Quality, Not Quantity

LayThatDraw wrote:

Hi mate, This may be a slightly odd question, but how many markets do you trade/bet on during an average month? You always read as betting advice that as punters one of our biggest advantages over a bookie is that we can choose when to bet or not to bet; just interesting to see how many bets you make. Thanks, great blog.

There’s no simple answer to that question, as it really depends on the time of year, and also the level of my interest in markets varies considerably. For trading at this time of year, I tend to focus on the NFL, perhaps 3 or 4 games a week, and I'll be checking to see if the in-play liquidity for the baseball improves now that the post-season is here. (Looking at the first game, it appears to have). For punting, it’s football, and while my ‘serious’ bets are usually less than 10 a week, I may have 40 plus bets a week for small stakes – games where I think there is value, but my level of confidence in them is low due to the newness of the selection process, and the fact that 40+ is clearly too many. The goal of the Value bets is ultimately to identify a handful of bets each week rather than 40 or so.

My lifetime markets total on Betfair is over 15,000, in 7.5 years. 2,000 a year. 5.5 a day!

The reminder that for punters, one of our biggest advantages over a bookie is that we can choose when to bet is an important, but I suspect oft forgotten, one. Bet only when you have value, in other words. If you find yourself betting on Japanese football in the middle of the night out of sheer boredom, you might want to ponder where your edge is.

Only 72 votes in the poll so far, but the majority of readers are currently either the eldest or an only child.

An interesting piece at fulltimebetting on the topic of bookie bonus offers and the 'spirit' in which they are offered from an insider's perspective.