Euro 2012 is here and I'm setup ready to go.

There has been a fair amount of low key mumblings about this year's Euro comp. I'm a football fan and love this sort of even... I'm first at work to get the sweep stake under way and as I go round the uneatable talk of who people think will win starts. Of course the big names get mentioned, Spain, Holland and Germany, followed by a few maybe team, France.... um, Portugal?... England?

And so you have it.A few favourites in a field where any could win... but will they? probably not.

I've got two trading ideas here, nothing revolutionary and I expect thousands of others are doing similar.
I'm going to dutch Spain, Germany and Holland. Then back France, England and Portugal independently with the view to trade them out should they make it out of their group.

That puts me in a nice position where I'm green across the favourites. I think I'm in with a shout with at least one of those coming in. (See screen shot)


I've also had a go at the Top Goalscorer market and dutch'ed a few I fancy, RVP, Gomez, Benzema, Torres, Balotelli and Sneijder.
I've also put in Gerrard and Kerzhakov separately. If they score in their first games there is a chance their odds will drop enough for me to trade out.

My other Euro trades will probably all be in-play... hoping for some decent football. I may also do some small accumulators if anything jumps out at me.


As far as the challenge goes... well its still all about the trading. I've had a wobble but I'm still up at £228 from the £50 starting bank.
Identifying my wobble has been a little confusing. I'm putting it down to the poor football that's been on recently and me trying to chase some results. I'm going to try hard to stick to the simple trades and only go for the ones I really fancy... not just the maybe games!

 

'Rolling with the punches'

Took a hit last night. Felt a little like a punch.

What would you do if you got punched...  a proper fight and you get kaboom-ed by a wild left hook. Would you go down crying and refuse to get up? or shake it off and remember not to lean too close to that left hook zone?

Well for me I'm more a stand up and learn guy... ok, so I took a hit with a trade that lost me some money but I'm not going to let that get in the way of progress!

I've broken the £200 mark! (even with the loss yesterday)

I've learnt a lot in my first month and a bit sports trading, number 1 is that in-play stats are key.number 2 is that in-play stats are key. number 3 research is the lock the key fits into.
The sports trader who is blindly putting draw lays on every 0-0 at HT is more gambling than trading, in my opinion.
 I've had a 74% hit ratio with laying the draws at key points, with a 24% ROI which for me is £108.33 clear profit. Now this is by far my best returning strategy. That 74% hit ratio (meaning I've had a return on 75% of the trades I've entered) is down to my above points. In-play stats and research. FedSlam and I do some collaborative research on games we think might be worth a look. Then went we're with the boys at The Sports Trading Academy we are scanning in-play games to see what looks lively, Shots on target and off, attacking plays.... we weigh up if we think a goal will come.

That's just one strategy, there are many. So what do I do when I get a left hook? I take the hit, look at the bigger picture (which for me is all green) and get on with the next trade.


How am I getting on... for now I've held off the gambling as I'm concentrating on SP trading, I'm sure I'll pick it back up when Euro 2012 starts again.
As for SP trading, well... I've had some good nights recently so am relatively happy. One particular trade is standing out as my biggest earner so I've decided to up my stakes on that one only.

Its offical I've made £100!

 Quick update - The 3 trades I made yesterday, two LTD's and two EST-mod's have tipped me over the £100 profit mark. £100.95 to be exact.

I went in early and made a trade via the betfair iphone app... Din Moscow v Kazan A Russian Cup final, pre KO stats looked like goals and it was 0-0 30mins in. I laid a cheeky £5  on the draw at 2.5. it went 0-1 at 78mins and I let the game play out. "Full onions" as they say over at The Sports Trading Academy. I conversation with FedSlam identified a couple of other potential games but by the time I was home nothing looked like it was on too much. However, Dukla Prague v Sparta Prague looked on to me. HT and 0-0 but stats showing plenty of shots. I laid under 1.5goals for £5 at 2.2. Early on it was 1-0 then 1-1, money save! I decided to put some of that back on the draw at 2.06 but it played out to be 1-1 so came away 30p down over all.
Whilst that was going on FedSlam gave me a shout for Dinamo Zargreb, it had been on my radar but I'd not looked close. 0-0 and shot-tastic so I laid under 1.5 goals for £5 at a bargain 1.96. The game ended 3-2 I think. I didn't trade out at 1-0 as it looked like goals.

Nothing else took my fancy and all potential EST and LTD's had already gone 1-0 so I left it at that. Overall I was green £9.70 which was enough to break the £100 mark and put me at £150.95 in total.

What a weekend... Epic

My trading account challenge has had a massive lift off in recent days! I'm pretty happy with where it is right now. Remember my starting bank was £50, I'm now up to £138.89 at time of writing this!

I'm almost at the point where I think its not worth me carrying on with my gambling challenge!

Here are the details so far.

How have I got here? well I decided to keep it simple - I stopped doing some of the feature trades, not because they aren't good but because I'm dealing in small amounts. I stuck to LTD (Lay the Draw) and EST trades - check out http://thesportstradingacademy.com/ or Robbo's blog for what that is.

I also kept the prices down and went with in game stats rather than any preconceptions of the teams.

Here is a sneak look at my LTD results for the 6th May 2012.
You'll see from those alone I made £21.40 profit from a £52.50 investment (the lay) which is a 40% ROI
I've not won big... but I've not lost big either.

To put that in perspective, for all trades on the 6th May I made a £28.71 profit from a £106.50 investment which is a 26.9% ROI and my over all LTD return is currently at 28% from 33 trades.
The 8/10 strike rate is pretty good too, I called some of those myself but some came via http://thesportstradingacademy.com/

Gambling I lost again putting me at £49.24.... there is a clear winner here I think!

Having spoken to FedSlam a fair amount about this and current tactics I think I'm going to carry on as I am until I get to a point where I'm comfortable putting a little more liability on each trade. If I can keep a ROI of above 30% long term then I'm doing well
Looking for games that are drawing or 1-0, 0-1 and shouldn't be then analysis of the in play stats is the way forward for me.

I Lost £5 I Won £5, that's just how it goes.

Gambling Challenge £55.24 - 9.5% ROI

I put £5 on Barca to beat Chelsea and Luton to beat Gateshead (how much further away from each outer could those two games be!!) anyway, Barca did me an injustice but being next to useless. The late equaliser from Torres meant the bet went out the window. so £5 down.
Whilst I was trading I noticed a good bet for this challenge during some Serie A games. I put £1.64 on Juve to beat Cesena, Milan to beat Genoa and Inter to beat Udinese. All of which came in so I netted £6.86 making a nice £5.22 profit.

Looking ahead to the weekends game I've decided to pick the following bet. I'm effectivly going on team I don't think will get a win and betting against them.

Swansea v Wolves - Swansea win @ 4/7

West Brom v Aston Villa - West Brom win @ 11/10

Tottenham v Blackburn - Tottenham win @ 2/5

They are all home wins which hopefully will go in my favor. £2 bet will return £9.24 if it comes in. 

Trading Challenge £69 - 38% ROI


Made a few trades over the last couple of days... to many to list individually. Again I'm only doing it with small amounts.


A highlight is a strategy suggested to me by Robbo over at www.thesportstradingacademy.com called Goals Galore. I won't go into details as it would be worth joining just to find it out. I only played it with half stakes but still came away with a nice £10.50 profit. The game involved Haken v IFK Gotenborg and required there to be goals in the game for a decent return. Stakes were placed pre KO and during once a specific event happened.

A low light is the Barcelona v Chelsea game. When the red card happened I traded out for a loss of £7.84 across all bets. I had CS on for this and none of them 2-2 so selling them on was a good move!

I had a couple of decent LTD (lay the draw) results, Shinnik v Ural and Milan v Fenoa which keeps up my trend of LTD having the best return so far (110%)

Not sure what I'll be putting on coming up but I expect it will be something.

Progress Graphs

Up and Down

OK so I'm going to start off with the gambling side of things as that didn't work out so well for me this weekend.

Gambling Challenge

I went with Newcastle to beat Stoke and Spurs to beat QPR... bankers, right? wrong..
Newcastle did their stuff and comfortably beat Stoke... but Spurs, oh dear dear me.
I'd have thought they would have been right up for this game, pushing had for 4th but I guess you shouldn't underestimate a team fighting relegation!
£5 lost

Trading Challenge

Trading... well, this is where the up and down comes in. Good news, I ended the night on £3.47 in the green. I was up to £19.91 at one point but a few results went against me and traded out in the red. But still managed a green over all.

I made a total of 15 trades but not on my own this time. I signed up to group called The Sports trading Academy (www.thesportstradingacademy.com) who are a friendly bunch giving tips, suggestions and help on what to do.

I'm not going to report on every single trade I do as it would take up too much room and I don't expect anybody cares... but I will summarise what I do. Happy to give details if asked.

Below are some details on my ROI and how much... as you can see I'm playing small

I traded on 3 LTD (Lay The Draw) suggestions they gave and all 3 came in. I'm not playing with big money here but came out with £14.72 from that little lot.

I also got some good green from Laying a team 2-0 up against stronger opposition then trading out when they equalised.

I lost out on a few CS (Correct scores) and laying under 1.5 goal (Liverpool v West Brom)
I'm not too keen on the CS options so will watch others doing those for a few runs before I have another go.

Reports & Graphs

Standard Trading vs Gambling Chart

An new chart which shows the same as above but per trade rather than date

And the Final results - Clear winner at the moment.

Epic Fail!!

My little test was indeed an epic fail.

ManU vs Villa I came up 50p in the red
Sunderland vs Wolves I was £3 in the red
Norwich vs Man City I was £1.14 in the green

So a total loss of  £3.36

Had Wolves or Sunderland nicked a goal I would have been in a good place. It also goes to show that it's not worth it with odds so short, such as Uniteds.
I made a fundamental mistake when working out the returns on the bets and not taking into account the cost of putting the bet on! school boy error 

Current status for my betting £50 challenge.
Balance    £60.02
P/L    £10.02
P/L %    20%
Won    £72.09
Lost    £62.07


I had a go at some sports trading with the Chelsea vs Spurs game. Laying off Chelsea for the win at 0-1 with a liability of £5.30
When Spurs scored to make it 1-2 I had the chance to cash out at a loss of 14p but stayed in for the education. I ended up losing it all but I learnt something so it wasn't a complete loss.
 I'm going to take that from my £50 Trading pot... so I'm at £44.70 for my Buy/Sell
I've had a good chat with Fed (check his blog out) around what I did and why it happened so I have a rough idea going into my next trading adventure what I want to do and when I should pull out.

All betting odds are paddypower.com and all trading are betfair.com

Change in tactic today

Change in tactic today... I thought I'd try something a little diffrent. I've decided to try doing some cover bets. This might turn out to be stupid but I thought I'd have a go.

£1.00 - Prem - Man U v Villa, Villa @ 12/1
£2.00 - Prem - Man U v Villa, United @ 1/4
£1.00 - Prem - Sunderland v Wolves, Wolves @ 11/2
£2.00 - Prem - Sunderland v Wolves, Sunderland @ 8/15
£1.00 - Prem - Norwich v Man City, Norwich @ 5/1
£2.00 - Prem - Norwich v Man City, City @ 4/7

So...
If Villa win I get £13 back minus the £2 it cost me to bet on United  = £11 profit
If United win I get £2.50 minus the £1 is cost me to bet on Villa = £1.50 profit
If its a draw, I'm out of luck and lose £3

Similar story for the other matches. Worth a try I thought.

All odds are paddypower.com

United have done me!

As per my last post I put £5 on the below triple accumulator.

Prem- Wolves v Arsenal, Arsenal win @ 4/9 Prem - Wigan v Man U, United win @ 2/5 Prem - Man City v West Brom, City win @ 2/7

Arsenal beat wolves, City beat the baggies... and United.... unbelievable.
They lost 1-0 to wigan. wigan!!, who haven't beaten them or even taken a point of them in the premiership, ever. So I guess that's why they call it gambling... but come on, really?!?

So where does that put me? Still in profit for one, £63.38 which is an ROI of 27% so its not all doom and gloom. Will take a look at what's coming up at the weekend and post again. Must remember to stay away from Aintree!

On a side note, I bottled trying some football trading last night, sorry Fed.
I launched the application to give it a go. I get the principle behind some of the basic strategies but when the software is up in front of you and its your money on the line it suddenly becomes a little daunting!
I'm using some free  software called GeeksToy which is recommended highly by a few keen sports traders. Still trying to get my head round it but once I'm there I'll start to post what I'm doing.

A few Premiership games on tonight... a few 'bankers' in there in my opinion so it would be rude not to have a punt on them.

I've put £5 down on a triple accumulator which will return £13 if it comes in.

Prem- Wolves v Arsenal, Arsenal win @ 4/9 Prem - Wigan v Man U, United win @ 2/5 Prem - Man City v West Brom, City win @ 2/7

I might also use one of these games for my test on football trading. Fed's blog has some good info on it which I'm looking to have a go at.

It's been a few weeks since I last posted... Holidays seem to have gotten in the way a little bit. That said the experiment hasn't stopped and below are my latest update.

I'm up to £68.38 making a profit so far of £18.38 or 37%

I was up to £83.44 at one point after winning £35.06 from £6.62 on Arsenal, Barcelona & Everton to win in a triple accumulator.
I also won on Phil Mickelson placing at the masters.

Here is a list of my bets so far... hopefully you can read it.- all odds are via paddypower.com

 

A friend of my has introduced me to Sports Trading - I'm going to take a look at this, try and understand it then invest one of the other £50's I have for this experiment. More too follow on that.