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Trading

When Betfair exploded into the world of betting it opened all kinds of new ways to bet to investors worldwide. For the first time you could Lay a horse to lose as well as Back it to win. With this introduction of the Lay bet came the ability to Trade an event.

When we Trade we are not concerened at all with the outcome of the event in any way shape or form, we are merely trying to predict the movements of the odds. If we get the movements correct we make a profit (we can even lock this profit to a guaranteed position no matter what happens in the event) if we get this price movement wrong however we will make a loss but but this is proportionate to how wrong we get the prediction. When we trade part of the skill is to escape a bad position quickly to get out with the least amount of damage to your bank.

You are after a position when you trade to get the Lay odds lower than the Back odds, to achieve this we need to predict whether the odds are going to move out and lengthen or move in and shorten. Depending on how we view this depends on the way we start the trade, Bet-IE can help and also using the Money Meters and Graphs can help also.

Bet-IE helps you trade with a number of tools that can help and she will also offer a prompt to a likely movement when certain criteria are triggered from the Live market.

We look for a clear imbalance of the odds and money available this will give us a clear signal that the price is likely to change and because of the volume of money behind the odds the trend should continue, when we watch the money meters we can quickly identify when the opposition to the trend starts to build and so its time to get out of our position hopefully with a nice profit locked in. If you spend a little time watching these meters you will soon see how easy the movements can be seen prior to them occuring.

Lets see some of the things Bet-IE can Help us with while Trading

Here is the main Trading window

You can see the Betting Table (the central columns) this is "Live" and to submit bets you simply click on the Odds for either Back (blue column) or Lay (pink column) depending on your chosen staking and whether you have selected AutoHedge or not your stake is automatically calculated and entered for you.

We have the option of AutoHedge this equalises the profit no matter what the stake size is to guarantee a green screen providing you have predicted the correct movement. Notice the staking in the Betting Table this is the AutoHedge being demonstrated. If we Lay Barwise Minstrel at the current Odds of 4.5 for £10 and in a few seconds the price drifts to 4.6 we can see in the Back Column that we would be placing a stake of £9.78 at 4.6 this would green up our profit to £0.22 across all the runners.

The Betting Table will relay to you the exact position you find yourself in Live, leaving you to just trade your position.

We set our Staking into the Yellow Trading Stake box and depending on whether you are AutoHedging or just using the same Back and Lay stake (uncheck the AutoHedge box) we see our staking within the Betting Table.

We have a basic Stoploss available where you can enter the odds and stakes you would like the stoploss to trigger into the market at. This is useful if you find yourself holding onto bad positions constantly hoping for them to turn in your favour, this is very dangerous when Trading and should not be done so if you need to, set the stoploss a couple of ticks below or above the position you start your trade from.

If we decide not to AutoHedge and we want to Build our position on an individual runner, maybe a favourite we like the winning chance of. We simply uncheck the AutoHedge button and the Betting Table changes to show this....

If we Lay As Time Slips By in this position at 3.7 for £10 we have a liability of £27 if As Time Slips By's Back odds then drifted to 3.9 we could Back at 3.9 for £10 giving us a profit of £29 so in this case we would make £2 profit should As Time Slips BY Win the race or we lose "zero" if she doesn't win, so a "free bet".

We lose "zero" because our Lay Stake is £10 and so is our Back Stake 10 - 10 = 0. It is still possible to equalise the profit among all the runners, all you need to do is click the Equalise Profits button and your profit figure is divided by the current Lay odds to spread that profit equally among all the runners in the event creating a no lose position. It is recommended if using smaller stakes as above to use the Auto Hedge as the profit using smaller stakes may not be divisable to green up the field.

Now to Help with the movement of the odds Bet-IE has Graphs available and Money Meters to acces both of these features either key F1 on the keyboard or right click the mouse in the F1 box and select show graphs and then select Money Meters

The above boxes open and can be positioned anywhere on the interface the graph is the familiar Price vs Volume over time graph and refreshes live from Betfair. The Money meters are the usual
Bet-IE meters. Using the sliding Bar we are looking for a clear weight to one side of the bar and we look to start the trade with the smallest amount of the bar available (in the above case it is not clear cut but you would start by potentially Laying Alrita Lilac (15%) although there is no weight of money to back this trade up as yet.

The Money Bar Graphs feature the last 3 refreshes of the market, frame 1 is the current market refresh, then frame 2, then frame 3. This is particularly useful for seeing the money building one side of the trade or the other also when a definate weight is indicated to one side of the trade or the other you will get a prompt from Bet-IE the prompt given is the starting point of the trade.

All this may seem a lot to take in but to summarise

• Select an event
• Select a runner
• Open the Trade function
• Start the market refreshing
• Select to either AutoHedge or not
• Enter a Stake
• Use the Betting Table by clicking the odds in the Back or Lay column to submit bets instantly.

Your position is clearly visible to you at all times using the Betting Tables just don't get too greedy, its better to take smaller regular profits than hold out for a big single profit as this can often leave you in a position of making a larger loss. Your number one priority should be to not leave your Bank open to a big hit, protect your bank at all times. Taking a small loss is easily recoverable whereas a big loss is harder to recover.