Becoming a successful sports trader is tough — it’s very competitive. But professionals make a living from their strategies, so the opportunities are out there for you to find. To keep pace with the pros I recommend investing in a feature-rich, fast, ‘semi-automatic’ trading tool. For full automation a Bot is required.
Sports Trading Quick Start Guide
Where can I Start Sports Trading? What’s the Best Website?
Start here: Best Betting Exchange
How do Betting Exchanges Work? How Accurate are the Odds?
Overall theory: Wisdom Of Crowds Theory & The Betting Exchange
Starting odds: The Accuracy & Significance Of SP Odds
How do Betting Exchanges Compare with Bookmakers?
The advantages: Betting Exchanges — Why Bother Betting Elsewhere?
Another perspective: Why Use Bookmakers Instead Of The Betting Exchange?
Why do Odds Fluctuate on the Betting Exchange?
Before the event: What Causes Pre-Race Market Movements?
Market imbalance: Using The Weight Of Money For Betting Market Prediction
A study on Rising & Falling odds: Drifters & Steamers — The Risers & Fallers Of Betting Markets
How can I Become Faster and More Efficient on the Betting Exchange?
Semi-automatic approach: The Best Betfair Trading Tools
Fully automated approach: How To Automate Your Betfair Strategies (The Best Bot)
What Methods do Professionals use to Profit from the Betting Exchange?
No ‘form’ analysis: Cold Trading On The Exchange — Betting Without Knowledge
General tips: 10 Biggest Problems Betfair Traders Face & How To Approach Them
The basic “Back high, Lay low” principle: Swing Trading On The Betting Exchange
Scalping the markets: Can You Make A Steady Income By Scalping The Betting Exchanges?
Dutching: What Is Dutching? What Is Dutch Betting? (Arbitrage, Too)
An easy-to-understand, hard-to-master strategy: A Punter’s Guide To Beating The SP
Want to learn more?
This is just an overview. If you’d like to find answers to more specific questions, then check my Sports Betting Q&A.
Recommended Sports Trading Products
Geeks Toy — For Rapid Betfair Trading
In 2007 whilst researching another project, ‘The Geek’ stumbled upon Betfair trading and noticed the absence of competitors to Bet Angel. Believing he could do better, he set himself the challenge of writing Geeks Toy. I
n 2009 Geeks Toy was launched, and was an immediate success, setting new heights in performance, reliability and customisation.
Geeks Toy comes with a 14 day trial, and after that you need licence key.
Geeks Toy offers a lot of excellent features, such as the inclusion of software versions for Betfair, Betdaq & Matchbook. Amongst betting ‘Geeks’, the Toy is most recognised for it’s neat UI, and speed.
It’s thought to be the fastest betting software on the market — making it superior at obtaining odds and beating other traders to the punch (a very important objective). As a result of it’s accomplishments, Geeks Toy has firmly positioned itself neck-and-neck with Bet Angel.
Geeks Toy Boasts:
- A Lightning-fast interface — probably the most important feature for any Betfair Trading application.
- Fully customisable, simplistic appearance. Arrange the items on each pane according to the order of your preference.
- The Grid Interface is familiar to all Betfair users, showing additional information such as the stake matched at different odds.
- The ladder view similar to Bet Angel’s, where users can customise the arrangement of the odds either in descending or ascending order. Those who switch over will be accustomed to the layout.
- Charts show price/volume over time, price candlesticks, weight of money, traded volume, and MACD. These are all useful features for analysing the market.
- Features an ‘Order Cancels Order’ interface. This lets a trader hedge on his bet to prevent a large loss if things don’t go as planned. You can set the exit bet according to the price you want (similar to a stop loss).
- Traders can back up their settings in the Geeks Toy’s cloud storage; an extra precaution in the case of emergency data loss
BetTrader — The Only ‘In-Browser’ Betfair Software
Financial trader Adam Todd Founded his company ‘Racing Traders‘ in 2003, when he began turning his attention to the betting exchange. It wasn’t long before he developed the ‘BetTrader‘ software to optimise his approach to sports trading. It was groundbreaking in that it pioneered the use of money ladders in sports betting.
Whilst the company name ‘Racing Traders‘ may suggest that it’s a horse racing product, it’s in fact perfect for any sport. The Sports Interface allows you trade across all the markets that make up a Betfair event.
Racing Trader’s BetTrader comes with a Free Trial. Subscribers have ‘Turbo mode’ which enables a price refresh rate of 20 times per second
BetTrader Boasts:
- It’s the only browser-based trading interface application on the market — no need to install anything on your computer.
- It displays all the live-updating Betfair markets at super-fast speed, enabling you to place bets faster and more effectively
- Football Trading is made far more efficient, as you’re able to monitor multiple markets (e.g. Win Market, Over/Unders and Correct Score) at the same time and act upon price movements.
- The Grid Interface displays 5 prices either side of the current odds instead of only 3 (as per the Betfair website).
- Bet-submission is streamlined and allows you to place bets with fewer mouse clicks and less mouse movements.
- Extensive built-in trading features will place bets for you automatically when predetermined conditions are met. Such as Stop Loss, Tick Offset, Fill Or Kill, Drip Feed & Chaser. These features are essential if you want to protect your investments and force the price you want without sending the market into a frenzy.
BF Bot Manager — Build Your Own Fully Automated Trading Strategies
Since 2005 the experienced team at BF Bot Manager have created an wide range of configurable, custom-made Betting Exchange Bots. Most of these were built for the Betfair exchange. But many of their products are also compatible with Betdaq and Matchbook.
The BF Bot Manager products enable sports traders to test and implement their own strategies — as well as run entirely new ones — as easily as possible. The software is fast and flexible, with access to any sports market.
THE BF BOT MANAGER V2 INTERFACE OFFERS MANY FEATURES AND IS HIGHLY CONFIGURABLE.
The programming team at BF Bot Manager team encourage their customers to make suggestions.
So if something doesn’t quite suit your requirements then they’ll tweak the existing Bots or produce you completely new programs on demand — which is an excellent opportunity for any ambitious Betfair trader. Pricing varies depending on your Bot’s complexity.
BF Bot Manager boasts
- It’s a “Sports Bot Management system”, for the use on multiple betting exchanges.
- It supports both manual and automatic trading.
- Strategies can be linked. i.e. one event is dependent on another.
- It supports bets on both the UK and Australian versions of the Betfair exchange.
- Bots built to perform specific tasks are ‘loaded’ into the system and will run with only minimal input from the user.
- Any of the bots can be modified to your request. This level of customisation surpasses its competitors.
- The programming team will create a totally new, custom bot for you upon request (pricing varies depending on complexity)
- The Ladder control is for the use in any sports market. A useful feature for quickly placing bets after a goal is scored in football, or for betting inplay on horse racing.
- The Multiple Strategies add-on allows users to set and run multiple betting strategies simultaneously.
Tips for new subscribers:
- V2 software is predominantly for running existing strategies (with add-ons available)
- V3 software is predominantly for running your own strategies (with many flexible options available)