Of the 7 or so techniques I was trying I have already managed to file some of them under the ‘waste of time’ category and thrown them in the bin. I have 3 ideas I would like to try out but before I go any further with them I have realised I must understand these markets first.

It all comes down to an exit strategy. I could research a game and decide to back Man United at home against Newcastle for 1.31. I may have good reasons for entering the market on that selection, for that price and with a specific stake – but unless I have an exit strategy, at this point it’s just a simple ‘bet’ - it’s a gamble.

I have no idea how much the market will move if United take the lead or go a goal down. If it stays a draw it’s obvious the odds will slowly move out but at what time would I exit? Without knowing the amount of movement in the odds before hand I have no idea as to my possible loss amounts to in given situations. Without a planned exit it’s left to my decision making in-play…..

There’s nothing wrong with making decisions in-play, I do it all the time with F1. The difference is I understand the F1 markets after years of playing them. I have an idea as to what to do if X,Y or Z happens which allows me to make kind of instinctive actions to events happening during the race. Of course I get it wrong sometimes but if I’m right more times than wrong and I win more when I’m right than I loose when I’m wrong –I will win. I don’t understand the football markets at the moment and I end up ‘lost’ as to what to do when things go against me: “Should I wait and see if they equalize”, “It’s only £*, should I leave it to run” are the kind of thoughts entering my head. In essence I’m gambling not trading.

If I know what the consequences are before I enter a trade I would be better prepared. You can never tell exactly but even a rough idea would be a massive advantage and in some cases I may realise a position may not be worth entering at all because the risk far outweighs any potential pay-off.

The football trading will therefore be put on hold until I have a half decent knowledge of the odds movements. I’m using an excel to record some data which I will then evolve to incorporate some kind of ‘prediction’ calculator. By that I don’t mean it will tell me who will win the game! I mean, given the odds are currently 1.31, what would be my profit/loss be if X,Y or Z happened at a given time.

There won’t be much point in updating the blog during this period as I won’t have much to say and I also need to switch my attention back F1 for next weeks race. I will be back, hopefully better prepared and with a clearer idea of how to play this game.

I’m launching a kind of assault on the football markets at the moment. There are about 6 methods I’m currently testing out with minimum stakes, ranging from pure outright value bets, trading match odds and my current favourite – ‘winging it’

The hardest part at the moment is trying to work out which ones are working because of luck and which ones are not working because of bad luck. I am keeping detailed notes of each and every bet so over time it will become more obvious which ones really work, but for the moment I have to persist with them – should they currently be winning or loosing.

There are some obvious advantages with trading out of games such as the Birmingham game in my last post. I traded for a green in the 80th minute when I felt the odds gave me a good return and outweighed the risk of a goal being scored in the last 10 minutes Birmingham scored in the 92nd but by this time it was irrelevant for me. However there are some disadvantages to trading for green – namely when should you do it if at all?

With any kind of trading you should be aiming to let your winning trades run as long as possible to win you the most and cut your losses as soon as possible to keep them at a minimum. How do you do this with football?

Let’s say you have a Lay of Liverpool @ 1.51 at the kick off. The game stays 0-0 for 10 minutes and the odds are 1.60 – what do you do? Things are going in your favour so you want to let your trade run as long as possible, but you have no idea what will happen in the next 30 seconds. If Liverpool score in that time you will be looking at a heavy loss, not a minimum loss, a heavy one. If they don’t score then what about the next 30 seconds and the 30 seconds after that – when do you trade out? Also if Liverpool score do you accept that loss or wait to see they concede to bring the game back in your favour at a draw. There’s no system in the world that can tell you the answer to this or any rules you could make up which will give you a profit in the long run, which is why my current favourite method is ‘winging it’.

I’m currently playing with the Standard v Liverpool game on ITV. I started off with a lay of Liverpool @ 1.51 which through an excel I’m using on one of my other methods; I determined to be a value bet. Standard hit the post and missed a penalty and by the 30 min mark I made the choice to green up @1.81. I could have left it at that but I get the feeling Liverpool will have the edge in the second half and may nick one to win the game so I have backed them again @ 1.95. I have much better odds than the currently available and I make it that by the 70 min mark I could still trade out for no loss. Who knows what I will do in the second half – I don’t – I’m winging it!

It will be interesting to see over the next few months what method will give me the best return.

The Championship kicks off today so it’s time for me to get properly started with this little experiment. The problem is until we get further into the season there’s not much I can do in terms of research before a game so things will start off slowly.

I’m watching the Birmingham v Sheff Utd game at the moment were I took a lay of Birmingham @ 2.04 before the game. The only other position I’ve taken so far is on my team Norwich away at Coventry. In the pre-season friendly’s the defence leaked quite a few goals (which often happens in friendly games anyway) but the new signings are not match fit and have only played a few games together. I have backed ‘any un-quoted’ on the correct score market @17.5 in case we get a 4-0 hammering!

I was messing about with some of the friendly games over the last couple of weeks and made a loss which was to be expected. I just wanted to have a little play around with some ideas and get used to the way the odds would move etc. I know I could have paper traded but I’m using minimum stakes and I don’t think there’s any substitute for the real thing. The psychology of trading/betting is as massive part of what kind of results you get and with paper trading you leave out this very important ingredient.

It’s going to be a long and slow (probably painful!) journey.

I had the day off work for the F1 practice and noticed there were some decent looking friendly games on today. I’ve got an idea in my head as to how to attack this football trading thingy I for some reason thought would be a good idea, so today looked like a good starting point.

I hate friendlies and never put any money on them usually but I needed to just test out what I thought would happen would actually happen with the odds movement. I used minimum £2 stake and played 4 games.

I lost £4.71 in total with 3 losses and 1 win. Not a great start but then I knew luck would play a bigger part in this than my normal F1 trading so losses are to be expected.

I will keep trying as this will only be proved right/wrong with a large sample of games. Since I started this section of the blog I’ve been looking around for other traders who are making profits from football. It’s not looking good! Has anyone out there managed to make long term profits from trading football – I don’t mean 1 or 2 seasons worth, I mean long term?

Money Management has never been a strong point of mine. It’s not because I don’t understand it or because I’m not disciplined enough to stick to a plan, but because I’ve never really had the need for it – I seem to be doing just fine without it.

My approach to trading is not that of a day trader/scalper/cold trader whatever you want to call it. All trades on Formula One are entered through knowledge of the sport and because I think the price is wrong. I have a set amount of money I’m happy to loose over the course of a race weekend (never happy to loose but you get what I mean). From that I base stakes on each individual trade based on instinct and nothing more. The more confident I am the price is wrong, the more I lump on it and vice versa. Sometimes I will get close to my limit and other times I will be nowhere near it. It’s probably an amateurish method but it works for me. There’s so much variation in my methods I have probably have an argument for not using a staking system or management strategy.

The more I look into trading football the more I’m beginning to think money management will be critical for a return in these markets. Luck is far more influential in football trading so managing the pot of money you trade with could make the difference between profit or loss – it’s possibly more important than the strategy itself. This should be a warning light to me and I really ought to be thinking about why I’m going to bother trading football at all. Not wanting to give up that easily I will continue researching, but with about 1 month to go before kick-off and still no idea of what my ‘plan’ is things aren’t looking great.

In all honesty it’s not looking like I will be able to trade football but I feel I should at least test some methods before I give in. I have a few ideas so I’m off to look for articles on money management to find the best way to put those into practice and avoid loosing my pot before the end of August. Who knows, I may even find a money method which will improve my F1 trading, which had I of used before, would have made me a millionaire by now!

For the last two games of the Euro’s I simply backed Spain and left them as outright bets. Not really a ‘strategy’ but there was value in the odds and at no point did I feel the need to trade out, so they were left to run.

The funds therefore in profit but for no reason other than luck. I have been trying to think of a way to reduce the ‘luck’ factor and find some edge but it’s not easy - my main issue and the reason I believe it’s so hard to make regular profit (note the regular part) from football, is because most ‘strategies’ rely on you cutting your winnings.

Take the well known Lay The Draw method, which involves laying the draw and then backing when/if either team scores. What are you really doing here? As soon as the advantage moves in your favour (the game is not a draw) a green-up bet is placed – in other words you are cutting your wins short. If there’s no goal what do you do? How do you know when to exit? Most of the time you would be leaving your losses to run for a far greater extent compared to the winnings you are cutting short – the exact opposite of what you should be doing. Yes you could take out insurance on 0-0 but then your reducing your profits on the winning bets again, to the point you don’t actually make a profit.

A far better ‘strategy’ would be to do some research. Find a game you believe will not end 0-0, or even better would not end a draw. Compare the odds with the real probable outcome and determine if there is some value in the odds form a lay perspective. Then Lay the draw and let the bet run. Of course that’s not a strategy – it’s a gamble on a pure outright bet. If you got your research correct you should make a profit, unless you were really unlucky, but it’s not the way to make a regular income. This is the hard part about finding a football ‘strategy’. Trading results in you cutting losses and gambling is …a gamble.

I’ve still not decide on how I will ‘play’ the football markets although I already know it won’t be through some ‘strategy’. Each game is different so why would I want to apply the same method to each one. At the same time I don’t want to rely on luck, so I have to find the middle ground somewhere. If you thought I had some plan or strategy when I start this blog your wrong - It’s a good job I have some time before the start of the season because at the moment I really have no idea of what I’m going to do!

Not the best start to this little experiment as I made a loss on last nights Germany v Turkey semi final. I’ve not bothered with football for a while and this game reminded me why, although it could just be I was a little rusty.

In short I backed Germany as they looked good @ 1.5 but soon became apparent it would be no easy ride. When Turkey took the lead I moved some money over to them to reduce losses but at the same time forgot this would increase my liability on draw! What a dumb mistake – I now had twice my planned liability on a draw and it was no surprise to me when Germany scored whilst trying to think of a way out.

It was still early days so I left it – all I needed was a goal from Turkey to make a profit or Germany to make a very small loss. Eventually Germany scored and I thought about levelling up the book, seeing as I had twice the liability I intended but I didn’t. I left it and Turkey equalized. Another reminder for me as to how quickly things can change in football.

I’d given up at this point and accepted the loss- a tough reminder of what I should not be doing. It was only a 90th minute goal from Germany that saved the bank and what could have been the shortest blog ever.

It’s going to be harder than I originally thought and I’m going to reduce my stake size along with keeping details notes of everything I do. It’s a good job I started this bog because otherwise the amateurish attempts at trading last night would have been swept under the carpet –with the blog I have to post my stupidity for the world to read – motivation enough not to be dumb again.