for Pinnacle and Matchbook. He also runs the sitehttps://www.tennisratings.co.uk/ which has lots of good articles on tennis trading and betting.
The tennis markets attract huge amounts of liquidity.
Mastering Tennis Trading Review
The book mastering tennis trading is as the name implies all about trading the tennis markets on betting exchanges.
I don’t trade tennis myself but I always love to read how professional traders approach trading the betting exchanges. This book does a great job of that and has really given me the motivation to take a much deeper look at trading tennis in 2017.
Mastering Tennis Trading is a total of 117 pages long. It starts with a basic introduction to tennis trading and how to setup yourself up when you are trading. General aspects of the betting exchanges are also explained such as price increments, laying, liquidity etc.
After the general introduction different trading strategies and situations are discussed in detail. One recurring theme that I really liked about this book is the use of data to explain why a trade had or might have a positive expectation.
Mastering Tennis Trading covers quite a large number of trading situations with the main topics including
Pre-match trading
Projected service holds
Pre-match lay to back in-play
Backing favourites when losing
Laying bad servers
Pressure situations
Backing the server
Tiebreak trading
In-game trades
At the end of the first set
The deciding set
Dangerous situations
Psychology risk and bankroll management
So you can see from the above that this book is very thorough and covers pretty much all aspects of trading tennis.
Mastering Tennis Trading Review
Final Verdict
I really enjoyed reading this book and felt that I was getting expert advice from somebody that is trading the tennis markets profitably for a living. Mastering Tennis Trading does an excellent job of explaining the basics of trading tennis and then progresses to show well explained examples of how you can find profitable angles within the tennis markets.
This book gets a clear recommendation from me. It is well written, easy to follow and would add a huge amount of value to anyone that was looking to trade tennis on the exchanges.
It gets a five star rating from me.
(This article features affiliate links. This means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. I use or have used any product I review. If I recommend them it is because I believe they are helpful, useful and offer value to their customers. Please do not spend any money on these products unless you feel they will give you value or that they will help you achieve your goals.)
The first time that I really took gambling seriously was when I started to play online poker. A big influence on me managing to make a consistent profit from poker was from a book called “how to treat poker like a business.“
One of the best poker books I have read.
Now sports betting and trading are different from the game of poker but a lot of the same principles apply. In this article I will look at how to treat your sports trading like a business.
Treat Your Sports Trading Like A Business
Record Keeping
So lets start with what might be the most boring aspect but also one of the most important.
You need to be recording your trades and bets. Its important to see where you are making money and where you are losing money. What is the most profitable part of your trading business is it pre match trades, inplay, favourites, underdogs etc.
All good businesses will have detailed record keeping to know where they are making their profit and look at where they may be potentially losing money.
It is fairly easy to keep on top of this with so many software programs available to help with record keeping.
Small margins amount to big profits in the long term. Increasing a profit margin by 2% or 3% is going to make a huge difference to your profit over the course of a year.
One of the best ways of looking to increase those small profit margins is to look at Matchbook and Smarkets.
This year I have really looked a lot more at Matchbook and Smarkets as obviously the 3% commission difference between these exchanges and Betfair is a big factor.
Betfair is still the most ideal platform for trading it has the most liquid markets and the most real punters. There are markets you can trade on Betfair that you couldn’t on either Matchbook or Smarkets.
Matchbook and Smarkets are however growing and you see more and more liquidity becoming available in these markets. If I am looking to make a standard bet or pre match trade on the bigger football leagues its Smarkets and Matchbook that I look to use ahead of Betfair.
If you can transfer some of your trading or betting to Matchbook or Smarkets then its going to make you are lot more profitable in the long term.
Invest in your sports trading business
If you are treating your trading like a business then you should not be afraid to invest or reinvest some money into it. Even simple investments like a comfortable chair or extra monitor might pay dividends in the long run.
Sports Trading and betting could be looked at as your new startup business.
If you prepared to invest in a more formal trading education there are some good traders out there that are offering face to face courses. Peter Webb, Steve Howe andCaan Berry all offer courses that focus on trading the horse racing markets.
If you are trading fast moving markets then you should probably look at using some api software such as Geeks Toy, Bet Angel or Gruss.
You can take a look at some of my recommended betting and trading products to see if there are any that would benefit your sports trading business.
Structure
Structure is very important in trading and betting. You really want to structure your trading and betting to be as efficient as possible.
Successful business’s don’t trade at random and erratic times. They have a structure in place to capitalize on the most profitable times and most profitable customers.
You want to do the same. You want to make sure you are trading when the best opportunities are available.
What is the best day to take off? When should I spend time with friends/family? How can I trade around work?
Spend some time structuring how and when you are going to trade. This can make a big difference to your mentality and help maintain discipline when trading.
If you treat your trading and betting like a serious business you have a much greater chance of making it a success.
In this article I am going to write about finding the best opportunities for scalping the football markets.
Swing Trading Football Strategies
Big name player gets injured
One of the most profitable strategies for scalping the football markets is to take advantage of injuries that occur in play. I will use an example from the Euro 2016 final.
Profit from big players getting injured
During the first half of the Euro 2016 final Portugal’s star player Cristiano Ronaldo went down injured and looked like he could not continue.
In a matter of minutes Portugals price flew out from 4.5 to around 5.2. This enabled traders who reacted quickly to make around 13% profit on their stake.
This example is a more of a swing trade and it doesn’t happen that often. If you aware and act quick enough though there is good profit to made from little risk.
(In the 2018 Champions League final this also happened when Mo Salah got injured for Liverpool.)
Short Term Scalping
Killing Time
One of my favourite times to scalp a market is when one team is deliberately killing time and faking injuries.
Italian games are good for scalping opportunities
This a common scenario when an underdog is leading a game and time is ticking down during the second half. The key to being profitable in this scenario is having quick enough pictures and recognizing which teams have a tendency to stall the play.
In this scenario you have the option of laying the losing favourite or laying the overs market. You should be able to gain a few ticks each time doing this again with very low risk.
There are other opportunities for scalping the football markets on Betfair but these are two with the lowest risk.
Key things to consider
Here are a few key things to consider when you are scalping the football markets on Betfair.
How fast are your pictures?
– You really need the fastest pictures available, if you are streaming with a 20 second delay then you are going to be behind the majority of the market.
How liquid is the market you are trading?
-If you are trading a Champions League game you should have no problem getting in and out of the market.
-If you are trading a low level FA Cup game on a wet Wednesday night the opportunity to scalp properly is probably not going to be there.
What is you risk vs reward ratio?
-What is your profit percentage each time you enter a scalp trade?
-How much of your bank are you willing to lose should something go against you?
When used in the right situations scalping can be a good way of building some very low risks profits during a game of football.
I hope these Betfair scalping football trading strategies have given you a few more options to think about.
(In order to scalp successfully on Betfair you will need to use some software that allows quick entries and exits into the markets. I currently use Geeks toy having found this to be the quickest and one of the most efficient pieces of software available.)
In this article I am going to detail a horse racing arbitrage strategythat I like to use occasionally to mix up my betting patterns.
This strategy is profitable and is a good way of taking extra value from the bookies.
If you are unfamiliar with arbitrage and want to learn about arbitrage betting. I recommend reading this excellent resource on arbitrage betting.
This strategy as it is a good way of moving money from bookmakers to exchanges but also getting some value in the process.
First off you are going to need a low commission betting exchange such as Smarkets or Matchbook and bookmakers that offer best odds guaranteed.
To find bookmakers that offer best odds guaranteed useoddschecker and look for a green tick box along the line noted at “best odds guaranteed.”
Horse Racing Arbitrage Strategy
Find a best odds guaranteed bookmaker with odds close to Smarkets
First off we look for a horse that is a close back and lay price at a BOG(Best Odds Guaranteed) bookmaker (back) and low commission exchange (lay).
For this example I will use Smarkets.
In the picture above you will see the horse Copper Baked is priced at 1.91 with a number BOG bookmakers.
Smarkets lay price is close to bookmaker back price.
We can offer a lay price that matches the current BOG bookmaker prices. When the lay bet gets matched we then place the back bet at a BOG bookmaker.
Bet365 are a decent BOG bookmaker
From the above you can see that if the odds on Copper Baked stays the same price or comes in further we stand to win £90.90 for Bet365 and lose £90.01 from Smarkets for a £0.89p profit.
If Copper Baked loses we win £100 minus the 2% commission from Smarkets £98 and lose the £100 from Bet365.
Horse Racing Arbitrage Strategy
The key to this method is the large potential upside from the BOG (Best Odds Guaranteed) promotion. The Best Odds Guarantee promotion means that if a horses starting price drifts after you backed it you will get paid at the higher starting price.
So if Copper Baked price drifts before the off. With the starting price going off at a price higher then 1.9 then Bet365 would pay out at its starting price under the BOG promotion.
For example if Copper Baked drifted to 2.5 before the off and won we would then be paid £150 by Bet365 and lose only £90 from Smarkets. This would equal a profit of £60 when our risk of loss was only ever £2.
In this example we get a horse rated at 2.5 for odds of 31.0. This does happen fairly regularly in the horse racing markets.
From using this method there is always a much larger upside then there is downside.
Also by sticking to shorter favourites. It doesn’t look like conventional arbitrage to the bookmakers.
In order to make the most of this horse racing arbitrage strategy you will need an exchange that offers lower commission then Betfair.
Although this strategy is still profitable with Betfair it is much more profitable if you can access the 0% commission deals available with some bookmakers.
In the long term paying 2% less commission is going to going to add to much greater profits.
You can get 0% commission on both Smarkets and Matchbook by joining Oddsmonkey They offer a number of horse racing markets with ever increasing liquidity.
Alongside a host of other valuable tools that will allow you to make money from the sports betting markets.
Lay the draw seems to be the first trading strategy that people learn when they get into Betfair Trading. It is a strategy that has been around since the birth of Betfair and still holds a lot of appeal even in 2024.
So what is the lay the draw strategy?
The strategy involves laying the draw at the start of the game then waiting for a goal to be scored and backing the draw at higher odds for a profit.
Laying the draw pre match
As time has gone on this strategy has become less popular and less profitable as the Betfair markets have matured. The odds on the draw don’t move as much as they did 6-7 years ago.
So the big question is?
Is lay the draw still profitable?
Some people lay the draw at half time
Yes lay the draw is still a profitable trading and betting strategy even in 2024.
There are multiple people using lay the draw to still profit from the markets.
It is a strategy that you can take multiple approaches with.
A favorite approach of mine when it comes to laying the draw is entering in second half. By laying the draw in the second half we get lower odds and a higher profit margin from one goal is scored. Obviously this means that you have to find a game that meets the conditions but it is a good low risk higher reward approach for laying the draw.
Lay The Draw Tips
These are the conditions that are favourable when you are looking to lay the draw in football.
PSG needed goals against Man City
Favourite needs the win
The favourite to be really pushing for the goal and leaving space to be countered.
A team that is chasing the title, European qualification, needs a goal to progress in the cup. You want pressure on that to team to score in front of home crowd.
Underdog can counter
You don’t want to lay the draw if the underdog is just sitting back and holding out for a draw. I would back the favourite instead if it was one way traffic.
The underdog should look like they can score, have a pacy forward running after long balls or wingers that break on the counter.
Form and stats
Teams that have a tendency to score at home.
Teams that score/concede more goals in the second half
Resources For Lay The Draw
There are some very good resources if you are looking to find historical data on teams for a pre match lay the draw strategy. Also you can look at optimal goal times scored if you are looking to employ an in-play lay the draw approach.
Below we have listed some of our favourite resources.
Now I have tried to trade these markets two or three times before but it had always followed a similar pattern.
Win a little lose a lot more then I’d won and say to myself “f*** these stupid markets its impossible to trade them.”
This week I approached the markets with a different mindset and some help from Caan Berrys pre race trading guide and things started to click. I was making money cutting my losses earlier and starting to read the movements in the markets much more clearly.
results were consistentand stayed consistent
Top 5 tips for new traders approaching the horse racing markets
1. Don’t go in to a market expecting to make money
If you go in with this mindset it will be hard to accept a red should you need to, often this will lead to a bigger red.
Go in with the mindset that you will look for the best opportunities and take advantage of them if you see them. If you can’t see them that’s fine there are plenty more races to come.
2. Make notes and review your performance
Don’t rush from market to market take a step back and note down what you learnt from the last race market.
When did the big money come in? what happened to the favourite that had steamed in under 2.0 with 5 minutes still left? Was the market steady or volatile? ask yourself a few questions and write down the answers is there a pattern?
3. Remember to breathe
The horse racing markets move quick and you can get flustered, pissed off or bewildered. Its important to clear your head from time to time. Before a race or even mid race if I am struggling I will take a few deep breathes to regain my focus and slow things down.
Honestly in all of my trading/betting activities this has helped me the most. Removing the fog and retaining clear thinking throughout the day has been a huge factor in becoming a profitable trader.
4. Start Small
Sounds obvious but at this stage of your development as a trader you want to remove the stress and allow yourself to learn from the markets. It is a lot easier to keep this mindset when the losses are in pence rather then pounds.
5. Patience
Give yourself time don’t expect too much to soon. You might not see results straight away but don’t give up it is often just a case of persistently gaining experience combined with persistent analysis that leads to becoming a profitable trader.
In this article I am going to write my views on the Pro X Trading mentoring program. Here is my Pro X trading review where I will review the X traders part of the service.
If you haven’t heard of Pro X Trading take a look here:
Pro X Trading is a Betfair mentoring product which looks to educate its members on how to successfully trade the Betfair markets for a profit. It is run by professional trader Matt Finnigan and has been running since 2007. The cost of this service is normally £150 with a £60 recurring fee every four months.
What do you get?
Over 60 trading strategies on across four sports Football, Cricket, Tennis and American Football. A sports trader course, one to one advice with Matt Finnigan and hosted trading sessions every week.
The Good –
I had been trading full time for around 6 months mainly on the football markets and thought that the X traders part of Pro X trading might provide some additional knowledge to help me profit from football and also give me a chance to look at other sports that I may trade in the future.
The strategies are all in video format and are clear and professionally produced. They give you the odds range, staking, entry and exit points for each strategy. There is a timeline for the football strategies which explains the optimal times to use these strategies.
Overall I was very happy with the amount of content available on signing up. The sports trader course was is aimed at new traders but reaffirmed a few things that even experienced traders can benefit from going again.
The Football strategies made sense to me and were explained clearly. I don’t have a lot of experience trading the other 3 sports however I noted down these strategies and all of them had sound reasoning and staking built into them.
The Bad-
Pro X Trading Review
My initial impressions of the service were that it was very professionally run and I was excited to be part of mentoring program however there were quite a few things that changed this.
Customer service was poor –
The product is fairly expensive so after signing up to the service I was very keen on going through the strategies and viewing one of the hosted sessions on a Saturday. The website was then down for a few days so I couldn’t access the strategies. It was put up again just before the hosted trading session.
There wasn’t any warning that the site would be down for this period. I sent Matt an email asking to put in the Skype group and asked when the site would be back up. I never received a reply and never received an invite to the Skype trading room. I felt this was quite poor for such an expensive and then at least a courtesy email would have been polite.
The Upsell –
Again at £150 this isn’t a cheap product so to have Matts other products or affiliate products pushed on you after you join up I found very off putting. In the sports trader course you have a horse racing upsell in the one of the strategies without purchasing such product the strategy won’t work that well.
Matt says that pre match trading should be a corner stone of your football trading and goes into around 80% of games with a pre match trade. I agree and uses this a lot in my portfolio .
However the trading session don’t open early enough for Matt to share his own pre match trades. In fact how Matt offers to help with pre match trading is to sell his X-base database that offer pre match prices which may help you see which direction a pre match trade is moving.
Maybe these are discussed in the Skype trading room your supposed to have access too but I never received an invite so wouldn’t know.
Lack of Transparency –
In the hosted trading rooms some strategies are called out whilst others are left to yourself to determine whether you should enter the market or not. I don’t really mind this however viewing the hosted trading session a few things stood out to me.
At the end of every profitable session Matt would ask for peoples profit figures. You would then get 10 to 20 answers of whatever percentage profit people achieved, this is cool everyone likes to celebrate their wins. There was a day with two clear losing sessions.Matt never asked anyone about the losses barely anything was said. As a trader I know that losses are inevitable and it is as important as anything to learn how to lose. It seemed strange to me that this was brushed over and not discussed.
In one session a strategy that is taught about making money from scalping time decay was in use, a goal was scored which meant there would be losses to all involved.When a member asked Matt if he has been caught out he replied that he’d used a different strategy and was out before the goal. However he never mentioned this previously in the session. Again this was strange to me that a strategy taught by Matt himself was not used and in a live session hosted by Matt no advice was given as to why he used a different trade.
Overall Verdict-
I have a hard time rating this product as it has some good aspects to it. The video content is very good and clearly written, I do believe that Matt Finnigan is a good trader and makes money from the Betfair markets. But there is also a lot of salesmanship techniques and poor customer service/communication for such an expensive product.
I think the bad points outweigh the positives.
I believe that there are better and cheaper options on the market so in this Pro x trading review I will score it an overall rating of
