Football Manager Expert and Political Betting Specialist across Exchange and Spread Betting Sites
Betfair Mindset
Trading on betting exchanges requires a different mindset to straight betting.
If you are new to trading the sheer number of OLBG betting articles on exchange betting should be your first port of call.
Once you have the basics you need to face up to the reality that your winning horse racing bet which gave you so much pleasure is diluted if you decide to trade it.
So as a trader who has predominately been a bettor you need to come to terms with this reduction of return.
On the reverse, you have guaranteed yourself a no-lose bet or at least some sort of return, or a much smaller loss.
How to Effectively Use a Betting Exchange: The Ultimate Guide
Your Trading Life
In many cases you can spend part of the day accumulating very small gains from your no-lose trades, only to see those gains decimated or wiped out when a trade goes completely against you.
Very quickly those hard-earned amounts that you seem to have spent forever accumulating are gone, but from these losses you start to learn the essence of trading.
If you believe many of the trading gurus that have sprung up all over the internet they never have a losing trade, all drifts carry on northwards and all backs continue on a downward trajectory.
Most sensible traders realise this is not the case.
If you are going to eke out a daily or weekly profit you need to have a reality check and understand if you can get more successful trades than losing ones you are doing well.
The successful trader stops their losing trades and rides their winners.
Betting Exchanges UK - The best sites in the UK 2025
How To Make Money On Betfair
To make money on Betfair you need to cut out the amounts you lose. You are going to have losing trades, so always make sure that it is a small amount.
Just accept that you need to stop your losses quickly, you can always go back in at the new price and try and catch the market again in the way you want.
You can be in and out of markets as many times as you wish, nobody is looking over your shoulder.
In many cases you will have one or two trades a day that reap the big dividends, this riding of your winners will make or break the day.
You may catch a horse that drifts 10 or 15 points or is backed in to the detriment of all other runners, rejoice at this movement and bank the money when you are happy that the movement has plateaued.
The rest of the day will be spent cutting losses or making very small gains.
Trading is really an accumulation of funds with the least risk to your capital.
If you lose 20 points but gain 60 points on a regular basis then it won't take long for the trading bank to grow.
You can then in time trade with bigger funds leading to bigger daily profits.
To check out all the exchanges on offer + which exchange we rate visit the aforementioned laying and exchange link.
Scalping Horses
You may have read about "scalping the market"
Here you place a trade looking for very small fluctuations in the price.
You may only look for one or two ticks, say 2.5 to 2.54, but if you do this enough times at the changing prices you can quickly build a profitable position.
You do this as many times as you wish always looking to end with an overall profit on the race or horse.
Obviously you need to have an understanding of the market you are trading/scalping.
All horses in the Betfair market move in price at some time, you take advantage of these.
Speed is of the essence.
Swing Trading
Swing Trading as opposed to Scalping looks for bigger price movements and you spending longer in the market.
Some back or lay the horse in the morning and then monitor the selection throughout the day until a target price and or profit is hit.
You may back the favourite at 2.9 and look to get out of the bet when the horse goes odds on, or lay the horse at 2.9 and hope the back price reaches 3.9.
Betfair Swing Trading or Scalping - Does It Matter?
Responsible Gambling
Whether trading or betting we all need to gamble responsibly, the following articles have been created with this aim.