Betfair Get A Grip!

First of all I have to mention how awful Betfair (the monopoly exchange) has been operating recently. I can say that after trading on Betfair for many years, this is probably the worst run of Betfair downtime there has ever been! Usually if Betfair goes down, they sort out their issues and have it running by the next day no worries. Then if we are lucky, we might be able to have about a month's trading before yet another un-surprising crash. But this is getting a joke now too be honest and I'm definitely not the only 1 with these opinions. I've lost confidence in trading on the markets of late as I have no clue when betfair might possibly go down. It's hard enough to make a good living out of Betfair, without the fear that your whole bank can be lost in a split second if Betfair decides to fail on us. If it's there servers not able to withstand the hammering we do to them, misleading information on exactly what the hell is going on their end, or just the lack of consistency in how they deal with the process when everything decides to shut down. Whatever none sense is happening, it's simply not acceptable! Who's running this hugely profitable business...hamsters in hamster wheels? You have to ask yourself where is all that profit going towards? Making Betfair's api run more efficient? Creating a solid backbone to the whole workings of Betfair to keep us clients happy? I don't think so.

So what do we do?

Not a lot unfortunately as Betfair dominate the market by a country mile, and the liquidity is without a doubt the only reason why everyone is still putting up with this Betfair scandal. But I assure you this will keep happening over and over again unless we make a communal effort to try and put a spanner in the works. What I suggest is making 1 small step towards making it better for us all and forcing Betfair to open their eyes up to the truth.

How about once a week, lets say on a Monday everyone migrates to the purple side of Betdaq and trades/bets/arbs on there all day/night??? www.betdaq.com

I am asking everyone reading this post to please join me in practicing what you are all preaching for and give it a go. Actions speak louder than words and I'm hoping if I get a following of people this could really generate some momentum and swing some justice in our favour from a multi-billion pound company. It takes a mass migration for change so take a small step with me in showing Betfair who is really king...the client! They are never going to improve as a service unless they have some decent competition against their monopoly empire. Please vote on the poll for people willing to make this step with me.

Back To London

On a more happier tone, I mentioned on a previous post I was planning to move back to London in 2011. But I'm going to move my plan forward to the start of May 2010! In 3 months, the time feels right to go Central London and be more accessible to the people I'm trying to help out trading. Even though this great city of Madrid will stay firmly in my memory for a years to come.

I've had an awesome time here and I've proven to myself I can take this profession as a exchange trader to any country I decide to live in. The freedom and flexibility I was searching for in a job, where you can travel and be your own boss is not a figment of my imagination. So really this creates endless opportunities I could only dream of when I first started.

Trading in another country has been far from easy from the word go, but after setting up a comfortable base to trade from there's no real difference to trading in the UK. Just with the obvious change of climate and culture :) My rough plan is to stay in London for a year or 2, then continue my adventure in another country after, who knows where yet but I like it that way.

It's not goodbye to Madrid just yet so I'm not going to get emotional on you all haha, but my adventure here unfortunately feels like it's jumping it's final few hurdles. London has its charms and It almost feels like home after moving there before I moved to Madrid, so bring it on is all I can say!

I understand for many people wanting to learn this black art of trading, the need to travel to another country is not ideal. But for the many people already attended my course, the holiday/tuition idea has suited them great. I'm here till May and still offering courses on the dates posted to the right on my blog. I will put future dates in London from May onwards soon.

Playing With Fire

We play with fire on a daily basis when trading on the exchanges, as the odds of succeeding are stacked heavily against us. I'm not just talking about reading the market effectively and making the correct decisions, I'm referring to many other factors that seem to be testing our bottle.

1. Betfair going down
2. Internet going down
3. Power cut
4. Computer crashing

These 4 are the main 1's and every point apart from the first we can save ourselves a lot of potential losses that might occur.

I was reminded last Thursday that having no backup for point 3 was my downfall. The whole flat lost its power and I was left up shit creek not knowing what position I was in. Having no working phone nearby and my laptop battery being dead I was simply not prepared for this. I kicked myself when it happened knowing I should always be prepared for the worst and luckily I lost £400. But this could have been a lot worse so I took this on the chin. So always be ready for unfortunate things to happen, because trust me sooner or later they will.

The Markets

Last week i dug myself out of trouble after a great Saturday, ranking in my top 10 best ever days. So finishing the week on a very happy £1050 after a potential disaster.

Here's my week saving Saturday + £751

The last few days I haven't traded many races but made a nice return on the few I've done. Seeing Betfair down just before starting today, I thought I would wait until Friday and see if the situation improved.




Ohh I'll get a new video posted up soon.