08 Traps to Avoid / Betfair Education / 26 September 2008 / Leave a comment

It's hard work making a profit in betting, so we don't want to see you blow it all by betting more than you meant to. Next lesson in betting education is a way to protect your bank from a careless error.

Have you ever heard of the 'Fat Finger Syndrome'? It has happened in the financial markets a few times, when a trader has put an extra zero on the end of a transaction and chaos has broken loose, especially when his boss found out they'd just lost millions. The potential is there for you to do the same on Betfair (bet 100 rather than 10 etc) but there are ways to avoid it.

It's easy to say watch what you are doing, use the Confirm Bets option and look at your potential profit/loss via the What If function, but that doesn't help much in the heat of the battle, does it?

Imagine you've worked really hard to get your balance up from £50 to £500 and you're conscious of the fact you could blow it all in one go by rushing and hitting that extra zero by mistake. How can you go about protecting yourself and leaving only £50 to play with on your chosen market?

- You could withdraw it, but then means you have to deposit again if you want to trade on any further markets, should those bets lose.

- You could put money into your Australian wallet, but there's a bit of red tape you have to go through if you haven't already verified your account to trade on Aus markets.

- You could put money into your Games wallet.

But there is another way you can do it without needing to move your money away from the exchange. What happens when you place a bet on Betfair that isn't matched? Those funds can't be used while that bet is still unmatched. You are still in control of the bet (you can change the price requested or cancel the bet), but those funds are effectively 'parked'.

So think of a bet which won't ever be matched, or certainly not for a long, long time. How about the next World Cup? It's quite a few years away. Look at the favourite, Brazil. Ask for a price to back they will never be matched at - 1000. The only way they could possibly be matched at that price is if everything goes wrong in their qualifying campaign. Highly unlikely, but there's always that remote chance. You want the bet to come back unmatched so you can always go back and cancel it when you need those funds again.

You could put in on a horse in an ante-post race, but there's always that slight chance that the horse is found injured in the paddock and won't run again for a year. If you only wanted the money locked up temporarily, you could put the unmatched bet at 1000 on a horse in a race or team in a football match tomorrow (do not choose 'keep') - remember you want the bet to remain unmatched.

If you forget where you parked those funds for the night, you can always check your unmatched bets via 'My Account'.