This week I have been very busy following the launch of my trading club (Pro X Trading), and members are already getting the benefits of the one to one mentoring from me. I am in the process of automating some of my most guarded trading secrets with a Betfair solutions provider and this will free up my time to help others make that jump and become full time sports traders.

One thing is evident having spoken to my new members, is not their ability to trade successfully, but the lack of mental conditioning needed to become a successful trader.

If like me you were a punter before the exchanges, then you have been conditioned to lose! Back in the last millennium we could only back against the bookmakers offering us very poor margins, plus in the UK we had to pay 10% tax to add to our misery.

If we wanted to back West Ham to win at home on Wednesday night with no TV games, we had find four other teams to go with the bet. Thankfully those days are long gone and as a punter you have never had it so good, yet the bookmakers are still reporting record profits. WHY?

Simple; the vast majority punters do not have the winning mentality to make this game pay, they lack key skills such as risk & money management, discipline, patience, plus the hardest thing to master your inner demons.

I was having a conversation with the Betfair Provider about my system that I am automating, I am looking to take £1K liquidity out of the market. On the initial testing against this season's Premiership games, he was concerned with my Return on Investment being very low.

He was concerned, I was rubbing my hands, who is right?

Through the back testing he was seeing the ups and downs of trading in its purest form, and across all Premiership games the method was producing an average match return on investment of 5%. He thought that was very low given the opening position, but when I told him to do the maths on 2000 in-play games, he wasn't concerned any more!

What I was asking to do is trade in a pure form without manual intervention, to see how profitable a system could be. If this return on investment is achieved on 2000 in-play soccer matches, I am looking at £100k a season profit without moving my mouse.

He could only see the hits the system takes (it only has an 85% success rate), looking at the short term picture rather than taking a long term view. Many losing punters never look further than their nose and lose faith in strategies when they take a hit or two very quickly.

I feel that developing a winning mentality is the most important skill you can learn as a trader on Betfair, knowing and covering every angle before you enter the market builds confidence and self discipline.