Once again, our Anonymous friend completely misses the point of a post.
Yesterday's post was in part about why straight comparisons of P&Ls are in themselves meaningless. I am accused of trying to "cloud the issues by talking about runners and ages etc. That has no relevance whatsoever to gambling". The relevance is that in the same way that it is meaningless to compare a 20 year old male runner with a 60 year old female runner (a fact acknowledged by the existence of age-graded tables) it is also meaningless to compare betting or investment P&Ls without some context.
Posting a Betfair P&L showing a £10 profit means absolutely nothing to me. Some examples why.
Was this the plus side of an arb, and the 'winner' shows a loss on BETDAQ or WBX or a bookies of £9.50?
Did the poster spend 18 hours trading to make that £10 or was his profit the result of five minutes work and a single punt?
What does that £10 mean to the bettor? Is he a multi-millionaire? Unemployed with a zero net worth? Retired? A student with a job at MacDonalds earning £10 an hour? A computer professional earning £100 an hour?
Anonymous continues:
If you don't want to compare yourself to other traders/gamblers you certainly aren't going to learn anything by comparing yourself to anonymous posters on networth type sites on the net. The only real comparison you can make are against your peers that you know socially.I'd be very interested to compare myself to other traders/gamblers, but only if the comparison is relative. There is simply no point in comparing my results to a full-time trader. There is no point comparing my results to those of someone who operates bots. It would be a waste of time comparing my results to those of an unemployed 18 year old with no savings.
Now if Betfair would publish a table showing the results of all their customers, that would be fascinating reading for me, but they won't for obvious reasons. The fact that I frequently have to pay the Premium Charge tells me that I'm doing better than most, but I have no doubt that others with more time/experience/money than I have do even better, and different betting styles mean that many bigger winners don't pay any Premium Charge.
Unfortunately most of my peers that I know socially either don't understand the principles or aren't prepared (or allowed!) to put in the time to learn how to trade on the exchanges, so there's no one to compare myself with there.
I'm also not expecting to LEARN anything from joining a NetWorth site. When did I say that? I'm not thinking of joining to learn; I'm thinking of joining because the idea of a league table (even one where results are not audited) appeals to my competitive nature.
Finally Anonymous said "Basically you are saying I'm not going to post any evidence that I make a profit. Wonder why that is?"
Wonder no more, because I didn't say that at all if you actually read the post or previous posts. I simply said, (though apparently not simply enough, and as I have said many times before), that it is meaningless to do so. If anyone can give a good reason why I should do so, and how this would be in any way meaningful, or serve some purpose, please let me know. I can see why my results might be meaningful to others if I were selling a system, in fact they would be essential, but I'm not. My results only mean something to me.
10 comments:
Well, I kinda hate arguing, but it came to the point I feel must get involved; for a more than year I have been following this blog, I have liked it a lot (in fact, along with Pete Nordsted and Edge Hunters, it is my favourite blog!) exactly because it does not pretend to show how successfull is he at trading, but only present us some interesting articles, opinions, researches, often not related to trading itself, but containing an amusing ideas, which make excellent reading in times when ladder nis not on monitor!
But what I utterly don't understand is why someone wastes his attacks something that he can easily overcome, simply by not typing that address in his browser?! If you prefer blogs which consist only of every bloody day repeating template "Today has been a fantastic day, so bank grew up to whooping ??.000 units, ??% above the expected", just move on, there is Adam Heathcote and million others like him, so why the hell do you waste your precious time arguing here?!
"it is also meaningless to compare betting or investment P&Ls without some context."
Probably have a little more merit than comparing yourself to to a net worth site where people are making money in a completely unrelated field and stick in any figure they wish without any form of 'evidence'.
"Posting a Betfair P&L showing a £10 profit means absolutely nothing to me. Some examples why.
Was this the plus side of an arb, and the 'winner' shows a loss on BETDAQ or WBX or a bookies of £9.50?
Did the poster spend 18 hours trading to make that £10 or was his profit the result of five minutes work and a single punt?"
To be fair to the bloggers that do post up pnl shots, they generally have stated within the blog if they're arbers, traders, gamblers etc and do give some idea of time spent/punting.
"What does that £10 mean to the bettor? Is he a multi-millionaire? Unemployed with a zero net worth? Retired? A student with a job at MacDonalds earning £10 an hour? A computer professional earning £100 an hour?"
Again most bloggers give some idea if they're doing this full time and you'll never really know but have a better idea than a net worth site.
"I'd be very interested to compare myself to other traders/gamblers, but only if the comparison is relative. There is simply no point in comparing my results to a full-time trader. There is no point comparing my results to those of someone who operates bots. It would be a waste of time comparing my results to those of an unemployed 18 year old with no savings.
I'm also not expecting to LEARN anything from joining a NetWorth site. When did I say that? I'm not thinking of joining to learn; I'm thinking of joining because the idea of a league table (even one where results are not audited) appeals to my competitive nature."
So in effect you want to compare yourself to other traders/gamblers but only when it's relative. But as no ones doing exactly the the same type of betting as you you'll join a league table of anonymous posters posting up any old unaudited crap working in totally unrelated fields ?
Makes sense to me, considering the amount of bullshit you post on here I reckon you'll do very well on those leagues :)
strugar said. "so why the hell do you waste your precious time arguing here?!"
With full time trading you have plenty of spare time to fill, "all work and no play", "devil finds work for idle hands " etc I don't think any of the anon posters are actually seething at anything said on this blog :)
But if it upsets you that much avoid reading the comments and stick with the fairy story blogs like edgehunters and peter norstead who are selling their own brand of crap on a subscription basis.
Time to put this one to bed mate. Surely everyone knows by now, you aren't going to post any figures, they're just trying to goad your ego into breaking your rules :)
Saying that, I do love to see figures... hehe I appreciate the competitive nature of it, problem is, as you say, there are people relevant to compete against, and then there are others who it's pointless even thinking about (the bloke who takes out 52p a race, or the horse racing punter with 13m commission points...).
Networth is interesting. Would you link to your profile? I suppose not, but it might be worth considering.
Well said Matt, cassini isn't going to post up any figures. I've yet to come across a successful gambler's don't who posts anywhere near as much as Cassini. A few successful ones post then stop as soon as they realise they aren't going to give away anything real info of how they make money. And you certainly don't find any succesful gamblers relying on anything other than their own judgement. Cassini's fascinatioon with crappy tipsters like SBP tells it's own story whether he's punting their tips or laughably 'monitoring' them.
Well said Matt, cassini isn't going to post up any figures. I've yet to come across a successful gambler's blog who posts anywhere near as much as Cassini. A few successful ones post then stop as soon as they realise they aren't going to give away anything real info of how they make money. And you certainly don't find any succesful gamblers relying on anything other than their own judgement. Cassini's fascinatioon with crappy tipsters like SBP tells it's own story whether he's punting their tips or laughably 'monitoring' them.
Hi,
Good to see that your blogs are as thought provoking as always and of course attracting plenty of compliments (am sure Ayn Rand would be impressed).
Until you mentioned it, I did not realise there were networth sites. Having said that, I recall that in France around the late 70's early 80's, the country was trying to raise more taxes (sounds familiar).Apparently someone in the French Finance Department suggested imposing a one off wealth tax, on people who had a net worth of over a certain figure.The government of the time implemented/ introduced the tax. This obviously created a big outcry, however the tax raised more than anticipated, because people inflated their net worth so as to pay the tax then of course complain to all and sundry how much tax they had to pay so as to impress family and friends etc.
Net worth site, would be interesting especially those bright young things in HM Revenue and Customs.
Rgds
Dave
My comment was not a judgement on Cassini himself, or what he chooses to monitor... though I'd personally ditch anyone immediately who tries to sell me a casino system, clearly that person cannot be taken seriously - and I think Cas think's the same. I'm sure there might just be some tipsters out there that offer something good, but time spent trying to find them is more than likely better spent working on your own strategy... of which it seems Cas has done, so fair play.
I like this blog, it's one of very few I read, it's entertaining, the writer has an ego that seems securely confident in a way that I find unlikely to have originated in anything other than success, whether that be in betting or other investments. Much of what is writen I agree with, and would write myself if I could be bothered / had the time / had the need. I don't read anything that gives out figures, or play by play accounts of the last market they played in P/L terms... the only P/L I'm interested in is my own. Though I'll admit to dipping in to Heathcote's for some mild entertainment on rare occasions.
My thoughts are, give up the tipsters and stick with your own stuff.. also, I do think this is one of the few blogs that does have some informational quality for those that need it. Definitely time to drop the repetitive "no figures here" posts though, just my opinion.
How about some commission figures ? hehe just kidding..
Wow, nice to see how many comments Cassini caused with his simple yet clear explanation!
Let me see this:
"Anonymous said...
But if it upsets you that much avoid reading the comments and stick with the fairy story blogs like edgehunters and peter norstead who are selling their own brand of crap on a subscription basis."
If I said I like reading them, it doesn't mean I am subscriber and regularly pay, apart from book "Mastering Betfair", which I enjoyed reading; though, point of my comment was not who pays or who offers value for what has been paid and who does not; point of my comment was that I cannot understand at all why someone wastes time writing attacking comments at blog of someone he disrespects; I have been stumbling upon a thousands of blogs, and I simply left alone the ones I didn't like, I think I can invest my time better than arguing with blog owners if their figures are realistic or no... But obviously, some folks have no better idea what to do with their spare time.
Must admit I'd be curious to know much you make, just because there has to be a tight correlation between how much you make and how good (or effective) you are. But having said that you'll satisfy nobody - too little and your a chump, to much and your lying.
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