On most 'tick' (scalping) trading systems you have a 'stop-loss', usually 2 or 3 ticks. But when you're trading at certain Odds the monetary losses can be greater than you expect, if you don't know the Odds increments that Betfair uses.
For example;
1) You make a Back bet of £100 at odds of 2.50; 2 ticks in the right direction and you Lay at 2.46 and you make a profit of £1.63; 2 ticks in the wrong direction and you Lay at 2.54 and you make a loss of £1.57 .... about the same Profit/Loss for a 2 tick movement. Not to bad.
2) You make a Back bet of £100 at odds of 2.98; 2 ticks in the right direction and you Lay at 2.94 and you make a profit of £1.36; 2 ticks in the wrong direction and you Lay at 3.05 and you make a loss of £2.30 .... nearly twice as much loss as there is profit.
Why the bigger loss in 2) .... because above Odds of 3.0 the increment movement is 0.05; 3.0 to 2.0 the increment is 0.02.
Mind you, this is only to your disadvantage if you are Backing first. If you are Laying first then "this message will self distruct in 10 seconds"
.... if you are Laying then it works to your advantage i.e. Lay at 2.98 and Back at 3.05 returns a profit of £2.30 whilst Lay at 2.98 and Back at 2.94 returns a loss of £1.36.
Betfair Increments
Odds ............. Increment
Upto 2.0 ............. 0.01
2.0 to 3.0 ........... 0.02
3.0 to 4.0 ........... 0.05
4.0 to 6.0 ........... 0.10
6.0 to 10.0 ......... 0.20
10.0 and above .... you'll probably not be trading at those levels anyway!!!
