Error, Now edited. You only pay comission when you win!

Re-post 156
I have never been on one of his courses, but I can personally vouch for Scrip's skills, abilities and integrity. Anything he does, he does very well.
Richard

I attended the first course last Nov. At the risk of embarrassing Peter, the best way I can comment on it is to quote from an email I sent him shortly thereafter:

"I have never been on a course before where the presenter was so enthusiastic about his subject. Not only did it shine through, but it never faltered even into the two hours of extra time and beyond.

"You may be interested to know that I have put your principles to work immediately, and over the weekend and today had 13/13 winners!! Only £2 stakes, so most of the winnings are in pence (9 under 10p), but an excellent learning exercise, and most encouraging, although obviously some of that is down to good luck rather than good judgment!

"One of the things that has particularly struck me is the wisdom of taking tiny chunks out of the market regularly, even at the lowest of odds. Previously I had never even considered going for one tick, especially at low odds, seduced as I was by the large gains apparently offered at long odds - now I know better!"

The only proviso I would make is that you 'must' learn how Betfair works, especially backing and laying, before you go on the course, otherwise you are in danger of being left behind before the first coffee break!

A good introduction is the book 'Lay, back and think of winning' by Nigel Paul. Digest that and you'll have no problem keeping up with the course.

Thanks Pip, that's very helpful. I've just received Nigel Paul's book today.

Can one pursue betting exchange trading if one is in full-time employment and cannot monitor the betting exchange sites during the day? My employer won't take it very kindly if I am seen browsing the betfair website at work.

The biggest volume markets are on horse racing and football. Tennis and Cricket are creaping up fast. The most active from a traders viewpoint is horse racing. Around £500m-750m a month. On the Oaks at Epsom today there was around £2.7m traded and most of that in just before the race started. As such you really need to be at the screen to trade. The horses in the summer run into evening events to plenty of activity from mid afternoon to late and most soccer is in the evening. So you can trade and make money but all the pros are behind the screen most of the time.

Wow! I think I've arrived late in here. Maybe this is what I've been looking for!
Scripophilist - I presume you do this for your living? (I hope it's ok to ask this). I'll have a look back thoroughly for info on yourselve over the weekend.
Something I wondered about betfair is are they allowed to let the trading on the big events go to whatever amount is placed ir do they cap it??
I'm fed up with subscribing to services that are as much use as me throwing a dart at the racing post to select the horse!

Punting is dead for sure. Probably as is traditional bookmaking.

I guess I was lucky in joining Betfair so early as I have had five years of practice (I joined Betfair almost the day it started for business) and have seen the market evolve and change over that time. There are some very serious traders on Betfair and its a great way to trade.

I originally started on Betfair & Flutter arbing golf tournaments. I would place an offer on the market wait for it to get matched and then lay it off elsewhere. Was great business but as always the market changed and so did my expectations and it no longer worked. So along with other serious users I started looking at all ways to make money from the exchanges. I think I have tried or tested virtually every strategy over those five years.

I guess it was useful that I had done my research on sports events many years before so I hit the ground running. I doubt whether there are many people in the UK that have the knowledge I do on Soccer for example. But each market operates under different parameters and styles. The are few one fits all strategies.

"Something I wondered about betfair is are they allowed to let the trading on the big events go to whatever amount is placed ir do they cap it??"

There is no cap on volume the market just trades as it wishes. On the US presidential election I think around £13m was traded throughout the night.

Betfair is what I would define as the 'perfect' market.

I think the biggest issues the market and the people using face are mainly psychological.

People using them can't escape the feeling they are lumping £1k on the favourite in the 16:00 at Wolverhampton rather than trading it and from the outside people see the exchanges as just a place to get a better price which they view as gambling when in fact it is no longer like that at all. You will face the same issues (but with a different slant) on exchanges as you see in 'normal' risk markets.

But you also see common themes such as large volume being an indicator of a reversal in a price trend.

But as always there are caveats and on the exchanges each sport has its own characteristics.

Thank you for taking time to answer my questions. Your right. I've used betfair on and off to get a better price and as an easy way to bet over the last few years. I sort of getting what you are saying. I'm thinking you mean you use betfair as the money men use say the ftse to trade with? Am I going in the right direction here?
Anyway. If you run a course you probably don't want to reveal your trade secrets (understandably).