Back in 2007, I was grinding away, struggling to earn a decent living at a chemical plant. While the work was tough, I genuinely enjoyed my job and the social side of manual work.

Unfortunately, it became clear that my firm was going to reduce its numbers, mainly due to rising costs. Due to my years of service, I was selected for redundancy.

At the time, I was extremely concerned. I had bills, kids, and Christmas fast approaching, and I was tired of constantly switching between short-contract jobs. Luckily, I had some savings that gave me time to really consider my options.

My first decision was to take a Health and Safety course. I wanted to shift away from being dependent on someone else for a living, and I originally planned to work in consultancy in that field.

However, a brief stint at a new firm quickly led me to conclude that most employers are just paying lip service to safety. As soon as the pressure was on, anyone raising concerns was seen as a problem. I wasn't prepared to work under that fake atmosphere.

I actually returned to temporary fitting work at a power station. While I was glad to replenish my savings, it merely reaffirmed that this wasn't what I wanted to do anymore.

A Mug's Game

I had always been interested in betting, enjoying days out at the races and throwing a few quid on a 'tip' here and there. But I was also of the opinion that it was a 'mug's game.' I had seen friends and family members become borderline addicts, watching them punt away their wages on dogs and horses they knew absolutely nothing about.

However, the mathematical side of it always held an allure. Despite being fairly risk-averse, I was one of those people who just 'knew' there was a way to beat the system. I just had no idea what it was or how long it would take me to work it out.

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My First Foray into Betfair

I'd had an interest in arbitrage and explored this in some detail, which gave me a much better understanding of the math involved and how prices related to probabilities. This was an important step, and without this foreknowledge, I have no doubt I would have eventually given up and gone back to full-time work.

At the time, Betfair was a mysterious concept to me, mainly because I couldn’t wrap my head around the "Laying" aspect of betting. I'd seen the adverts—"Be a Bookie"—and was intrigued by the possibilities. My only attempt was a lay bet on England to win the World Cup in 2006. I learned to my dismay that I needed a hefty amount of money in the account before I could even lay a small bet. I didn't bother with it for quite some time after that.

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The Lightbulb Moment

When I finally got to toying with Betfair more seriously, I started (as most do) on the horse racing markets. With my interest in arbitrage, I wondered if I could simply manage my bets to ensure a profit on all runners. The idea quickly degenerated into just backing the favorite in the morning and trying to lay it at a lower price later in the day. This idea of a guaranteed profit before the race even started was very appealing to me.

I was firmly of the belief that this idea was a novel thing that very few people would have ever thought of. Then, a random Google search for horse racing stats led me to a forum called Geeks Toy. It was a fledgling community at that point, but I quickly learned that my idea was not only primitive but also that many thousands of people were doing the same thing.

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Back to the Drawing Board

Despite it being obvious that I had no idea what I was doing, there was a wealth of information available to study, and I set about it with vigor. Excited by videos and threads explaining how easy it was to just follow the money, jump in front, and take the profits, I started playing around for small stakes. I quickly learned that the reality was very different indeed!

Thankfully, I was only using very small stakes, and the financial damage was minimal. However, it did force me to seriously re-evaluate my plans...

The Goal

What I needed was a consistent profit to build my confidence. I decided my new starting point would be to simply get through a day without losing. From there, I could tweak my approach and learn from my mistakes.

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The Grind

At the time, Australian and U.S. racing offered perfectly tradable markets. Coupled with the U.K. racing in the afternoons, I had a lot of markets to practice on throughout the day.

And so, always persistent, I'd **start at 5am with the Australian racing**, trying to pinch a little bit out of each race. I'd go through the day on the U.K. races and then into the evening on the **U.S. races**, all the while trying to make small profits and get a better hang of how the markets worked.

Despite the long days, I kept at this for quite some time until I found myself just exhausted and lacking focus all day long. The sheer amount of time I was spending focusing intently did nothing for my mindset, and I found myself increasingly reluctant to enter trades due to overthinking.

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The Hard Truth

Even at the height of my early success, after many months of this unsustainable lifestyle, I was still only averaging around **£250 a week**. This wasn't a lot of money, and in my previous line of work, I could comfortably pull that for a single 10-hour day.

We weren't exactly living the high life, and I knew something had to give.

The Quest for Diversification

I had a very primitive bot setup that was pulling in around £60 a week. I was happy to leave this running, and, consumed by thoughts of the need for "diversification" (as though I was Warren Buffett), I began trying to learn how to trade football.

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Learning Football (The Hard Way)

And of course, I made all the same mistakes I had made previously! It all looked so easy in the videos, and since football was my favorite sport, I was prone to overestimating my own knowledge.

I was never, and still am not, a major lover of trading on football, as the market dynamics are completely at odds with everything else I do. However, the sheer volume of matches and liquidity meant it was something I had to focus on.

Weeks and months went by while I made zero progress and lost money. I got caught with open positions a few times when a goal went in, which is something I hadn't given much thought to until it happened. Unlike other sports markets that suspend, with Correct Scores, it's just all over.

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A New Focus, A New Breakthrough

It wasn't until I started focusing on the binary markets (Over/Under) that I began to make things work for me, but I lost a lot of money in the process of getting there. With the season ending, I was concerned about the 2-3 month spell in the summer where I would have nothing to trade.

I should have been grateful for this, as I wasn't winning much at football and needed the break to think more seriously about what I was doing.

An Unlikely Discovery

One random afternoon, I saw somebody throw their thoughts on a tennis match in the chat box on the Geeks Toy forum. I had always enjoyed tennis and had a good appreciation of it from playing and watching since I was a small child. But I had never really been interested in trading it due to the insane volatility in the markets.

Having read up on some typical strategies for tennis, I chanced upon a men's match on clay (Zeballos vs. Isner). I had the match up on Bet365 and my simple approach was to just stick £5 on the player I thought was going to win the point and then trade out for profit or loss.

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The Beginner's Gamble

With £5 stakes, in about 15 minutes, I'd made £5 profit and was utterly convinced I had it cracked! Looking back, I know this was entirely luck. I was about 5 seconds behind the real-time action, and it just so happened that the majority of the points had gone the way that I had guessed they would.

Excited and quickly forgetting how disastrous rushing into things had been for me previously, I ramped up quickly to £50 stakes and made £20 in a few minutes. Now I was convinced I'd make millions at this... promptly upped to £100 in the next game and lost £70 in just 10 minutes!

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The Breakthrough

It's always the way it goes, and while it was inevitable at some stage, the psychological aspect of rapidly increasing stakes cannot be underestimated. Over time, having dropped back to £5 stakes, I managed to develop much more sensible approaches to tennis. It became the main source of my income, accounting for 70% or more on its own. I was also able to apply the same theory to other markets like Cricket and Darts and, finally, even to Football.

It's important to remember that while this quick overview looks short-lived and full of ups and downs, this initial learning curve took around 3 years. It wasn't until 2010 that I started making consistent profit from my trading.

Even now, 16 years on, I am still constantly adapting to the market and revising my strategies.

Throwaway thoughts on the mistakes I've made and lessons I've learned are worthy of a book in their own right, but here are a few key lessons that have stayed with me:

Good luck out there!