I cannot recall the thoughts that preceded my impulse to have a go at Betfair, a betting exchange website. I guess a combination of Wimbledon being on telly and my not wanting to work.

I know of one chap that has been betting on Betfair for years and from some accounts it seems to be easy money, yet my stint betting on Wimbledon has resulted in a loss. Betfair is definitely difficult, only compounded by greed. I started out not being greedy as I was settling my liability in each market at conservatively early opportunities. Yet the unpredictability of the game of tennis, or more precisely the swings in probable victor during each match, led me to hedge my bets the wrong way.

For those who are not familiar with Betfair it is a market exchange for bets, i.e. allows people to make bets between themselves at odds they agree on, i.e. there are no bookies on Betfair. Traditionally bookies would “lay” an outcome and punters would “back” the outcome. On Betfair users can both back and lay bets, and choose their odds. The stakes and odds are placed in the market and the Betfair system allocates the monies accordingly, trying to match peoples bets, and making a 5% commission on the winnings of the bets. This is called arbitrage. Anyway, not only has it put the betting world on its head but it is great fun too. Oh, and jolly stressful as I first found out in the women’s final.

I read in the Metro the other day that the Murry vs. Nadal match was one of the records for the highest volume of bets placed on a single sporting event (presumably in the UK), some however many million pounds. However that figure was easily surpassed by the volume of money betted on Betfair for that game, about £24m. Whats more is that about £23m of bet during the game! Betfair allows you to bet up to the last few seconds, and why not? In todays mens tournament final there must have been about £80m bet in the various markets.

My profit and loss:

• Gasquet vs. Murray +£20.99
• (+£1.41 on some horse race in America)
• Federer vs. Ancic +£0.76
• Murray vs. Nadal +£13.20
• Dementieva vs. V. Williams +£0.05
• Schuettler vs. Clement +£11.83
• Zheng vs. S. Williams +£1.33
• Federer vs. Safin +£9.56
• Schuettler vs. Nadal +£3.23
• S. Williams vs. V. Williams +£54.02
• Nadal vs. Federer -£160.67

Net -£41.84

For all the matches (other than the Dementieva vs. V. Williams, and Nadal vs. Federer ones) I could have made much more but that would have required risking large wedges of money. Instead I repositioned my bets at a conservatively early opportunity so that I shed all liability, or what is called exposure to use the betting lingo. I would, often before the first set was over, be in a situation that any outcome of the tennis match would make me money. A very satisfying game indeed to play, the trick of which is not to be greedy.

There was a steep learning curve, such as how quickly the market moves and therefore how quick you have to be, but also trying to work just what Betfair is all about and how it works. For example it took a while to get my head around the fact that betting for player A to win is not the same as betting for player B to loose. And did the odds move quickly in the nail biting men’s final, as shown by the screen shot of the history of the odds for Federer to win during the match towards the end:

Despite my ending in this tournament I will continue betting on Betfair in the tennis markets as I enjoy the game of chasing the odds and I hope to make a tidy profit, certainly nothing to warrant giving up my day job for (which starts soon). Also, I think I know what I did what wrong on the last match. I kept chasing the odds trying to make more money instead of settling on win/win, I was in too many markets, especially treacherous was the set betting market. And and and… well, I will give it another go (actually don’t have much choice as I bet on a market of the US Open) and see if I have learnt some hard learnt lessons. Don’t worry about me as Han and I have agreed that the most I can put into the Betfair account, i.e. my float, is £250. Ideally, when I start winning, I can take out the initial investment and just use winnings as a float.

So yeah, can I do this? Well, I will find out. If I don’t start making about £40 on each match then I won’t bother with Betfair as it is quite hard work and does take away from the enjoyment of watching the matches.

P.S. All winnings from betting is tax free.