Welcome back to another episode of the Betfair Trading Community podcast! In today’s episode, titled “Why Horse Racing is a Great Sport to Trade on Betfair!”, we dive into the exciting world of horse racing trading. From profitable selections to successful strategies, we explore the ins and outs of this thrilling sport. Join us as we discuss the advantages of horse racing trading, the importance of staying objective, and the thrill of trading in an unpredictable market. We also have some exciting news to share – Martin will be joined by Ryan in future episodes, bringing a fresh dynamic to the show. So grab your favorite beverage, sit back, and get ready to immerse yourself in the world of horse racing trading on Betfair. Let’s dive right in!
Timestamp:
00:02:19 Convenient and social sport for trading enthusiasts.
00:04:07 Love statistics, finding trends, and studying data.
00:08:07 Excited about horse racing, community strategies. Collaboration and success in Betfair trading.
00:13:18 Profitable friends on forum share winning strategies.
00:15:29 Horse racing: unpredictable, exciting sport to trade.
00:18:09 Spotting trends, making conclusions, impressive analysis, beating the market challenge.
Key Topics & Bullets
- The advantages of horse racing trading for beginners
- Learning the markets and making money through scalping and identifying trends
- Relatively inexpensive way to learn and gain market knowledge
- Convenient as races occur throughout the day and evening
- Suitable for those with 9 to 5 jobs, as trading can be done after work hours
- The unpredictability of horse racing and its appeal to traders
- Unknown and unpredictable outcomes reflected in the odds
- Ideal for traders who want up and down swings rather than predictability
- Provides a sense of excitement and thrill
- The importance of avoiding biases in trading
- Biases can hinder statistics-based decision making
- Football trading example where biases from being a fan can cloud judgment
- Lack of bias in horse racing trading allows for more objective decision making based on statistics
- The role of collaboration and community in horse racing trading
- Appreciation for the Betfair trading community and their contributions
- Belief that working together and sharing ideas can lead to successful strategies
- Excitement about seeing strategies that others in the community come up with
- Introduction of the podcast host Martin and upcoming episodes
- Martin will be joined by Ryan for future episodes
- Different trading strategies and opinions between Martin and Ryan
- Agreement on many things, but new dynamic expected with Ryan’s addition
- Promise of a diverse range of topics covered in upcoming episodes
- Personal interest in horse racing and desire to find advantages and edges in the market
- The speaker’s fascination with statistics and studying data
- Acknowledgment of biases in football trading and desire for a fresh perspective
- Excitement about exploring horse racing and learning from others in the community
Transcript:
Martin Futter[00:00:02]:
Hello, and welcome to another podcast from betfairtradingcommunity.com. With me, your host, Martin, I’m quite excited today. So when I talk about a topic, I don’t really talk about, and that is going to be horse racing. but before I get into that, We’ve got a little bit of an announcement to make in regards to the podcast. I’ve been speaking to Ryan and, I think from from next week, we’re gonna start doing some podcasts together, covering a range of topics. And I I thought it’d be good just to kind of get the 2 opinions on board because I think it’s funny because every successful trader has their own way of doing things to some extent. So it’s quite interesting you know, me and Ryan, while we do agree on a hell of a lot of stuff with trading, we don’t necessarily do the same things or agree on absolutely everything. So and that should be fun to do.
Martin Futter[00:00:54]:
If you’ve got any topics you want us to cover, just get in touch, and let us know because, you know, we really are open to members of sessions, you know. And even if you’re not a member, you know, let us know because at the end of the day, this content, as always, it is for you. you know, I enjoy doing these podcasts. I love I love sharing with you guys. but it’s not for me. Essentially, I don’t really matter. it’s all for you guys. So, yeah, get in touch.
Martin Futter[00:01:22]:
Let me know some topics you uncovered. as ever, thanks for the messages. I know I kind of put a few podcasts out last week and I know they’ve been really well received. so thank you for that guys. Thank you for downloading them, listening to them. helps us out tremendously. And obviously, you know, hopefully it’s helping you guys out. And that obviously is statistics are showing us that it is.
Martin Futter[00:01:46]:
So that’s great. but anyway, let’s get on to today’s topic, which is horse racing. now horse racing is an absolutely fantastic sport to trade. There’s no two ways about it. The reason being, it’s plentiful. right? All year round, I mean, there’s very rarely a day where there’s no UK racing. there’s certainly not a day where there’s no racing what so ever. So it’s such a plentiful sport to trade.
Martin Futter[00:02:19]:
and I think that’s one of the reasons it’s probably other than football, the main sport that people trade and it’s just so convenient in that respect that you know, let’s say, you know, if you’re a trader, you wanna trade, well, if you wanna trade during a day, great. you know, the UK racing usually starts around midday and often there’s evening races so it can go on basically as long as you want. you work 9 to 5, well, you can do some trading after work. So it works really, really well in that respect. And I think A lot of people take up horse racing to trade because of the benefits socially. You know, so For example, if you’re a football trader, most of your action is gonna be evenings weekends. That’s just the way it is. Right? So, you know, if you’ve got social life and family ties, it can be a bit of a juggling act, you know, which I’ve found over the last few years.
Martin Futter[00:03:17]:
but horse racing doesn’t really represent the same challenges. You know, you could do horse racing during the day, during a weekday. you can, you know, earn your living and whatnot on betfair during those times and be free to go and hang out with your friends and family go to the cinema, do whatever you wanna do of an evening, another weekend. So, it’s it’s such a it’s such a convenient sport, like I say, to trade. and I think that’s why a lot of people get into it. The other nice thing with horse racing is that it’s so statistics based. You know, statistics are so, so vital in horse race. and if you know anything about me, you’ll know that I’m obsessed with statistics.
Martin Futter[00:04:07]:
I love statistics. I love studying data I love looking for trends. I love finding edges in markets and spotting things that just keep happening time and time again. it’s funny because my sister’s a statistical analysis, worker down in Bristol and It’s funny that she kind of does something very similar to me, but in a very different field. and you know, yet we’ve never really conversed about it. and I think it must just be in our DNA that we we love statistics and we love to study them. But the great thing with horse racing is that for a lot of people, they won’t have a great knowledge of of everything to do with horseracing and thus they don’t bring their own biases. And what the advantage of that is with football, sometimes we bring a lot of bias because I know football, you know, so well since I was a kid, I was obsessed with football.
Martin Futter[00:05:06]:
and I’m probably not quite as obsessed as I was when I was a kid. you know, because I’m I’d say that American football is now my main sport to enjoy. but still football takes up a big part of my life. And it’s difficult not to bring in biases, you know, teams you like, know if necessary teams you support, even teams you like, you’re gonna have a slight preference for. You might have a slight bias for it. It could be a positive or negative bias. You know, I’m probably negatively biased about Norwich. I just assume we’re gonna lose every game and when we don’t, it’s a bonus, right? from a trading perspective, you don’t want any bias because there’s nothing statistical about your bias, all all your bias is doing, is adding in a factor that’s actually irrelevant to the statistics that will scupper what you’re trying to do.
Martin Futter[00:05:58]:
It will scupper any edge you’re trying to make. and it won’t help you as a trader. And it’s very difficult, you know, even with the big teams in England, you know, we have so much knowledge of these teams, very difficult not to impart some of our buyers when we’re thinking about trading those teams and those games. And the thing I like about horseracing is that because I don’t have, you know, any, any great knowledge of the horses and things like that. I don’t have a great bias I bring into it. I can look at it with a fresh set of eyes with an unbiased mind and I just look at the statistics and go, right. What is this pointing to? And if it’s pointing in a particular direction, then I’m likely to trade that direction. And so I think that’s one of the really big advantages of horseracing.
Martin Futter[00:06:47]:
And of course, the great thing with Betfair tradingcommunity.com is that we’re working at the moment on our horse racing software that we’re going to release soon. we’re really we’re really, really close on it. We were hoping to have it already released, but then, one of the software engineers, we had a family bereaved which set us back a little bit. But, obviously, you know, some things in life are more important than trading and then trading software as much as we might not quite grab that concept to fully understand it. yeah, I I think we’ll we’ll respect that. But the thing is it’s it’s so great because we’re gonna have this horse race statistics software. I don’t know if you saw it on the forum. but Adam actually posted a little preview screenshot.
Martin Futter[00:07:33]:
and it just looks amazing. If you get a chance, go and search that out. Or if you if you just wanna see it, email info at Bedford Community dotcom and we can send it over to you. but yeah, it just looks so great. And I can’t wait to delve into the statistics. you know, I’m gonna spend some serious time doing that. That’s gonna be one of my big folks is the football stuff. The nice thing with the football software is the way it’s set up now with the profitable members builders, you know, with the things we can test ourselves, for me, that software kind of takes care of itself.
Martin Futter[00:08:07]:
you know, I’ve got all my preset filters now. I trade around those happy days now onto the horse racing, right? I really wanna get stuck into that, find some edges, find some advantages, and, you know, wait. I can’t wait for the community contributions. because they’re always fantastic, you know, and it’s amazing, isn’t it? I mean, I mean, if you’re a member, you’ll know it’s amazing how being part of the community, working together with different ideas and and kind of streamlining things and working out things it’s amazing how good strategies can become and and how actually in this collaborative style of working that we do together, we have success because it’s so much better, you know, to have all these great minds working together. and think this is gonna be the same and frustrating. I think people are gonna come up with much better strategies than me. and I can’t wait to see them. You know, that’s the great thing about Betfair trading community.
Martin Futter[00:09:05]:
isn’t it? It’s for everyone. you know, we all share and and it’s funny because something I might share might trigger something for someone else who then goes on to to create something better than what I’ve created. And there’s something quite magical about that in a lot of respects. And I just think that horse racing software is gonna be exactly the same. I can’t wait to test out some systems on that. so what what are some of my favorite things to trade with horseracing. Well, I like scalping. I’m, you know, if you know me well, you’ll know I’m a big scalper.
Martin Futter[00:09:41]:
always looking for price movements. I know that a lot of people who start with horse racing, they try and kind of pick off the tick or 2 and scalp in that way, and it kind of makes small profits on each race and just build those up over the course of the day. And you know what? if you’ve got a decent stop loss and you’re not risking much money, it’s not a bad way to start. Just put a few quid in there that you’re not worried if you lose or not. and you just trade doing scalping, watching my I think it can be a really good learning experience. and because it kind of covers 2 things. You’re learning the market, but you’re also learning how to manage your trading and your money. And and I think that as much as paper training’s great and as much as practice mode’s great.
Martin Futter[00:10:30]:
When you graduate from those modes, using live money is slightly different because there there’s a risk to it. Right? It is your money on the line. and so, you know, when it’s your one in the line, you wanna be sure you’re doing the right thing. You wanna be careful with it and you wanna be handling it with discipline and and and a great mentality. so yeah, I mean, I love scouting. Anyone who knows me like I say, would absolutely know that. Actually, probably one of my favorite things is back to let which if you don’t know, is basically you try them back at high odds and then lay at low odds. and usually a thing called dogging which means double or bust, where basically you back a horse, you hope that it halts in price and you green up for equal profit all around.
Martin Futter[00:11:24]:
so you double your money, you know, if you you used a £10 stake originally, You’d green up when it got to £10 and everything else was £10. The surprise went in, and you had doubled your money. And, thus, obviously, he’d lose £10 if the price didn’t have. So I really like that because there’s there’s some quite some quite clear trends and ways that you can spot front running horses who are likely to take up the lead and and go for and their prices are likely to come in, quite significantly. So, yeah, I quite enjoy that. I know that obviously John’s been running kind of a a troubling system, a travel door bus system that’s made money, made some good money over the years, and, he posts those every day on the forums. So, If you get a chance and you haven’t been on the horse racing road, it’s worth having a look. Obviously, there’s not a ton of chat at the moment, but I know John’s always updating that.
Martin Futter[00:12:19]:
We are talking a little bit about the software. but obviously, I think most of us are just basically waiting for the software to drop before we hit it hard. and that horse racing thread will be trip there. So, you know, have a chat in there, you know, comment, say hi, and then you’ll start getting the updates. And that’s gonna be important over the next few months. because I think like I said, there’s gonna be some incredible incredible work going on. I’m so excited. Like I say, you know, just to see what people create with this with this software.
Martin Futter[00:12:50]:
And it’s taken a long time. This software has taken a long time. And the reason is that it’s such an ambitious project. and Adam’s really just wanted to build something. It’s just gonna blow everything else out of the water, you know, any other trade course rates in trading software, it’s gonna be hopefully made redundant after this. and, we’re so excited because we know what you guys can do. And I’m always staggered. You know, I’m staggered with the football.
Martin Futter[00:13:18]:
How many, you know, these profitable friends that people have on our forum and they’re posting selections every day and they’re making money over the long term and it’s, you know, it’s impressive to see and and I love the people do that because there is such a great pressure on sharing advice and sharing strategies, you know, because if you do have a bad run, everyone’s gonna have a bad run at some point, some some people don’t quite understand that and they get upset that they, you know, they maybe they started it at the wrong time and they they started when it hit a bad run, but it’s like, Guys, just stick with it, be sensible if you’re staking, and this is a profitable strategy and it’s proven it over a long time. so I’m really excited. Like I say, to dig in with this horse racing software. but yeah, they’re they’re kind of a couple of the markets I really like to trade I know some people like to go the other way and later back, so you lay a short price for us. Hope that it doubles in price. and then green up at that point. Maybe a horse that isn’t expected necessarily to front run, or has a habit of kind of getting to the back and coming, you know, coming from the back and winning. So that’s another strategy people really like to use Some people like to lay short price horses and just sometimes just leave it as a lay and hope the horse doesn’t win.
Martin Futter[00:14:40]:
I follow some strategies with that and they’ve done well. I I think if you’re picking you know, short price favorites that you think are overrated or shouldn’t be, there’s a good chance that favorite won’t win because the beauty of horse racing is, at the end of the day, these are animals running on one day. You’re never quite sure what’s gonna happen. you know, you’re never quite sure. It’s not like people where you can you can specifically give them the instruction and know that they fully under stand what’s at stake, right? It’s not quite like that with forces. Of course, you can direct them in certain ways, but they’re still, you know, they’re still animals. They’re not human. The way we communicate with them is far different from the way we communicate with each other.
Martin Futter[00:15:29]:
And that’s something I’ve always found fascinating about the sport of horse racing. There is kind of that that unknown element. and that’s what gives us the odds. That’s what gives us odds we need odds we want because it’s not it’s not necessarily quite as predictable as other sports in a lot of respects and that is a good thing for traders because one thing we don’t one is predictability. what we really want is up and down swings, don’t we? As straight as so yeah, it’s a it’s a great sport to trade. Like I say, if you are thinking about getting involved, scalping, starting off trying to scout the market, look for trends of where the price is going, try and make a little bit of money on that and see what happens. It’s a great way to learn the markets, you know, relatively cheaply. and you do really start to pick up a sense of what’s going on, how these markets go.
Martin Futter[00:16:30]:
and yeah, like I said, I just cannot wait for this software. you know, I keep banging on about it. because I’m so excited. You know, I I’m so excited to the great thing with Betfair trading community is that it just benefits everyone. You know, I benefit from Betfair trading community. That’s the whole point. That’s always been the whole point of Betfair trading community that we all benefit from each other. And so that’s that’s why I’m so excited.
Martin Futter[00:16:55]:
I love seeing what other people come up with. I love having my own theories and test them coming up in my own hypothesis, thinking where an edge might be in a market. You know, it gets the it gets the competitive juices flowing. You know, I think that’s the great thing with Betfair trading. If you’re if you’re ever sitting there and you’re thinking, I’m not sure if I enjoy trading, I’m not feeling it. I’m a bit, well, just think of it in those terms because whenever I think about coming up with these new strategies, trying to beat the market, have an edge, you know, where people tell you you can’t the amount of people that try and tell you you can’t have an edge, and then you see how many successful traders there are. And you go, hang on. Someone doesn’t quite add up here.
Martin Futter[00:17:42]:
And you’re telling me that, you know, you can’t make money from gambling and trading. Yep. There’s all these people who are. right in front of my face and, you know, proving it to me on a daily basis. but, yeah, there’s something about getting those competitive juices flowing, isn’t there? That’s, it’s great when you find something that beats the market and, you know, you just rinse and repeat it. and I love testing things. I love watching as the results. So they’re up and down.
Martin Futter[00:18:09]:
You you try and spot the trends and you’re wondering how many how many races is enough to kind of make some, you know, fairly strong conclusions. So, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s gonna be a great challenge for us all, but one thing I know is that we’re up for that challenge. the community is always up for the trading challenge some of the work that goes on, some of the effort. I mean, I take time with my spreadsheet, so my spreadsheets aren’t half as impressive as some of you guys. I mean, some of the spreadsheets and things you guys come up with were just mind blowing. You know, I look at some of that. I didn’t even have a clue what’s going on but, you know, I I love the depth, the analysis. Just that just that kind of determination to beat the market.
Martin Futter[00:18:56]:
to win at Betfair trading. and it’s just it is, I’m happy to use the word a lot today, but it is exciting. It really does excite me. and I think if you’re ever not feeling that, take a couple of days off and then really think about what Betfair trading means. And I think those juices will get flowing and and you might go, yes, I wanna get back involved. I wanna start beating that market again. I wanna start testing things. And the great thing with testing is you can test for months without putting any money on.
Martin Futter[00:19:24]:
you know, you can record results. It doesn’t cost you anything other than time to record results. so there’s something very powerful and great in that. but anyway horse racing, race sport to trade cannot cannot wait for the trading software. It’s gonna be immense. and I just can’t wait for what you guys come up with. I’m so excited about the future of horse racing on betfairtradingcommunity.com. Thanks for listening guys.
Martin Futter[00:19:51]:
Thanks for your lovely kind words. they mean so much to me. Like I say, you know, these podcasts and things. Obviously, me and Ryan, we don’t have to do this stuff, but we just love to get back because you guys seem to appreciate it. and the, you know, the more we can give back, you know, the better. So anyway guys, thanks for listening. I’ll be back again with another podcast.
