Punt.com - A Blog About Gambling by a Professional Gambler.

The punter's skill set.

• Good statistics skills.
• Knowledge of money management and staking plans.
• The maths of probability.
• Ability to handle long losing runs, large losses and big bets (not to be underestimated - it can take a large emotional toll).
• Patience to seek out the right bets.
• Discipline.

Risk and Skill.

I mentioned yesterday that it's understandable that people will see the attraction of trading.  It's almost a natural path for people to follow when presented with a Betting Exchange platform and x amount of betting experience.

This is not to say I'm taking the side of the traders over the punters, nor is it a comment on my own personal strategies of the moment, though I have done the trading thing.  And I'm not saying trading is the best way to do things either,  this is a huge topic - I'm probably going to have to deal with it over more than one part.

In this post however, my intention is the make the point that human nature (when faced with a game of chance) is to seek out every way possible to introduce a greater skill element to the game.  Particularly when there's money on the line.  The higher % of the game influenced by the skill of the player, the better.  As a book I'm reading at the moment says - there are professional horse racing bettors and cardplayers, but no one makes a profession out of shooting craps (had to get craps in somewhere :). (Favourite books is definitely a topic I want to write about...)

The easiest way to introduce some skill to betting exchanges is to trade.  It's the easier option to choose, not neccessarily easy to do in practice anymore - you really do need to know what you are doing.  But the cost to enter the trading arena is much lower than that of a punter.  (A trader can have a small deposit and turn it over many many times in both directions, profiting by a small amount each time and never risking losing the full amount.  Punters have to endure large losses and large wins as they risk an amount on each bet to the conclusion of the event.)

You may have the impression that I'm advocating trading as the only way to introduce skill.  Gamblers or Punters that seek out Value Bets, are also extremely skilled.  There's been many a discussion about the comparitive skill of punters versus traders.  (no comment! - yet.)  The choice between the two strategies comes down to the individual, their skill set, how much risk they can take on and how they deal with winning and losing large or small amounts.  All of which are fantastic topics for the blog ;)

If you want to profit, then skill is what you need to introduce to the equation, be it punting or trading.  To be continued...

Filling in the gaps.

Following a request, some background info on betting markets, what they are, where they are and what makes them special - or not.

Around 6 1/2 years ago an idea for a new concept in betting began to take shape and appear on the net - the first Betting Exchanges.  You can read a more factual history of them in this Wiki Article on Betting Exchanges.  What makes them different is that they are completely person to person, punter to punter.  In order to have a bet, someone else has to want to bet on the opposite happening.  People offer different prices for varying amounts on either side, the betting exchange orders these prices so the most attractive is at the front and so a market place forms which is very similar to a Stock Exchange.  Finer details are in the Wiki Article above and their links.

From a gamblers perspective this meant several important things:

• You could bet on something to lose for the first time (laying).
• The markets became competitive between users and the margins became tighter and thus the odds were much higher on every outcome compared to traditional bookmakers (good news for punters).
• Because you could bet in both directions on the same selection (to win and to lose), it became possible to profit from price movements in the same way a stock market trader might, by buying and selling (trading).
• It became the norm to be able to bet during an event, eg. betting on who will win a tennis match, during the match (known as "in-running").
• It was also possible to make a book on an event the same way the bookies would (though highly unlikely to succeed in these highly competitive days).

A quick explaination of why better prices are good news for punters.  Punting is all about Value. If the odds offer a better return than the actual probability of something occuring on each of your bets, then you can expect to make a profit in the long run.  Take a look at this Wiki Article on Expected Value.  Exchanges offer better prices than bookmakers on almost all events, thus the search for a value bet is made much easier than it would have been in the past - the bookies have much wider margins and are definitely not in the business of offering value.

Arguably the biggest change in gambling practices has been the rise of trading on the exchanges.  The last 2/3 years has seen a huge influx of new traders... somewhat controversially.  It's understandable however, no start up costs or restrictive transaction fees or intimidating regulation like there is on the stock exchanges.  No tax.  And as a later post on the blog will show - a highly logical decision for many to make, given the unpredictable nature of gambling.

More gaps still to be filled in, but its a start...

What I learnt in 2006.

I'm quickly finding that keeping a blog is a great way of noting down stuff I've learnt.  2006 contained some hefty lessons..

It was my most volatile year, the first time I had had a losing month, the first time I'd had 2 losing months and by the middle of April I was still to get into positive territory.  I spent a lot of time working out what was happening and hopefully I've come out stronger because of it.

The biggest lesson was to learn what it is really like to lose.  To feel like I was losing consistantly and turning into a loser.  For a gambler this means paying a heavy emotional price.  You enter a spiral of ever worsening feelings and it can be very difficult to get out of.  At some point the emotions also become a destructive force, adding to the list of causes for the ever deepening losses.  I lost count of the number of times I fought back to get to level for the year, only to fall away even steeper each time.

I've always considered one of my strong points to be my mental game.  I built the beginning of my gambling career on a foundation of good fundamental thoughts, and I always kept a tab on how I was thinking.  The end of 2005 and the first 1/3rd of 2006 saw me lose sight of this.

I've since figured out that it was down to losing my long term goals and my ambition.  I was lucky enough to afford a house in 2005 and spent several months renovating it.  Owning a house was always my long term goal, almost from the beginning - as soon as  realised I might be able to get there.  Having finally done it, my goal had been realised, I didn't update my goals... I had nothing new to aim for and no real reason for sitting down to work anymore.  And I paid for it.  I was going through the motions instead of focusing on what I was doing, and it doesn't take much to turn from a winner to a loser in this game if you aren't focused and you don't have the drive and energy to put into it.

2006 was the year I learnt the importance of goals and also how to get out of the spiral of losing emotions.  I also learnt that time is an important commodity for a gambler.

Time to think.  Gamblers and traders need time to think about things and time to get away from the computer screen.  If I don't give myself time to think about what happened yesterday and what might be happening today, then I'm not really learning.  This got me started on the right path again after my losing months.  I took the decision to go for a walk in the mornings, 30 minutes.  During which time I would think through the things I did wrong from the day before - and equally as important - the things I did right.  I began to learn from what I was doing again and slowly I began to realise my head had been in the clouds, or should I say - sand.  It was a slow process, but I had much to face up to and only time would allow it to surface for me and to come to terms with it.

I had developed a lot of bad mental habits.  Suddenly loses that hurt in the old days were being met with numbness.  The winning mentality which I had found relatively easy to maintain in the past had become extremely difficult to attain let alone maintain for any period of time.  Bad habits take time to get out of, that's why learning from the good things you do is very worthwhile.

I also learnt that time was important in my bets and trades too.  Time can be considered an edge as much as anything else.  Time can be the value factor in my trade and I increasingly found this to be true later on in the year.

You can see I learnt a fair bit... :)

Bet sizes. This was a re-learn, but in slightly more spectacular style.  Each market has a sensible limit to the size of bet it can take.  Liquidity.  I bet too big at times in the last few months of the year for the liquidity in the market and I paid for it.  More patience is required from me to wait for the right markets to go in so large.  Running up a £20,000 exposure in an early round, internet scoreboard only tennis match, between two players that next to no-one has ever heard of before, is generally, not a good idea !

I'll probably add more as it comes to me, this is definitely a post I plan on reading again over time. 

Markets don't owe me anything.

...Betting markets that is.  First in my random gambling thoughts category...

No market owes me a profit.  Every market is different to the last.  Just because I know what I'm doing (hopefully) doesn't mean I just have to turn up to make money.  Respect must be given to the market, rather than the other way around.  Work, Problems and Randomness must all be negotiated each and every time I enter the market place, they won't work themselves out.

Testing out new feedflares..

...

Took a while, it seems they are beginning to work now, digg this ! :)

Why do I gamble ?

A post about my reasons for gambling, I'd be interested to see how much these differ to everyone else's (particularly those that don't do this for a living). I'm sure some obvious conclusions can be drawn... no doubt this will be an on-going topic here.

Reason #1:- To make money !  Ha! you say - but isnt that everyone else's reason for doing so too ?  Well, I'm not sure it is.

I make my living from gambling.  So my number one reason for doing it has to be to make money.  Where I think this differs to others is that it is sought to the exclusion of every other reason to gamble - to enjoy themselves, to get a buzz from having money on the line or to make something more interesting. 

These "reasons" shouldn't be confused with "side effects".  I'd be lieing if I said I didn't sometimes experience enjoyment from gambling, get a buzz from having a large bet or that whatever I'm gambling on became more interesting.  It certainly does.  But a dangerous part to gambling opens up once these become reasons for doing it.  From my perspective they must be kept in check... Sometimes as a professional it is a battle, but one that must be watched closely, and ultimately (to make it pay) - WON.

Buzz and Enjoyment - they cloud judgement for the professional.  Chemicals are released in the brain, enjoyable ones !  So enjoyable that it is easy to like them a bit too much, easy to want more of it and obviously addiction can follow - and we haven't gone anywhere near the subject of losses yet (and won't be in this post).  The amount of buzz is often related to the size of the wager, a bit like a drug user's hit - to maintain the buzz in the long run you have to increase the size of your bets - taking ever larger hits of the drug as your system becomes accustomed to it.  You can see that making gambling pay when all that is going on is rather hard !  No idea of the right bet size, judgement on why you might be betting on something simply goes out the window..  it's hard enough to win without this !

If you have any inclination of really making money at this game, then you should do as much as possible to curb these elements.  Actually making money requires cold analysis and an ability to not get attached to things.  So much so that you can come across contradictory a lot of the time, not to mention having an unhealthy fascination with the real life probabilities of things happening.  In a gambler or trader, this is not a bad thing...  Your friends and family might disagree though :)

I'm racking my brain trying to think of another reason for me to gamble.  I'm finding it hard at the moment, maybe I'll add one in a later post...  The fact is, this is a pretty boring way of making a living for me (another post).  Long hours, lots of sitting down putting on weight, RSI in my mouse wrist (yes, from the gambling thank you).  If you gamble, keep a check on those emotions..

Merry Christmas !

Title says it all.  My favourite meal of the year today ! :)

Punt.com, IT Begins.

Hello one and all on the world wide web! 

Welcome to Punt.com, no doubt some of you have visited this domain before looking for something in particular - and not finding it, whether that be gambling related or perhaps something Dutch (for some reason a lot of my visitors are from the Netherlands, perhaps you can tell me why). 

So what is this all about ?  What is Punt.com ? and, Where is it heading ?

Well Punt.com represents a lot of things from my own point of view.  Firstly its a fantastic domain name, and it represents a great investment.  I'm sure the British visitors to the site understand what the world "Punt" means - a Punt is a gamble, a guess or a bet.  To our American visitors, a "Punt" is most commonly associated with American Football, and the Dutch..? Maybe someone will comment to help me out. 

Punt.com is about gambling.  Not just in the betting sense, but about life's gambles as well.  I think it would be a bit boring if it were purely betting and nothing else.  Our first gamble, is the domain name itself.  I'm fairly new to domain name investing, but I know a great brand name when I see one and "Punt.com" is definitely one of those.  The domain is for sale and I'm open to offers, but until the time a good offer comes along, this shall be my own blog site.  Should the right offer arrive, the site content will change dramatically to whatever the new user wants to do with it.

Who own's Punt.com now ?   My name is Matt, and I am a Professional Gambler / Speculator.  For the last 3 1/2 years I have made my living solely from gambling, speculating and investing my money on the internet.  I'm aware there is much scepticism about gambling and the people who claim to do it for a living.  I'm not planning on spending time conciously trying to change people's views. 

This is a blog about my thoughts.  Thoughts on betting, bets I've placed, why I placed them, why I gamble and mostly the mentality of gambling.  I want to share ideas on psychology and ideas on the future and how probability affects our lives.  Discuss ideas for investments, make some new friends and contacts and provide an insight into a profession that is rarely aknowledged to exist and when it is, is misunderstood.  This is definitely not about giving out tips, or discussing how much or how little I'm winning or losing - though I reserve the right to get excited if something big comes in ;)

The site is going to evolve, Punt.com doesnt currently point to the blog, but it will shortly.  Perhaps I will get some guest bloggers onto the site as well, luckily I have some very interesting contacts that I would love to bring on site to share their stories and ideas.  Stay tuned !