Review -- Bet Angel Courses.

[The Geek]

I noticed on the Bet Angel forum today that there is a little tet-a-tet going on about their courses.

Now being that I have seen them pull posts / threads containing unfavourable comments on their courses, and also pulling complaints about those posts being pulled, I think it's about time we had a thread dedicated to the subject.

Of the traders I speak to on skype, the feedback from those whom they have spoken to who have been on the courses has generally not been positive.
I also stumbled across this thread on UK betting tips last night, which again is not positive.

So we have the Bet Angel perspective, as obviously Peter Webb wants your money, and we have mine, which is I don't trust anything I read about them on their forum, & if I were paying £400 I would want good value from them. { For that kind of money, one to one mentoring too. }

So putting those opposing opinions aside, myself {and I'm sure many people to come} would be interested in hearing objective & honest feedback from existing members who have attended these courses as to what value they got from them? Also, a score out of 10 for value for money. 1 being a waste, & 10 being the best £400 you ever spent.

Now I know a few of you talk to each other on Skype etc, so if you haven't been on the course yourself, but know someone that has, what feedback did you receive from them about the course from them?

Please only post here if you have contributed to the community prior to today.

[YoungTrader]

wow his mate lost £1300 the next day using the methods he was taught.. maybe I'm blunt but it is legal to think for yourself ie using minimum stakes till he was sure the methods worked

anyway, haven't been to the course and don't plan on it. from what I've heard it's just an introduction to BA.

[BruceLee1973]

anyway, haven't been to the course and don't plan on it. from what I've heard it's just an introduction to BA.

Thats what i have heard to.

[rjmcgee]

I've spoken to several traders who attended the course, none of them felt they got their money's worth at all. Despite being marketed to "experienced" traders it really only teaches the basics and little more. The book he hands out contains a few useful pages relating to soccer and tennis probabilities but the horse racing content is very poor, introductory level stuff that anyone should be able to figure out by themselves in their first few months of trading.

[Emkayracing]

Too many people want to be next Adam Heathcote, that's the problem.

If they set the fee at £99 there wouldn't be as many takers because people would think to themselves 'Hang on, why is it so cheap? - can't be of much use'. At £400 the thought is 'It must be worth it, I am going to learn all sorts of secrets'.

People are always seeking the elusive golden ticket to Heathcotesville - some get on the wrong bus (To Nuggetsville ) but that's their look-out.

Rule one must always be about money management / protecting your bank. £30 for an e-book here, £100 for some software subscriptions there - it soon mounts up. Spending a few days using free software and £2 stakes clocks up your trading experience hours and that's what counts at the end of the day.

You don't pay £400 for a one day course, subscribe to some new software and then expect to wake up with a huge BF balance - that just isn't realistic. If you put the hours in, learn all about the software that you are most comfortable with and manage your trading bank sensibly you'll be on the right track.

The most common mistakes are over-confidence and over-staking. Sounds like you get taught all about these on the BetAngel course

[The Geek]

Rule one must always be about money management / protecting your bank. £30 for an e-book here, £100 for some software subscriptions there - it soon mounts up. Spending a few days using free software and £2 stakes clocks up your trading experience hours and that's what counts at the end of the day.

You don't pay £400 for a one day course, subscribe to some new software and then expect to wake up with a huge BF balance - that just isn't realistic. If you put the hours in, learn all about the software that you are most comfortable with and manage your trading bank sensibly you'll be on the right track.

The most common mistakes are over-confidence and over-staking. Sounds like you get taught all about these on the BetAngel course

I agree with you there. { Well excpet that you should learn the money managment aspect first & not waste your £400. }

In my mind, the £400 is in a similar vein to the eBooks etc. Especially since the inception of the ST forum & now here, when most of that advice is freely available from the community. This is why I think these courses are an absolute waste of money.

I do think that there is potential benefit for some people to be had from one to one mentoring, because the client - tutor interaction caters for your needs more. { I'm just against the ethics & professionalism of some of those that offer it. }

[The Geek]

You know I just read something that made me chuckle.

Going back some months when Blagger started flogging EasyBlaggerPro, Peewee had a rather unsubtle snipe at him on the blog.





I made a comment at the time about the Pot calling the Kettle black, as Peewee is the master snake oil salesman, and makes Blagger look like a rank amateur.

Anyway in the early days of this forum, Mulberryhawk asked for advice on BetAngel courses here. I gave him my opinion & pointed him to the above blog post as that says it all.

When I look today the post has had some rather subtle changes made to it.





It's quite amusing to see the effect I have on Peter Webb, and the lengths he goes to screw more money from people when it's already coming out of his ears..

[The Geek]

£1 says this one is Pewee

First post & some interesting similarities in writing style.



It's amazing how people can be trading for ages, sign up to forums, never once contribute to a single forum discussion & then like buses two come along within an hour of each other singing the same song when we're having a debate about it on here.

Could be coincidence, but I've seen far too many coincidences in the past where Bet Angel are concerned.

You know I reckon Peewee has his own little Geek Voodo doll to stick pins in.

[Boo]

The ammendment to the Snake oil salesman spiel would be more accurate with the inclusion of one letter 'Paying for practical advice is a fine'

[pedro]

In the time it took me to write this offline, there have been other posts, my intention is not to repeat - we just happen to be using similar phrases!

Although I am not a major contributor to the forum, I hope that I have contributed enough to give credibiltiy to my views.
I went on one of Peter Webb's trading courses a few years ago before I went full time trading, so any opinion I express may well be out of date as the
course has probably changed quite a bit.
Before writing this review I had a look through my course notes that I made at the time. At the top of my first page in capitals and underlined in red,
I have written: There are 2 rules to trading - (1) Protect your Bank. (2) Never forget Rule 1.
Anyone who has lost a lot of money after the course clearly didn't listen to the key learning point!

The course was no Holy Grail. It did not provide a 'do this' 'do that' and take your profit. It provided general principles and techniques to interpret. There were no definitive rules to follow.

The first part of the day focused quite a lot on Football trading, which didn't particularly interest me so that part was a bit slow for me. Once we got onto the Racing I found it more useful. He explained different characteristics of different types of races and some general principles of predicting how you might expect to see the market move. I found a lot of this stuff to be quite useful. He then looked at different techniques for entering the market and which techniques to use and when. When the racing started he demonstrated the techniques live and that was very good to see the theory being put into practice.

Maybe I got lucky and was on a good course, maybe some people expect too much from it. I do know that whatever you learn and wherever you learn it from, you have to put it into practice and do a lot more learning for yourself. Getting any good at trading is about putting in the hours in a productive way and getting experience.

When I did the course there was very little information around in the form of blogs, forums and videos so it was reasonable value for money for me at £400 so I would score it at 7/10. However, in today's environment with so much information around, you can learn a lot from self study if you are willing to do the research. With the wealth of information around today I would probably score the course at 2/10 for value for money. But I suppose a lot depends on the value of £400 to you personally.

When I have the time, I will write up a bit of a 'Better way to spend your £400' guide for newbies. A sort of 'How to use your time and money productively to learn how to read the markets' type of thing.

And by the way, no, this will not be a pre-ebook release or any of that sort of nonsense. Don't waste your money on those.

[neeeel]

I have contributed to the current betangel thread, as from personal experience I know that some people come away from the course thinking that they now know how to trade, and dive in with big stakes , then get burned big time, either straight away or after a small period of success. It seems contradictory that I came away with a confident feeling, because, looking back, I dont think I gained a great deal of knowledge from the course. there was some good stuff about how class of race, number of runners, etc may affect the market, maybe one or two other nuggets I picked up. I am prepared to admit that it was likely to do with my listening skills and general state of mind that I didnt pick up as much info as I could have. There was a lot of basic info about how trading works, along with some PnL bragging and pointless demo trades that I think could have been left out.
In the forum, BetAngel state that they now do a long session at the start of the course about bankroll management which I hope helps people. I went on the course nearly 2 years ago now, so it will probably have changed a lot. The course manual, as someone says in a post above, was pretty useless for me.

I think the guy in the betangel thread who says he is looking for £15 a race is in for a big shock after he does the course, and will be heading for disaster. Even if there is a session on bankroll management, he might have a large bankroll and think he is covered, but if u are using big stakes even a large-seeming bankroll can dissapear quickly if u dont know what u are doing, and I dont think he will be discouraged on the course from using big stakes

[westerner]

The biggest disappointment of the course for me was that there was 19 of us!

19 x £400 = A lot of money!

For the cost I was expecting to feel more 'involved' than I was. In the end it felt more like a seminar.

Peter is a very good speaker which makes it even more frustrating as you just knew that under the right circumstances you would be able to get a lot of benefit from listening/speaking to him on a one on one basis. The environment just wasn't right for that with so many others there.

I'm still a user of the BD software (although the Toy is now my preferred option) but I wouldn't pay to go on another course.

[Cran]

The biggest disappointment of the course for me was that there was 19 of us!

19!

That's redicalus

[The Geek]

19!

That's redicalus

Could be ridicolous even.

[jibiko]

That's redicalus

Could be ridicolous even.

could be also, b...b...bbbut redicalus is better