Smart Sports Trader, Author at Smart Sports Trader

Treat Your Sports Trading Like A Business

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.

Recommendations

Open Office

Bettings

Look at the small margins

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.

Don't be afraid to put money back into your trading. — 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 and Caan 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.

Sports Arbitrage For A Living – Interview

Over my years of betting and trading I have come into contact with a lot of different people that make money betting and trading.

One person that I have learnt quite a lot from is my friend Matt who has been doing sports arbitrage for a living now for the last five years.

Sports Arbitrage For A Living

An Interview with a full time arber

SST: First of all thanks for doing this interview Matt. My first question is how did you get started with sports arbitrage?

Matt: Well I had been messing around with betting for a few years pretty unsuccessfully. I came across the concept of sports arbitrage in 2008.

I started off very small and made maybe £30 in the first month but saw that it worked and gradually built it up.

SST: Were you doing matched betting to start with or straight arbitrage?

Matt: I started off with straight arbitrage between Pinnacle and Bwin and then started doing some matched betting or bonus scalping as people were calling it then.

SST: Has the landscape of sports arbitrage changed much since you first started?

Matt:Yes it is always changing. Bookmakers tolerated it more at first. I don’t think there were too many people doing.

The landscape is always changing with new laws and regulations coming in. I think that is why there is skill in becoming a good arbitrage bettor. You always have to adapt.

Full Time Arbitrage

SST: When and why did you decide to go full time with sports arbitrage betting?

Matt: In 2010 my total profits from arbitrage betting were more then my yearly wage. I had made around £40k which was more then my yearly salary.

I weighed up the risk and reward. I realised I could make more money from arbitrage. I didn’t have a great job so there was no issue leaving it.

SST: How have you managed to make a living from sports arbitrage the last five years when bookmakers limit accounts?

Matt: Its not been easy but I have learnt a few trends that bookmakers have. Some hate you taking arbs on horse racing but you can get away with other types of arbitrage for a long time.

Then you have exchanges, I live in the UK so there is also shop arbing. I have done a lot of the casino bonus stuff in the last few years also. There are lots of ways to make money from the bookies if you are creative.

I also have a deal with a few friends and family members where I act as an advisor of sorts and manage their accounts. I pay them 10% of the profits that I make each month and its a good deal for everyone.

SST: I understand. If someone wanted to get into sports arbitrage what would your advise be.

Matt: Everyone seems to be matched betting these days I would start with that.

Start small and don’t put all your money in one bookmaker. Use trusted bookmakers that have been around for a while. As there are quite a few shady ones that operate and will steal your money.

SST: Which bookmakers do you suggest using?

Matt: Use all the ones from oddschecker.com they are all pretty good. Avoid ones that just arrived on the scene as many don’t last such as Bet666.

Start off with the major bookmakers Bet365 and William Hill for example.

SST: Any other advice?

Matt: Don’t worry about account limitation people get hung up on this. You will get accounts limited but new reputable bookmakers start up and then a whole new money stream opens up again.

If you really work at it its a great way to earn a very nice second income. If you really make the most of it then it can become a full time occupation.

SST: Cheers Matt thanks for you time.

If you want to start profiting from sports betting, arbitrage and trading. I recommend this service which is currently contributing the biggest profit in my 50k in a year challenge.

Betfair Scalping – Football Trading Strategies

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.

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.)

Lay The Draw Tips 2024

Lay The Draw Tips

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.

Lay the draw tips — 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?

Yes lay the draw is still a profitable trading and betting strategy even in 2024.

Watch this video on YouTube

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.

Trading 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.

www.soccerstats.com

www.whoscored.com

Sports Betting Bankroll Management

What is a sports betting bankroll?

In the simplest terms a sports betting bankroll is an amount of money that we set aside for sports betting. We don’t use it to pay the rent or bills it is a completely separate investment that is solely used for sports betting.

As somebody that has been betting on sports and trading sports for a living the past two years I can say one of the biggest factors in being successful in both is treating them as a business and having proper bankroll management. Lets look at the difference between good and bad bankroll management.

First lets look at bad bankroll management.

What is a sports betting bankroll Bobby — Bobby the bad sports bettor

This is Bobby the bad sports bettor. Bobby has a spare £100 every week after he has bought food, paid the bills etc. Bobby isn’t bad at finding value bets however he no idea of good bankroll management.

Bobby likes to make two bets a week for £50 each, if they win next week he splits his winnings into two bets again and bets for example £100 on each game. Bobby does this until he either reaches a total of £1000 and withdraws or loses his money and starts again.

He does not think long term or record his bets but for every time Bobby reaches £1000 he loses £3700 trying to get there. Bobby is a losing sports bettor.

Sports Betting Bankroll Management

Lets look at good bankroll management. Bobby learns good bankroll management and decides to put aside some of his wage that he has for recreational use.

Bobby has a bankroll of £1000 and uses bets between 2% to 5% of bankroll depending on the odds. When Bobby bets on odds between 1.5-2.0 he uses 2-3% bets, odds below 1.5 he uses 3-5% of his bankroll and bets above 2.0 he uses 1-2%.

This is very solid bankroll management and allows a very steady progression in his bankroll. Bobby records his bets and sees over a year that for every £1000 he bets he is making a profit of £55. Bobby bets £10,000 that year and makes £550 in profit for a 5.5% return on his investment.

Bobby has become a winning sports bettor as he has learnt proper bankroll management.

I hope this answers the question what is a sports betting bankroll?

Whilst also giving some pointers on good and bad bankroll management.

Useful resources and links

Profitable betting strategy

Using the Kelly criterion for betting

Profitable betting strategy – Don’t discount short odds

All bettors hope to stumble upon a profitable betting strategy and sometimes they can be fairly simple.

So I have admitted to being somewhat of a gambling geek I have spent lots of time reading forums, blogs, books and whatever I can get my hands on that is betting/trading related.

I am always looking for a profitable betting strategy. One theory that I found interesting is the favourite-longshot bias in betting.

Here is some reading material for some of you that this might interest.

https://www.gamblingonlinemagazine.com/gambling-features.php?articleID=35

https://www.football-data.co.uk/blog/favourite_longshot_bias_football.php

https://www.progambler.co.uk/favourite-longshot-bias-in-fixed-odds-football-markets/

In a nutshell if you don’t want to read through those articles it shows that by blindly betting on every favourite you would lose a lot less then if you blindly bet on every underdog.

Bookmakers exploited the fact that a punter was more likely to back at higher odds. Given the chance to risk say £10 to win £90 then they would be to risk £10 to win £2.50. This lead to longer odds being much poorer value and further away from the real implied odds.

It indicates that is easier to find value in favourites then it is to do so in underdogs. A lot of the research I have read was from many years ago so I wanted to see if this trend is still prevalent in today’s markets.

Profitable betting strategy

Looking at Pyckio a tipster site that has ranked thousands of tipsters we can see that the number one tipster bets at average odds of 1.28 (at the time of writing) going by the name of PistolPete with 6.1% yield over 568 bets.

He has achieved this by betting exclusively on low odds in Tennis. This is one indicator that the favourite-longshot bias is still prevalent at least in Tennis.

Profitable betting strategy — Betting short odds on tennis has shown to be profitable.

My second indicator was a service called Banker Bets which also focuses its betting on short odds over varying sports.

Over two years the service has banked an increase of 192.90% to the average available odds (meaning this could have been bettered by selecting the best odds available at the time.)

Spurred on by the success of the two above tipsters I then looked at how I could emulate their success and improve upon it. Another profitable betting strategy or theory known as value betting or chasing steam exists.

It basically states that by bettering the odds available at the sharpest bookmakers Pinnacle, SBObet etc in efficient markets such as the Premier League you will have a value bet. A value bet is a bet that has a greater chance of winning then the odds imply.

This wasn’t too difficult to do especially at the lower odds. Bookmakers such Ladbrokes, Betvictor and William Hill often had better odds then the sharper bookmakers. The exchange Smarkets with its 2% commission alongside another low commission exchange Matchbook also often provided greater odds then the sharpest bookmakers could offer on several occasions.

Using these two theories alongside some filters such as no injuries to key players, no heavy weather conditions, no major changes to a side I have small yet profitable sample size of bets to suggest this is worth continuing with.

From October 2015 to February the 14th I looked at home teams between the odds of 1.2-1.6. I only bet on teams that I was familiar with and had easy access to likely team formations, general team news etc.

The teams I chose were

Man City
Arsenal
Man Utd
Chelsea
Tottenham
PSG
Juventus
Atletico Madrid

After 53 bets at a level stake of £100 per bet the profit and loss was £618 with an ROI of 11.6%. The only overall losing teams over this period were Chelsea with a loss of -166 from £700 staked and Man Utd with a loss of -29 from £600 staked.

This is a small sample size however it is encouraging and with in play betting and trading an option there are ways which may improve this method.

For example teams such as Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid that often start home games as 1.1 or below. In cases such as these we could explore the half time market or over 1.5 goals market in play.

There are many angles to take with this type of betting/trading.

I hope that this article has given you some insight into the profits that can be obtained from short odds. It could be a betting angle that is worth looking into.

Looking to make money from the sports betting markets.

Check out our recommendations below.

How to trade the horses pre race as a beginner

Last week I reviewed Caan Berrys pre race trading guide and gave it a recommendation.

In the past week the football schedule was pretty lacklustre and I decided to delve into the horse markets.

I don’t like horse racing to be honest I find it very boring however as a trader I can see that it is probably the market with the most opportunities for trading.

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.

Pre race trading horses — and 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.

Serious about trading the horses? This guide is one the best investments you could make.