Review and Preview

My 2nd year of trading on sports is over. Let’s have a look how I did:

Review of 2009

Tennis: 
I started well with a pleasant January profit of +€32.77 and a fantastic February profit of +€129.74, but then I totally lost my confidence. I had a couple of losses where I made some stupid mistakes. My staking was also too aggressive and I had too big liabilities during the trades. I cut my winnings and let my losses run.
Then I took some time off from trading tennis and late in the season I decided to start again with €20.00 stakes. I changed my style of trading to just focussing on laying low odds which was really an improvement. I did not track my results as I should, so I can not give an exact overview how I did. Tracking results will be an issue for 2010.

Soccer:
Did not trade that much soccer, but had a few bets and trades. I tried to use Soccer Mystic and trade soccer matches, but that will not work for me. It is too boring to watch a match and the odds closely. I think I will keep having an eye on pre match odds and if I can identify a good value (like Germany v Russia) I will put in a bet. I did not track my soccer bets, but I am in a small profit.

American Football:
I was not able to trade many matches, because my Pay TV subscription expired. I started to follow Stock Lemon’s picks. I was a little lucky, because I missed some losing bets. According to a stake of €10.00 I made +€56.66.

Formula 1:
This sport was my main income source for this year. I made +€307.08 during the year. Mainly I focussed on the fastest lap market, but I also had a look at some other markets, too. There is so much value in so many markets. I learned from my mistakes of 2008, where I could not accept a loss and put more and more into a bad position.

Horse Racing:
Three years ago I started to select some false favourites on horse racing. I only paper traded those selections and it did not pay off. So I stopped it.
This year I had a look at the excel file I created in the past with the past selections and I applied some filters. If I was more patient the stats suggested a decent profit.
At the end of March I started again paper trading my lay selections with a far more patient approach. At the end of May I started putting money on the selections with a bank of €100. I started with a maximum liability of 5% of the bank. During the last two months I raised my liability to 10% of the bank. I doubled the bank in eight months, which is a pleasant result.

Betting Bots:
I was always fascinated by having a betting bot. I started developing my first Betfair API application in June 2008. I wanted to develop a mobile Betfair application for Windows Mobile devices.
In June 2009 I started to develop a betting bot.
Currently we are running two bots for horse racing. One for backing and one for laying.
It is quite disappointing that both started really well, but now they are performing not as expected. I double checked past results and source code of both bots. There is no bug. The bots are working reliable and they do the work correctly. Only the results are quite different to the past results. 
It might be possible that in the near future both bots will run in simulation mode again.
Currently I am working on the next betting bot. I have still many ideas I want to automate. Once a bot is created it just need to run and track data in simulation mode. 2010 will be exciting!

Conclusion:

The Numbers:

Starting bank: €250.00
Current bank: €825.56 (+230.22%) 

Biggest single profit: +€79.11
Biggest single loss: –€50.47

The Staking:

Staking has been always an issue for me. I tried to adapt staking rules from other traders, but this did not work for me.
Generally, I am a fan of the KISS principle: Keep It Simple and Stupid!
That’s what I did with my style of trading this year. No complex strategy, just lay low.

Patience:

With my horse laying selections I learned that it is better to stay away, if there is no good opportunity. If you can avoid losing money, you will win more money. Forcing trades and getting in too often and too early was a main problem during the last two years.

Tracking Results:

I have not been good in tracking results, especially in tennis. That’s also a reason why I can not write down my complete stats for tennis trading.

Setting Goals:

At the start of 2009 I set myself a goal to reach a net profit of €1000.00. Did not reach this goal. I have learned this year, that it is not about chasing numbers.
It is about getting a professional approach:

• Apply always your trading rules
• Track your results
• Learn from mistakes (and avoid doing them again)

Preview of 2010

I will split this section into two parts: Personal Trades and Betting Bots.

Personal Trades

In 2010 I will focus on Tennis, Formula 1, Horse Racing and American Football.

Staking:

Tennis:
I will keep it as simple as possible: I will trade with a fixed staking and I will start with a stake size of €50.00.

Formula 1:
Stake size will be €20.00 to €50.00, the same like 2009.

American Football:
Stake size will be €20.00.

Horse Racing:
Will continue with a liability of 10% of the horse racing bank.

What about setting goals?
Chasing random numbers will not work for me, so I will not set me a goal to reach a certain amount of profit.
I want to turn my trading into a more professional one, so I want to concentrate on trading behaviour (applying all my rules, patience, etc) and tracking all my results.

Betting Bots

I have several ideas for automated betting. Along with the horse racing bots I am currently working on a bot for American Sports.

The goal for 2010 is to create a least one reliable bot and to create a solid income stream from it. I think in a few month I will have a couple of bots doing their work. Maybe some of them will only run in simulation mode for a while. There is no need to rush. Sooner or later they will do their work once all the parameters are found.

Changes to the Blog

I will also apply some changes to the blog. I will outsource the horse laying selections to a newsletter tool where people can subscribe/unsubscribe to. Currently I am still looking for a comfortable piece of software.

That’s it so far.
I wish all of you a prosperous new year!

Cheers, Loocie