Posts Tagged ‘UK News’

Inside Edge Magazine - Sports-Arbitrage Article

Arbitrage traders, or arbsters as they’re known, make serious money, risk-free, from exploiting the price differences between bookmakers. Roland de Wolfe reports on this wiliest of betting strategies.

Serious gamblers should always be on the look-out for new ways to profit from their passion and if you haven’t yet got into sports arbitrage trading, now is the time to give it a try. If you know what you’re doing, you literally can’t lose.

Arbitrage trading has been around as long as bookies offering competing odds have been around. It involves using a number of bookmakers to take prices that differ so much that you’re able to bet on several outcomes and turn a profit irrespective of the result.

In its simplest form, an opportunity for an arb arose in the betting for the last US presidential election, when George Bush was 6/4 in the US and Al Gore was 6/4 in the UK. This meant you could back both to the same stake and guarantee a 25 per cent return, whatever the result. If you’d put ?1,000 on both to win, you’d have lost the Al Gore bet but the George Bush one would have returned ?2,500, eliciting a nice ?500 profit.

Thousands of opportunities for exploiting a sports arb are created every month too. The opportunity to spot and exploit an arb arises whenever a bookmaker’s overround is below 100 per cent, not just when both are better than even money. So, if Tim Henman is 3/1 to take a tennis tournament and Lleyton Hewitt is any longer than 1/3 you’d have the arb, provided you knew what stake to place on each.

The possibility for making profitable arbitrage trades exists in many markets, but is most commonly used in the financial markets. Here, arbs occur when the same instrument is traded in separate markets. For example, the Bund Futures Contract used to trade both in London on LIFFE (the London Financial Futures and Options Exchange) and also in Germany on the DTB (Deutsche Terminborse). Although their prices are mostly the same, there are also times when they are out of line, and this is when arbitrageurs, or arbsters as they’re now more commonly known, would step in to buy at the lower prices, then immediately sell at the higher price. More complex arbitrage opportunities occur between interest rate markets and derivative markets, where a relationship can be synthesised and then arbitraged if the conditions are correct.

While arbitrage in financial markets tends to be dominated by large investment houses and banks, sports arbitrage is available to anyone with the capital, the tools and the time. With a bit of study about how this form of betting works, you can become an expert on identifying and profiting from opportunities that are created every day among the large number of sports bookmakers around the world.

However, although sports arbitrage trading is risk-free, it’s not effort-free. Your success depends on your own level of commitment and hard work. Individual arbitrage prices don’t last for long and there’s a steep learning curve for all new traders.

The man with a system

Sports arbitrage trader Jason Thompson found that he was spending too long finding arbs and not finding enough of them to make decent profits, so he teamed up with City whizzkid Rajeev Shah who devised a computer program he has called ArbAlarm. This system scours bookmakers worldwide for arbs and then instantly delivers them to the inbox or mobile phone of subscribers.

The internet has made finding arbs much easier. Now you can see prices updated instantly on websites and track your money in electronic accounts. However, it’s still a time-consuming business. Arbs don’t last longer than a few minutes, as the weight of money moves the prices and there’s only so much research you can do in the time it takes to identify and exploit the arb.

ArbAlarm changes all that. While a trader looking for arbs manually might have managed to find 200-300 arbs himself last year, this new software regularly uncovers several thousand trades each month. 

Shah used to be a currency & futures with a large American bank, but then he swapped stocks for soccer and his trading jacket for a keyboard. His book, Sports-Arbitrage – How to Place Riskless Bets and Create Tax-Free Investments, is considered the reference work in this field of investment.

His website www.sportsarbitrageworld.com has a loyal group of subscribers paying a monthly subscription for exclusive access to the information the software uncovers.

‘I was involved with financial market arbitrage for a number of years and saw how technology was rapidly changing the way deals were done. A year after I left the City, LIFFE moved to a completely automated, computer-based system. This was around the same time that the internet was becoming mainstream and I noticed a large number of bookmakers springing up on the web, which created arbs all over the place.

‘I started searching for and trading these arbs on a daily basis, and once I’d verified that this free money was really what it seemed, I started development on my software, which now scours over 100 online bookmakers across 25 different types of event.’

Arbitrage is normally done on sporting events where there are a small number of outcomes, such as football, tennis or baseball. The average arb value on ArbAlarm is just under 3 per cent. This means you tend to stake a lot for a number of small but guaranteed returns. The more capital you have, the more money you make, but if you’re clever you can make your money behave as though it were five times greater in amount than it is.

According to Thompson, ‘The power of leverage can make your profits increase sharply. If you cover enough arbs in short-term markets, £1,000 can be turned over three or four times in the month. Speed of turnover is the key - low percentages don’t really matter,’ 

Some bookmakers require a credit card deposit, and deposit fees may be incurred. ‘If you have the capital to leave money in the accounts, then you can get the bet on as the arb occurs and you won’t have to keep paying credit card fees,’ he advises.

He estimates that a trading base of £5,000 will easily net you about £600 tax-free profit every month if you use ArbAlarm for 1 hour each day. Data from surveys of the loyal customer-base of Shah’s website confirm that sports arbitrage traders are well-used to profits amounting to around 12% per month. 

The armchair arbster

Paul Hammond, an estate agent from Hackney, got into arbs after seeing how much a colleague was making. He works during the day, so does his arbitrage trading mainly in the evening and has done so for the past two years. He says he makes an extra ?350 in an average month for, on average, just one hour’s work a day.

‘There are more arbs than ever with the explosion in internet betting. You learn when the bookmakers change their prices and get to know which firms tend to offer top price on any given sport. If you look at the odds comparison sites (such as oddschecker.co.uk), you can see what is the high and low end of any market,’ he says.

Hammond doesn’t want to take arbitrage up full time, but it now occupies a place in his spare time that was once filled by more traditional betting methods.

‘I used to bet a lot on football, golf and horses. Now I rarely bother, as then I was a mug punter looking for thrills, whereas now I’m recouping the money I lost. It’s kind of weird to watch a football match now, knowing that I’ve backed both teams to go through.’

The bookmaker’s view

As people who continually make money from betting, it’s logical to conclude that arbsters are the scourge of the bookmakers. However, if you do get involved in arbitrage trading, it appears the bookmakers will be happy to accommodate your bets.

Gary Pearce, sports trading manager at SportingOdds, told InsideEdge: ‘My philosophy is that whenever there’s an arb, there’s always someone laying the other side. We have expert traders who determine the prices we offer, and as long as those prices are true or slightly under the true price, then I’m happy to take bets from accounts we believe belong to arb traders.’

Pearce believes it’s not bookmakers but regular punters who lose out to the arbsters. ‘When we make a selection, we have a safety net of how much we’re prepared to lay on that selection. If we’re top of the market and one half of an arb, the arbitrage money will get us closer to that limit than it otherwise would be, but regular punters may not be able to get on that price.’

So, with state-of-the-art software at your disposal and the government tacitly confirming , via its legislation on betting duty, that it intends to allow sports arbitrage traders to continue enjoying their profits free of tax, risk-free bets seem to be the way to go for anyone wanting to make extra money in their spare time.

Home owners trying to sell their houses have had to knock more than £4,000 off their asking prices in the past month alone, according to the latest gloomy property market survey. 

The survey was done to see if there was any proof of a supposed shift in philosophies regarding investment methods.

Besides dealing with housing the researchers spent a lot of time reporting on an emerging industry that according to the survey investors worldwide have grabbed hold of by the millions. This is Internet gaming. With the use of new software, it is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Actually, Internet gaming is the largest and most profitable Internet-based industry. It seems everyone is getting into it, including the government. The UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. 

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

Though Internet gaming is taking the world by storm the housing market is not fairing as well. The average asking price has fallen from by £4,345 to £235,219 between June and July, as sellers are forced to cut their prices because the “mortgage famine” is causing potential buyers to flee the market. 

The monthly Rightmove house price report blames overly cautious banks for the stagnant housing market. 

The number of mortgages on the market has fallen steadily since March and there are now fewer than 3,800 mortgage deals available compared with more than 12,000 a year ago. 

New sellers are now asking two per cent less than a year ago, the first time Rightmove has measured a year-on-year fall. 

Miles Shipside, commercial director of the property website, said: “Sellers are finally recognizing that they need to undercut their rivals from the outset, rather than testing the market and dropping prices later. 

While this £4,000 reduction is on top of a £3,000 drop last month, sellers’ pricing needs to be at the level where deals are being done. 

“It could be a lot better outcome to price aggressively and sell now, rather than accept a bigger reduction later as prices continue to fall.” 

The lack of buyers has meant that estate agents have failed to enjoy the usual spring upturn in the market. 

The number of unsold properties on estate agents’ books has now increased for six months in a row, with the average estate agent having 77 unsold houses. 

Official statistics from the Land Registry have shown that the number of homes changing hands has plummeted by 50 per cent compared with a year ago. 

Though some mortgage companies have started to trim their rates over the past two weeks, most experts believe the housing market will get worse before it gets better. 

Sir Win Bischoff, the chairman of Citigroup bank, said over the weekend that he expected house prices to fall for another two years. 

The UK public has had to learn some new terminologies in the last year or so.

They discovered (the hard way) what subprime mortgages were, and how they were about to burst the bubble of their credit dependant lives.

They have had to learn what a “credit crunch” is and how it will affect them.

They have learned about negative equity and foreclosure, inflation, deflation, what it takes to be declared a recession among many others.

And they have learned the names of some of the major banks in the United States, Fortunately before they got to say goodbye to them forever. At least in their existing form.  The first and most famous bank that we got to know was Bear Sterns of Manhattan whose cry of “help, I’m drowning” signaled the official start of the subprime mortgage crisis in March 2007. After Bear Stearns were bought out of impending liquidation for around 20% of their book value, a number of smaller and less glamorous regional banking groups followed suit.

However the biggest upset was when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two massive mortgage underwriters began to show major signs of distress. Till their names began to hit the press, the average British man in the street probably thought that they were characters from the Beverley Hillbillies.

Today, another name has been added to list of US banks who are tottering on the brink of insolvency and about to fall.  The name is Lehman Brothers, a US investment bank who will need to find a buyer, and pretty soon, before they too disappear from the scene.  Lehman Brothers have been trading since the mid nineteenth century, with a strong record for conservative banking. Like so many other banks in the US, they couldn’t turn their backs on the massive profits seemingly being earned from financing subprime mortgage packages, and they now look like paying the ultimate penalty for it.

And how does this affect the UK consumer? The answer is, not a lot, except for the fact that Barclays Bank is one of the leading contenders to pick up the bank for a song.

What it does tell the UK consumer is that the script for the current global financial crisis is still being written, and nobody is really able to predict what is going to happen in the end.

The man in the street is more concerned about how his family can manage to survive on their consistently eroding salary, keep a roof over their heads, and food on the table. Not proving to be an easy task these days. Among those fighting for survival are those who invest all their energies in keeping their costs down to a minimum, whilst others adopt a different approach. To discover innovative, low risk, not labour intensive means of earning extra income to keep ahead of the recession. One of them is sports arbitrage investment.  

This money maker is as far from gambling as could be imagined. Instead it is a foolproof form of trading which is a guaranteed money maker whilst being entirely risk free. And is even recognized by the UK government as such.

The system was  initially explained by Rajeev Shah in his book ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’  Rajeev, who gained his basic experience of arbitrage as a dealer in the city discovered a method of applying the principles to sports betting that can guarantee 12% return on investment. Not every year but every month. All that is required is some basic knowledge of computers and a broadband connection.  

The introduction of this cutting edge software program opens the door to anyone to earn these profits. ArbAlarm is programmed to constantly monitor, recognize and alert players to a particular situation that occurs fairly frequently. This is a situation where online bookmakers fix the odds on any kind of sporting event. And they are taking place all around the World and around the clock.

ArbAlarm picks up immediately events where the odds set by two bookmakers vary sufficiently that it is possible to arbitrage between the possibilities offered so that a guaranteed profit will occur.  The ArbAlarm software never sleeps or rests. Instead it scans the web around the clock, looking for these possibilities.

Sports arbitrage investment and Lehman Brothers live in two different worlds of finance. Yet it looks very much like Rajeev Shah and ArbAlarm will be around long after Lehman Brothers are history. 

The British economy over the last 30 years has been accompanied by major fluctuations in monetary growth according to a new survey. The survey concludes the problem lies in the banking industry. What is notable is that there are new market trends that have been created as a result of the ailing economy.

The new survey hints at a shift in philosophies regarding investment methods. One example it provides is an emerging industry that investors worldwide have grabbed hold of by the millions. This is Internet gaming. With the use of new software, it is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits. 

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

The money supply is just one of a range of variables which the Monetary Policy Committee considers when thinking about interest rates. And it doesn’t seem to be a very important one at that. Some argue that this explains why the MPC missed the warnings of higher inflation. Similarly, is it now missing monetary warnings of recession ahead?

In response to recent turmoil, banks have moved activities on to their balance sheet, which means they now have more explicit liabilities to be included in the money supply measure.

Equally, they have outstanding lending commitments to a number of borrowers and in the most part they have honored these. As they have lent, so the recipients of the loans have deposited the money and so the money supply has expanded. And since many other sources of finance have closed, borrowers have turned to the banks for funding. Yet this will not necessarily continue. Banks have severely cut lending practices in the US and we may be next.

The current epidemic of property losses are super-charged, because they reduce bank capital and thereby impair the banks’ ability to lend. House prices fell by 32pc in real terms in the mid 1970s but because of rampant inflation this drop was achieved with hardly any fall in nominal prices. For banks this difference is critical, because bank liabilities are in nominal terms.

Whether a cutback in bank lending results in serious damage to the economy depends upon what the bank credit is financing. If it is financing financial activity, such as management buyouts, then the impact on aggregate demand may be minimal. Asset prices may be lower, and that would have some indirect impact on spending, but the direct connections would be weak.

By contrast, if it finances consumer spending or purchases of plant and machinery, or holdings of stocks, or covers running losses while businesses expand or cope with a downturn, then the real economic impact will be direct. 

The banking system is the engine of the economy. Never forget that the Great Depression in America was associated with a collapse of bank lending and the money supply.

Even non-monetarists should be watching the money and banking numbers like a hawk. And if the growth of bank credit slows substantially, let alone contracts, then you should be on guard for an even worse recession than currently looks likely.

For many years, and especially during the depression years of the nineteen twenties and thirties, attendance at soccer matches was as genuine and accurate an economic barometer as anything that the finest minds could come up with. It seemed that the worse the decline that the British economy fell into, the more people turned up to watch their favorite football team play on a Saturday afternoon. Whilst the lady of the house would count every penny to make ends meet, they would gladly find a few shillings to send their husband of to let of some steam, sing a few songs, drink a few beers and forget the grinding stress of their poverty for just a few hours.

Since those difficult genuinely difficult times, things have gotten better for Britain, beginning from the sixties till today. And the face of soccer has changed entirely. Soccer today is big business, with players earning in a week what many of their predecessors earned in their entire career, if not their lifetime. In order to subsidize these massive wage bills, entry fees for Premier League matches have risen steadily for years and has now reached an average sum of over £100.00, This represents an increase of 35% in the last two football seasons, according to a recent poll. Fans were prepared to pay that kind of money when earnings were high and the cost of living was lower than it is now.

This means that fans are staying away from games to save money and while it is still possible watch soccer matches on cable television for much less cost, anyone who has ever attended a Premier League soccer match will tell you’re that the crowd atmosphere is one of the major attractions. And a soccer match without a crowd is like watching football being played on the moon. A distinct lack of atmosphere

There are many people in the UK who need the feeling of belonging that supporting their beloved soccer team. They are prepared to deprive themselves of many other pleasures, and work harder in order to escape their worries, not dissimilar to those of their predecessors more than seventy years ago.

Thankfully in these modern, computer driven  times in which we live, there are opportunities to boost income that were unimaginable then. The internet is responsible for generating most of these sources, and one of the most imaginative arbitraged online wagering..

Arbitraged online wagering is a scheme where you are only required to invest as much capital as you can afford, and requires the minimum of your valued free time. All you need is the will, the way and some limited computer skills and you guarantee yourself a return on investment up to12% every month, which translates and accumulates to around 150% annual return.  And better still, every penny that you earn is regarded as profits on investments and free of all forms of income tax.

Based around a software program called ArbAlarm, the brainchild of ex-city trader Rajeev Shah, arbitraged online wagering allows full automization of the arbitrage process as it is applied to sports betting. If the rules of the system are totally adhered to, players who use it stand absolutely no risk of losing their investment.

Rajeev, who first gained considerable experience in the field of arbitrage during his time in the city, applied his considerable skills to turning sports betting into a highly profitable and risk free venture. At first this knowledge was confined to him and a few close friends. Word spread quickly and so many people were knocking on Rajeev’s door asking him to share his formulas and secrets that he decided to put down his theories on paper. He published a book on the subject to which he gave the name   “Sports-Arbitrage - How to Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments. The book  proved to be an unparalleled success, and the next logical was the launch of ArbAlarm that was designed and programmed to alert its users to a situation where odds set by competing bookmakers had  been set to opposing parallels. In other words, one bookmaker fancies a team or a player to lose by such and such a margin whilst the other expects the opposite and is offering alternative odds.

The ArbAlarm software provides and guides its users through the procedure of placing a series of wagers covering any conceivable mathematical outcome on the event, guaranteeing a profit. A profit that you may well be earning as you sit in your seat watching your favorite soccer team thrash their opponents.

So get yourself out of the “reds” and into the “blues” with ArbAlarm.

Volatile stock markets and a lack of confidence in the UK banking system has boosted demand for gold bars and coins from private investors to levels not seen for 25 years according to a report just released. 

The report says investors are using numerous investment methods to turn a profit. One of the most used is Internet gaming. Gaming has mesmerized the investment community for the past few years. Why? With the use of new software, it is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits. 

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

The use of alternative investment methods has become widespread among the investing community. Besides Internet gaming, investing in precious metals is also at the top of the list. Tens of thousands of investors have rushed to buy gold from bullion dealers over the past year, during which the gold price has broken through the $1,000 barrier on occasions. 

Tony Baird of Baird & Co, one the UK’s biggest gold bullion dealers, said business was getting busier and busier – with punters investing £1,500 to £150,000 in gold bars and coins. Baird, who has been in the gold business for 40 years, claimed that demand was on a par with the late 1970s. 

“We have had queues in here. People are nervous of the stock markets and they are nervous of the banks. Northern Rock was a trigger and now Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have stirred things up again this week.” 

Bullion Vault the online marketplace for gold bullion bars – said that number of private individuals investing in gold has more than doubled over the past year.

Let’s be frank, UK economists, and heck, economists around the world, have something of a reputation for being very wishy washy. When you’re making predictions about something like the economy, in general, it’s actually a good idea to make someone broad predictions. Nobody has a magic crystal ball. All an economist can do is look at the numbers and make an educated guess. It may turn out to be true, and it may turn out to have been just that, a guess, but there’s never a one hundred percent guarantee that they’ll get it right. In other words, predicting the economy in the chaotic world of early twenty first century financing is a lot like predicting the weather. All we have to go on is what it “looks like might happen”.

And so, when economists across the board finally come off that fence and settle down, together, on one side or the other, it’s usually because they’re on to something. Very cautious about making predictions in anything but uncertain terms, today’s economists are now pretty much in agreement: The economy is in a sucky state of affairs.

There’s just no denying the words written on the wall anymore. The housing market is going nuts, gas prices are at incredible all time highs, there’s the credit crisis, inflation, and so on.

We may see the silver lining before too long, but the most conservative estimates place the financial woes we now face to last, at the very least, another year or two.

For this reason, it’s a good idea to take whatever disposable income you do have, while you still have it, and put it towards something smart, something that will pay off. If this means skipping your daily latte, so be it. Citizens of the UK and citizens of the US alike, we can’t really afford to keep blowing through our extra income, because the worst is yet to come, and we really do need to be prepared for that rainy day just on the horizon.

In the early 1990’s, real estate was a pretty safe bet, it looked like the market would only keep improving. The 1990’s have been over for awhile, though. In the early twenty first century, real estate isn’t the safety net it once was.

Rather, today’s investor is having to get a bit more creative, to come up with low risk solutions to investment worries. One such alternative would be the arbitrage trading industry, which the UK government is helping to support by promising no taxes charged for arbitrage based income.

Arbitrage consists of finding two bookmakers placing the odds in such a way that you can bet for one outcome with bookmaker A, and the other outcome with bookmaker B, without putting yourself at risk to lose any money. It sounds nuts, but it actually holds up. It’s only really made possible by the internet, where you can find bookmakers in any given area and place bets with them.

If you’re interested, look for ArbAlarm or similar software, which helps you to find and capitalize on these opportunities without having to scour the internet and check the odds yourself.

On the other hand, if you’re not so sure, check out “Sports-Arbitrage, How to Place Riskless Bets and Create Tax-Free Investments” by Rajeev Shah. “Sports-Arbitrage” should have all the information you need to make an informed decision and see if arbitrage is right for you.

Demand for commercial lettings is falling at fastest rate for 10 years, a new study released last week said. The downturn in residential and commercial property markets is intensifying, underlining the growing risk of Britain entering its first recession in almost two decades. 

The study also mentioned of a shift in an emerging industry that investors worldwide have grabbed hold of by the millions. This is Internet gaming. With the use of new software, it is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits. 

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk. 

The bulk of the study dealt with commercial property demands. The success of Internet gaming, though very profitable and good for the individual is a economic red flag. Experts say the profitability of Internet gaming is long term even if the economy improves. Despite this good news, if one looks at the big picture the economic outlook looks grim. Especially in the commercial property industry.

Demand for commercial property fell during the second quarter at its fastest pace since 1998, according to the latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Some 50pc more surveyors reported a fall in demand rather than a rise, up from 31pc in the first three months of the year. 

Appetite for retail space was among the hardest hit, with 64pc of those questioned seeing a fall in demand, higher than the 42pc in the first quarter. 

The RICS also found that the value of inducements offered to tenants is climbing and expectations for future rents is dwindling in a survey that will do little to dispel the economic gloom. 

“The sheer negativity of the survey is the most striking thing,” said Simon Rubinsohn, the RICS’s chief economist. 

“We knew that investors had become much more cautious toward commercial property, but now we know that tenant demand is now falling.” 

Confidence in the retail property market tumbled to -88 in Greater London from -50 as consumers continue to tighten their belts. The findings come as the Ernst & Young Item Club warned that the number of people out of work is set to reach the 2 million mark for the first time since the Labor Party came to power in 1997. 

A tougher approach to mortgage lending by banks, as well as falling prices, saw prices drop an average of 1.8pc during the month. Average asking prices dropped £4,345 to £235,219.

Miles Shipside, the commercial director of Rightmove, said that the plunge in the volume of transactions is unlikely to be reversed without a significant thawing in the mortgage market. Unless this thawing happens, added Mr. Shipside, “prices are in danger of falling far beyond the level required to address underlying affordability constraints.”

The credit crisis is causing a growing number of jobs losses in the UK, with official unemployment figures for last month the worst in 16 years according to a new report. The report also mentioned the alternative ways that people are making money to make ends meet. The main way, according to the survey, is Internet gaming.

Internet gaming has hit the world by storm because of new software that came out in recent years. It is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits.

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk.

The number of people claiming unemployment benefit rose for a fifth month in June, and by 15,500 to 840,100 - the steepest monthly rise since December 1992. 

While the number of people employed actually increased by 61,000 over a three-month period, the rate of increase is slowing and as unemployment is considered to be a lagging indicator, economists expect the numbers to grow.

Vicky Redwood, economist at Capital Economics, said: “Expect the labour market to weaken further - we see the unemployment rate rising to 8pc eventually from its current 5.2pc, equating to a rise of 900,000.”

The number of unemployed people increased by 12,000 in the three months to May. 

Earnings growth was 3.8pc in the three months to May, down 0.1pc compared with the previous month. The Bank of England will be closely watching wage growth, hoping that it remains contained, despite the sharp rise in inflation. 

The risk of the current slowdown escalating into Britain’s first recession in almost 20 years will be determined by how aggressively companies cut staff to shield profits from a painful mix of slowing demand and rising costs. 

Companies at the sharp end of the Britain’s housing-led slowdown are already wielding the axe. 

Earlier this month troubled housebuilder Barratt announced plans to cut 1,000 of its 6,700-strong workforce while Pendragon, the country’s biggest car dealer, laid off 500 workers. 

Howard Archer, chief economist at Global Insight, said: “It is absolutely critical that earnings growth remains muted, if the eventual next move in interest rates is to be down. 

“Any sign that higher inflation and elevated inflation expectations are feeding through to push up pay significantly would put major pressure on the Bank of England to lift interest rates - despite the deepening economic slowdown - to try to prevent a damaging wages-price spiral developing.” 

He added that rising unemployment coupled with cost-cutting by companies would likely contain wage growth.

Most people’s main stock market investment is their company pension, and millions of annual statements issued in the past few days made utterly miserable reading. 

Members of defined benefit or final salary schemes need not bother their heads because employers must stump up more to make good their promises – which is why this form of retirement fund is rapidly becoming the reserve of public sector employees.

A recent survey found that retirees and investors are using alternative investment methods to supplement the monetary loss in their pensions. The top investment method is gaming. With the use of new software, it is now possible to scan prices globally in seconds and uncover risk-free betting opportunities which provide guaranteed returns of as much as 12% per month. Using software like one called ArbAlarm, ordinary people can now easily profit from this unique method of investment. Internet gaming is taking the investing world by storm according to experts. Aware of this trend, the UK government recently announced through the Treasury that the profits made from sports arbitrage trading will continue to remain free of all tax. This includes income tax and capital gains tax on all profits.

In an interview, former City trader Rajeev Shah, famous author of ‘Sports-Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments’ explained that an arbitrage occurs when different bookmakers’ prices on the same events overlap. In these cases, it is possible to bet on all of the outcomes in that event in such a way as to be guaranteed a total return which is greater than the total outlay. The mathematics of this type of trade are precise & the resultant profits are free of all risk. 

For those who don’t take advantage of Internet gaming, the outlook right now is daunting. Most defined contribution or money purchase pensions ended the year worth less than they were at the start, despite prudent employees and employers putting more money in each month. 

According to National Statistics, we saved just 1.1 per cent of household income in the first quarter of this year, compared to nearly 10 times as much a decade ago. 

Richard Woolnough, of M&G, and Nicola Horlick, of Bramdean Asset Management, are among seasoned analysts talking about a recession stretching into next year or beyond. Mr. Woolnough predicts house prices will fall 20 per cent from here and consumers will drastically reduce spending, causing an inevitable increase in redundancies. 

According to analysis by Barclays Capital, stretching back to 1899, shares reflecting the broad composition of the London Stock Exchange beat bonds and deposits over three quarters of all the periods of five consecutive years during that century or more. 

To help keep our current woes in perspective, bear in mind that period spanned two World Wars, the Great Depression and several stock market crashes. Also, this is not the first time share prices have plunged – they fell in March 2003.

Anyone who plans to retire within the next three years – or who is losing sleep because of current volatility – may well decide they have had enough stock market shocks. There is no need to take any risks with pension contributions, you can opt to have them held in cash and still receive upfront tax relief equal to your highest rate of income tax.

Alternatively, paying down debts ahead of time can generate higher risk-free tax-free gains than any other investment, if you are prepared to regard future interest costs avoided as a form of return. 

But it is worth emphasizing that the level of the stock market next month or next year need not matter to pension savers who do not retire next month or next year. 

Counter-intuitive though it may seem, bad times can be good news for long-term savers because they enable you to buy more shares or units with the same fixed monthly investments. 

So, provided stock markets recover before you retire, last year’s miserable pension fund statement might even turn out to herald better returns ahead.