Website : Fixed Odds Success Website
Publisher : Matt Shaw
Cost : £97 per month or £207 per quarter, including a 14 Day Money Back Guarantee period
Review Date : January – March 2011

WHAT IT SAYS ON THE WEBSITE

This is the “UK’s leading Fixed Odds Trading Service ... provided by none other than ‘Matthew $haw’ (ReviewTeam - The $ sign is not a mistake) Mr. Fixed Odds Trader”.

Matt is a 27 year old Welsh man who has been trading the markets since he was 15 years old, in his first year he made £20,000 from a starting pot of just £1,800. He “now turns over hundreds of thousands of pounds each year by Fixed Odds Trading” (full story provided on the website).

The service works as follows:

• Matt places a Fixed Odds trade on his account
• Matt sends you those trade details – by Email and SMS (if you opt for SMS delivery) - Telling you exactly what trade to place
• You place the trade on your own account
• Trades usually return 30%

There are a number of testimonials and magazine articles posted on the website as well as details of the 14 Day Money Back Guarantee.

The “Rich Guide To Fixed Odds Trading” eBook, written by Matt, is provided as a bonus guide and is free to keep regardless of if or when you cancel your subscription.

THE SERVICE

Signals are provided Monday to Friday and are usually received towards the end of the day. Delivery is by Email and SMS. The SMS signal is easy to interpret but the Email version annoyingly tells you to log in to the member site. The reason for this is to prevent the signals being shared, we are told. Fair enough, but a little annoying all the same.

Instruments traded are Indices and Forex.

Trade placement is extremely simple, especially for those that have any previous experience of Fixed Odds trading. Even those new to it will surely be able to cope after using the platform for a short while. The bonus “Rich Guide To Fixed Odds Trading” also provides guidance on the subject.

As with most Fixed Odds Signal Services, getting the same odds as the provider is a little hit and miss. Markets move. So by the time you come to place your trade sometimes the odds will be slightly better or worse (than those specified in the signal) – At the end of the day it should even out, as we found.

We have actually had access to Matt’s service since the beginning of this year (2011) and our results to date are as follows:

• January, 3 trades – All winners - Average return per trade 32% - Monthly profit = +15%
• February, 6 trades – 3 winners and 3 losers – Average return per trade 36% - Monthly loss = -29%
• March, 6 trades – 5 winners and 1 loser - Average return 31% - Monthly profit = +8%

This is a net loss of -6% for 2011 Year To Date and is based on risking the recommended 15% of capital per trade. The average holding period per trade was about 5 days.

Note: There is one trade from March which has not yet expired, as and when it does we will post revised results.

The high risk per trade (15%) works well when trades are winning as evidenced in January and March - But this gets quickly eaten into when things don’t quite go to plan, as we saw in February. Those signing up for this service may choose to adjust this.

This is a poor start to 2011 for “Mr. Fixed Odds Trader”. To be fair though Fixed Odds Trading (especially the popular No touch and Tunnel bets Matt favours) is not best suited to surprise events – Such as Uprisings, Invasions, Earthquakes, Etc. This is also evident in our other Fixed Odds review this month – EOD Trading Signals Review.

We intend to monitor this service for the next 3 months, providing monthly updates and, eventually, a 6 month view. This in the hope we see a more stable world, trading environment and ultimately, more stable returns.

Note: Matt does state that some clients add a little to his recommended price levels for less risk and that some of these clients never lose. We traded just the recommended levels as per the signals in order to provide a measurable review.

SUPPORT

Usually within 48 hours and to the point.

CONCLUSION

PROs
• Clear and easy to understand signals.
• Matt is one of the longest (if not the longest) serving Fixed Odds Trader we are aware of.

CONs
• Low Risk:Reward 3.33 : 1 (e.g. £100 : £30).
• High Capital risk per trade of 15% advised.
• A poor start to 2011 (see our note on World events).
• Annoying having to login to the website for Email signals (UPDATE: Matt has since informed us (November 2011) that signals are now sent by Email and SMS).


Do remember, your comments are important, if you decide to purchase this service, please support us by using our link and by reporting back your findings, both are valuable to us and the service.

Thanks for this review! I've also subscribed to Matt's signal service and I'll tweak the trades (Matt's return -3%) in order to minimise the loosers.

Hi,

How can I remove my vote for the poll and change it to "Use It?

Thanks

Hi,

Unfortunately this is not possible at present - We will look into adding this functionality.

Hello
Just to give some feedback on this service. I first came across Matt’s service and fixed odds betting from ‘Investors Chronicle’, a weekly publication giving tips and advice on all of the financial markets. Occasionally Matt gets to write a small article toward the back of the magazine in the forex section. I checked his website. I must confess at first glance I was a little concerned by the amateurish layout but then who really cares when it’s all about the result. I sent Matt an e-mail asking to look at his past results. He replied very quickly saying he does not reveal these unless I’m a paid up member. So I duly paid up and still didn’t get to see the results.

Anyway, I was in, I paid £209 for the quarter. Matt then sent me some really basic trading tips (this was part of the service to begin with), this is stuff freely available on the internet anyway. Not, overly worried, all I wanted was the first trade.

First tip arrived. It came as an e-mail. It gave the market to trade and the type of trade to enter. Perfect. I logged straight into the fixed odds betting website – you have to set up an account with these people to place the trades.

Bingo! Success, 35% profit on a bet which was around 10-15% of my bank. Matt doesn’t really tell you exactly how much to risk, his e-mails simply say 10-15%. He normally aims to make around 35-40% on the actual bet.

Trades were on the indices and forex (mainly GBP/USD). There was no set amount per week. If Matt saw a trade he would send you an e-mail, normally it was a window between 6-9pm each evening. The goal was to try and logon as quickly as you could because he would indicate in the e-mail what percentage return you should get. If you leave it too late then the return becomes less.

It all started well until the first loss. Then very quickly I realised the big disadvantage. There is no real risk control strategy; you have to do that yourself. But it became clear that you needed to win at least 3 or 4 times to every loss. For example; you have a bank of £100. You risk 10% of your bank each time you trade. So first bet is £10 and you win 35%. Your bank is now £113.50. So, your next bet is £11.35 and again you win but let’s say you got on a bit late and only made 30%. You win £3.40. Your bank is now £116.90. Again, you place 10% of your bank, £11.69 and this time you win 35% - £4.09. You bank is now £120.99. Again, you bet 10% of your bank - £12.99. But this time you lose. This means your bank is now short £12.99 to £108. But still it’s an 8% return? Well, it isn’t, remember you have to take into account Matt’s charges.

Anyway, I did this for 9 months. After 7 months it was becoming apparent that Matt’s losses were having a severe affect on the overall averages. I sent Matt an e-mail which he confirmed the figures. With a starting bank of £500 and placing all his trades as close as I could to the time they came out (I did lose some percentages because the market moved quickly) I made £54.21. Take out his costs and I actually lost £566.79.

I went back even further and checked all his trades from Dec 2009 until 10th Dec 2010. Matt agreed that you would need a pot of £10,000 to make £90 – that’s a return of 0.9%. If you had put the same amount in a savings account you could have got more for doing nothing! Matt did say that he did suffer some big losses during this period.
Just toward the end of my membership things started to go badly wrong. He sent out signals giving the wrong indices, you could not have placed the trade anyway because the signal was for the S&P and he meant the Dow (or visa versa). He admitted on one trade he got the wrong figures for a boundary bet which meant we all got shut out.

I could see generally the way things were going and tried to get out – Matt will not give refunds!

At around this time, he also changed the way signals were delivered. In the past, e-mails would give you the trade but now he sends you an e-mail to say there is a trade on his website. You now have to log into his website to get the trade, then log into the betting site to place the trade.

Whilst Matt was quick to respond to mails and to be very open, my conclusion is you will either lose money or as he says you need a pot of tens of thousands to make any money. Even if you had a bank of £100,000 in 2009/10 you would have made £900 BEFORE costs! Good luck if you do try it.

Rgds
Polar

Polar,

Welcome to SFT and we are grateful for your detailed input, particularly you taking the time to share your experience of this system during a period when we did not have access.

Much of what you say is in line with our review and we too agree that it is annoying that the signal is not contained within the actual email. We are continuing to monitor this service for another 3 months and will of course provide updates.

Originally Posted by Reviewteam

We have actually had access to Matt’s service since the beginning of this year (2011) and our results to date are as follows:

• January, 3 trades – All winners - Average return per trade 32% - Monthly profit = +15%
• February, 6 trades – 3 winners and 3 losers – Average return per trade 36% - Monthly loss = -29%
• March, 6 trades – 5 winners and 1 loser - Average return 31% - Monthly profit = +8%

This is a net loss of -6% for 2011 Year To Date and is based on risking the recommended 15% of capital per trade. The average holding period per trade was about 5 days.

Note: There is one trade from March which has not yet expired, as and when it does we will post revised results.

We have actually had access to Matt’s service since the beginning of this year (2011) and our results to date are as follows:

• January, 3 trades – All winners - Average return per trade 32% - Monthly profit = +15%
• February, 6 trades – 3 winners and 3 losers – Average return per trade 36% - Monthly loss = -29%
• March, 7 trades – 6 winners and 1 loser - Average return 31% - Monthly profit = +14%

This makes it break-even for 2011 Year To Date and is based on risking the recommended 15% of capital per trade. The average holding period per trade was about 6 days.

Our results for April are as follows:

• 3 trades – 1 winner - 1 loser - Average return per trade 30% - Monthly loss = -11%

Performance is based on risking the recommended 15% of capital per trade. The average holding period per trade was about 5 days.

There is still 1 trade open and when it reaches expiry we will post updated figures for April.

Thanks for the updated results RT, and especially to Polar Bear above for a really detailed feedback. The best bit is that you have checked and confirmed your results with Matt Shaw. I think I'll stay away from this.

Hi,
I've subscribed to Matt's signal service on the 1st of April. In the hope of having fewer losers (which weight heavily on the total return), I'm tweaking his No Touch bet by taking 5% less return than he advises. For the Barrier bets, I do not tweak anything.
I'll try to update from time to time (especially when my results differs from SFT) with my results since I believe it'll be an interesting alternative and should provide higher return.
For this purpose, Matt strongly recommends to take less return on his No Touch bet.

Regards