CityOdds is a company founded in 2005 and offers fixed odds financial betting (binary betting). The binary betting service allows you to profit by calling the market correctly, while limiting potential losses. Binary betting lets you take a view on whether an event will happen - the pound will slide; the FTSE 100 will close up; or house prices will rally, for example.
City Odds offers a slightly more sophisticated take on binary bets, by allowing traders to choose their own price movement for an index, currency pair, or commodity - and decide whether or not to take the odds quoted. Betters set their own parameters within which they think a certain market - a currency market, stock market or commodity, like gold or oil - will close on a given day. Typically, odds are about three to one. The tighter the range, the better the odds, and the higher your potential return. The average bet is about £10, but can range from £5 to £500.
Now that we are seeing a good number of regular traders on CityOdds, it is becoming apparent there are distinct categories of trader.
The trader tends to seek high payout, less frequent transactions. These trades often lose money for the trader but the ones that win can multiply the stake by 200% to 500% in a day, often offsetting the losses previously suffered. These traders tend to trade in and out of positions to try and capture shorter term movements in the underlying market.
These traders tend to regularly place trades that are very likely to make a profit but this profit would be small. These traders tend to make money on a regular basis but occasionally lose a great deal if the underlying market suddenly moves in one direction or another.
Traders may purchase low cost, speculative trades either side of the current market level and should the underlying suddenly jump in one direction or another, the trader sells the winning trade for a profit, and closes the losing trade (hopefully for less loss than the profit on the winning trade).
It hasn't taken long for CityOdds to see these trends emerging and it is still not clear if any of these three strategies is the better in the long run.
It is very clear, however, that the behaviour of CityOdds traders is no different from the traders that sit inside large investment banks (apart from the £10m bonuses that is!!).
Mike Chadney CEO of CityOdds.
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