Trading V Gambling

When on line gambling died and a new king was born long live the new king

long live the on-line trader.

A revelation swept the gambling world in June 2000 with the launch of the

betting exchanges.

Essentially these sites have allowed us punters to become bookmakers and have

introduced people to people betting thus doing away with the traditional bookmaker.

But more importantly they have given us the option of being able to trade our

bets.

Why is this important ? Well lets take the 2006 British Golf open ,this is a 4 day

event with 156 players taking part, the favourite for this tournament was

Tiger Woods.

Now Tiger is being labelled as the best golfer the world has seen and if you studied

his record you could not argue, but from a betting prospective you are being asked

to put your money down on 156 runner field that last over 4 days with Tigers odds

at 6/1.

So you go down to your local bookies or go on line and place your bet on Tiger then

sit back to watch your golf and hope you have made the right bet.

At the end of the first days golf the leaders score is 66 but there are 32 players

all within 3 points of the leader and a further 17 within 4 points so with 3 days

still to play there are 50 players all within 4 points of each other, and within those

50 players are some of the best golfers in the world including the best Tiger.

Now if your bookmaker phoned you up at this stage in the tournament and offered

to settle your bet at 30-40 or 50% of what you may win bearing in mind the above

what would you do ?.

Well this is what i did.

My bet was £100 at 6.60 (betting exchanges work in

decimals) this would give me a profit of £560 + my £100 stake if Tiger did win.

But of course if he lost i would lose my £100.

Thanks to the betting exchanges allowing us to trade this does not have to be the

case.

At the end of the first days play Tigers odds had come down to 3.45 from his

original 6.60 this would allow me to do a lay bet, in other words i was now going

to bet against Tiger.

Now i had a choice i could make my bet for £100 which meant that if Tiger did

not win then i would break even and win or lose nothing, if he did win my winnings

would be £315 or i could make my bet for £150 then if he lost i would win £50

who ever won but if Tiger did win then i would win £193.

Or i could leave the bet and gamble.

Before the arrival of the betting exchanges i would not be able to do any of the

above and would have had to agonise over the 4 days and hoped that Tiger could

weave his magic and i would win my bet , as things turned out i opted for the

£150 bet and sat back and watched 3 thrilling days of golf safe in the knowledge

that who ever won i would be at least £50 better off.

As history will show Tiger did weave his magic and came through to win by 2

points and i ended up £193 better off.

Yes i could of stuck to my original bet and have won a further £367 but that

would have been gambling, and i do not gamble any more i am a trader.

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