Succeed at Betting – What the Professionals All Know

Paul Ellis asked:


The similarities between operating a successful betting portfolio and a financial investment portfolio are amazingly uncanny. It is little surprise that the co-founders of Betfair, Andrew Black and Edward Wray, are both ex city traders. I am a firm believer in the fact that a free market will always reflect the perceived value, or odds of an event occurring – this is where the professionals step in – when the perceived value does not equate to the “true” value.

All the successful Professional Gamblers I know personally, base most of their reasoning on this divergence – through sheer skill and hard work!

However, it is vital to understand the long and short term fluctuations in the market, and therefore it is important to consider the following when creating your portfolio:

1. Diversification

Just as a financial portfolio will often balance risk across differing market sectors, your betting portfolio should always be balanced. For example, if the different methods are all centered on the performance of the favourites in Horse Racing, you are exposing yourself to a potential loss across the board on a day when the favourites simply “have a bad day”. In order to balance this, my personal portfolio contains systems that are proven and profitable, but are each looking at differing types of races and bets.

As a guide, from horse racing I am looking at proven systems relying on:

* Favourites winning

* Horses placing

* Outsiders placing

* Each way “steals”

* Horses Losing (Laying)

In addition, whilst Horse Racing will almost definitely figure in a professionals portfolio, it is useful to diversify across sports. Though I specialize in Tennis personally, I am also looking for opportunities in Football, Darts, Snooker, Golf etc and even “Novelty Bets” such as the X-Factor or Eurovision if the right conditions emerge.

2. Time and Effort

Where possible, try to pick methods that will fit in with your lifestyle and available time. You will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to follow a system that relies on placing sequential bets during the course of the day which are dependent on previous results. Where this problem can be overcome, by the use of a specifically designed bot, this won’t be an issue. But when starting out, do try to use methods that are achievable within your daily routine.

3. Balancing Risk

In addition to balancing risk through the diversification mentioned above, you will also have to give consideration to the “weighting” you apply to each method you use. By this I mean balancing the risk/reward ratios against the probability of winning, and potential length of losing streaks.

For example, although all of the systems I use within my portfolio are proven to show a profit over the long term, a system based around horses placing will produce more wins (at lower odds) than a system looking at outsiders winning. As a rule of thumb, I try to ensure that the total across all systems on a daily basis never risks more than 10% of my bank. This may be split with 1% risk through one system, 2% on another, 3% on another etc etc. The risk varies in line with the expected percentage of winning bets.

4. Slowly and Steady

Be under no illusions, we are in this business for long term profitability, so when starting out, try not to be too ambitious with your staking. There will be a balance of winning and losing streaks across any method you use, that is the inescapable nature of statistics. If you are overly aggressive with your staking you will run the serious risk of making significant losses, which will not only take longer to recover, but will create pressure that you do not need.

Betting should be Boring! If your pulse is starting to quicken, you are either staking out of your comfort zone, or employing a system that you are not confident with. You should be doing neither of these things!!



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