What Happens When I Ask Two Questions to Three Genuine Pro Betfair Traders?
Hi Guys, Ryan here from www.betfairtradingcommunity.com and I decided that it would be worth while to send a couple of top betfair trading professionals a couple of questions about betfair trading and trading on the exchanges which I am sure you guys would be dying to know the answers too. The questions for the betfair traders are nice and simple:
1) What’s the one thing you do everyday to help set up your trading day?
2) What’s the one thing that you cannot trade without, could be a stats site etc…? (Excluding software)
The first trader I spoke to was Steve (itsamugsblog)
Steve Howe – Itsamugsblog
For those of you who don’t know Steve, here is what he had to say for a brief intro on him (You’ll spot the brief pun soon)!
I found Betfair in 2004 and immediately knew that this was something special that I could profit from. How lucky to make a living watching Sport? What other career can you do in your pants?
My specialty is racing. An endless supply of events to trade and due to the quantity there are plenty of opportunities to find some profit. I run a program to mentor aspiring traders to make money from trading. www.itsamugsblog.co.uk
The Questions
1) What’s the one thing you do everyday to help set up your trading day?
My style of trading means I have very little preparation to do. However, I cannot just turn up at my desk 5 minutes before the 1st race and trade. I like to have 40 minutes where “tune in”. I’ll scan through every race and get a basic understanding of what I have to work with. I’ll get my software running and make sure my backs up systems are working. If you are using substantial sums of money you always need a plan “B”. In many cases I have a plan “C” too!
2) What’s the one thing that you cannot trade without, could be a stats site etc…? (Excluding software)
The one trading tool I cannot be without is TV pictures. Better than any graph or chart ever created. The quote I use to my Mentees is “A graph is a historical, People like me are creating that history”.
Great advice there from a professional betfair trader, who specialises in the horse racing. If you want to know more from Steve why not check out him out here.
My next person to speak with was of course Mark Iverson (markiverson.com). Again for those of you who don’t know Mark (Why?!) here is his introduction:
In August 2006, I started trading sports markets, instead of just punting on them, armed with an initial trading bank of just £250.
Since then I’ve added part or all of my monthly profits to help me scale-up and in May 2008 was given the opportunity by my employer to reduce my working hours. After a little deliberation I decided to try and address the life/work balance.
I worked 3 days a week as a Project Manager until January 2011 when I decided to take a sabbatical from the day job to concentrate on gambling full time.
I now focus mainly on Cricket, NFL and Rugby Union match odds markets.
The Questions
What’s the one thing you do everyday to help set up your trading day?
I review my trading diary. It’s a golden rule of mine to only trade events that I’ve scheduled to – no getting involved in something on a whim.
What’s the one thing that you cannot trade without, could be a stats site etc…?
I’ll always make sure that I have as much historical data as possible and that it’s up to date. By having access to this information I’m able to run through what-if scenarios in advance. It helps my preparation and enables me to act much quicker when games are in-play.
Of course no blog post on the BTC would be fulfilled without yours truly answering the questions as well:
Ryan Carruthers – www.betfairtradingcommunity.com
For those of you who do not know me I am a professional trader focusing on Football and Tennis, I have been trading professionally on Betfair now for about 8/9 years – I don’t trade in my pants like Steve does but I do have a trading partner, which is a little black and white cat!
The Questions
1) What’s the one thing you do everyday to help set up your trading day?
This is an easy one for me, Text Edit (mac) it might be notepad if your windows, I create a schedule for the day on Text Edit this contains the time of the event and then my thoughts on the event just in bullet point format of which I have already researched so I can easily use it as a guide for my trading day and keeps me in check.
2) What’s the one thing that you cannot trade without, could be a stats site etc…? (Excluding software)
This leads from the Text Edit… Stats! Stats and yet more Stats! I use these daily to piece together a picture of what I think will happen in a sporting event and then try to work out a plan of action.
There it is guys, 3 professional Betfair traders and 2 questions to give you an insight into their lives as traders on Betfair, hopefully that was of some use and if it was give it a share!
