Betfair Horse Racing Fundamentals and Bet Angel Technical Analysis. Part 2

Lets start with a close examination of some official statistics relating to Betfair.

1. On average, starting prices are between 10 and 15 % higher than with traditional bookmakers.

2. Ten times more people make a profit from gambling on Betfair than they do from gambling with traditional bookmakers.

3. People who do lose overall from gambling on Betfair lose less than they do with traditional bookmakers.

4. Around 90% of people with a registered Betfair account still lose money overall.

Fact 4 will of course have left you feeling rather disappointed, but personally I deal with reality rather than hype. If you take the opposite view then you will learn the hard way.

So there it is. For all the extensive marketing, for all the plethora of systems, marketing and hype selling you the gold at the end of the Betfair rainbow story, the reality is that 90% of people with a Betfair user account are in overall deficit.

So that the bad news, but only the beginning of the story.

The truth about your chance on Betfair lies in the detail, somewhere in between the 4 facts above as stated.

Lets pause for a minute and examine the 4 brave statistics in greater detail in the context below.

* How many of those 90% of punters are serious players?
* How many of the 90% are just fun punters backing the national?
* How many have just placed a few bets then never gone back?
* Almost every punter will be in deficit for some time before they crack the Betfair code.
* No punter has ever opened a Betfair account and simply started winning.
* Within traditional bookmaker settings, 99% of punters lose money.

As i stated in the initial 4 statements, you are in fact ten times more likely to make a long term profit via Betfair rather than betting in shops.

Also, lets address liquidity.

The massive marketing and hype surrounding the platform is extremely good for Betfair, the more short and medium term fun punters entering and joining the ecosystem for the first time, the better for everyone.

The Betfair platform is groundbreaking, powerful and highly addictive.

The technology is state of the art, highly innovative and reliable.

The concept of generating a single figure price to lay horses to lose, is truly unique and original.

Betfair does generate enormous and ever increasing liquidity.

The extent of this liquidity is such that traditional bookmakers quickly cottoned on that they themselves could hedge against large losses while still on course if their own books start to drift out of balance.

On the bigger races you will see a lot of serious action coming onto the exchange in the last minute of trading when the really big players and on course bookies are placing their bets or balancing their books.

This is a really dangerous time to have trades open in the market.

Many basic trading manuals will try to persuade you that trading is somehow risk free. That it is somehow not gambling, obviously this is untrue.

While you are not strictly gambling in the same sense that you would gamble on the winner or the loser of a horse race, you are still gambling that your predictions about the future movement of a horse's SP is going to move in the direction that you require.

It stands to reason that if your prediction is incorrect the only possibility will be that you will lock in a loss instead of the profit you wanted.

As oppose to having "won" before the race has started, you will have "lost" before the race has started.

All experienced traders will tell you of the misery experienced when trades move against you in this way.

Trying to move onto the next race knowing that whatever the outcome of the previous race you can only lose money, is a challenging scenario to say the least.

What can often happen to untrained or first time traders is that in the heat of the moment they will make rash decisions and turn to "pure gambling" in an attempt to rectify losses and mistakes.

All I will say is of course, naturally, just don't do it.

Never chase losses.

If you have a problem accepting short or medium term financial loss then this is the wrong career path for you, you should go back to fun punting and where possible keep your money in a secure bank account (difficult to find these days).

Once you start making poor decisions that are not based on rules, experience, fundamentals or technical analysis then you are gambling.

You will lose money and the attractions offered by Betfair will soon wear thin.

So who exactly are the mystical 10% of regular Betfair account holders who are taking everyone else's money.

Well what we do know is that they are:

1. Full and part time professionals
2. Experienced gamblers who adopt a variety of different trading approaches dependent on circumstance.
3. Vary their strategies and use a host of information resources on and offline.
4. Use all the tips and tricks available to their advantage.
5. Have huge resource in terms of hardware, software, use large pots and recycle large trades through the market.
6. They employ Bet Angel's custom designed technical analysis software to give them the edge over the market.
7. They use SIS and high speed feeds to take advantage of up-to-date news and inplay action.
8. Practice, hone and develop their skills and learn from their own mistakes.
9. Practice a "series" of rigid systems that DO NOT ALLOW FUN BETS.
10. Perfect their skills on one system and one sport, before moving onto another.

In my next article I will outline the various betting mechanisms available through Betfair.

Why they are so exciting and innovative, and why a lot of punters looking for long term profitability often start with Trading.

There are also punters making consistent profits making books and my personal favourite, Dutching with Field Reduction.

I examine basic gambling strategies, backing or laying single selections to win or lose.

They are an innately higher risk, higher reward, type of strategy that can work, but only if a professional system-based approach with extreme specialization is adopted.