Adam's Betfair Trading Results For 2003, 2004 and 2005
Year |
Days Traded |
+ Days |
- Days |
% Win Days |
AveDaily Bet Volume |
Ave Daily Profit |
Ave Daily Comm |
%Comm/ Profit |
Total Bet Volume |
Total Profit |
Total Comm |
Profit minus Comm |
Profit on Turnover |
|
299 |
287 |
12 |
96% |
£58,932 |
£140.90 |
£7.81 |
5.54% |
£17,620,846 |
£42,130 |
£2,336 |
£39,793 |
0.24% |
|
265 |
254 |
11 |
95.9% |
£82,249 |
£153.19 |
£10.19 |
6.65% |
£21,796,056 |
£40,596 |
£2,702 |
£37,893 |
0.19% |
|
257 |
215 |
42 |
83.7% |
£60,311 |
£80.40 |
£6.62 |
8.23% |
£15,500,001 |
£20,664 |
£1,702 |
£18,962 |
0.13% |
Total |
821 |
756 |
65 |
92.1% |
£66,890 |
£125.93 |
£8.21 |
6.52% |
£54,916,903 |
£103,390 |
£6,740 |
£96,648 |
0.19% |
Analysis of 3 Years Trading Results
I started trading on Betfair in November 2002 with £200 in my Betfair account. All of my trading results were derived from trading on the favourite in UK horseraces in the last 10 minutes before the start of the race.
All profits were hedged to ensure an even profit regardless of whether the favourite won the race or not.
You can see that in 2003 I traded 299 days out of the year, which consisted of 287 winning days and 12 losing days. In 2004 I traded 265 days, which consisted of 254 winning days and 11 losing days, and in 2005 I traded 257 days out of the year, which consisted of 215 winning days and 42 losing days.
This makes a total of 821 days where I traded, consisting of 756 winning days and 65 losing days, a percentage of 92% winning days over the full 3 year period.
After starting with £200 in November 2002 I built my Betfair account balance up to £3000 by the end of February 2003 and then started withdrawing money to keep it at that level. My trading bank remained between £2500-£3000 for the whole 3 year period as I found that I couldn’t effectively use a bigger bank than that.
At this level I was still able to double and sometimes triple my account balance every month for 36 months. Just imagine if I had been able to compound these results by doubling my bank 36 times without withdrawing anything! This would be impossible ofcourse because after a while I would have been trying to place million pound bets on a donkey derby at Wolverhampton.
For my style of very quick trading I found that I couldn’t effectively use more than £3000 because I couldn’t get matched on the bigger bets and couldn’t jump in and out of the market quickly when trying to place large bets.
If we look at the average daily volume of bets that I placed compared to my average daily profit you can see just how small my profit on turnover was. For the 3 year period I placed £66,890 worth of bets per day to achieve an average daily profit of £125.93.
If we assume that this volume was placed over an average of 20 races per day that works out at £3,344 worth of Backs and Lays per race placed on 16,420 UK horseraces to make an average of £6.30 profit per race, which is 0.19% profit on turnover. When added up over the entire period this adds up to £54,916,903 worth of bets placed to make £103,390 profit.
The low impact of commission charges can also be seen. A gambler that has a cycle of comparatively big profits and big losses pays the 5% commission on the full amount of the profits without being able to take the losses into account. As a result, 5% commission often works out as more like 50% of his overall profits, often more.
On the other hand, traders that pay 5% commission on small, consistent profits without the big losses to take into account end up paying much closer to 5%. In 2003 my profit of £42,130 was achieved with commission payments of only £2,336 which is only 5.5%.
Likewise, in 2004 my profit of £40,596 only suffered £2,702 in commission payments which is 6.6%. 2005 had the most losing days so the commission payments were the highest in percentage terms at 8.2%, making the total commission payments for the 3 year period as £6,740 out of £103,390 profit, only 6.5% of my total winnings.
I hope that I have shown you how quickly and significantly small profits from a small starting bank can add up. I started off with a small bank because I was skint and had no choice, but I think it was the only reason that I succeeded. It might seem slow at the time when you're trading but doubling your bank every month is about as good as it gets.
Trading Results
Adam made over £100,000 profit on Betfair from a starting bank of £200.
Check out his complete trading results below: