How long have you gambled for? How long have you been a full time gambler?

I opened my betfair account on Sep12th 2001.  Before that I had an account at flutter.com for a couple of months before they were bought out by Betfair.  I became a full time gambler in June/July 2003 and have been ever since.

This is the only time I will ever mention figures on the blog in relation to my betting anyway.  I began with £150 and gambled it away on a very silly horse racing system which had absolutely no chance of winning in the long run.  I spent the next month or two not betting but figuring out why it failed and how the new betting exchanges worked.  I began again on 31st December 2001 with £75, my sole intention being to make back the £150 I had lost, to prove I could do it. 

Somehow during this period I had stumbled across a few forum postings about the similarity of the betting exchange model to the financial markets and decided to investigate.  I bought some basic financial trading books, one of which was "Reminiscences of a stock operator" (link on left side of blog).  I found this book to be inspirational and I wanted to try to trade Betfair in as similar way as I could to the stock market.  Looking back on it - I was introducing as much skill to the equation as I could.

Fast forward 5 years and here we are, my £75 having grown by a large percentage since.  Certainly, any financial trader would be rather pleased with the return I've been able to make.  Figures to be publish in a book I may or may not write in the year 2015 ;).

Comments

[humble]

Great story i am glad you shared it with us i am learning a lot from reading your posts especially the one about going with the markets and not trying to force trades.thanks for the input on your blog i look in every day but dont always comment but just wanted to say its a big help to me.thanks

[mick wrende]

Hi Matt
I agree with humbles comments - the blog is excellent. I may well try a read of that book if it has helped you but I wonder if the principles still apply today now that the people who run betfair are much more savvy about the odds. Incidentally I note a couple of my comments have disappeared recently - I hope they werent offensive in any way.
Mick

[Matt]

Cheers humble and mick.

It's about quality over quantity im most walks of life, including your trades humble. Finding those optimum spots will reward you so much more than executing on those "sniff of a chance" type gambles that can appear much more often.

Mick, I have deleted none of your comments and have no idea why they have disappeared, I will investigate when I reappear in March. Rest assured they weren't offensive I'm sure. The principles in the book apply today as much as when the book was based - some 80 years ago! Human nature does not change, and this is the basic principle you have to start looking at. Understand what makes people tick, and you are a large step towards being profitable. The book is superb for this, there's parts of the book where every page contains some gem of wisdom. You won't go wrong with it, and even if you can't make the translation between those markets and betting exchanges, then it's just a good read, but like I say, I'm sure you will be able to.