Part One – Is this for real and what is value.

The thought first came to my mind after the National League 1 game on Thursday evening. For nearly the past fourteen years of my life, I have watched and followed Rugby League with the same regularity and devotion that some people associate with religion and now I can sit back and watch the weekend games whilst earning money that some people would be satisfied with receiving for a full week’s work.

Of course, I don’t paint a picture as rosy as this all the time, and sure there are some negative aspects. The profit can never be guaranteed, quite often I experience disproportionate feelings of “What ifs” and I probably do spend an unusually large amount of my time thinking about the games and looking to trade the markets on match days. But I have made over £2,000 this year from watching Rugby League and whilst I quite often do this the hard way, it is entertaining and something that I have come to love and appreciate as much as the sport itself.

The weekend always starts on Thursday nights with the National League televised game, and thankfully SKY have chosen some very good games recently, and this one was no exception. National League games are harder to trade than Super League games and therefore any profit that I earn is one that I always appreciate more. The liquidity ranges from poor to dreadful, the players are part time which probably increases the randomness factor and it’s not a league that is as easy to follow and understand.

My trading also suffered in the evening when the API performance became intolerable, and I struggle to trade the amount that I do on the regular Betfair interface, which lead to another “What if” scenario. Part of my strategy is to keep a large amount of green on the draw, even having red on the teams if necessary. At 22-8, the draw could be laid in the low 20s, which was good value and certain to drift, so I removed my green from the draw, expecting to back it back in the high 20s or mid 30s. Up until this point, I had an average first half which had allowed me to build up a high three figure green on the draw, and with the game close at HT, it made more sense to leave my money here for now.

However, it was at this time the API started to play up, and not realising this, I decided to shut down and reload Bettrader. Now, I do have the regular Betfair interface open at all times, and could have backed the draw back

However, I got too concerned with value, and instead of taking one or two ticks lower, I held out for what I wanted, only for Widnes to come back to be level at 22-22 with fifteen minutes to go. Now, at this stage I wasn’t in a bad position. I still had three figures green on the draw and had taken some advantage of a “crazy” Widnes price to be able to build up a decent sized green on both teams. However, I know that if the API had been working correctly, my green on the draw would have been much larger, and I would have been able to trade out around the 4.5 mark for a very nice profit. (Note, that in these situations, I would much rather take the £100 profit than have £500 on the draw. The chance of there being no more scores is low and therefore I always lay off substantially at around such a point. It’s why I find backing the draw so advantageous but why draw layers can be equally profitable, provided they have a strong stomach!)

As it was, a late Whitehaven try meant that I ended up with near enough £50 profit, instead of the low three figures I had on the draw. Usually, such a situation would leave me questioning my strategy but as mentioned above, I felt strangely content after the game. The realisation that I had earned close to £50, a day’s wages for some people, for watching a game of Rugby League finally hit home and more than ever, I am convinced that this could be just the start.

More than ever I am growing confidence in my ability, only to not increase stake size or risk, almost as if I am deliberately holding myself back. I wish I knew the answer to stop trading scared!

I will post on Saturday and Sunday’s games later this week, hopefully tomorrow, but I will leave with one last thought that is currently perplexing me the most. Value. In a series of random events, how important is value. Is taking less than value to avoid loss a good strategy or does it simply reduce long term profits and who and how exactly determines value.