Scalping On Betfair?
What is scalping?
Scalping is short term trading. It is a form of sports arbitrage betting. A scalping trader looks to make lots of small profits, which in time add up. Scalping relies on lots of active participants in the market. Scalping on Betfair on UK
The concept is simple, if you back a price you must lay at a higher price, or, if you lay a price you must back a lower price to make a profit. Whatever happens your profit is guaranteed and is equal to the difference or spread between the back and lay price. The Betfair betting exchange is an ideal place to trade in this way.
In this article we’ll look at the basics of scalping on Betfair and how to scalp.
Scalping on Betfair basics
You can scalp any betting market. However, you must have enough people participating in the market or enough liquidity. The UK UK
Scalping on Betfair involves pre race scalping rather than trading prices when a horse race is in play. The pre race markets is not susceptible to out side events like in play markets, reducing the risk.
Scalping a pre race market involves popping in an out of the market taking quick small profits. These are called scratch trades. With the pre race market there is no danger that the price is going to shot off in one direction, for example, a rider falls of the horse.
Scalping this pre race market on Betfair is good because the race hasn't actually started. There are no physical events happening that are moving the market. But, the price still moves around enough to make money. This movement in the price is really just noise. Scalping this market with larger stakes is less risky because it is not too volatile. Scalping on Betfair with larger stakes is where your profits can really pick up.
The Betfair betting exchange is good for scalping because you can back and lay the favourite horse quickly.
To be successful you expect to take profits and loses of about the same size. The frequency of profits should outweigh your losses. You don't want the losses to get out of hand other wise you are on an up hill struggle to regain them. The worst thing you can do is hang onto a bet because it's losing and let it play out as the race commences. This is not the way and is simply gambling.
How to scalp?
The best form of scalping is to perform scratch trades. Scratch trades are a form of scalping when you are in and out of the market very quickly. This form of scalping is all about money management and involves cutting loses from your scalping trades quickly. Some people don't like scratch trades because they can see the price moving in the right direction after they have exiting and get annoyed about missing out on a profit. But, a scratch trade will get you out if the prices moves in the wrong direction. It's psychology really, a missed profit has a different effect on some people than a saved loss.
Scratching trades may end up costing you a few profits but it will also save you lots of losses. Many people dwell on the times when they scratch and, as soon as they did so, the trade went in the right direction and they could have made a few ticks profit if only they hadn’t scratched so quickly.
Betfair.com opened up their website to software programmers allowing third party providers to offer tools to aid Betfair traders. There are a range of software providers with systems that make scalping a lot easier.
Scalping can be a lot of fun and highly rewarding but it requires a great deal of discipline. You have to be prepared to accept a small lose, knowing that as soon as you do the odds could swing back down meaning you just missed out on a tidy profit. But it will oh so often swing the other way, and if you haven't gotten off that boat you will end up losing a hefty chunk before the race has even started.
