Archive of activity to December 2009

.

18th March 2011.  Cheltenham posts removed.
If you missed my Cheltenham posts on here, they started
on March 7th, a week in advance of the Cheltenham meeting.
On March 7th, I described some trades that I would be doing on the first day of the meeting, and put some links on here to YouTube videos describing my trading strategies for Day One.
Profits a week later on Day One of Cheltenham were exactly as anticipated, and things moved on very nicely from there.
It's been a great week . . . . . . . . . very profitable, and the racing at Cheltenham was tip top entertainment.

If you saw my posts throughout Cheltenham week, I apologise for boring you with a description of my trades each day.
I hope you did equally well at Cheltenham, and made a very nice profit again this year.
Good luck with your trading,
Howard.

9th Feb 2011.  Trading 0-0 in Football matches on Betfair.
For quite a long time, I've been working on a 0-0 strategy for football matches. . . . . . . . without much success.
An equivalent market for 0-0 is 1 or more goals in Total Goals.
Combining 0-0 with 1 or more goals is a little unusual as we need to either Bet both markets, or Lay in both markets.
You may need to think about this one :-
  • A lay of 0-0 is the same as a Bet of 1 or more goals
  • A Bet of 0-0 is the same as a Lay of 1 or more goals.

It follows that we cannot Lay 0-0 and then Bet 1 or more goals.
If we do that and the score remains 0-0, we have losses in those 2 markets.
Also, we cannot Bet 0-0 and Lay 1 or more goals.
Therefore, to trade 0-0 with 1 or more Goals, we need to either lay both, or bet both.
We cannot lay one and bet the other.
I've been juggling with this for a while and combining these 2 with other markets to see what I could come up with as they just seem a bit different to me when we combine the 2.
I hope that makes sense for you . . . . I've certainly found it interesting getting my head around combining 0-0 with 1 or more goals.
Good luck with your trading, Howard

31st Jan 2011.  mopping-up.co.uk progress.
I'm pleased to report that my monthly profits are well and truly back on track (if that's of any interest), with my 3rd best ever month's profit total.
I admit that I opened 3 new bookie accounts to help with that, but they were only a free 25 Euros bet, a £25 "No Lose" bet, and a £20 "No Lose" bet.
A "No Lose" bet is an offer of a refund of our losing bet stake by the bookie, but only if we hit a loser with our bet.
It is always best to trade BIG odds when trading No Lose offers.
If we trade BIG odds, No Lose offers can pay just as good as free bet offers.
As with free bets, we can take bigger Lay odds than Bet odds and still show a very nice profit.
As an example of that, to trade one of those offers, I traded a very weak team playing against a very strong team in Match Odds in a football match at odds of Bet at 12.95, and Lay at 15.0 for guaranteed winnings of £18.75 if my team won win, or £19.00 if my team lost.
These are the maths of that :-
  • Bet £25 @ 12.95, Lay £20 @ 15.0
  • If we hit a winner we win £298.75 (25 x 11.95) less liabilities of -£280 (20 x 14) = +£18.75
  • If we hit a loser, we have a successful lay of £19.00 (£20 less 5% commission), and our losing bet is refunded.
    Zero loss on the Bet side of the trade leaves us with a win profit = £19.00.
    Note that the even though the Lay odds were quite a bit bigger than the Bet odds, there was an excellent win or lose profit.

I biased my staking slightly to favour the lose outcome for a nice round £19.
I hit a loser, so picked up £19.00 on that offer. . . . . . . That's a 76% profit on my £25 bookie deposit.

Another trade that helped was a very generous $100 "No Lose" offer for existing bookie customers with an Australian bookie.
100 Aussie dollars worked out at about £62, so I deposited £60 and traded that for guaranteed winnings of £46.86 (78% profit on my £60 deposit).

I could of course have simply placed my 3 No Lose bets and hoped to hit a winner or 2 for the chance of a very nice profit, with no loss even if I'd hit 3 losers.
Instead I traded each one to guaranteed winnings for a total profit of just over £80 (15 + 19 + 46) on those three trades.

In amongst my trading, I've been tidying up my refund spreadsheets, writing instructions for them, and creating videos to demonstrate the sheet inputs and the strategies that go with them.
These things take time.
There will be a free spreadsheet to download from
www.mopping-up.co.uk.
This is the sheet that I use to keep a record of my monthly profits.
Download the sheet here :-

Download a free Excel spreadsheet for keeping track of your profits each month.
Keep a record and analyse which Betfair strategy or other trading strategy works best for you.
Note.  If the file opens in "Read Only" mode, choose "Save As" from your file menu.
Rename the file and save it to a folder on your computer.
You should then be able to open the file and use it without any problems.
The video below explains the spreadsheet.

 

To view the video with a larger screen, click the small 4 red arrows icon on the bottom right of the video screen just below the word "Tube" where is says "You Tube".

I must emphasize again that most bookie refunds available for existing bookie customers cannot be traded to guaranteed winnings.
That includes 0-0 refunds and Red card refunds in football matches.
I don't want to mislead anyone about the profits that can be made from existing customer refunds, so please do not be disappointed when you realize just how few of these offers can be traded to guaranteed profit.
Guaranteed winnings are there every month, but just like everything else in life, we need to work at these offers in order to get the best out of them.
We need to sort out the profitable offers from the non-profitable.
Trading the profitable ones takes time and effort, but if you are prepared to move your money about rather than just having it sitting in one place, it is amazing how a string of small profits add up to a substantial amount every month.

In my experience, there is no downside, to this kind of trading - - - -  winnings can be guaranteed with zero or very little risk to our cash every week..
Trade these offers correctly and we cannot lose.
Some of the trades may involve several separate trades over a few days, but with a bit of care, we should always come out in front.
Whether we hit winners or losers makes no difference, and quite a lot of the time, it doesn't even matter if we lay at higher odds than our bet odds, we still come out winning.
The link in the post below shows the basics of free bet trading and demonstrates the bet low and lay high and win or lose profitable aspects of these trades.
Howard.

1st Jan 2011  Bookie refunds and bonus payments.
Apologies for the delay between posts.
I've been having computer problems throughout November and December.
My hard drive packed up just before Christmas which may have been at the bottom of my on-going problems.
My monthly trading profits have taken a dive so I'll be looking for a good profit in January to make up for my very low December profit.

I made a very nice start to the month with just over £40 today, risk free.
In line with that, just before my computer packed up, I was putting together a new web site specifically aimed at trading bookies refund offers and bonus payments to guaranteed winnings.
Bookie refunds and bonuses that are available to existing bookie customers form the backbone of my trades.
Trade those correctly, and you cannot lose.

These are NOT free bet trades for new bookie customers.
I have had a load of on-line bookie accounts for a number of years, so I concentrate my efforts on refunds and bonus payments that are available to existing bookie customers.
I rarely sign up and open new bookie accounts.
Testing of the new spreadsheet described in my previous post has been zero unfortunately due to my computer problems.
That will probably have to wait now as I concentrate on some trading and work on my new "Bookie Refunds" web site.
If you look through my previous posts, you will see that I have already had one attempt at putting a web site together for trading to guaranteed winnings.
That web site was aimed at an affiliate scheme.
I would have been paid for recruiting customers for another web site, but those affiliate payments dried up before I even got started.

This time, the aim of my "Bookie Refunds" web site www.mopping-up.co.uk will be to make spreadsheets available for trading bookie refunds.
Over the last year or so, I have developed quite a range of trading strategies with Excel spreadsheets for making these trades.
A problem is that there is an ever growing range of bookie refund offers as bookies continually try to come up with new offers to tempt their existing customers to continue to bet with them.
My spreadsheets show how to trade these refunds to guaranteed winnings with zero risk to your betting kitty.
A 2nd problem is that quite often, these refund offers cannot be traded to profit (due to the poor bookie bet odds offered), but if we sift through the promotional e-mails, we can trade a few to profit each month with zero risk.

If you are not familiar with these on-going offers, here are a few typical examples.  There are plenty of others of course :-

  • Cash Refunds.
    The refund may be an extra winnings payment, free cash just for placing a win or lose bet, free cash after a winning bet, free cash after a losing bet, or a free bet awarded after making a winning or losing bet.
  • Extra winnings added if we hit a winner.
    This is probably the most profitable refund trade available at present.
    These don't come along very often, but when they do, they offer an opportunity to make multiples of out bet stake in addition to our winnings.
  • Percentage Refunds
    Again, a straight cash payment as a reward for placing a bet or a series of bets.
    The size of the payment is usually a percentage of your bet stake.
  • Football Refunds
    Quite often, a football refund will involve specific football markets such as Correct Score, First Goal Scorer, Red Card etc.
    Also, In Play bets may be involved.
  • Red card refund.
    This is usually an "IF" refund.
    For example, Bet in Correct Score and "IF" a player is sent off, our bet stake is refunded.
  • 0-0 refund.
    These usually involve a bet in Correct Score, First Goal Scorer markets or a similar market.
  • Losing Team refund with the bookie Bet24.
    So far, this refund has only been available with the bookie Bet24.
    We place a Match Odds bet and if our team loses we get a refund.
    If the game ends in a Draw, there is no refund.
    However,
    we can stake to balance our trade for a guaranteed win or lose profit.
  • Spread Betting Refunds
  • Percentage added to winnings.
    So far, I have only seen these offers from ExtraBet.
  • Free Buy or Sell trade.
    See VCBet for a free £5 trade with zero loss.
    At present, losses are covered by VCBet up to £200 or winnings paid out up to £200, depending on how the market moves..

Those are just a few of the wide range of bookie refund offers that are available every month.
I must stress that quite a lot of the offers available cannot be traded to guaranteed winnings, particularly in football matches due to the very poor bookie bet odds compared to the Betfair lay odds.
However, it is possible to make a substantial zero risk profit every month from these and other similar offers.
If you don't already trade these to profit, I suggest you take a good hard look, firstly at trading bookies free bets available to new bookie customers, and then look to trade the bookie refunds afterwards that are available to existing customers.
When you sign up with a new bookie, always tick the box within your bookie account to receive the bookie's promotional e-mails.
If you are not familiar with free bet trading, there is a demonstration video on this web page that shows the basics.

Follow the link down that web page "Trade a mathematical certainty".
I'll post on here when I have something up and running on the new web site :-  www.mopping-up.co.uk

Take a look now at www.mopping-up.co.uk to see a few examples of what will be on offer.
If all this is new to you, a small fortune in on-going guaranteed winnings awaits you, Howard.

Dec 7th 2010.  Videos for Dutching 2 Betfair markets.
I've started to put some videos together to show how this Dutching and Hedging sheet works and what can be done with it.
The first 2 videos below describe the inputs.
I'll be adding more videos with a strategy or 2 which will appear on the same YouTube screen below, once I upload them.
These videos describe the Betting sheet.
I will be covering the Laying sheet later.
At present, the sheet calculates the bet and lay stakes to equalize the whole trade.
My plan is to make a 2nd sheet available in the same file that will allow manual stake inputs.
Not everyone will want to balance their trades as I do, but may prefer to Ad-Lib with the size of their stakes.
These sheets are excellent for testing your Betafir strategies without risking any cash.
Input some odds, watch a game and input more odds as the game progresses and you can get a very good idea of how your trade would have turned out if you had used your cash on Betfair.
These sheets have been built for trading of course, not just simulating trades.

Note that the profits shown on the sheet will differ by a few pence from what would be shown on a Betafir screen.
Excel works to more decimal places than Betfair.
Once some odds and stakes have passed through a calculation or 2 and been rounded up or down, we get a slight difference in the profits.
Nothing to worry about, but I just thought I'd point that out.
Also, the commentary in the first video gets a bit in front of the pictures about 3/4 of the way through.
At some point, I hope to do a bit of editing to line the 2 up.

Copyright notice.  In the videos below, any Betfair content shown is for demonstration purposes only, and is presented with the kind permission of The Sporting Exchange Limited.  © The Sporting Exchange Limited.

  1. Video 1 demonstrates inputs and how the spreadsheet works.
  2. An example of an Under 1.5 Goals trade shows the effect of Dutching across 2 markets.
    If we trade in 2 related Betfair markets, Betfair screens are unable to show our whole trading position, especially after commission deductions.
    This spreadsheet eliminates that problem.
    The Liverpool - Aston Villa game described finished with a score of 3-0, the first goal being scored in the 14th minute.

For a bigger view of the videos below, click the icon with 4 small arrows near the bottom right hand corner, just below the " T " in the word "Tube"

 

As always, good luck with your trading, Howard.

Nov 7th 2010 (Again).  Dutching and Hedging Correct Score markets.
For quite some time, I've been working on a spreadsheet for betting several scores in Correct Score and then laying those same scores to profit or laying the equivalent of those scores in another market, OR we can carry on Dutching by betting more scores with the intention of hitting the winning score, or betting in a 2nd market to cover more scores.
Those methods are a very popular way of trading football matches.

There are plenty of different strategies that can be used that are available on various web sites.
However, in the videos that I have seen that have demonstrated Correct Score strategies, the traders in those videos seem to "Ad-lib" their way through their trades and don't seem to balance their staking for an equal profit whatever the winning score.
At least that is how things appeared to me.
They just seem to set off with a few Ad-lib bets, and place other bets and lays to suit their feel for the game as it progresses.
I don't dispute that these traders are successful at what they do, but I prefer to trade with my stakes balanced for an equal profit or loss, which in my opinion makes an exit much easier, and may even be more economical as we won't be wasting stakes by having big potential winnings against one selection and small winnings against another.

The spreadsheets I have built, cure that unbalanced staking problem.
There are 2 sheets - We can either bet some scores first and lay 2nd, or lay first and bet 2nd, and we can trade across 2 markets if we choose with commission built into the calculations.
I've tested the maths of the sheets using the Betfair screens, but before I put these sheets up for sale, I need to chuck some videos together to demonstrate what can be done with these very versatile sheets.

For example :-  Trade Under 2.5 Goals, excluding 0-0. . . . . .  .This is a First Half strategy that I have used.
I don't usually Dutch into the 2nd half of a game if I use this strategy.
If you have a go at this, you would need to choose the right games.
The games to look for are 2 evenly matched teams that don't usually score many goals, but don't let many goals in either.
2 quick goals can be expensive, but no goal or just 1 First Half goal can be profitable.

Using the Bet First sheet, we could bet the 5 scores 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 2-0, 0-2 before the kick off.
If we balance our staking for an equal profit from each score, we can place further bets if necessary, without having to adjust any other stakes if we trade further into the game.
All our staking will be balanced for an equal profit or loss throughout our trade, even if we hedge out of our trade by placing some lays.
Whilst the score remains 0-0, the scores 1-0 and 0-1 will drop whilst the others will collectively, increase.
If there are no goals, we should be able to hedge those 5 scores to profit, with the profit from laying 1-0 & 0-1 being bigger than the loss on laying the other 3 scores.
If a goal goes in, we will have 2 losing bets.
At a score of 1-0, the scores 0-1 and 0-2 will be losers.
However depending on the time of the goal, the odds of 1-0 could drop, and 2-0 could drop significantly.
1-1 could also drop, depending on which team has scored, and the timing of the goal.
The "ifs and buts" of a goal affects the odds of these 3 remaining In Play scores.
If the goal is not scored early in the game, we could lay our remaining 3 scores to profit even allowing for our 2 losing bets.

Alternatively, we could bet Over 2.5 Goals, which would be the same as betting all the other scores at that point.
we would then have bets covering all possible scores.
The spreadsheets have 2 separate sections that allow us to see our market position across 2 markets.
Betting in a separate market means bigger commission payments, but we may choose to do that for a quicker exit of the trade.
The spreadsheets show the effect of commission in both markets.

If there is little or no profit from laying our remaining 3 scores, we may choose to carry on Dutching by betting a few more scores in Correct Score with the aim of hitting the winning score.
You can take it from me that Dutching more scores is not a particularly safe way to trade this particular strategy, but that is one possibility of an exit for this method of trading Under 2.5 Goals.

Finding the time to trade some football matches and putting some videos together with a few suggested strategies will take time, but once I get into gear, these sheets will be available on my web sites.
They can be used for Dutching and Hedging either a single market or 2 markets - and not necessarily football markets.
As always, good luck with your trading, Howard.

Nov 7th 2010.  Betfair Starting Price.
Apologies for the delay in following up my previous post.
My computer has been away for surgery - - Twice.
It went away for what I thought would be a minor fault, but when it came back, it wouldn't even boot up, so it had to go away a 2nd time.
I've been without it for about 3 weeks.

So back to Betfair S.P. :-
I monitored a few more horse races and took some screen shots just as races started.
It looks like Betfair S.P.is the mid price between bet and lay odds just as the race starts, which is what we would expect of course.
That can work in our favour if we are trading a drifter just as the race is about to start, but if we are trading a horse that is shortening in the market, there is very little chance that we would be able to lay below S.P., unless of course the odds had been lower at some time earlier.
Now that I've cleared that up for myself and my computer is back home where it belongs, I can get back to a bit of trading.
I do feel very rusty on the trading front and not as up and running as I was last month.
I need to set myself a good profit target and make sure I get back to my normal monthly profit level.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

Oct 2nd 2010.  Betfair Starting Price.
After watching the odds of a few horse races and comparing the Win market with Betfair starting Prices, I've decided to steer clear of anything that involves a bet at S.P. and a lay in the Win Market.
Everything would work very well whilst the odds of our runner are rising just before Race Time.
We could have placed our bet (on an accumulator for instance) and as we place our lay as near as possible to the start of our race, we would get matched at odds very close to Betfair S.P.

However, if the odds are decreasing just as our race is about to start, the Betfair S.P. odds are most likely to drop below anything that we could lay at, leaving us with quite a naughty difference between our Lay odds and the Bet odds of Betfair S.P.
This is nothing new of course.
I came across this earlier in the year when I traded a few Betfair accumulators when taking up the Betfair Midweek Mania offers way back in January.
We might expect that Betfair S.P. would be the mid point between the Bet and Lay odds at the start of the race, but in my experience, this doesn't seem to be what Betfair S.P. is all about.
As Race Time approaches, Betfair S.P. seems to re-act to the direction that the odds are moving, plus perhaps something to do with the weight of money that is on either side of the market for each individual runner.
That's only my guess as to how Betfair S.P. is calculated.
The end result is that it may be very risky trying to anticipate what the eventual S.P. will be, and if the odds are going down just as the horse race starts, Betfair S.P. could be retuned at lower odds than the Win market ever saw for bet or lay odds.
My advice is therefore to steer well clear of trading anything that involves Betfair Starting Price odds for the Bet side of your trade.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

Sept 28th 2010  Betfair cash refunds on accumulators.
Just recently, Betfair have been offering refunds on accumulators again.
So far, these have been an additional £5 cash refund for every winner we hit, and this week a straight £10 cash refund just for placing an accumulator on at least 2 days with a minimum £20 stake.
The maximum refund is £40 for placing 4 accumulators this week . . . each one must be on a separate day..

At the beginning of this year, I built a spreadsheet for trading Betfair's very similar "Midweek Mania" accumulator refund offers.
That sheet was a bit messy and not particularly easy to use, so I decided that another sheet that I already have could do a better job.
Also, this spreadsheet should be suitable for trading any accumulator bet with up to 20 selections.
The only negative is that this sheet doesn't include commission deductions on the Lay side of the calculations.
There is zero commission to pay on Betfair winning bets paid at Starting Price of course.
As you know, when we bet a Betfair accumulator, any winnings are paid out at Betfair Starting Prices, so to trade these cash refunds to profit, we need to use the Betfair S.P.'s for the bet side of the calculations.

Strategy :-

  • Bet the minimum number of runners in your accumulator, probably a treble, and try to hit losers.
    To keep liabilities down to a minimum, you may select short priced runners, and hope that they lose.
  • Lay the same selections one at a time in the Win market as the races take place, until we hit a loser.
  • Once we hit a loser, end of trade.
  • Whilst we hit winners, lay the next runner to recover the lost liabilities of the preceding lays.

The best thing that can happen is that we hit a loser with our first lay.
If that happens and we have been able to get our lay matched at odds very close to the Starting Price odds, any loss from trading this first runner will be very small.
We will have a losing bet, but a successful lay.
Having placed our Betfair accumulator, we will qualify for the £10 refund.

If we hit winners, we need to have layed as close as possible to the S.P. odds.
If all our selections are winners but our lay liabilities are less than our bet winnings plus the £10 cash refund, we have profit.
If however, our liabilities are bigger than the bet winnings plus the free tenner combined, we will have a loss.
When I traded similar offers earlier in the year, I hit all 3 winners in 2 of the trebles that I traded, but I still made quite a good profit.
The trick was to trade below S.P. if possible of course, but I was lucky and managed to do that with the 3rd runner on both occasions.

To trade this offer in practice, we need to open 2 Internet windows, one showing the Betfair Multiples web pages and the other showing the horse racing win markets.
Open both windows to show the odds of the runners in each race as they are about to take place.
In my experience, the projected Betfair S.P. odds can be very misleading if there is plenty of time left before Race Time, but as Race Time approaches, the S.P. odds will usually reflect what is happening to the Win market odds.
The trick is to get our lay matched below the S.P. odds . . . . easier said than done.

I'll be trading this offer this week with my cash to test this spreadsheet.
Once testing is complete, I'll put some videos together to demonstrate how to use this sheet to trade accumulators, and show a live trade or 2.
This is a sheet that I already sell, but I haven't used it for trading accumulators before.
Let's hope Betfair continue with these cash refunds for a while.
As always, good luck with your trading,
Howard.

Sept 12th.  Laying in bits - - - - Maybe not such a good idea after all.
I tested my "Lay In Bits" sheet described below on a few horse races using my cash.
The result was that my trades were very poor.
After placing my bet, instead of placing a single lay to trade out, I placed 5 smaller lays, each an odds increment below the other.
I found that quite often the first 2 or maybe 3 of my lays were matched, but then the odds increased, leaving my trade still open.

That happened more often than not, which meant I had to lay what was left of my trade at bigger odds than my bet odds.
The end result was nearly always less profit than I was making when I placed just a single lay.
So, I've decided that taking profits when I see them, or offering to lay just one or 2 increments below my bet odds works best for me.
Since reverting to that, my profits have increased back to what they were this time last week.
Maybe we all think that we could make more profit if only we had waited a little bit longer before trading out.
My recent experience of laying in bits has shown me that maybe I was doing ok..
The grass looked a bit greener for a while there, . . . . . . . . but it was even harder to mow.
I'll settle for a bird in the hand  . . . . and all that.
Good luck with trading the odds, Howard.

Sept 8th.  Lay in bits spreadsheet.
If you use trading software, you may place a series of bets and lays and then hit your "Hedge" button to equalize your trade for an equal profit or loss whatever the result of the event you are trading.
The Hedge button places the correct size bet or lay to balance your win or lose £££ returns.
If, like me, you don't use trading software- just the normal Betfair screens, you probably just use a single bet and lay if you are trading an odds movement.

I've been betting and laying for years using just the Betfair screens, but just recently I decided that I'm trading out too soon and often missing some lower lay odds.
To fix that, I built a simple sheet this week that shows the lay stakes required to spread my lays over several ticks.
Doing that has a few benefits :-

  • If all my smaller lays get matched I lay at lower odds overall than I would normally lay at.
  • I make a bigger profit on my trade.
  • Hopefully, if I hit a decent odds movement, I won't feel that I've traded out too soon.

I started testing this sheet with my cash yesterday, but unfortunately, I didn't hit a decent odds movement.
Once I've done a few trades, I'll be adding this new sheet to my Free Bets package and also my Arbing sheet - - "Hedge Your Bookie Bets".
Click on this link to see a video demo of this new spreadsheet.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.

August 16th.  My new web site - Zero and low risk strategies for Betfair trading.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been building a new web site - - - - - with a difference - I hope.
Follow this link to view my efforts :-
www.mopping-up.co.uk

Mopping-up.co.uk will have video content rather than a load of text - that is what will be different about it from most other sites..
I hope to demonstrate how anyone with a starting bank and a bit of time can make regular profits every month from their Betfair trading.
You may be familiar with a lot of what is in there, but I always find it interesting to see how other people do their trading, so there may be something in my videos that you haven't tried yet.
I'll be producing a Video Newsletter which will cover any trading related content that I can come up with.

If you are not making a regular profit every month at present, there may be something of interest for you on mopping-up.co.uk and in my Video Newsletters.
With all the free bet and refund offers, and Arbing opportunities available these days, "
there is no excuse for losing".
About a year ago, in the Betfair Forum, I was ridiculed for making that statement.
My intention is to show on mopping-up.co.uk how to trade with zero risk or very low risk by trading free bets and refunds.
Those trades have formed the basis of my trading for a very long time.
I've been "Mopping Up" for ages.

To be added to my Video Newsletter list, E-mail me..
I'm not sure when I'll strike up with my first video newsletter, but I'll be starting with the basics and building things up as I go along.
I may be stating the B. . . . . .Obvious to start with.
Hopefully, what I come up with in my stuttering Yorkshire accent may help someone to make a few quid.
Let's hope I can make it interesting.
As always, good luck with your trades, Howard.

August 4th 2010.   Dutch 2 markets Excel spreadsheet for Betfair trading.
At last I've got on with putting this spreadsheet on my web sites.
I've had this sheet ready for several months, but I've been busy with other things.
This spreadsheet can be used to Dutch in 2 related markets, and shows our overall position in the 2 markets combined including commission deductions.
Betfair is unable to do that.
For example, if we bet in Correct Score and Match Odds, Betfair only shows our position in those individual markets.
It doesn't combine the 2.
To see the position of our whole trade, we would need to add the 2 markets together, take commission off winnings, and weigh up where we stand.
This spreadsheet eliminates all those problems by balancing the staking, deducting commission from both markets and deducting losses from the other related market.

Input the odds into the sheet to see the stakes required.
Place your bets or lays in 2 markets, and this sheet shows exactly where you stand.
If you need to place further stakes, input some more odds and the sheet shows the stakes required and the position of your whole trade if you were to place those additional bets or lays.
All very tidy with staking balanced for an equal profit or loss in each individual market.
Commission is built into the calculations so that we can see the profit or loss across both markets combined on the sheet.

I've built this sheet specifically for trading football matches on Betfair.
I've seen a few videos showing experienced traders trading the Correct Score market.
In these videos, these traders seemed to ad-lib their way through their trades, with no structure to their staking that I could see.
I've also attended trading webinars in which we could watch live football trades, and it was very difficult to get to grips with what the overall strategy was and certainly the staking seemed like guesswork to me once things got underway.
Those videos and webinars prompted me to put this spreadsheet together quite some time ago.

I've put some videos together that describe how this spreadsheet works, and I've included some basic strategies for trading Match odds.
Bet all 3 outcomes with insurance against a 0-0 result, and Lay all 3 outcomes with insurance against a 0-0 result.
I will be adding some more Dutching strategies later.

No doubt you will be familiar with laying the Draw and then betting the Draw after a goal for guaranteed winnings providing the odds of the Draw lengthen - - a very well documented Hedge strategy.
These videos show alternative strategies, with insurance against a game ending 0-0.
This spreadsheet is designed for trading Correct Score and related markets such as Match Odds, Under/Over markets, Total Goals etc., but it can also be used in other sports that have related markets.
View a description of the spreadsheet and the videos here .

At present, I'm expanding this sheet to include a Hedge facility.
Using this later sheet, we will be able to Dutch several selections in 2 related markets for an equal profit or loss and then hedge each of those (if we need to) to exit the markets.
I'm half way there with that. . . . . The Dutch Laying plus Hedge is complete, but the Dutch Betting with Hedge sheet still needs some work.
Good luck with your trades, Howard.

July 10th 2010.  Bookie limits on stakes.
In the Forum in
The Community Web Site for Serious Traders, I continually see complaints about bookies limiting the size of customer's bets.
I have been betting with lots of bookies for several years and so far have never had a limit placed on one of my accounts.
That may be due more to luck than good judgement, but a bit of thought may have saved me from having that problem.
The main complainants are from Arbers - people who bet with the bookie and lay at lower odds on Betfair for guaranteed winnings.
I would guess that a lot of the bets placed by these Arbers would need to be placed with bookies in horse racing markets in the last 10 minutes or so before Race Time, when the markets can be quite volatile and the odds can change very quickly.
If the bookie doesn't keep pace with events on Betfair, Arbers can bet with the bookie and lay the same horse at the lower odds on Betfair for guaranteed winnings.
This is of course a very well known and popular strategy, but not popular with the bookies.

A large bet placed in the last few minutes before "The Off" can leave a bookie high and dry with big liabilities on one runner.
If that horse wins, the bookie makes a loss on that race.
To eliminate that problem, the bookie is going to look for the cause and limit the size of the bets that he will accept from a troublesome customer.
I would imagine that if a bookie accepts a load of bets (that is - he lays a load of bets) and his book is a bit unbalanced, he would look to place a bet or 2 on Betfair to balance his book so that he wins whatever the outcome of the race.
That is what I would be doing if I were a bookie.
The bookie is able to do this because his over-round is always some way above the near 100% book that we always see on Betfair.
The bookie bet odds (which he is laying at) are mostly smaller than the Betfair bet odds, so most of the time, if a bookie accepts a large bet (he lays it), he is able to bet at higher odds on Betfair if he needs to balance his book and also make a profit on the lay of his customers stake and the Betfair bet.

Now consider a customer who steps in with a whopping bet at perhaps odds of 5.0 and the Batfair lay odds have just dropped to 4.8 or 4.6 and there are only a few minutes before the race starts.
The bookie is stuck with very large liabilities against this runner, and has no means of reducing that risk.
He has a big problem and must sweat it out hoping that this runner will lose.
What is the bookie going to do ?

Of course he's going to take a look at which account has caused the problem and if it happens again, he'll take action by limiting the bet stake allowed from that account.
The bookie may not particularly be looking to ban a winning punter.
He's just getting rid of a problem.

In my opinion, the way to avoid getting your bet size limited with a bookie is to have a bit of consideration and put a bit of thought into what we are doing when we bet with a bookie.
So far, I may have been very lucky in not ever having a limit placed on any of my bookie accounts, but maybe giving a bit of thought and consideration to the bookie end of things has helped.
An "Arbing" spreadsheet for betting with a bookie and laying the same selection on Betfair for an equal profit or loss after commission lives on this web page. "Hedge Your Bookie Bets".
Look towards the bottom of that web page.
Commission is built into the lay side of the calculations on that spreadsheet.
=============================================
A while ago, I traded a casino bonus for guaranteed winnings using roulette to reach the required turn-over of my deposit.
Not being a regular casino scalper, I felt a bit guilty about "winning" in a casino at zero risk, so once I had my casino profit, I transferred that to my "Sportsbook" section and made sure I lost that profit by betting it on a horse and laying the same horse on Betfair.
Once the horse had lost, I had in effect transferred the winnings into my Betfair account via the successful lay.
There was a small loss on the trade, but the bookie/casino of course had also got his money back via my losing bet..
I have no idea if this bookie noticed what I had done, but if anyone happened to check my account, at least I would have looked like a loser to them, even though I made a nice profit from my bit of casino scalping.

I've been betting since I was at school, and I'll be 64 years old in September, so I've seen a lot of changes in my betting lifetime.
I remember when there were no betting shops and certainly no Internet.
Now, with new bookies coming on-line every month, bookies are in the middle of a price war.
They are offering free bets and other incentives as they fight for your custom.
To be able to take advantage of these offers, we need to be able to bet with any bookie who offers a bonus of any kind.
To have stakes limited is a big disadvantage, so make sure you have as many bookies as possible available to you.
When my dad was alive, he would never have believed that in days to come :-

  • a bookie would pay out on a disqualified horse, as well as a promoted winner. . . That happened to me last week.
  • a bookie would pay out at a bigger Starting Price if he had taken a smaller price when placing his bet. . . I had 3 of those last month for a very nice extra £60 profit.
  • a bookie would give him a "Loyalty Bonus"  . . . . I received 2 x £10 last month in loyalty bonuses. . . another free £20.
  • a bookie would give him a free bet simply for opening an account
  • a bookie would offer him more free bets on a regular basis.

Has there ever been a better time to be a punter ?
Keep on the right side of your bookies and enjoy the very profitable ride,
Howard.

June 23rd 2010.  Videos for free bet trading.
I've been trading free bets for several years and wrongly assumed that lots of people are aware that bookies free bets offer excellent profits with zero risk if traded correctly.
I've had one or 2 enquiries about the strategy that I have been trading recently.
This is a free bet strategy but it doesn't involve new sign-up offers with bookies.
The free bets that I use for this strategy are for existing bookie customers.

I found that the majority of those few enquirers din't have much experience of trading Free Bets, so that has prompted me to put some videos together that describe basic Free Bet Trading.
The videos can be viewed via this link near the top of the web page >>> :- Follow this link for videos..
The videos describe how to trade Free Bets to guaranteed winnings, and also show a live trade or 2.

If you haven't already opened a boatload of Internet bookie accounts and traded the free bet offers for new customers, it's your lucky day !
A small fortune awaits you.

If you stake correctly, you simply cannot lose when trading free bets.
It doesn't matter whether you hit all winners, all losers, or something in between, and you can even Bet Low and Lay High and still make good profits. . . . .a traders dream.
Excellent profits are assured unless you make a silly mistake whilst placing your bets and lays.
Unfortunately, copyright prevents me from showing the bookie web pages in my videos, but we are able to view the Betfair end of things ok.

If you have some experience of trading free bets and are interested in my "existing customer" strategy,
e-mail me
I'll be pleased to hear from you.
Don't worry, I never pester anyone with junk e-mails or spam, and I don't collect e-mail addresses.
Good luck with your trading, although if you trade free bets to guaranteed profit, you don't need luck, Howard.

 
May 13th 2020.  Dutching 2 markets such as Correct Score and Match odds.
Quite a popular way of trading Betfair's Football Correct Score market is betting several scores as the match progresses, making sure that a bet is placed on the winning score of course.
I've seen this done quite a few times in video recordings and live via a webinar link.
In every trade that I have seen, the trader concerned has seemed to ad-lib his way through his trade, with bets of different sizes placed to suit what seemed to me to be based on gut feeling as to how the game was progressing, and what the stake size should be.

I never like to see unbalanced staking.
In my opinion, it is much easier to trade out of a position if the stakes have been balanced for an equal profit or loss across all outcomes.
That applies to both Dutching (betting or laying several selections), or Hedging (trading odds movements by betting high and laying low).
About 18 months ago, I was working on an Under 2.5 Goals strategy and built a spreadsheet for Dutching across 2 markets.
I needed to bet several scores in Correct Score, and if the game went according to plan, I could lay those scores to profit.
If goals were scored and the trade went against me, my exit strategy was to bet (Dutch) more scores, making sure I hit the winning score.

After betting several scores, I could exit the market quickly by betting Over 2.5 Goals, or later in the game, Over 3.5 Goals or Over 4.5 Goals.
If we trade across more than one market, our commission only applies in one market, not both markets combined.
If we hit a winner in a single market where we also have losing bets, Betfair deducts the losses of our losing bets from our bet winnings so that we only pay commission on our profit in that market.
If we trade in 2 related markets, losses in a second market will not be deducted before commission is taken off in our winning market.
We may be trading a football match or a horse race in 2 or more markets, but Betfair doesn't combine all markets for a single event.

So, as I was trading Correct Score and Under/Over markets, I needed a spreadsheet to show my profit after commission in both markets.
This week, I have expanded that spreadsheet so that it can be used to lay 17 selections in one market and 8 in another, showing the result of the whole trade across both markets after commission deductions.

This sheet can now also be used to either lay or bet several selections, but I have not combined betting and laying several selections on the same sheet.
That would be a combination of both Dutching and Hedging which would be rather more complicated.
To use this sheet, it is important not to trade the same selection in both markets.
For instance, these would be equivalent markets, so you would not bet (Dutch) both in different markets, or lay (Dutch) both in different markets.
You could Hedge of course by betting in one market, and laying in the other  :-

  • The Scores 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 are the same as Under 1.5 Goals.
  • The Scores 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 2-0, 0-2, 1-1 are the same as Under 2.5 Goals.
  • All the scores with more goals than 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 2-0, 0-2, 1-1 are the same as Over 2.5 Goals.
  • 0-0, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 plus a bit of Any Unquoted are the same as the Draw in Match Odds.
  • All the away scores are the same as the Away Team in Match Odds.
  • Next Goal = No Goal is the same as the current score in Correct Score, throughout the whole game.
  • 2 goals or more in Total Goals is the same as Over 1.5 Goals.
  • 3 goals or more in Total Goals is the same as Over 2.5 Goals.
  • No Goal Scorer in First Goal Scorer is the same as 0-0 in Correct Score

There are plenty of other equivalent markets.
An example below from the Dutch 2 Markets spreadsheet shows some Bet stakes in Correct Score and Match Odds, staking to return £100 including our bet stake..
The bottom section shows bets on the 2 teams in Match Odds.
The Top section shows a couple of bets on draw score lines in Correct Score.
The column that really matters is the end column on the right Net Both Markets.
Net Both Markets shows profit or loss across both markets after commission deductions..
If the game ends 1-1 or 2-2, we win £89.18 in Correct Score.
We have 2 losing bets to take off that in Match Odds on the 2 teams of £53.19 and £21.74.
That leaves us with £14.25 profit, but Betfair will take commission off the £89.18, not the £14.25, so our profit across both markets is £89.18 less 5% commission, less £53.19 and £21.74  = £9.79.
If one of the teams win the game we win £25.07 less commission, minus our 2 losing bets in Correct Score £10.82  = £12.99.
If the game ends witrh a draw score of 3-3, 4-4, 5-5 etc., all our bets are losing bets, so we lose £85.75.
Our Betfair screens in both markets should look like the 3rd column from the right, P & L This Market.

Stake To Return  >>>   100.00 P & L Gross NET
    Betfair   BET This Both mkts Both mkts
Name Goal ODDS Adjust Stakes Market P & L P & L
0 - 0         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
0 - 1         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
0 - 2         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
0 - 3         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
1 - 0         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
1 - 1   21.00   4.76 89.18 14.25 9.79
1 - 2         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
1 - 3         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
2 - 0         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
2 - 1         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
2 - 2   16.50   6.06 89.18 14.25 9.79
2 - 3         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
3 - 0         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
3 - 1         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
3 - 2         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
3 - 3         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
Any Other         -10.82 -85.75 -85.75
Total stakes       10.82      
Match Odds Market         Net P/L
Rovers   1.88   53.19 25.07 14.25 12.99
City   4.60   21.74 25.07 14.25 12.99
Draw         -74.93 -85.75 -85.75
          -74.93 -85.75 -85.75
          -74.93 -85.75 -85.75
          -74.93 -85.75 -85.75
          -74.93 -85.75 -85.75
          -74.93 -85.75 -85.75
Total stakes       74.93      

I need to do more testing of this sheet, and after that, it will be available on my web sites, so if you like a bit of Dutching, this could be a sheet to consider.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

Contact me
Copyright © H. Hutchinson 2009 All rights reserved
Copying text or any other kind of content from a web site is a criminal offence.