FTS Blog & Pod 20th October – Trading Styles

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FTS Blog & Pod 20th October – Trading Styles

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20/10/2022

From this episode onwards is where we will start developing technical skills and analysis for our betting and trading. We have covered lots of the mental aspects and approach and as always, if you have not read/listened to the rest of the episodes in this series, then you should go back and do that first via the ftsincome.co.uk website or your chosen podcast provider by searching FTS Betslip.
One of the issues with trading/betting successfully is that there is no set course or qualification to follow before you can let yourself loose on the market. Anyone can dive in at any time. They do not let anyone walk into a hospital and start performing surgery.
The structure of these pods and blogs is to encourage people to stop themselves from diving in and think and prepare before we get to that stage. We have spent two episodes on the preparation phase. The final part of this is developing a trading style.
I asked a question of FTS members recently, if they could learn one element of betting trading, what would they want it to be? We had a vast number of varied responses. The word cloud below represents the answers. The bigger the word, the more it came up. As you can see, most answers are Systems, Maths, Data, and Odds, which are all technical-themed answers.

 

One of my biggest learnings in almost 16 years of dealing with hundreds of gamblers is that everyone is different. Trying to adapt one method to a wide range of economically and socially different people is madness. It is my biggest mistake in the life of FTS.

It took me a long time to come around to it, but doing so has been enlightening for me and, as such, enlightening for those I help. I know what I can do, how I react in certain situations, what I expect from everything, and how those factors play out over time. I know how I like to trade, and I know it is vastly against the majority, and a lot don’t like it. Why? Because I am not action heavy and I am a contrarian, go against the obvious and the crowd most times.. My style relies on patience. Patience is one of the most underestimated factors in this game and should have been further up the word cloud. Good things come to those who wait.

Because most come into it with pound signs as pupils in their eyes, with poor expectation, poor preparation, and no real clue of what they are doing or going to do, all they want are fast bucks, and when that does not happen, then, the whole thing starts to fall quicker than a Liz Truss government.

If you have thought about it previously and then developed a trading/betting style that suits you, fits your expectations, suits your money management, and won’t see you ruined mentally and financially. You then have so much more chance of succeeding. Developing that relies on patience.

I have a varied betting portfolio. I will have fixed odds bets where I take on prices up to 8.0, and I will ride the variance that comes with that. In trading, I like to operate around even money or better. I am not fussed about not being involved. If a goal comes early or outside my time zones in a match, I miss that trade as it doesn’t suit my style. I am not sitting there wanting any action. I want the right action for me. I accept I can have a typical losing run associated with such odds – at Evens, we can expect losing runs of 7/8/9 bets. Most listening to this have not got that in them. I am more conscious now of how others react than before, owing to my dealings with people. It is one thing not to say, “no, I can handle that”, than the reality of actually handling it.

Patience is my friend, and I would hazard a guess that impatience is a huge factor in many’s failings. I have seen it this current season. I share methods I use with people. I know it irritates them. They sit down on a Saturday, ready for a trade fest. I have done all my work. I have a list. I then need matches to play out to suit my trading style. For instance, one may require waiting for a price of 2.0. 6 games qualify. They all have a goal before it gets to 2.0, some get to 1.95, and a goal goes in. The frustration for them is tantamount. They live for that day.
Another method I may need a goal between x minutes and x minutes to execute a trade, and it comes one minute outside those time zones. “Why did you pick those minutes? Could we not extend it – then we will have more games”. Because they are focused on betting trading, not the process, they are not getting action.

Of course, I have built up to this approach, and where those methods are not functioning, I have other bets going in that are fixed odds etc., and it all runs as a whole. If your only approach is one method and it has days where bets don’t qualify, I see it as a good thing. Remember the last episode? If we don’t trade, we cannot lose, BUT I also get that people want to do something, and if there is too much inaction, they get bored and can then go off to find bets outside the process. That is why the process and a trading style suited to you are crucial. It must suit you, not anyone else. It is another reason chatrooms are so shambolic, 100 plus different people with 100 different approaches, all talking to each other. It’s like a murmuration of Starling’s twittering. It makes no sense.

My style suits me. I know I will have plenty of days with 10,15,20 trades and days with nothing much happening. I don’t know when either will happen. But I am not doing it for fun, and I never feel I am wasting time on a quiet period where you may do. All that can be taken care of before you start, and you develop a trading/betting style that suits you.

This will involve several factors.

Time

This will be the key one. I won’t go into it again, but apparently, no one in the world has time; of course, total nonsense. I am interested in how many would have completed a time diary since the last episode and see how much time they waste. Time is a factor if you have young kids, of course. The time you put into betting/trading must be worthwhile and not wasted. If time is a significant enemy of yours, then fixed odds betting, probably automated, will suit you – BUT then, fixed odds betting needs to suit your mindset, which brings us to the second factor.

Finance

Trading involves finance and a big area is what I call the financial get-out factor. Everyone listening/reading this will have set a bank for a trading method, started that bank – been on a losing run, given up and walked away before that bank was lost and in doing so actualised those losses. Let’s assume that your bank set-up was 100points, and you gave up at 50 points loss. Your financial get-out factor was not 100%. It was 50%. I would hasten a guess that most gambling losses come about through 2 main areas, the one above, where people actualise losses out of nothing other than ill-prepared panic, and the second is chasing, where stakes just get out of hand.

Only two elements affect this in my mind, you are betting with money you cannot afford, and it stresses you – that means we need better financial preparation, or your trading set-up did not suit you. It was set up incorrectly that you did not understand potential losing runs, bank drawdown, and money management, which we will get to in later episodes

Finance and your activity must suit your personality. If laying at prices of 4/5/6 scares the pants off, you – don’t do it. If sitting waiting for a price in play means you will miss out a lot of the time, and that frustrates you, don’t operate like that.

Losing Runs.

In the Expectation episode of this series, I mentioned the study that showed most give up a betting activity after a losing run of 8. Most people do not understand losing runs and what they can potentially be, and at some stage, they almost always get hit. As such, they are ill-equipped when a losing run comes that may be even far smaller than is mathematically possible. Our Estimated losing run can be calculated using a log function depending on our strike rate and the table below details those outcomes. I stress the word estimated and note the more bets you have the longer your losing run may be.

 

So, if you only want to experience a losing run of 2 or 3, you had better find a trading style with a strike rate of around 95%. If you have a horse racing system with a strike rate of about 30% – strap yourself in for a losing run of 20 plus bets.

All this can be prepared for before we start. Unfortunately, in 99.9% of cases, a lack of such fundamentals ruins any chance before we start our activity.

The bottom line is, do not start laying at prices of 6.0; if you know, it is not for you. You can only fail. Do not think “I’ll do pre-race trading” if you cannot be about every afternoon to execute it. You are wasting your time.

I know how I want to trade and how I want to teach people to trade, and I know that it will not suit everyone. Leopards rarely change their spots. If you are in this for action, it is unlikely that a small volume patient method will suit you, no matter how successful.

I will go into some trading set-ups next time, divulging some of my approaches. I am clear in my mind that too many people start this with next to no thought to how whatever the trading activity they are about to indulge in will suit them or not.  For now, everyone should sit down and think about/write out the following: –

What do you do now?

Does it suit you mentally – if not, why not?

What are the possible points of failure for you – i.e., would losing 50 points see you give up?

What losing run do you KNOW you could absorb mentally and financially? Does what you do fit in with that?

What time do you genuinely have available for your chosen activity? Could you do more, or do you always feel under pressure?

What do you want to do? – genuinely

What betting style suits you? fixed odds walk away, trading, a mix of both

What prices do you wish to play?

What markets appeal to you? – match odds- goals

How much money is available? – genuinely

Can it be scaled to a level that would be meaningful. Anything that can win 100 points quickly can also lose 100 points, quickly don’t let anyone tell you otherwise I have done it.. Can you scale up to bet at those levels and volatility to make it worthwhile. If I average 10 points a month but only have 3/4 point swings but I can bet £2000-£4000 a time no issues, no price chasing, it’s a lot easier than trying to win 100/150 points at £30/£40 consistently I tell you. Of course 100 points in a short period sounds great, can you win 100 points in short periods consistently at big money?

All these elements will determine what you do suits you and your chances of success. Without them, I’d go as far as to say that you have no chance. One of the greatest paths to success is being totally comfortable doing what you are doing and ensuring it is scalable.

There are many ways to skin a cat, despite the doom and gloom you here. You can win, laying at 1000, or backing at 1.04 if it suits you. There are plenty of ways to win despite the neigh-sayers and doomsayers. Most people fail at the set-up and then subsequently fall out from what does not suit them.

 

 

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