Good sports bettors make good traders?

[OAC 10]

Is that supposed to make sense?

 

Yes, it is supposed to make sense unless you are 14, Aiki14.

[BlowFish 10]

Interesting you should mention the turtles - the qualities that where sought out there where simply the ability to follow a set of simple rules without question or second guessing. Nothing intellectual at all. Those that did made money those that didn't lost. Simple really. If you look at the Market Wizards - a whole bunch of background and personalties only a couple I would consider as intellectual heavyweights (Sekoyta springs to mind for example)

 

It is my experience that 'smart' people and 'professionals' have a particularly hard time trading mainly because the things that work in business and other walks of life just don't cut it in the markets. Its easier to learn from scratch than to have to 'unlearn' a whole bunch of behaviours that served you well in life but are quite damaging in the markets. If certain mindsets have allowed you to enjoy bountiful success in other endeavours its gonna be damn hard to let go if those things (speaking from bitter experience here).

 

Coming back to the thread title does being a sports bettor provide a foundation? I dunno I'm waiting to be persuaded. Does being a mathematician, lawyer, Doctor, CEO of a large corp, Academic, Entrepreneur etc. I'd have to say no.

[RichardBlank 10]

My answer is yes.

 

Those with a system and can keep consistent will do well.

 

 

Richard

[Trvlwanderer 10]

I guess you are may be only abour 20, or 21 years old ?

Meet our long-time member James_gsx, he recently turned 20 and he thinks he is over the hill.

 

So age and number of posts or length on this forum has anything to do with knowledge or trading skill?

 

I see my little trader IQ tag says 5%.....he, he. I just had to add another "jack" to this thread.

 

The more systems I have built, the less I use. Adapt to quants and black boxes and trade the tape. That seems to be the most consistently productive system I have ever come up with. Less squiggly lines, less hours behind the screen. Adjust with the markets.

 

But.....without money management, no system can be successful.

[blindfingers 10]

I certainly do recognize that as gambling goes, most professional gamblers make their money at the sportsbook (or poker table) but personally, sports betting for me is simply a form of entertainment. I do not aspire to making a living as a sport bettor. Trading, however, is a serious business and an investment vehicle.

 

Once a year, at the beginning of football season, I contribute $300 to a sportsbook account and have my fun with it. Since I don't smoke or drink and don't even care for movies, this is my sole form of entertainment and it offers the long shot possibility of making a few dollars for a brief while. (Though I have had my moments of temporary success, I NEVER manage to keep a bankroll for more than six months before losing it all.) Once the money is gone, I'm done till the next season.

 

That said, I have learned a few things from sportsbetting that I apply to trading. First and foremost, strict money management is of paramount importance. It is certainly easier said than done, however, failure to do so is a formula for eventual defeat. Moreover, you can be good at money management but if your handicapping skills leave something to be desired, success will elude you.

 

One difference I see between these two skills is that in sportsbetting, though there is no such thing as a sure bet, some match-ups are so lopsided that they are fairly easy to perdict but even if you can easily identify the winner, it's too obvious and the payout is minimal. In trading, however, putting your money on the side of an obvious winner can be quite lucrative indeed.

 

If you are a sports bettor who makes a good living betting on sports, I commend you and admire you and wish I could be like you! Nothing could be more fun but I'm just not that good at it and I know it.

 

But that's not my feeling as a trader and find winning far easier than with the sportsbook. As a sports bettor, I have often felt the return for time invested is not significant. That has not been the case, however, as a trader. For that reason, I regularly put a serious, disciplined effort into learning more about trading and, to date, my efforts are well rewarded.

Edited August 7, 2011 by blindfingers

[blindfingers 10]

 

After 19 years, I know the number of plays I have each year. I know what my bet size is. And with 1,000 plays, the standard deviation for my win percentage is 2. So I know I will win between 55% and 57%. Sounds rather dull when I put it that way. And I guess it actually is. Bernard Baruch, the great financier, said he always looked for boring businesses. They were well run, without surprises and he knew what to expect.

 

I know what to expect. With a 56% expectation, your bankroll would reach a new high only 5% of the time. Nineteen out of 20 days you will be below your bankroll high. The novice thinks you should have more money each day. I also know that with a 56% win rate and 100 bets a month, I will lose money every 9th month. Good money management is aided by knowing what to expect.

 

As a final note on bet size, I should add that I used a plateau system.

 

I bet 1% of my bank and continue to flat bet until my bank grows by at least 25%. Then I recalculate the 1%. Thus if I started with $10,000, I would bet $100 a game until my bank grows to at least $12,500. At that point, I would refigure my unit to $125. It would stay there until I reached at least $15,625. That way my actual risk reward ratio doesn't get too high. The other thing that I do that is unique and rather arguable is that I never lowered my bet. Remember, if you vary the bet, your breakeven goes up. At a 1% unit and 19 year's experience, I'm comfortable that I can ride through a losing streak. If you lose 10 games at $200 a bet and lower the bet to $180, you must win 12.2 bets to get back to even. That is how I got my 100% annual ROI. My actual bet went up during the year as my bankroll reached higher plateaus.

 

 

Carcanaques, I think you know what you're talking about. Your numbers are very realistic. Thanks for an honest portrayal. You say you know you'll win 55% - 57% of the time. It's tends to be easy to assess the degree of BS spoken by sports bettors when you look at their claims of percentage of wins. You tell the truth and I take your post very seriously.

 

Furthermore, though it doesn't seem to me by the focus of most of the posts here that the respondents have much interest in sportsbetting, I would say that anyone who does, should take heed to your post.

 

Thanks. I will.

[cash123 10]

very interesting string;

 

I have in the past had some success at sports wagering specifically NFL. I relocated to

LasVegas to pursue this in a serious manner.

 

Becoming a contrarian,was the inevitable result to a modest successful run.Billy Walters

amassed the brightest team of programmers and still to this day captures millions of

dollars from the market. His focus is on college football and basketball, with game totals,

that is over and under game total points scored being his most profitable areas.

 

My experience,other than trying to infiltrate BW inner circle was to learn how to read

the market where the sharpest linesmakers worked. No easy chore, what with false moves, traps and misinformation(injuries being the biggest)

 

Similiar to the generalization,of buying when the herd is selling and vicaversa, taking the

unpopular side in sports betting is a must first consideration.The public side gets

throttled over time( they love the favorites)

 

Roxy Roxborough who by the way has also now retired to Thialand was long considered

the holy grail at determining what line should draw equal action thus ensuring a no

lose outcome for the house,has told us here that the bias of public perception to the

favorites and over ALONE cost the herd 5 percentage pts.and thus reflected this in his opening numbers.

 

I rebalanced my unit size after 33% appreciation in BR and used 1.5% of BR for unit size.

I stuck to NFL and this may have been my smartest decision as I had many friends

give back their NFL profits trying to capture an edge in NBA.