Which Sport Has Most Full Time Betting Exchange Traders?

If you are just starting on Betfair and have dreams of making a full-time living with it then you are probably wondering if it is possible to do within your chosen, or favourite, sport. A question I am getting more often these days is, what sport is easiest to go full-time with? And which sport has the most professionals or people making a full time living with?

Horse Racing?

If this question was asked of me as recent as 2008 or 2009 then I would have told you that the sport with most professionals is most definitely Horse Racing. The pre-race markets especially were incredibly liquid before the premium charge was introduced and there were a huge amount of traders that were not just making a full-time living but making significant money. Names like Adam Heathcote and Jim Makos are some who have publically stood out from that era. Looking back I would probably say it was a “Golden Era” for Betfair as they were very popular with punters leading up to their introduction of the premium charge and there certainly were many winners who were being welcomed by them.

But now…

These days, the horse racing markets are not as liquid as they used to be and at the same time I hear less and less from people making regular profits from the racing markets. It definitely became harder and the average new trader probably does not stand a chance in these markets, plus the rise in popularity of in-play trading on certain other sports made some traders move to find other niches.

Betfair would never release the statistics to tell us how many full time traders there are, let alone which markets they are trading so I can only make an educated guess based on my knowledge of the industry and the many full timers I have met in recent years.

These days, I would say that the sport with most full timers is undoubtedly TENNIS.

This makes sense for a variety of reasons. The tennis markets have HUGE liquidity so there is plenty of money to be made and it is a sport that is available almost all year around which creates lots more opportunity. The scaremongers will tell you that the courtsiders will always win on the tennis markets but if you are even a semi-decent match reader with a simple strategy and good discipline then it is not hard to do well at tennis.

I have personally seen many people who did not even understand tennis as a sport go on to be profitable traders at it within 6 months to a year of starting on it. At the same time I have known people to struggle for years on football and racing markets. This leads me to say that it is also probably the easiest sport to become profitable at in the quickest space of time. However, many will shy away from trading it due to lack of interest in the sport itself.

In summary….

If you are new to trading the betting exchanges then I would certainly suggest sticking to learning tennis trading over any other sport. Football might be the most popular sport to trade but over 90 minutes you might find only 1 or 2 good value entry points in a match but in a tennis match you could find hundreds.

Yes, hundreds.