Review -- Bet Angel Courses.

[PFY]

That's redicalus

You are Duncan Bannatyne and I claim my £5.

[Cran]

[Scalper]

I've been on the course and my advice to anyone would be to put the £400 into your betfair account instead as you will lose money when you first start out.

I was hopeful before I went, I wasn't expecting it to be the holy grail but I was hoping that it would help me improve on what I was doing and would give me a better idea on understanding the direction the price would go using graphs.

After paying for the course I received an email from Peter Webb telling me where it would be and to send him an email telling him about my experiences with trading and what I hoped to get out of the course, I emailed him back with the information he wanted and I also asked him a few questions about whether there was any reading material I should read up on that would benefit me before taking the course, sadly Peter didn't bother replying to my email which I thought was ignorant considering I had just given him £400.

Fast forward to the day of the course and I turned up at the venue to find the bar area of the hotel packed, my first thought was that there must be another room hired out for something else but they were in fact all there for the course, 20 of us in total which I found misleading from the picture on his site with about 8 people sat around a table, it went from what I thought would be an up close meeting where a few of us had the chance to pick his brains to me being sat about 30 feet away at the other end of the room struggling at times to hear what he was saying.

Peter Webb then started his seminar by telling us "I don't really need to do these courses" while I'm sure everyone was sat there like me thinking about the £8k he was making on the day and wondering if he was actually taking the piss or not.

He then spent the morning telling us about bet angel and the different things you can do with it, he had a go at bookmaking and made a complete mess of it while attempting to kill time by telling us the tale of when he had a dream about Southampton getting relegated and how he was 7th in some fantasy football competition by predicting 1-1 in every scoreline, by this time I was feeling more than bored but was still optimistic about the horse racing in the afternoon.

Lunch arrived and Peter sat down and was telling people how he and Adam Heathcote often ring each other to discuss how they were doing, which was different to the "we only share links" he claims on his site, still I think a few got more info out of being able to pick his brains over lunch than they did for the rest of the course.

The afternoon session started with a buzz of anticipation as this was what we were all there for, that soon disappeared as two things I were expecting from the course failed to happen, first of all he didn't cover graphs and how he reads them at all which was a huge disappointment, secondly I was expecting to be able to watch him trade and learn from his style but this didn't happen either, we were treated to him trying to trade 2 races, one using his instant back bet button on bet angel when the original bet was matched and another with him trying to scalp by pushing through his bet, he did make money on the bet he tried to push through but lost far more when trying to demonstrate the back bet facility.

That was it as far as live racing goes and the rest of the afternoon was filled with him showing us old videos of ones he'd done on another day that are available on his blog anyway.

There were a few interesting bits like how he puts money in the gaps on the ladder so that he's at the front of the cue if the price ever moves that far in that direction, he also explained how he thinks the prices become more volatile depending on the grade of the race as there is less money about, nothing groundbreaking anyway and the course notes are nothing to shout about either, in fact you can flick through most of it if you've ever used an API before as it is aimed at beginners.

I left the course and spent the 2 hour drive home feeling disappointed and felt like I had been ripped off, it could have been worse as there was a lad there who had come over from Australia for it.

Overall I would give the experience a 2/10 and one of those was for the curry I had at the hotel the night before.

Avoid.

[Firkinelle]

Good read that Scalper, thanks. Probably more interesting than the course by the sounds of it

[rockaren]

Wow...great review, thanx....

I feel sorry for you, you could make your BF bank £400 bigger by not having a date with PeeWee +19 other traders....

[pez]

I did consider going on the course when i started training but it was fullly booked and 400 quid seemed pretty steep.cheers for the honest review

[The Geek]

The biggest disappointment of the course for me was that there was 19 of us!

Yes you must have been really gutted that number 20 couldn't make it.



BTW our top course praiser & first time poster pauls, declined to confirm his identity & hasn't put in an appearance on the forums at all for 2 weeks now.

Do you think we scared him off?

[Firkinelle]

BTW our top course praiser & first time poster pauls, declined to confirm his identity & hasn't put in an appearance on the forums at all for 2 weeks now.

Do you think we scared him off?

Probably too busy trying to get his money back after using what he learned from the course trying to trade and losing.

[YoungTrader]

I'm surprised he didn't use any proxy or vpn, it's probably not his first time making an account at a forum to promote his "holy grail" course

[The Geek]

I'm surprised he didn't use any proxy or vpn, it's probably not his first time making an account at a forum to promote his "holy grail" course

Not the first, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Just to say here, there is no definite proof either way, so we shall just leave it as one of those unexplained mysteries.

[YoungTrader]

Not the first, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Just to say here, there is no definite proof either way, so we shall just leave it as one of those unexplained mysteries.

that's true :P

[bazbaz]

I went on the course after I was already making money, hoping to gain new perspectives in able to help me join the few who make ridiculous amounts. The positive side of the course was that it did inspire a few new ideas (started from my own mind when it got me thinking in slightly different ways about trading, this was in the days before forums / blogs etc. which potentially could have now done the same purpose)

However I can't really argue with many of these negative comments. It doesn't show you enough so that you can trade and make money. If you put 10,000 newbies who knew nothing about trading before they attended the course in front of a PC immediately after taking the course, 10,000 would end up making a loss at the end of any days trading.

The bottom line is that many people have to get away from the idea that someone will teach them what to do. Everyone who learned this had to learn the hard way, through months and months (or years and years) of experience. No one is going to tell you their exact methods, contrary to what people say, there simply isn't enough money to go around (consider this... you might be amazed that a crappy 5f hcp at soutwell gets 500k before the off, but even small fish like me may have been responsible for 10k of that volume figure, only to make a tenner or so.) And although forums (and some blogs) like this are great for honest advice, no one is giving away any hard earned secrets. The best advice you will find here is regarding your expectations and money management. Maybe you will be inspired by reading posts, but treat reading on here as entertainment rather than research time. The only real headway I ever made was by directly perceiving and participating in the markets. Rely on yourself and screw everyone else, you'll need to when the markets change (as they regularly do) anyway. Self reliance and the ability to motivate yourself to be highly competitive day in day out is one of the key skills you will need for this.

I would love to see a survey of how many people who attend the course actually make it as traders. If you agree with me that contrary to popular opinion there aren't actually that many traders out there making money (I think Heathcote was about right when he said 100 or so pros) then the vast, vast majority have wasted £400. I guess to the rare few that it may have inspired and are now making a career it was a gamble that paid off but in truth it is one hell of a long shot and if anyone is going to make it they will do so because of their determination (and perhaps luck that they've been born with the skills required to work things out for themselves) rather than the course content. It may not seem it to some but to most people £400 is a lot of money

[kawasaki]

best and most usefull things i ever learned was those i learned myself

[oldboy]

As another former attendee of the course I can say that Scalper's assessment of the day is very accurate and very fair. From my experience I'd say...

1. As there were 20 people attending the course it wasn't particularly interactive and Peter Webb doesn't create an environment where you feel you are able to ask questions throughout the day. (note: Saying you encourage questions and creating an environment that encourages questions are two very different things)

2. Nobody wants to give away their trading secrets, strategies and tactics to a room full of people so be prepared that you will only learn so much. During the day Peter clearly avoided answering certain questions to such an extent that it felt like everyone had given up bothering to ask anything by the end of the day.

3. The day is padded out with a number of anecdotes. We heard the ones about Peter's "Southampton relegation dream/premonition", "how he nearly won a football score prediction competition by predicting 1-1 for every game" and "how he has twice got 5 numbers plus the bonus ball on the lottery". (note: none of these little nuggets has made me a better trader despite having paid for the privilege of listening to them)

4. Three trading strategies are covered for pre-race trading and I'm pretty certain that most successful (and unsuccessful) traders that haven't attended the course will already be using these strategies. We were then told that it was harder to lose money on betfair than it was to win it before Peter used one of his strategies to trade a race. (note: Peter Webb must have been trying exceptionally hard that day as he proceeded to lose money on the race)

5. The day is further padded out by Peter Webb showing trading videos which are available on his blog and Youtube etc.

6. Peter Webb refers to the course on his website as a "Masterclass", with the definition of masterclass in the dictionary being "a seminar for advanced students conducted by a master". This is a gross misrepresentation as in reality the course is rather basic with Peter coming across as more of a salesman rather than an expert in his field.

In conclusion I'd say there's very little value to be had here. As others have said before there are a few pearls of wisdom but nothing that's worth £400, and probably nothing that you won't be able to find for free online. My advice would be to do something more worthwhile with your hard earned money. Use it as a trading bank, take the missus away for the weekend or treat the kids to something special. You'll feel better for it.

Sorry if I've repeated points that others have made but thought it was worth adding another opinion.

[YoungTrader]

sounds to me like peter webb is flirting with the point where he's scamming people.. you clearly get the impression you are going to learn something valueable for trading when you read the description on the website..

I know I would feel buttf*cked if I had attended the course, I actually did consider it when I first found trading , glad I didn't...