Includes insider tips on how to create
a winning strategy
Your guide to getting started
on BetsForTraders.com Financial Betting For Dummies, the low-risk way of making money on BetsForTraders.com, is a user-friendly guide to the world’s most powerful fixed odds financial betting service. In a series of practical steps, this book explains the whole process from setting up an account on the site, to getting to grips with the different sorts of bets and how best to use them to your advantage.
Explanations in pla English ‘Get in, get out’ information
Set up your BetsForTraders.com account
g n i t t e B l a i c n Fina
Take advantage of the many different types of bets Refine your bets to give yourself the best chance of winning
Limited Edition
in
Icons and other navigational aids
s.com ts of BetsForTrader With the complimen
£25 bet offer inside to get you started
⻬ Find listings of all our books ⻬ Choose from many
different subject categories
⻬ Browse our free articles
and fun A dash of humour
ISBN: 978-0-470-74150-4 Not for resale
®
About BetsForTraders.com BetsForTraders.com is owned and managed by Trinitas Capital (IOM) Ltd. The company is managed by a dedicated team with a diverse range of backgrounds in hedge fund management, derivative trading, banking, and academia. Based in the Isle of Man in the British Isles, the company is fully licensed to offer financial bets by the Isle of Man government. The Isle of Man is probably the best regulated of all the low tax jurisdictions with a high standard of accountability and numerous player protection laws in place. The Island is a Standard & Poor’s AAA rated jurisdiction and an important global banking centre. Trinitas Capital (IOM) Ltd. is subject to regular audits, software inspections, and ongoing regulatory scrutiny by the Gambling Supervision Commission. This is combined with the security and confidentiality that you’d expect from a well-regulated offshore jurisdiction. All funds deposited with BetsForTraders.com are held in a pooled segregated client account and are managed in accordance with the high standards of the Island’s regulations.
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Financial Betting FOR
DUMmIES
‰
by Douglas Gallagher
A John Wiley and Sons, Ltd, Publication
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Financial Betting For Dummies® Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd The Atrium Southern Gate Chichester West Sussex PO19 8SQ England E-mail (for orders and customer service enquiries):
[email protected] Visit our Home Page on www.wiley.com Copyright © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to
[email protected], or faxed to (44) 1243 770620. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER, THE AUTHOR, AND ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED IN PREPARING THIS WORK MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. ISBN: 978-0-470-74150-4 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Page Bros, Norwich 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Introduction
W
elcome to Financial Betting For Dummies, your low-risk way of making money on BetsForTraders.
com.
BetsForTraders.com was set up to create the simplest, but also the most powerful fixed-odds financial betting service in the world. The company was founded by two former City traders who wanted to provide a limited risk way for the public to gain access to the markets. BetsForTraders.com now handles millions of pounds worth of bets for thousands of different clients every year. This book contains all you need to know about how to join the BetsForTraders.com community to earn taxfree profits using simple fixed odds bets on the markets. (Note: Profits are tax-free in the UK. Remember that tax laws may change in the future.)
About This Book It’s a myth that you need to be a financial whiz kid to make money from the world’s stock markets. In fact, this book shows you just how easily you can create simple fixed-cost trades with profits many times larger than your stake. In a series of practical steps I explain the whole process from opening an account with the market leading financial bookmaker BetsForTraders. com, to creating different types of bets, right through to honing a winning strategy.
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2
Foolish Assumptions To make this guide as relevant as possible I assume that: ⻬ You’re interested in the financial markets and like the idea of using them to make money. ⻬ You have access to a computer with an Internet connection. ⻬ You’re over 18 and live outside the USA.
How This Book Is Organised Financial Betting For Dummies is divided into six information-packed parts: Part I: Getting Ready for Take-off on BetsForTraders. com. This part explains the nuts and bolts of launching your account. Part II: Seeing Double with Binary Bets. Head to this part for info on the most popular type of bet at BetsForTraders.com. Part III: One for All, and All for One-Touch Betting. Here, I explain how to place bets where you win as soon as the market touches your level. Part IV: Going Hands-free with No-Touch Betting. This part introduces you to no-touch betting, when you predict that a market won’t touch or trade past a certain level. Part V: Developing Winning Strategies. Here, I let you in on a few tips for interpreting the odds, and refining your betting.
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3 Part VI: Ten Great Tips from BetsForTraders.com. From honing your prediction skills to setting yourself limits, this part is chock-full of advice from the experts.
Icons Used in This Book To help you get the most out of the information in this book I use a few icons to highlight important points: Head for the target for information that can improve your trading on BetsForTraders.com. The knotted string highlights points to bear in mind as you explore BetsForTraders.com. This icon warns you about potential pitfalls. As well as explaining the features of the website, I provide examples to help you make the most of BetsForTraders.com.
Where to Go from Here You don’t have to read this book from start to finish. You can take the traditional route and read from cover to cover, or simply skip to the section that interests you most, using the headings to guide you. Whichever way you choose leads to the same destination: a fun and hopefully profitable experience on BetsForTraders.com.
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Part I
Getting Ready for Take-off on BetsForTraders.com In This Part 䊳 Opening a BetsForTraders.com account 䊳 Providing funds 䊳 Taking home the bacon 䊳 Monitoring your account
C
onsider this part your launch-pad for rocketing into the space that is BetsForTraders.com. I explain how to get started on the website to hopefully earn stellar winnings.
Five fun facts about BetsForTraders.com’s users ⻬ People of all ages use BetsForTraders.com; from 18 (the minimum age required by law) right up to 96! (continued)
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6 (continued)
⻬ The three most profitable traders are a 38-year-old newsagent from Birmingham, a plumber from Pimlico, and a Devon solicitor. ⻬ Only 6 per cent of clients are women, but on average they make more money than men. ⻬ Somebody once won seven consecutive bets at odds of 19:1, making 2,000 per cent on his money every time. ⻬ The most active client often trades 60 times a day and has made substantial profits.
Launching Your BetsForTraders.com Account Before you can begin trading you need to open an account. To do this, simply start the Internet browser on your computer and go to the website www.betsfor traders.com. Click on the Join Now link on the righthand side of the page to reach the Open an Account form where you can enter your details. In order to open a valid account, BetsForTraders.com needs to know who you are and how to contact you. To proceed, simply enter your title, name, phone number, and a valid email address in the relevant boxes. You also need to select a memorable login ID of your choice. It’s illegal to open an account if you’re under 18 or resident in the USA.
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7 For security purposes, you need to decide on a password and then re-enter it to make sure you haven’t made a mistake. As an added safeguard, select one of the secret questions from the drop-down box and type in the answer below it. Enter a promotional code if you have one and tick the box to confirm that you agree to the terms and conditions. Finally, type in the word appearing in the image box (for security reasons) and click Open Account. BetsForTraders.com never asks you for your password or the answer to your security question by email. If you receive a message asking for this information, always contact BetsForTraders.com before responding. The last step before you can begin trading is to validate your identity, so select the link to go to the Identity Validation form. Enter your name, phone number, and date of birth when prompted and click on the appropriate button to specify whether you’re resident in the UK or overseas. If you live in the UK the easiest way to complete the address section of the form is to enter your postcode and click on the Lookup facility. You simply select your address from the list and click Validate Account. If you live outside the UK, you may be asked to provide some additional details. As soon as you see the Validation Successful message, BetsForTraders.com automatically creates a practice account for you with a virtual $10,000. This enables you to experiment and place as many bets as you want without risking any real money.
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8 When practising, make sure that the currency selector is always set to V$ for virtual dollars.
Depositing Money Before you can win any real money you need to deposit some funds in your account. To do this, simply click on the Cashier tab at the top of the page. A debit or credit card is usually the most convenient way to fund your account. Select the credit and debit card option, complete your card details, and decide how much you want to pay in. You can deposit in pounds sterling, euros, or US dollars. Clicking on Continue means that your card is debited with the relevant amount. Security is BetsForTraders.com’s top priority. All the information sent from your computer to their servers is encrypted and every possible measure is taken to ensure your privacy. If you’d prefer not to transfer money online you can call the Payments Hotline on 0800 0789 205 or +44 (0) 1624 618 194.
Woohoo! Withdrawing Your Winnings After you’ve accumulated some winnings, you may want to withdraw part of the balance. To do so, click on the Cashier tab at the top of the page and select Withdrawals.
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9 Specify the amount that you want to take out and how you want to receive it. You can withdraw funds from your account in a variety of ways but most people get the money paid directly back onto their credit/debit card. For a full explanation, select the Help tab from the top of the screen and Deposits & Withdrawals from the menu.
Keeping an Eye on Your Account You can check on the money in your account at any time; simply click on the My Funds tab at the top of the page once you’re logged into your account. When you start trading you can keep track of all your open bets by selecting the My Positions tab. Each bet is valued continuously to reflect what’s happening in the markets and how much time is left before your bet expires. Full details of your previous trades are contained in the Trading History facility. This link is available from the orange bar at the top of your Account page as soon as you log into your account.
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Part II
Seeing Double with Binary Bets In This Part 䊳 Introducing Binary Bets 䊳 Understanding the price chart 䊳 Closing your bet early 䊳 Profiting from a Binary Range bet
M
arkets rarely stand still and, regardless of whether they move up or down, one of the best ways to make money from them is with a binary bet. In fact, BetsForTraders.com users actually trade more binaries than all the other types of bets combined. A binary bet means that only two outcomes are possible. If you think that the market is going to be above a certain level when the bet expires, either you’re right and the price finishes higher, or you’re wrong and it closes lower.
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12 Cash or crash? The day on which clients won the most money was in January 2008, when the stock market crashed and everyone successfully bet on it continuing to plummet.
Click on the Getting Started button for step-bystep instructions on how to use the betting page. If you think that the UK 100 index of leading UK shares will rise over the next hour, you can use a binary bet to profit from the increase. Of course, you could alternatively create a binary to benefit from an expected fall in the market.
Creating a Binary Bet Having logged into your new account, simply click on Binary Bet – the first option on the menu on the lefthand side of the screen. Doing so brings up the betting page ready for you to specify the details of the trade that you want to make. The first stage is to select the market that you want to bet on. By default the Market Type is set to FOREX and the Market to EUR/USD. Say you want to change this to place a bet on the UK 100 index of leading UK shares. To do so, click on the Market Type box and select Stock Index from the drop-down list of available options. The
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13 market automatically changes to the UK 100 Index. If you wanted to bet on another stock market, simply click on the box and make your selection. You can place a Binary Bet on any of the major currencies, stock market indices, or large individual UK or US company share prices. Just use the Market Type and then the Market drop-down boxes to make your selection. Remember that you can only place bets when the underlying market is actually open. If you want to place a real bet, make sure that the Currency box matches the currency that you used to deposit the funds in your account. The alternative is to have a practice run without risking any real money by selecting virtual dollars represented by the V$ symbol. Having chosen the market you want to bet on, the next stage is to decide how you think the market will move. Some people decide by looking at the price charts to identify an important trend, whereas others prefer to check the financial news and then decide. To help you, the Indicative Market Price is shown on the right of the page, and a chart of its recent performance is displayed at the bottom.
Using the Price Chart The price chart provides an indication of how your chosen market has been performing. By default the Chart Type is set to Candlestick and the Frequency to 1 hour. This enables you to quickly assess the current situation.
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14 The top and bottom of each candlestick indicate the high and the low for the period in question, while the solid body represents the movement from the opening to the closing of that period, with red being a fall and green being an increase. One of the most popular ways of using the chart is to identify a strong trend in the market. A line of candlesticks that move upwards from left to right with successive higher highs indicates a rising trend. Conversely, a line that moves downwards as it goes across the chart with a stream of lower lows marks a falling trend. You may have heard the expression ‘the trend is your friend’. This means that if a market is in a strong uptrend you’re generally safe to bet on the assumption that prices will continue to rise. Conversely, if a market is in a strong down-trend that shows no sign of coming to an end, assuming that it will keep falling makes sense. You can use the Frequency selector just below the charts to change the duration of each period. Doing so may help you to uncover strong long- or short-term trends that would otherwise remain hidden. Figure 2-1 shows a Binary Bet on the UK 100 Index.
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15
Figure 2-1: A Binary Bet on the UK 100 Index.
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Placing Your Bet Say that you look at the hourly chart of the UK 100 Index and see that it’s entered a strong down-trend. You decide that this is likely to continue for at least the next few hours and that you want to use a Binary Bet to make money from it.
How much? First, you need to decide how much money you want to win. Remember that the more money you want to win, the more expensive your bet will be. You can experiment by using the sliding bar to change the winnings and see what effect this has on the cost, as shown on the right-hand side of the page. You have no commission, fees, or other charges to worry about so this amount represents the full price that you have to pay. Say you opt to win £100. Having identified that the market is declining, the next stage is to specify that you want to win if it falls below (rather than rises above) a certain level when the bet expires. Use the drop-down arrow to select ‘fall’ and then drag the sliding bar to the point you choose. This is known as the strike price. By default it’s set close to the current value of the market, but the more you reduce it, the bigger the fall necessary for the bet to succeed and the cheaper the strike price becomes. You identify a strong down-trend so you decide to move the strike price 50 points lower and drag the sliding bar accordingly.
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17
Starting slow and steady Start by selecting relatively modest winnings because this keeps the cost of the bet to a minimum. You can increase the amounts as you become more experienced.
The sliding bars move in preset amounts. If you have a specific level in mind, simply click on the orange Set button and enter the figure.
How long? The final stage of the process is to specify how long you want the bet to last. You can use the drop-down box to switch between minutes, hours, and days and use the sliding bar to set the precise duration. This combination enables you to create bets from as little as 15 minutes right up to 30 days. In view of the nature of the trend you decide to set the time limit to two hours. A two-hour bet expires in two market hours. Where there’s insufficient time left in the trading day, the bet automatically rolls over to the next day. The exact expiry time is displayed below the indicative market price. The UK 100 Index is trading at 5400 and you decide to bet that it will be trading below 5350 over the next two hours. You choose to win £100 safe in the knowledge that this only costs you £29.19.
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18 Keeping tabs on bet pricing and odds You may have noticed that the bet price and the odds on the right-hand side of the webpage continually change. This is because the screen automatically updates to take into account what’s happening in the markets. The webpage is also fully interactive, so each time you alter the nature of the bet by moving the sliding bars, the odds and cost of placing the bet changes. Part V has the lowdown on how you can use this to your advantage.
You can never lose more than the amount that you decide to bet, which is why BetsForTraders. com is a low-risk way to trade the markets. The cost of £29.19 is immediately deducted from the funds in your account. If at the end of the two hours the market does close below 5350, you win £100 and your winnings are automatically credited into your account. This means you’ve gained £70.81, which represents a return of over 243 per cent in just two hours. Nice! (By the way, the return is a standardised measure of how profitable the bet would be if it succeeds. It’s calculated as the winnings less the cost of the bet expressed as a percentage of the cost.) For more information about binaries and all the other types of bets available on BetsForTraders.com, simply click on the How does this bet work? button on the lefthand side of the page.
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Closing the Bet Early All open bets are priced continuously to reflect what’s happening in the markets and how much time is left until the bet expires. With a Binary Bet you can take advantage of these continual updates by closing the bet early. Doing so could enable you to take a profit or to limit your loss to less than your stake. To close a Binary Bet early, simply go to the My Positions page which shows the live prices of all the open bets. Selecting the Sell option on the Binary Bet brings the bet to an end with the proceeds credited back to your account.
Winning Both Ways with a Binary Range A variation on the Binary Bet is the Binary Range. The Binary Range provides the opportunity for you to bet on whether a market will finish inside or outside a particular price band. Making a Binary Range bet is ideal if you believe that the price in question will either be especially volatile or particularly quiet. The Euro/US dollar exchange rate has been particularly volatile. If you believe that this variability is going to continue you can use a Binary Range bet to make money from the situation. With the market at 1.5879 you can elect to win £100 if in seven days the market is outside the range of 1.56 to 1.61. This relatively low-risk bet costs you £56.85 and if you’re successful will make a profit of £43.15 (a return of 76 per cent).
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20 Figure 2-2 shows a Binary Range bet on the Euro/US dollar exchange rate.
Figure 2-2: A Binary Range bet on the Euro/US dollar exchange rate.
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Part III
One for All, and All for One-Touch Betting In This Part 䊳 Creating a One-Touch Bet 䊳 Closing early 䊳 Making the most of One-Touch Range betting
A
One-Touch bet is just like a Binary Bet (described in Part II) but with one key difference. You win the bet as soon as the market hits the level you set. One touch is all it takes for you to get paid. This flexibility has enabled clients of BetsForTraders.com to make more profits from One-Touches than from any of the other types of bet. Often the biggest price moves follow important news announcements. If you think that the Bank of England is planning to announce a cut in interest rates, you can place a OneTouch Bet on the UK stock market index or the sterling/dollar exchange rate. You can also bet on an individual company’s share price ahead of the release of its annual results.
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22
Creating a One-Touch Bet Having logged into your account, simply click on OneTouch in the menu on the left-hand side of the screen. Doing so brings up the betting page ready for you to specify the details of the trade that you want to make. The first stage is to select the market you want to bet on. By default the Market Type is set to FOREX and the Market to EUR/USD. Say you want to change this to place a bet on the sterling/US dollar exchange rate, so you click in the Market box and select GBP/USD. Make sure that the Currency box matches the currency in your account. Alternatively, have a practice run without risking any real money by selecting virtual dollars represented by the V$ symbol. Now you need to decide how you think the market you want to bet on is going to move. To help you, use the Indicative Market Price on the right-hand side of the page and the chart of its recent performance at the bottom.
Placing Your Bet Say that you noticed that the sterling/US dollar exchange rate was trading at $1.98 to the pound, but earlier in the year it had been much higher. If you thought that the pound was going to recover above the $2 level you could use a One-Touch Bet as a low-risk way to make money from it.
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23
How much? First, you need to decide how much money you’d like to win. Choosing a larger amount makes the bet more expensive, so start out cautiously by leaving the default level at £100. You can use the sliding bar to change the figure and see how this affects the Bet Price, shown on the right of the page. You have no commission, fees, or other charges so this represents the full price that you pay. The next stage is to set the strike price (the level that you’re confident the market will touch at some point during the bet). If you think that GBP/USD will hit $2.02, simply move the sliding bar accordingly or click on the orange Set button and enter the figure you have in mind.
How long? Now you need to say how long you want the bet to last; with a One-Touch Bet this can be anything from 3 to 30 days. As markets always move around, the longer the period you choose, the more chance you have that it will hit your boundary. This means that shorter term One-Touches are cheaper and have a higher potential return. Say you believe that the sterling/US dollar exchange rate will strengthen at some point over the next 20-day period. The exchange rate is currently standing at $1.98 to the pound and you decide to bet £41.11 to win £100 if it touches $2.02 at any point before the bet expires in 20 days time.
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24 The stake of £41.11 is immediately deducted from your account. If at some point during the next 20 days you’re proved right and the exchange rate does touch $2.02, then you win £100 and the money is automatically credited back to your account. These winnings are equivalent to a profit of £58.89, which represents a return of 143 per cent on the stake. Figure 3-1 shows a screenshot of a One-Touch Bet on the GBP/USD exchange rate.
Figure 3-1: A One-Touch Bet on the GBP/USD exchange rate.
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25
Closing the Bet Early All open bets are priced continuously to reflect what’s happening in the markets. With a One-Touch Bet you can take advantage of this by closing the bet early. Doing so could enable you to take a profit or to limit your loss to less than your stake. The My Positions page shows the live prices of all the open bets. Selecting the Sell option on the One-Touch brings your bet to an end with the proceeds credited back to your account.
Winning Both Ways with a One-Touch Range A useful variation of the One-Touch Bet is the OneTouch Range – ideal if you have a hunch that a particular market will be subject to a large move, but don’t know whether the market will move up or down. Shares in the large US investment group, Goldman Sachs, have been extremely volatile. The chart shows that in the last few months they’ve traded in a wide range from below $154 to over $201. If you believe this uncertainty is going to continue you can use a OneTouch Range to make money from it. To create a One-Touch Range on the share price of Goldman Sachs, you can use the historic limits of $154 and $201 as your upper and lower boundaries. If you’re correct in predicting that the shares would touch
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26 either of these levels during the next 10 days, you’d win £100, with the cost of the bet being £35.95. Figure 3-2 shows a One-Touch Range bet on Goldman Sachs shares.
Figure 3-2: A One-Touch Range bet on Goldman Sachs shares.
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Part IV
Going Hands-free with No-Touch Betting In This Part 䊳 Defining No-Touch betting 䊳 Placing your bet 䊳 Closing your bet early 䊳 Feeling at home on the No-Touch Range
A
t times a market can go through a quiet period and simply drift sideways. If you anticipate this sort of scenario you can use a No-Touch Bet to take advantage of it. All you have to do is to specify a level that the price will neither touch nor trade past at any point during the lifetime of the bet. If the Wall Street index of leading US shares was trading at 11240, and you thought that at worst it would fall by less than 150 points during the next four days, you could create a No-Touch Bet specifying that the index wouldn’t hit 11090.
Creating a No-Touch Bet Creating a No-Touch Bet is easy. Log into your account and click on No-Touch in the menu on the left-hand side
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28 of the screen. Doing so brings up the betting page ready for you to specify the details of the trade that you want to make. Select the market that you want to bet on – say, the Wall Street index of leading US shares. Simply click in the Market Type box and specify Stock Index from the drop-down list of available options, and set the Market to Wall Street. You can place a No-Touch Bet on any of the major currencies, stock market indices, or large individual UK or US company share prices. Just use the Market Type and then the Market drop-down boxes to make your choice. Remember that you can only place bets when the underlying market is actually open. Make sure that the Currency box matches the currency that you used to deposit the funds in your account. Alternatively, have a practice run by selecting virtual dollars (V$). Having chosen the market you want to bet on, the next stage is to decide how you think that market is going to move. To help you make up your mind, see the Indicative Market Price (on the right-hand side of the page), and the chart of its recent performance (at the bottom of the page).
Placing Your Bet Maybe you’re optimistic about the performance of the US stock market and believe that over the next few days it’ll remain firm, never trading at 150 points below its current level. You opt to use a No-Touch Bet as a low-risk way to make money from this.
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How much? The first step in the process is to decide how much money you’d like to win. Clearly, the bigger the figure, the more expensive the bet will be, so start out fairly modestly by leaving it at the default level of £100. If you want, you can use the sliding bar to change the figure and see how this affects the Bet Price (on the righthand side of the page) or click on the orange Set button and enter the figure you have in mind. The next step is to set the strike price (the level that you believe the market will never trade at during the lifetime of the bet). You’re optimistic on the index and you believe it won’t fall 150 points below its current level of 11240. So you drag the sliding bar to the left to set the boundary at 11090.
How long? Now you need to specify how long you want the bet to last. With a No-Touch Bet any timeframe from 3 to 30 days. As markets always move around, the longer the period you choose, the lower the odds that the index will never hit your boundary. This means that longer term No-Touches are cheaper and have a higher potential return. You have a positive outlook on the US stock market. The Wall Street Index is currently trading at 11240 and you decide to bet £47.24 to win £100 on the basis that it won’t touch 11090 at any point before your bet expires – you choose a timeframe of four days. The cost of £47.24 is immediately deducted from your account. If, at the end of the four days, you win the bet,
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30 then £100 is automatically credited back. This is equivalent to a profit of £52.76 (representing a return of 112 per cent on the stake). Figure 4-1 shows a No-Touch Bet on the Wall Street Index.
Figure 4-1: A No-Touch bet on the Wall Street Index.
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Closing the Bet Early All open bets are priced continuously to reflect what’s happening in the active markets and show how much time is left until the bet expires. With a No-Touch Bet you can take advantage of this by closing the bet early to enable you to take a profit or to limit your loss to less than your stake. To close a No-Touch Bet early, simply go to the My Positions page, which shows the live prices of all the open bets. Select the Sell option on the No-Touch Bet to bring the bet to an end with the proceeds credited back to your account.
Winning Both Ways with a No-Touch Range The No-Touch Range bet is ideal if you believe that a particular market will go through a quiet period and remain within an upper and lower boundary for the next few days. The No-Touch Range is the last item on the menu on the left-hand side of the page. The chart shows that shares in GlaxoSmithKline have traded within the range of 1050 pence to 1210 pence throughout the last two months. If you thought that this pattern was likely to continue you could use a No-Touch Range to make money from it. To create a No-Touch Range on GlaxoSmithKline you could use the historic levels of 1210p and 1050p as your upper and lower boundaries. If you were correct in predicting that the shares would remain within this
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32 range for the next, say, 30 days, you’d win £100, with the cost of the bet being £47.90. Figure 4-2 shows a screenshot of a No-Touch Range Bet on GlaxoSmithKline shares. All the different types of bets are listed on the left-hand side of the webpage. Click on the question mark symbol to find a detailed explanation of how they work.
Figure 4-2: A No-Touch Range bet on GlaxoSmithKline shares.
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Part V
Developing Winning Strategies In This Part 䊳 Keeping tabs on the live price 䊳 Knowing your decimals from your binaries 䊳 Examining the markets
T
his part gives you some hints and tips about keeping your wits about you to make the most of betting – and winning – on BetsForTraders.com.
Refining Your Bets The Bet Price on the right-hand side of the webpage continually changes to take into account what is happening in the markets. Also, each time you alter the nature of the bet by moving the sliding bars, the price goes either up or down because the live price always reflects the likelihood of the bet succeeding. So if you move the sliding bars to increase the chance of winning, or the market itself changes to make winning more probable, the price to pay for placing the bet increases.
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34 With BetsForTraders.com you can always see the actual real-time cost of the bet. This tells you the odds or the predicted rate of success that you’re offered. You can use information to help you to decide whether to place the bet or to adjust the parameters to better reflect what you think is going to happen.
Interpreting the odds The chances of a bet succeeding are presented on BetsFor Traders.com in the form of fractional, decimal, or binary odds. These all tell you exactly the same thing, but some people find it easier to understand one format rather than another. Each form of odds is shown on the right-hand side of the page and is recalculated every time that you change your bet. ⻬ Fractional odds like 3/1 mean that for every pound staked, three pounds in addition to the one laid are returned if the bet wins. Take the example of a bet of £38.50 that would win £100 if successful. The fractional odds in this case would be 8/5 because multiplying the stake by the odds gives the net of cost winnings as £61.50 (£38.5×(8÷5) = £61.50). ⻬ Decimal format odds would show, in this example, as 2.60. You work this out by converting the fraction to decimals (8/5 = 1.6) and adding one to the result. Multiplying the decimal odds and the stake thus produces the total payout of £100 (2.6×£38.5 = £100). ⻬ Binary odds show the stake as a percentage of the amount to be paid out if you win the bet. For a payout of £100, the cost of £38.50 would be represented as 38.5 per cent (£38.5÷£100 = 38.5 per cent).
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Putting Everything Together All the different types of bets factor in the same chance of the market going up as going down. This means that if you can identify a market that’s likely to move in a particular direction, you stand a good chance of making money. Having identified the opportunity, maybe by evaluating the charts, or reading the financial papers, the next stage is to create the bet to exploit it. Maybe you feel more comfortable with openings that offer a good chance of success, because you’ll probably come out on top most of the time. Or maybe you prefer long shots which, although less likely to win, have high payouts so you don’t need to get it right every time to make a good overall profit. A really crucial decision is how much you want to risk on each bet. You’re safer to pay more and go for a bigger win when the odds are in your favour, but the most important point is that you feel comfortable with what you’re doing. Whatever happens you can never lose more than the cost of your bet, but never gamble with money you can’t afford to lose.
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Part VI
Ten Great Tips from BetsForTraders.com
N
o For Dummies book is complete without a fun and informative Part of Tens and this book is no exception. Read on for my best tips on making the most of – and making money from – BetsForTraders.com. ⻬ Do your homework. Look at what’s happening on the markets to get a feel for which bets are most likely to succeed. You can find all the information you need in the newspapers or on websites such as http://uk.finance.yahoo.com. ⻬ Look ahead. Check the forward-looking financial calendars to see which major scheduled news announcements could affect your bets. You can find these calendars in most broadsheets and on the Internet from sites such as http://uk.biz. yahoo.com/news/the_week_ahead.html. ⻬ Use the charts. The charts on www.betsfor traders.com can help you to identify trends. Use this information to help you decide how a market is likely to move and what sort of bet might succeed. ⻬ Refine your bets. Adjust the parameters of your bets to reflect what you think is going to happen.
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38 Remember, the better the odds offered, the more you’ll have to pay, so make sure you’re happy with the stake you choose. ⻬ Try low-risk, low return bets. Lower-return bets offer a good chance of success, so you’ll come out on top most of the time. ⻬ Dabble in high-risk, high return. If you’re experienced and can comfortably afford to, you may prefer to make bets with a lower expected chance of success but the high returns mean you don’t need to win too often to make a good overall profit. ⻬ Monitor your open positions. You can sell back early bets like the Binaries, One-Touches, and No-Touches described in this book to take profits or limit a loss. By monitoring these bets closely you can take advantage of any opportunities that come along. ⻬ Remember that your winnings are tax-free. Under current UK legislation all betting profits are tax free. However, laws can change and the rules in your country of residence may differ to those of the UK. Seek further tax advice if you need to. ⻬ Gamble sensibly. BetsForTraders.com supports sensible gambling and enables you to set a selfimposed limit on how much you can bet. To do so, go to your Account Settings and enter the maximum amount of money you’re willing to risk over a particular period of time. ⻬ Enjoy your betting. Betting can be fun and highly profitable, but if you feel it’s becoming a problem for you, BetsForTraders.com staff can advise you on different ways to manage your account and can point you in the direction of further help.
About BetsForTraders.com BetsForTraders.com is owned and managed by Trinitas Capital (IOM) Ltd. The company is managed by a dedicated team with a diverse range of backgrounds in hedge fund management, derivative trading, banking, and academia. Based in the Isle of Man in the British Isles, the company is fully licensed to offer financial bets by the Isle of Man government. The Isle of Man is probably the best regulated of all the low tax jurisdictions with a high standard of accountability and numerous player protection laws in place. The Island is a Standard & Poor’s AAA rated jurisdiction and an important global banking centre. Trinitas Capital (IOM) Ltd. is subject to regular audits, software inspections, and ongoing regulatory scrutiny by the Gambling Supervision Commission. This is combined with the security and confidentiality that you’d expect from a well-regulated offshore jurisdiction. All funds deposited with BetsForTraders.com are held in a pooled segregated client account and are managed in accordance with the high standards of the Island’s regulations.
Includes insider tips on how to create
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Your guide to getting started
on BetsForTraders.com Financial Betting For Dummies, the low-risk way of making money on BetsForTraders.com, is a user-friendly guide to the world’s most powerful fixed odds financial betting service. In a series of practical steps, this book explains the whole process from setting up an account on the site, to getting to grips with the different sorts of bets and how best to use them to your advantage.
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g n i t t e B l a i c n Fina
Take advantage of the many different types of bets Refine your bets to give yourself the best chance of winning
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