From £250 to £4505 in 12 Months

It can be done - making a significant return can be made through investing on Betfair.

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For years I'd read formbooks, devised systems and created formula to help me make a profit from gambling but they were all relative unsuccessful. Since becoming a Betfair customer in December 2001 my account had always been in profit but the winnings weren't reflecting the hard work I was putting in. This time last year I felt I had explored every avenue and the dream I'd had for many years was evaporating before my eyes. Despite this, life was chugging along at a normal pace (I had a good job, a house, a dog) but a holiday was called for so Nicola and I packed the suitcases and headed off to Turkey for a week to relax and unwind.

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Now basking in the sun all day is great but I find reading at the same time even better so I took with me the book 'Lay, Back and Think of Winning' written by Nigel Paul. If you've ever visited the Betfair forum you'll know that this book has it's critics but it gave me what I needed at just the right time. Previously, I'd made a few token efforts to 'crack' trading with losing £400 on an in-running horse racing trade the biggest low light but at that time I didn't understand what I doing. I had dabbled in something I knew little about and had paid the price. After reading this book I was ready for a serious attempt, I was now armed with a knowledge of money management and had a basic trading strategy to build on, and for those two things alone I was and still am very grateful.

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In August 2006 I set about trading (in-running on different sports) with very low stakes to test a few ideas and did quite a lot of research on the internet. One thing became apparent - trading software was available from a number of companies that linked to the Betfair data and the functionality offered by their software definitely gave users an edge. I scanned the Betfair website for a list of companies that offered this service and became very interested in what was provided by the people at Bet Angel. They offered a free program that you could download to give trading a go and as soon as I did I was hooked. The downside to this was that I realised very quickly that that the basic software wouldn't be good enough if I was serious about making money - I needed Bet Angel Pro. Good things don't come cheap and by the time September arrived I'd spent £200 on the Bet Angel subscription and had put aside a trading bank of £250. There was no going back - if I blew my bank then I wouldn't be topping it up, I'd accept that I'd reached the end of the road.

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The first few weeks of September were tough but I was learning all the time. An initial mistake I made was to get involved in too many different markets too quickly - looking back I cringe at how I thought I could trade well on completely different sports! This is possible after time but it was a totally unrealistic expectation considering I was a rookie! Luckily I realised this early on and decided to concentrate on researching 2/3 sports. 'Specialising' was definitely the key word.

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I drifted through the end of 2006 and had to endure a period of 4 weeks in November without my laptop as it blew up whilst trading a football match between Man Utd and FC Copenhagen. This was hugely frustrating but I got over it and it was whilst munching a few mince pies at Christmas that I decided to start a blog. I had been buoyed by my success at trading the PDC Darts World Championship and with my bank now sitting at over £800 I felt that the world was my oyster. Had I found the Holy Grail of gambling?

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No. The highs of December soon turned into an anti-climax as I had to pinch every penny I could muster during January. There was a serious lack of competitive sport for me to sink my teeth into and as I reflect on the posts I made at the time it's clear that things were tough - I was 'working' for 3/4 hours and making £18! My enthusiasm must have been contagious though as it was at this time I got Clive, a family friend, interested in what I was doing - so much so that within a few hours he'd set up a Betfair account and a blog!

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February consisted of more of the same and it wasn't until March that I really new I was onto something. During those 31 days I grew my trading bank by 56% and was able to declare a profit of £656.22 - this was getting serious and Rugby Union was becoming the main source of my success but the season was ending - would I be able to survive the Summer without it?

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I knew that learning to trade Cricket would be vital and after doing a lot of studying I was confident that my new found knowledge would pay off. It did, and my good form hadn't gone unnoticed as during April I was approached by Hardcore Sports Radio to appear on their late night sports phone in show (listen to the interview here). I don't think the North Americans understood exactly what I did as the host barraged me with a number of tipping questions and every "guess" I made ended up as a loser. It made me chuckle and so did the change in my accent - how embarrassing - my thick Welsh valley boy voice had become a New York taxi driver drawl! Needless to stay they haven't invited me back for a second appearance - perhaps I was "laying the juice" a little too much?

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The rain then began to fall at the beginning of June and didn't seem to stop until the end of July. Anybody doing this full time must have been affected as events were called off all over the place. Fortunately, I kept a low profile and was able to pick up wins here and there but the average monthly growth of my bank was now down to around 16% which was way below the 30% I was hoping for.

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But...now we're at the end of August. I've just had my biggest winning month and the future looks bright but has the last year only been rosey? Were there any low points? Of course, there were plenty, but with time I became better at accepting the losses when they came as I realised they're inevitable - the secret was to keep to small losses, small gains and big gains. Reducing the number of big losses from my trading p/l had a huge impact and led to me making consistent profits.

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So what's the future? Well, to be honest, at the moment it seems I haven't got enough hours in the day. My full time career is going very well which is great but in turn this takes up more of my available time for trading. I've also just learnt that I'm going to become a Dad and I'm aware that sneaking away to trade for a few hours may be frowned upon so I'm just going to have to take every step at a time.

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It's been a great journey and it's not over yet, but please be patient with me if my posts are shorter and less frequent. I won't have given up as I'll remember what someone once said to me....

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"If you're heading in the right direction....then keep on walking".

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If you've been with with me all the way then I thank you for dropping by - it's nice to know I've got others in my corner.

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All the best,
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Mark
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