Laying horses outright

[scottyboy]

Hi guys, so I am looking at making £200 a day from laying 1 horse a day. I plan on just looking through the form and laying anything up to 11.0 which I think will lose. I then plan on watching the race and backing it if it looks like it may win.

Does anyone deploy any tactics like this?

What will be the best place to watch the race? (betfair live stream faster than attheadverts?)

If I back a horse that looks like winning say 2 or 3f out, will I be able to get on for about £1-2,000?

Thanks,
Scotty

[scottyboy]

Does anyone have any advice?

[urbanhermit]

Hi Scottyboy

I've looked at laying in some detail and I think you are talking about laying and trading out in running.

For outright lays i.e. not backing in running, I'd never lay a horse at over 4.0 - anything over than that and your liabilities could be huge.

My advice would be to go to Caan Berry's site - he is on here as Chuck (I think) and he has some really good stuff on his site and the pre-race book is great.

Coming back to your strategy, making £200 x 5 days per week is great on paper, but you would need to have the following:

1) Dedicated software and live pictures - I'd go for at the races because if betfair goes down, you're screwed.
2) A decent sized bank
3) Most importantly - a lot of discipline - I recommend that you read Trading In The Zone by Mark Douglas.
4) Experience - yes, the top traders make good money trading on betfair but in my opinion, it takes a lot of time to get to that stage - allow yourself a year or two to become proficient in it. You need to go through the market cycles.

In conclusion, I'd avoid any in-running stuff until you have a lot of experience in the markets.

Hope that helps.

[scottyboy]

Hi Scottyboy

I've looked at laying in some detail and I think you are talking about laying and trading out in running.

For outright lays i.e. not backing in running, I'd never lay a horse at over 4.0 - anything over than that and your liabilities could be huge.

My advice would be to go to Caan Berry's site - he is on here as Chuck (I think) and he has some really good stuff on his site and the pre-race book is great.

Coming back to your strategy, making £200 x 5 days per week is great on paper, but you would need to have the following:

1) Dedicated software and live pictures - I'd go for at the races because if betfair goes down, you're screwed.
2) A decent sized bank
3) Most importantly - a lot of discipline - I recommend that you read Trading In The Zone by Mark Douglas.
4) Experience - yes, the top traders make good money trading on betfair but in my opinion, it takes a lot of time to get to that stage - allow yourself a year or two to become proficient in it. You need to go through the market cycles.

In conclusion, I'd avoid any in-running stuff until you have a lot of experience in the markets.

Hope that helps.

Many thanks for the reply urbanhermit.

What software are you talking about? Geek's Toy Pro?

I will also use things like ProForm software, Racing Post app and ATR websites to form my opinion. As well as sites like OLBG etc. And of course watch the racing and find horses that are handicapped out of contention etc.

My bank will be less than £10,000 so I want to make sure I have the correct strategy before diving in. £5,000 will probably be my budget.

As you said, I believe discipline is the most important factor - considering I will be coming from a mug punting background I know first-hand how easy it is to lose your head.

I have been messing around with the Demo mode on GT so am getting the hang of it now.

May I ask what strategy you use? Scalping/Swing trading etc?

Thanks,
Scottyboy

[urbanhermit]

Hi Scottyboy

I'm still very much a newbie and only use demo mode at the moment - I've not watched enough markets to be confident that I'm good enough to make money yet!

I happen to use Bet Trader but any software seems to be fine - I traded a race earlier that was a B2L strategy. The Racing Post ratings suggested the favourite was the strongest, so I put a back bet on and then laid in running but I was watching ATR and could see the horse was leading. Trading with a theoretical bank of £3000, I was able to make a £62 profit (hedged on all runners) I also used a stop loss so if the trade had gone against me, I knew what I was losing.

My short-term goal is to strart trading with real money because that is psychologically different but I'll only do so, once I have some understanding about how the markets work.

I'm now only trying to scalp races where the favourite is 1.40 or below - this means the market is less likely to bounce around but again, I use a stop loss there as well.

What I HAVE learnt, is that money management is critical so, if you have £5000 bank, you'd risk £500 per trade and then have a stop less of 10% of that i.e. £50, or 1% of your main bank.

If you haven't already done so, go to Caan Berry's youtube channel as there is a wealth of information there.

Good luck on your journey.