Are too many traders making it impossible to make money trading on Betfair?

 

So the answer to this question would have to be that it depends on how good you are at adapting to changing markets. If you are able to keep in touch with how the markets are moving and what is working for you and what isn't, then the more traders the better. The traders that will find it harder are the ones that constantly try to systemise their trading by finding a pattern that works for the moment and then setting it in stone.

I think that one of the most stressful aspects of trading is the constant decision making, and when many of those decisions lose you money, that makes it even more stressful to keep making them.

Creating a system, whereby you buy and sell according to predetermined parameters being met, removes the need for you to keep making decisions and relieves a lot of that stress. You still get all the credit when you make money because it's your system, but the losses can be explained away and blamed on a rigid set of rules. Following a system like that makes trading a lot less mentally exhausting than constantly watching the market, thus relieving a lot of the stress associated with trading.

The only problem is that it doesn't work! Patterns are constantly changing and few, if any, rigid systems will continue to make money for any decent period of time.

If you're finding it harder to make money from trading, don't blame the influx of new traders. Instead, take an honest look at your trading style and ask yourself if you are merely following a set of rules or are you really trying to work out what is happenning.

The more liquidity there is in the markets the better and whether that liquidity comes from traders, gamblers or bots is irrelevant. The fact is, the more people there are submitting bets into the market, then the more chance you have of getting matched. If I want to Lay a bet at a certain price and another trader matches my bet, good. If that trader wasn't there then maybe I wouldn't have been matched. And what that trader then does with his position is of no interest to me; if he flips it in 3 seconds time or lets the bet ride, either one has no adverse effect on the market, or me.

The classic losing strategy is to blame losses on everything else other than your own strategy, and too many other traders being involved in Betfair markets is the easiest scapegoat of them all. The world's financial markets have had professional traders scalping and spoofing them for a lot longer than Betfair's young markets have, and trading volumes on the world's futures markets break records every year. There are still plenty of professional traders making a living from them, and Betfair markets are no different.