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.

School Boy mistakes some times come good!

ok, I' m obviously very new to sports trading and it goes with out saying I've made some very school boy mistakes over the last month. Silly things such as looking at a very low Draw lay price whilst its still 0-0 at 20mins, thinking that's great, slapping £5 on it and an then realising its the half time market!
"Bright. Less speed more haste!" a phrase often shouted at me in my school days as I be running through the corridors repeatedly dropping things and having to go back to pick them up.
I made another one over this weekend.
I thought I'd have a look at the F1. Qualifying had just finished, I click on the Spanish GP to see what odds were about. Maybe I could spot something that might trade lower in race.
One price stood out at me. I had a second look. Yep that really did say 400. Pastor Maldonado, just qualified 2nd in the Spanish GP, had £4 worth of odds at 400 available. Of course I took it. Who wouldn't right? well, maybe me if I'd been looking properly!
I had indeed clicked on the Spanish GP in betfair, but that had only given a drop down of markets available. The odds on the screen were still the odds for each driver to win the championship! Nuts... is about the 3rd thought that entered my head.
I did sit on it for a few moments, then it occurred to me that Maldonado was still 2nd on the grid (later to be 1st as Hamilton got a 'back of the grid' penalty) there is a very good chance that he might trade lower than 400 in race. So I worked out the best odds to get my money back and maybe a little something. I placed a lay at 160 for £10 and left it. At this point I didn't know about the penalty for Hamilton, the price I put in was picked to allow me to realistically get matched whilst still getting something out of it.
Fast forward to next day, I've come in from football and the race has about 15 laps to go. Maldonado is winning! I have a look and his Championship odds were down as low as 60! I have a look at my bets and my 160 lay had been matched 30mins after I'd taken 400 back. I was green £6 across any driver for the F1 Championship and its conclusion still months away!

I guess sometimes a School Boy mistake sometimes does come good, but I wouldn't bank on it!, and yes... sometimes I did make it to class with out dropping anything.

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.

More of the same... maybe a tactic change needed?

I'll start with the football betting side of things first... Swansea Wolves was a draw and so  was West Brom Villa... that put me out of winning anything.... Current balance is at £53.24.
Need to pick some winners... My Sports trading has opened my eyes to other leagues so may have to have a look outside of the big prem and euro games.

Sports Trading, Sat and Sun I made a total of 19 trades and came out 45p up!! Balance £68.84
I took a hammering on a couple of trades, a Dutch on CS for RIo Ave v Benfica being one of them, turns out Rio are better that we thought!

What did do me well and made me back some of the red was with EST trades. I netted a total of £28.77 from them alone, 9 trades with 8/9 hit rate. In other words I only lost money on 1 of the 9 trades
I did two dutch CS trades and came out £1 in the red.

So from here on I'm going to do simple trades. Like EST and LTD to see if it changes the way my trading graph looks.

If you want to know more about what these trades are take a look at http://thesportstradingacademy.com/

As you can see... I had a dip but made it back. I think they call that variance!

Over all there is still a clear winner.... more to come!

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.