Gundulf from Betfair Football Trading - the highs and the lows posted the other day about making a mistake. He'd left a keep bet in-play and forgot about it, allowing it to be gobbled-up by some lucky punter.
Silly man, I said to myself. Glad I didn't do anything so foolish.
Right, so we move onto yesterday's trading. I couldn't really make up my mind about what approach I wanted to take as nothing really stood out for me. So, I decided to just settle for scalping last night. Things started off slowly, but I slowly built-up an okay figure for the evening and then decided to call it a day. A profit for the evening of about £74. Not exactly earth-shattering, but a profit is a profit.
When all the markets had settled, I went to update my P/L spreadsheet... and found this:
Football: -£126.31 | Tote: | Total P&L: -£126.31
Football Showing 1 - 8 of 8 markets
Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / Middlesbrough v Sheff Wed : Correct Score 09-Nov-12 19:45 09-Nov-12 21:40 34.14
Football / Mainz v Nurnberg : Match Odds 09-Nov-12 19:30 09-Nov-12 21:31 -10.00
Football / Middlesbrough v Sheff Wed : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 09-Nov-12 19:45 09-Nov-12 21:23 3.53
Football / Middlesbrough v Sheff Wed : Over/Under 2.5 Goals 09-Nov-12 19:45 09-Nov-12 21:06 -179.73
Football / Mainz v Nurnberg : Over/Under 2.5 Goals 09-Nov-12 19:30 09-Nov-12 20:21 6.18
Football / FC Koln v Duisburg : Correct Score 09-Nov-12 17:00 09-Nov-12 18:55 14.38
Football / Erzgebirge v Braunschweig : Over/Under 2.5 Goals 09-Nov-12 17:00 09-Nov-12 18:49 2.16
Football / Erzgebirge v Braunschweig : Over/Under 1.5 Goals 09-Nov-12 17:00 09-Nov-12 18:28 3.03
Erm, sorry? What is that all about? I made money, not lost money.
I have to say I was a bit flabbergasted. How can my profit be a loss? I tried to retrace my steps, and even now am not totally sure what I did - but after working out what had happened, I suspect that I inadvertently placed an order into the 2.5 market thinking it was the 3.5 market and then duly forgot about it.
Oh dear. School boy error.
The funny thing is I don't really feel too bad about this loss. It's not as if I made a bad trading decision. This was just a silly mistake, pure and simple. It's also a combination of events that I cannot see happening again.
Those, of course, are famous last words.
Hi.
ReplyDeleteCan I ask what software are you using? A similar thing happened to me today, even though I'm pretty sure my software was showing an all green screen when I closed the market in question. Then when I checked my P/L at the end of the day.. BAM! An 88€ loss in a single match, which to me is A LOT! Worst thing is I cannot fathom what the heck happened, so I can only think of a software failure of some kind.. Of course it could be that I'm growing blind! Maybe I should start recording my sessions.. I'm using Fairbot btw. Shit I'm really pissed off! Sorry for the rant.
No need to apologise, Harry
ReplyDeleteI use Betangel, which I've used for quite a few years now. So I can't blame a lack of knowledge or the software in general. The loss was just too specific, and I was able to trace the precise moment I stupidly placed (or misplaced) my order.
Bad luck to you, but I suppose every trader will make a few mistakes along the way.