Trading Diary – All The Gear, Is Here!
Members of the Goal Hunter Football Trading Community, receive regular updates from me on my own trading and I included some notable extracts in my weekly diary here on the blog.
Included for free with Goal Hunter is an easy to follow, 12-month trading challenge, which uses the Goal Hunter football trading method to create a realistic trading plan to take you from zero to becoming a successful football trader within 12 months. It's free as part of a Goal Hunter membership.
- It allows you to start with even a moderate initial trading bank
- Shows you how to structure your betting bank and how much to invest with each trade
- Sets realistic and achievable daily targets for your trading – suiting even the most time-poor of us
- Shows you how to grow your bank, month on month, in the most optimal way
- Gives you a clear action plan for the whole 12 months
- Helps you ensure discipline and focus as you embark on your football trading career
To complete the picture, we also provide the option to receive a daily trade sheet which does most of the work for you in terms of finding the right games to trade.
You can learn more about Goal Hunter here.
Set yourself up for Trading (and betting) success
I have seen a number of questions come in recently both on our support desk and via our Trading Prophet community around VPS or Virtual Private Servers.
It's an important topic and choosing the right VPS is crucial. In one example this week a member was using another VPS (who I won't name here) but could not understand why his bets were not getting placed. It turned out that the VPS was not stable and not suitable for the planned usage (running bets) and it was regularly not placing bets.
My personal recommendation is to use Simply Hosting (formerly known as Tagadab). I've used them for years without any problems. The platform is stable, works well with BF Bot Manager – put simply, I trust it to do exactly what I want and what it is supposed to do.
It's not the cheapest VPS on the market but this is certainly one of those occasions where you get what you pay for.
More on Simply Hosting in a moment but first…
Why would you want a VPS (Virtual Private Server)?
It's a good question and it is certainly not needed by everyone, particularly if you are a casual or recreational punter.
However, if you are someone looking to use a Betting Bot and / or automate as much of your betting as you can then a virtual server is something that you should perhaps consider.
And Simply Hosting (Tagadab) is one of the best around. It's so good for my needs that I, in fact, have to servers running
Let me explain.
My Trading (and Betting) Tech Setup
Firstly, as many of you will be familiar with already, we are big advocates of BF Bot Manager. So much so, that we have created our own platform which connects our betting services directly into the BF Bot Manager platform, allowing our members to follow our top betting strategies, completely hands off.
BF Bot Manager Overview
BF Bot Manager – 20 Day Free Trial
We exclusively use BF Bot Manager. It has been around for years, is an excellent piece of kit and is very flexible – we use it on a daily basis across many strategies that we implement. In fact, I think I have somewhere in the region of 20 strategies running on a daily basis at anyone time.
>> Claim your 20 day free trial here
The reason I run two servers is that there is a great feature of BF Bot Manager which allows you to run two versions of the Bot, connected to one Betfair account, at the same time. As long as they are on different machines, or in our case, servers.
Why would we need to do this?
Firstly, although you can run as many strategies as you like (within reason), having too high a number of markets in being monitored at the same time can cause memory issues and slow things down. That's not so much a limitation of the Bot, but rather the reality of running and monitoring 1,000's of markets is going to cause any platform a problem after a while.
I have two Bots that run two different approaches…
Bot 1 – Market Scanning
This Bot works with my fully autonomous strategies that require no input or selections from me. They simply monitor the markets and when the rules and conditions that I've set occur, a bet gets placed. An example of this is our Low Risk Lays model.
This model alone requires all of the UK racing to be loaded and monitored each day. If you are running a few strategies then it's not really a problem but if you are running many (I've got 30+ currently), it can be very easy to get several thousand markets loaded into view at anyone time.
Bot – Selection specific
This is why I also run a strategy which focus on specific markets and selections. For example, the bot will only load the specific market required for the selection that I've selected. For example, this would be appropriate for models such as our successful Football Profits service.
By doing it this way, I can keep both Bots working optimally and suffer no deterioration in service.
Hopefully, by now you are beginning to see the benefits of running betting bots (allowing strategies to be running 24/7 without your physical presence) and why a VPS (Virtual Private Server) is advisable.
If you are now considering the investment into a VPS, you may be asking yourself…
What VPS do I need?
There are many VPS products on the market but you want to ensure you get one that is reliable and suitable for your needs. Not all VPS products are created equal and price should definitely not be the deciding factor.
For me, there is only one choice and that is Sinmply Hosting (Tagadab) as it is secure, reliable and built to be able to operate Betting Bots such as the ones we will likely use.
Getting set up is really quick and easy.
1. Head to the Simply Hosting (Tagadab) website
2. Select the server package that you need (this is the one we recommend and will allow you to run multiple strategies, or even multiple bots without any problems)
3. Add a Windows server setup to your purchase (The default is Linux)
4. After subscribing, it will take 10-15 minutes for your server to be setup and installed
5. You'll then need a Remote Desktop Client to access the server (free) which is a lot easier than it sounds
We recommend Microsoft's “Remote Desktop Client” it is free and easy to install for both Mac and Windows users.
6. You then log in as normal and it is just like you are working on any windows computer 7. Install BF Bot Manager on to your server and away you go
8. If you have a smartphone, then you can also download the “Remote Desktop Client” on to your phone
This means you can access your server and update the days selections at any time and from any location
With this setup, it does not matter what time it is, whether I am at work or on holiday, or even what country I am in you can access your bot (and your betting accounts) as if you were sat at your desk at home.
VPN (Virtual Private Network)
One final consideration to complete your tech setup for optimal betting and trading is a VPN or Virtual Private Network.
These, in my opinion, are an absolute must for bettors. Fortunately, they are very affordable.
A VPN masks your IP address and also allows you to access the internet from a different location.
Why would you want to do this? Picture this…
You're on holiday on a beautiful beach in Koh Samui.
You are having a lovely time but it's Saturday morning and you have a couple of strong selections come through that you want to place a bet on.
But wait, you can't access your betting account from Thailand…
And that is where the VPN comes in. A click of a button and a few second wait and suddenly your booking things your smartphone is still in Coventry and ready to place a bet.
That's why a VPN is so important. I could delve into a whole chapter on why you should use a VPN for both betting and generally internet browsing but that's for another day.
But if you haven't got a VPN yet on your phone and computer, then we recommend, for the above reason alone, that you jump over to ExpressVPN and get one setup. Will take a few minutes and the cost is minimal.
Six reasons to use a VPN
- Hide your IP and Location
- Encrypt your communications
- Watch your favourite content (E.g. Netflix)
- Unblock censored websites (E.g. Bookmaker X)
- Avoid spying and throttling
- Find deals and avoid Ads
>>> Access ExpressVPN – 30 Days Money-back Guarantee
Livescores
While on the tech topic – two apps for football betting and trading that are a must are:
I wrote extensively about SofaScore along with why Betfair Sucks here. It is one of, if not the best LiveScore services around with a tone of in-play match stats and analysis.
Before discovering SofaScore, I was a big user of Flashscore and I still use it as a backup. SofaScore has way more games with in-play stats, but strangely on some occasions where they do not have it, Flashscore does.
I also find the user interface for adding matches to favourites to get live alerts a little more user friendly.
Definitely worth having both on your phone and desktop.
Summary and Next Steps
- Interested in Betting Bots – check out BF Bot Manager here (20 day free trial)
- Ready to setup a VPS? – Access Simply Hosting here
- Need a VPN? – Express VPN got you covered here (30 day money-back guarantee)
We'll be back with our next trading update next week. Remember to let us know your views in the comments or via the support desk, regarding future topics that you'd like us to cover
All the best
Goal Hunter Invitation
If you would like to join the Goal Hunter community, you will get access to a step by step guide, showing you;
- How to pick the right matches
- When to place your first bet
- When to place any subsequent bets if required
- When to lay (hedge) your bet
- And what to do if the game is not going the way we want
- How to identify and create value in the markets
You will also receive my very own football trading method that I use, day in an day out, trading football profitably.
The trading method I'll share will suit any location or time zone and no matter how much time you have available to trade, we will show you how you can still make profitable trades.
Plus the following bonuses
- Short on time? Use my passive trading strategy
- Free Daily Trading Tracker to monitor, learn and improve your trades
- 12 Month Trading Growth Plan – take even the smallest banks to stellar heights
- [Optional Upgrade] – Daily Trade Sheets – receive our daily trade sheets showing you the best trading opportunities covering the next 24 hours
Jon is the Founder and Chief Tipster at Football Advisor and Predictoloy. He started life as data analyst in the digital marketing field before find his true calling in the world of Football and Horse Racing Betting.
Jon has been sharing his professional expertise since 2009 and specialises in using objective data analysis and subjective experience of betting built up over more than a decade of professional betting.
In 2014, Jon also launched (and continues to run) the trusted Football Advisor service service which provides a variety of football and horse racing betting models and portfolios. A few years later, Jon launched the Predictology platform which is the worlds first betting system builder and analyser covering a wealth of football betting related statistics covering more than 200,000 matches.
Jon has also lent his knowledge and expertise to several of the trusted Premium Services offered by the respected Secret Betting Club, including Football Lay Profits. Racing Bet Profits and, most recently, Racing Lay Profits.