The Players: Marc Daniel

	I’m still using the same systems I learned and developed trying to make a fiver out of fifty quid

For most, it’s a dream. Turning £50 into £60,000 just doesn’t happen unless you play so well Sir Alex Ferguson chooses to elevate you from the YTS scheme to the team for the Champions League final. Yet that kind of dramatic increase in fortune is exactly what one student has done. Not overnight, admittedly, but two years isn’t exactly slow, and his remarkable gambling story illustrates the beauty of Betfair, the largest betting exchange. Young and old, gamblers and traders can all mix in one huge melting pot of numbers and action.

Confidence trick

Marc Daniel is 20, from Bournemouth, and is studying psychology at Bath University. Back in October 2003, smugly pleased with his A-level results, he was the stereotypical ‘fresher’ terrified about spending money. The former can be put down to the arrogance of youth, but it was the latter that concerned him. ‘I was so worried about going out and spending money because I couldn’t afford it.

‘That summer, before starting uni, I worked in a bar for £4 an hour, and then got another bar job when I started at Bath,’ he explains. ‘But then one of my mates, who had about £10k or £12k, told me about Betfair. One night he whispered to me that he’d just lost eight grand. That was it. I thought, “I want to have a go at this”, and so I opened an account with £50.’

It’s curious that the final push to opening an account was a tale of loss by his friend. Did he maybe feel he was smarter?

‘Not really, it was just interesting. For the first year, I watched the markets, had a few small bets trying to trade a £5 win, but I was mainly studying. Not uni work, though: the course is easy and I’ve learned that less effort can mean better results. I was studying the markets. I love parameters and structures in my life and I couldn’t do the wild swings that my mate did. I wanted a strict system and so I watched and made hundreds of systems. One was on home wins in ice hockey, and I put all the information in a spreadsheet.’

Ice hockey? Football, yes. Reality TV shows, if you must. But ice hockey?

‘I wanted a system and I thought there was one there,’ he argues. ‘I tried football – trading the draw from the 80th minute – and golf was okay, but not productive enough for the hours I spent on it. I found that aside from ice hockey, cricket and tennis were my best fields, and I like watching them, so by about February 2004 I was betting mainly on those two sports.

‘I worked my bank from £100 to £200 and quit my job in the bar. I mean, who wants to work for the minimum wage when you can trade an easy £25 a day on Betfair? I sat in front of the computer all day trading.

‘The thing was, I was loving it; loving the trading, the getting an edge. I’ve always wanted easy money or to get an edge over people, and to me that’s what I was doing.’

The edge – exactly what each and every punter is seeking. To most it remains an elusive Holy Grail, but Marc had seemingly found it.

‘At the end of term, I set myself a target of £3,000 for the rest of the summer,’ he says. ‘I broke it down into three months – 90 days – so I aimed to make £35 a day, every day.

Upping the ante

‘I’d get up in the morning and trade the cricket, a Twenty20 or Totesport or test match, and then I’d move on to tennis in the afternoon and evening. I’d sit at the computer for 12 hours straight just trading, and I started increasing my targets to £50 and then £70 a day. Two weeks in and I was up £2,000, and so I upped my target for the summer and carried on.’

At this stage, it was a lovely life for Marc. Money was rolling in and the thrill of finding something he was good at was intoxicating, but everything has a price, as he found out.

‘I kept getting a bad back and a bad stomach,’ he explains to InsideEdge. ‘I was sitting hunched over a computer, tapping the submit button for hours. I’m well over six feet tall and it started to hurt, so I needed massages and went to see the doctor. He lectured me about posture and gave me anti-acid tablets for my stomach, but my back still hurts even now.’

More massages would be the answer, but the soothing hands also disappeared. ‘My girlfriend left me at the end of the summer, saying we never did anything together because I was always trading. I’d “pushed her away”. I see now that I was addicted to trading: it became everything. However, she was my first love; I was devastated.

‘I think the breaking point came in August 2004 during the US Open. I had traded all day and then an evening match between Mikhail Youznhy and David Nalbandian was on. It went to the fifth set and my girlfriend kept calling and texting me to go round and go to bed. I kept saying, “In a bit.” The game finished at about 2am and I got there at 3am. I’d made £600, felt good, kissed her when I got into bed, got up at 9am, kissed her again and went home to trade on the cricket.

‘The thing is, I was so happy. I was making great money and trading, but she never saw me. When she left me, I stopped trading for about five months – basically until I got over her.’

Broken heart well and truly mended, Marc is most definitely back on the scene, new girlfriend in tow and having turned a staggering profit since March this year.

‘I’ve come back more focused and have just hit it hard. More importantly, I’ve also kept a bit more balance about it all,’ he explains. ‘My new girlfriend is cool with my trading – I was honest about what I do – and I’m doing some good numbers. I cleared £20k in the first three weeks I was back. Since then, in the last three months, I’ve done another £30k. I always start with a £4,000 bank and the bigger numbers mean bigger profits, but I’m using the same systems I learned and developed trying to make a fiver out of fifty quid.

‘I want to get to £100,000 and then bank it, get the interest, use that for my next bank and start again. Why go and get a job when I can do this? And I want to keep doing it, setting myself up until I can’t make money any more or the law changes or I start losing money. Nine to five, sucking up to a boss isn’t me. I’moff to Oxford next year for a year studying Educational Psychology, and then back to Bath for my finals and what should be a 2:1.’

Rags to riches

So what is Marc? A student making pin money or a gambler filling spare hours with a course? After all, we study to get a better job to get more money. Why bother if the money comes anyway?

‘Oh no, I’m a student – that’s how I see myself,’ explains Marc. ‘Just a student who trades a lot and spends a lot. Two years ago I could never imagine spending money like I do now, but I’ve just spent £8,000 on a car and another £1,600 on a DVD player and speakers for it. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Before, I wouldn’t go out much because of money. Now I spend that on a DVD for a car. I should have paid off my student loan, I suppose.’

With that, Marc wanders off through Bath, past the historic Abbey and the Roman pump rooms where the legates and favourites of Emperors used to bathe. Tennis from Cincinnati was calling him. I checked the results with him later. ‘Not bad – about £800 – but my back hurts,’ he answers.