Doing well so far...

Sports Trading Bank @ £61.58
 I had a good crack at some basic low value sports trading last night and came out £11.59 in the green!

I'm no expert at this sort of thing so I'm keeping it simple and using a basic strategy of laying off the team winning when I think there is a chance the other team are going to come back into it.
I try not to expose myself too much either so use low amounts.

As you can see I even had a go with the Darts when The Power Taylor went into the lead. Defending Champ Lewis always had a chance of coming back.

Sports Gambling Bank @ £55.02
The Gambling challenge was matching it blow for blow, the above amount includes my latest punt.

I've decided to go £5 on Spurs to beat QPR away and Newcastle to beat Stoke at home.
Spurs will know they need to win games to fend off Newcastle's challenge for 4th and I don't think QPR have it in them to put up a real fight.
Newcastle in the same vein will want 4th and with Cisse and Ben Arfa on fire Stoke shouldn't have much of a chance here.

I've done £5 double on both results, Suprs at 19/20 and Stoke at 8/11 which means £5 will return £16.84

all odds are from paddypower.com

Overall Graph

Here is how the Challenge is looking so far... I started SP Trading a lot later so I haven't had as much chance to lose yet. Time will tell but I expect it to be more of a steady up than the gambling line which will probably continue to fluctuate.

They call it going Green! I call it a Win!

Had my first proper go at a bit of sports trading last night (excluding that first test fail I did)

I was working late on call for my real job and had a look at a Brazilian Cup game.

Arsenal FC vs Fluminense

Fluminense looked like they were going to score so I laid Arsenal FC early for £10 at 3.2 (£22 liability) then when Fluminense scored I backed them for £4.71 at 8 giving me £32.97 if they won.

Fluminense won the game so I walked away with £5.29 profit (see screen shot)
 I could have made more by holding out for a bigger price on Arsenal FC, they went to 12 at one point but they also pulled a goal back a dropped so I did the right thing.
I used www.betfair.com and the Cash out option... I'm yet to use Geek Toy in anger, I'm waiting to learn the principles before taking on the tool

So I'm off to a start with my Sports Trading... will be looking to make small amounts as often as I can.

Here is how the challenge is looking so far.

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.