One of the questions I get asked most often is:

“Why do you describe tennis trading as lower risk than betting?”

After all, both involve putting money into the market and both involve sporting events with uncertain outcomes.

Having traded tennis professionally since 2010, I believe there is a significant difference between the two.

The Problem With Traditional Betting

A traditional bet is usually very simple.

You back a player to win a match and then hope your prediction is correct.

Once the bet is placed, you have very little control over what happens next.

If your player starts badly, gets injured or simply has an off day, there is very little you can do.

Your stake is effectively committed until the match ends.

While most bookmakers now offer cash out options, these are often poor value
and don’t provide the same flexibility as a trading approach.

Trading Gives You More Control

When trading, my aim is not necessarily to predict the winner of the match. In the pre match assessment I am really looking for 2 things:
– Who do I think is likely to win?
– How competitive will the other player be?

For a trade, I am looking to profit from price movements. That clearly means correctly predicting those price moves.

That’s now always as difficult as you might think.

What this means is that I can often make money without needing to correctly predict the final result.

More importantly, I can manage my risk throughout the trade.

If the market moves against me, I can exit the trade and accept a small loss.

If the market moves in my favour, I can secure a profit before the match has finished.

This flexibility is one of the biggest reasons I prefer trading to betting.

Tennis Creates Excellent Trading Opportunities

Tennis is particularly well suited to trading because prices can move dramatically during a match.

A single break of serve can create a large price movement.

Momentum can swing quickly and even strong favourites regularly lose sets.

This creates opportunities that simply don’t exist in many other sports.

Rather than sitting on a bet and hoping for the best, traders can react to what is happening and manage their position accordingly.

Losses Can Be Controlled

No trading strategy wins every time.

That is simply unrealistic.

However, one of the biggest advantages of trading is that losses can often be limited before they become large.

I get asked so many times, “If I am in a trade and it doesn’t go as expected, what should I do to limit the damage?”

The first thing to point out is that, if you take a bad value entry, there is no magic strategy to control the loss.

I concentrate on making sure that my initial entry is at a strong price. That way, even if I am wrong about where the price will go, my initial trade limits how far it can go against me in the current set.

A good, simple way to limit loss is that if the trade does not quickly start to move in our favour, we can close the position while the loss / red is small and wait for the next opportunity.

There is no limit on how many times we can enter and exit.

This ability to control risk is one of the key advantages of trading.

Many new traders focus almost entirely on profits.

There is a common phrase that most people have heard. “You must protect your bank”. This is of course very true, but we also need to protect our confidence. A large loss can wreck that confidence, especially while we are learning.

Why I Focus On Low Risk Trading

If you’ve spent any time reading my website, you’ll know I talk about risk management and removing liability a lot.

That’s because surviving the bad days is just as important as profiting from the good ones.

Over the years I have seen many traders fail because they focus on finding the biggest wins rather than managing their downside.

My approach has always been different.

There is a huge difference between trading as a hobby and trading for a living.

The quality of the decisions we make can be affected by the amount of stress that we are under.

I aim to keep stress levels as low as possible.

I would rather make steady profits over a long period than chase one huge result.

This mindset has allowed me to make my living from tennis trading for many years.

Is Tennis Trading Risk Free?

Absolutely not.

Every trade involves risk.

Markets can move unexpectedly and losses are part of trading.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is being unrealistic.

The goal is not to eliminate risk completely. In fact, I believe that being prepared to lose can significantly improve your results overall.

The goal is to manage the risk sensibly and put yourself in situations where the potential reward justifies the risk being taken.

Final Thoughts

For me, the biggest difference between trading and betting is control.

When you place a traditional bet, your options are limited.

When you trade, you can react to events, manage your position and control your risk.

That doesn’t mean every trade will be successful.

However, it does mean you have far more influence over the outcome than you do with a conventional bet.

That is one of the main reasons I have always preferred trading tennis to traditional betting.

If you would like to learn more about my approach to tennis trading, take a look at the TradeShark Tennis Course. I also provide daily ATP and WTA Trading Tips, including the research and match analysis I use when identifying potential trading opportunities.