Archive of activity to
December
2010
.
April 8th 2010. Bot and videos.
Shortly after my last post, Bot testing went ok, with my
spreadsheet triggering in 7 races in one
afternoon.
When I first got my Bot up and running, I had it attempting to
lay quite quite a few runners at short prices "In Running" in
horse races, with the aim of laying over a 100% book for
guaranteed winnings.
If you read my previous posts below, you will see that I had
some initial success doing that, but then I hit some losing
races.
That was because the lays that got matched didn't reach the
required book percentage of over 100%.
I was laying the winner, but not enough losers.
So, the amendment I made was to lay
horses in running, but not the shortest priced horse - hoping to
avoid laying the winner.
This latest bit of testing managed to lay 7 winners on the trot,
each NOT being the shortest priced runner at the time of laying.
I looked on the Sporting Life web site and read the comments in
the results section for these races.
The horses I layed all challenged for the lead and managed to
"get up" near the Winning Post.
It may be that the odds of a challenging horse shorten to become
less than the horse that is leading.
Another scenario could be that the odds flip flopped, leaving me
with lays that included the winner, but my with lays on the
longer priced runners not getting matched.
I need to watch the odds in a few races in order to get some
idea of the different possibilities.
Maybe I need to lay the shortest priced runner when my sheet
triggers and see if those manage to lose for me.
I could of course be that developing a Bot is just like trying
to come up with a winning system - - - there isn't
one with zero risk.
My stakes were only £2 lays, so my losses were very small, but
those 7 straight losers put me off Bot development for a while.
Whilst developing my Bot, I
needed a more up-to-date version of Excel.
This newer version has a completely different Toolbar layout, so
I have been swatting up by watching some excellent free video
demos on an Excel instruction web site.
Watching those videos made me realize that I need to join the
21st century and get on with my own videos, to demonstrate how
my spreadsheets work, and what can be done with them.
This week, I have put a few YouTube videos together for a couple
of spreadsheets.
View my efforts on my Strategies web site via this link.
Try not to laugh at my Yorkshire
accent and my stuttering commentary.
Creating videos isn't as easy as you might think.
It's very easy to make mistakes such as saying "Bet" instead of
"Lay" etc.
If I were an actor - sorry they're not actors are they, they're
movie stars - I have been sacked by the director several times
over "CUT".
In my videos, I describe the
spreadsheet inputs, but after that, I show a strategy or 2 that
each sheet may be used for.
These are only my ideas, but if you see something new to you in
there, you may get an idea or 2 of your own for a new strategy.
All the sheets that I have available are listed on that
"Strategies" web site, so my aim is to put new videos on there
first before putting them on my other sites.
Once I've made some progress on the video front, I'll get back
to some Bot development - certainly once the Flat Racing season
gets into full swing.
As always, good luck with your trading,
Howard. |
March 20th 2010. Bot testing in Betfair horse racing
markets.
This week, Bot (Robot) testing took a back seat whilst
Cheltenham took a front seat.
After Cheltenham, I always look forward to the start of the Turf
Flat season at the end of March, starting at Doncaster.
My Bot is primarily aimed at horse race flat racing markets on
Betfair, although most of the testing I have done so far was
done in jumps races.I've
made some big changes to the triggering of my bet placements.
Also, I've reduced the liabilities of my bets, so that should
enable me to aim at a slightly wider range of odds.
An advantage of aiming for a wider range of odds is that (in
theory) I should get matched easier on Betfair.
I started testing this latest
version of my Bot again today in 6 races at Lingfield (AW), but
none of the races that I watched produced the correct conditions
to trigger any bets.
Once the Flat season gets going next month I will be able to do
a lot more testing and hopefully make some Bot progress.
We all imagine that some "Smart
Alec" is out there running his Bot and mopping up daily profits
without having to put in any real effort.
From my experience of Bot building so far, I would guess that
there won't be many such "Clever Dickies", and if there are any,
we are not likely to hear about them as they will no doubt keep
their winning Bot to themselves.
As you know, the odds in Betfair horse race markets can be quite
unpredictable, so to come up with a working system of any kind
to trade those markets to profit on a regular basis is probably
impossible, but that is what I and others like me are trying to
do.
At my first attempt at Bot
building, I had a Bot that hit several winning trades with no
loss before it hit some losing trades.
All I am doing now is developing that idea a little further.
If I can repeat my successes and eliminate the failures,
something may come of my Bot development..
Good luck with your trading, Howard. |
March 8th 2010. Bot up and running.
After installing my Excel 2007 software, I got my Bot up and
running ok.
To test it with cash, I rang Betfair and asked if it was ok to
open a 2nd account with a small £ amount, so that my whole bank
wasn't at risk if my Bot got itself into a loop and placed a
series of bets or lays instead of just one.
After opening my 2nd account, I have been running my Bot.
To start with, I hit winners without any loss, but only using £2
stakes.
I doubled my stakes twice, up to £8, but then problems started
to creep in.Today was the
worst day for my Bot.
It started to trigger at the wrong times and wiped out all my
gains to leave my bank a fiver blow what I started with.
As I watched the odds movements again today and the reaction of
my Bot, I could see that it had stepped into the market far too
soon.
I have been making adjustments to my Bot and today I had it
doing 2 things at once whilst watching 2 different markets.
What worked a treat in one market
(most of the time) up until yesterday has now gone belly - up.
I'll have to back track and see what damage I've done.
So, to sum up, it appears that Bot development so far has proved
to be pretty much like manual trades :-
- A series of small gains
build up confidence.
- I increase my stakes.
- A loser (4 in my case today)
wipes out the initial gains.
- Back to the drawing board.
It's back to £2 stakes again
whilst I sort out the error of my Bot's ways, but it was very
nice feeling invincible there for a few days.
Yesterday was wonderful.
I set my Bot up in the morning and let it loose on Betfair, went
out for the day with my wife, and came back to count my modest
winnings in the evening . . . . . Brilliant !
Unfortunately that didn't happen again today.
Good luck with your trading, Howard. |
Feb22nd 2010. Live Betfair odds, Betting Bots and
Triggered Betting.
Towards the end of last summer (2009), I decided it was time to
put live odds into my spreadsheets.
Live Betfair odds would open up more opportunities for
spreadsheet strategies.
The aim of course was to get live odds into my sheets and then
set things up so that bets and lays could be placed
automatically, depending on the odds movements. . . . .
.Triggered Betting.
Once that is up and running, the next step would be to let the
sheet loose on a series of markets in which it would place bets
and lays automatically, depending on how the odds move.
Set it off, and leave it running.
We are of course talking about a "Bot" here, "Bot" being short
for "Robot".To get the
ball rolling, I subscribed to Gruss.
The Gruss software supplies an Excel spreadsheet
that can be
downloaded, complete with
live odds.
I downloaded the Gruss spreadsheet and read up on what was
required to get it to place bets and lays.
I had already built a spreadsheet to work with live odds, so I
bolted my sheet onto the Gruss sheet.
It was great to see live odds in my spreadsheet, and sure
enough, after a bit of tweaking, my sheet did exactly what I
wanted it to do, some triggered betting.
My sheet watches odds movements and steps in to place bets or
lays at the appropriate time, dependant upon what I tell it to
do, such a number of runners, level of odds, Bet or Lay etc.
The sheet works a treat, but there is just one problem - - - So
far, I have been unable to get it to place a single Bet or Lay.
There is something missing between my sheet and Betfair - like
some money !
After quite a bit of messing about in the nuts and bolts of the
Gruss spreadsheet calculations, I decided that I was flogging a
dead horse, so asked for some expert assistance.
Unfortunately, I had already tried what my expert suggested, so
I decide that my dinosaur version of Excel, Excel 2000 isn't up
to the job.
I shelved my Bot building sometime during last October, but this
week I have been prompted back into action by a web site
coilleague.
I've decided to join the 21st
Century, and ordered Excel 2007 over the weekend.
I've also acquired a spreadsheet that is already capable of
placing bets automatically, so once I doctor that sheet to
incorporate mine, I should hopefully have a working Bot.
I just hope that I can get into the calculations of the
spreadsheet that I have been supplied with.
Once I get one Bot up and
running, a whole new world of Bot Strategies may unfold.
I'm looking forward to this exciting new development.
I almost feel a new "Bot" web site coming on.
I'll keep you updated with Bot progress, Howard. |
Feb 1st 2010. An analysis
of my January 2010
trades.
For the past 4 months, October to January, I've been
recording my trades in a
Profits Diary, and uploading some detail of those trades on
a
Google Blog Spot that I created.
Doing that has been good for my
trading as it's made me keep track of my profits..
Recording my profits "On-Line" has made me trade more often - -
- - trying to beat my previous month's profits.
I've put a hit counter on my Blog Spot to see if anyone is
viewing my progress.
It doesn't matter that only a few people visit my Google Blog
Spot each day.
Seeing my profit or loss on a web page has made me aware of the
profit I am making, and has given me a target to aim for each
month.
I started to aim for a new "Personal Best" of profits, certainly
throughout January.
December was a very good month due to the wonderful contribution
of £174 from the Jackpot Joy casino Christmas offer which ran
throughout December and part of late November.
Today, I decided to find out which
areas of my trading generate most profit.
To do that, I itemised my January profits and losses in columns
on a spreadsheet shown highlighted
in grey below.
|
|
184.02 |
|
<< Profit so far this month. January |
Bookie or Casino |
Free bet |
Betfair |
Football |
Casinos |
|
|
Profit |
Running |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Date |
Target |
or Loss |
Total |
Notes |
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
3.23 |
-1.49 |
-1.49 |
3 x £10 deposits. No free bet due to short odds |
888Sport |
-1.49 |
|
|
|
2 |
6.45 |
4.01 |
2.52 |
£5 free bet |
SkyBet |
2.52 |
|
|
|
3 |
9.68 |
15.91 |
18.43 |
Football trading. Under 1.5 Goals. |
|
|
|
15.91 |
|
4 |
12.90 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 |
16.13 |
16.31 |
34.74 |
Football trading. Hedge 1-1 |
|
|
|
16.31 |
|
6 |
19.35 |
0.71 |
35.45 |
Free play |
JackPot Joy |
|
|
|
0.71 |
7 |
22.58 |
13.50 |
48.95 |
Bet £10 on Golf get £10 free. £7.28 + £6.22
Football. Hedge 1-1 |
Ladbrokes. |
7.28 |
|
6.22 |
|
8 |
25.81 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
9 |
29.03 |
7.85 |
56.80 |
£20 Bookie deposit. £12 free bet. |
Bodog |
7.85 |
|
|
|
10 |
32.26 |
19.94 |
76.74 |
Football trading. Under 1.5 Goals. |
|
|
|
19.94 |
|
11 |
35.48 |
-7.07 |
69.67 |
Testing a spreadsheet. |
|
|
|
-7.07 |
|
12 |
38.71 |
1.39 |
71.06 |
Bet £10 get Free £5 cash |
Betfair |
|
1.39 |
|
|
13 |
41.94 |
7.28 |
78.34 |
Bet £10 get Free £10 cash. Plus Football trading
U 1.5 Goals |
Betfair |
|
6.01 |
1.27 |
|
14 |
45.16 |
26.23 |
104.57 |
Bet 3 x £10 get £10 free bet. Plus football trading
U 1.5 Goals |
VCBet |
22.56 |
|
3.73 |
|
15 |
48.39 |
11.75 |
116.32 |
Bet 3 x £10 deposits. Plus Bet £10 get £10 free
cash. |
VCBet & Betfair |
5.75 |
6.00 |
|
|
16 |
51.61 |
8.57 |
124.89 |
Free £10 bet |
VCBet |
8.57 |
|
|
|
17 |
54.84 |
29.47 |
154.36 |
Football trading U 1.5 Goals £23.16 & Casino free
play £6.31 |
Jackpot Joy |
|
|
23.16 |
6.31 |
18 |
58.06 |
7.60 |
161.96 |
Bet £10 get Free £5 cash |
Betfair |
|
7.60 |
|
|
19 |
61.29 |
2.59 |
164.55 |
Bet £10 get Free £10 cash. Plus football trading |
Betfair |
|
1.11 |
1.39 |
|
20 |
64.52 |
1.60 |
166.15 |
Casino Free play |
Jackpot Joy |
|
|
|
1.60 |
21 |
67.74 |
20.87 |
187.02 |
Bet £10 get Free £10 cash £20.61. Plus Free play
£0.26. |
Betfair & Jackpot Joy |
|
20.61 |
|
0.26 |
22 |
70.97 |
23.75 |
210.77 |
Casino. 2 x Deposit £10 get £10 free |
Football 1x2 |
|
|
|
23.75 |
23 |
74.19 |
0.20 |
210.97 |
Football trading U 1.5 Goals
-£5.27 Bet £20 get £10
free bet + £5.47 |
Wm Hill |
|
5.47 |
-5.27 |
|
24 |
77.42 |
-12.82 |
198.15 |
Football trading U 1.5 Goals |
|
|
|
-12.82 |
|
25 |
80.65 |
3.55 |
201.70 |
Bet £10 get Free £5 cash |
Betfair |
|
3.55 |
|
|
26 |
83.87 |
43.63 |
245.33 |
Bet £10 get Free £10 bet £9.43. Bet £10 for possible
£10 refund £34.20. |
Betclick. Betfair |
9.43 |
34.20 |
|
|
27 |
87.10 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
28 |
90.32 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
29 |
93.55 |
25.99 |
271.32 |
Bet £25 get £22.58 free bet £18. Bet £10 get £10
cash £6.03..Free play £1.96 |
BetPack.Betfair Jackpot Joy |
18.00 |
6.03 |
|
1.96 |
30 |
96.77 |
-86.06 |
185.26 |
Football trading U 1.5 Goals |
|
|
|
-86.06 |
|
31 |
100.00 |
-1.24 |
184.02 |
Tennis trade |
|
-1.24 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TOTALS >>> |
182.50 |
79.23 |
91.97 |
-23.29 |
34.59 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Free bet |
Betfair |
Football |
Casinos |
I realize that there is a
discrepancy of around £2 between the profit at the top of
£184.02 and the total at the bottom of £182.50.
Free bets
were bookie offers. Football was football trading, and
casinos was casino scalping - - - I don't do much of that.
The "Betfair" column lists my profits from trading the Betfair
Horse Racing Midweek Mania refunds.
The sheet shows that my biggest
earner for the month of January was my trading of Betfair's
Horse Racing Midweek Mania refunds, under the heading "Betfair".
I haven't
traded every Betfair offer every day, as some of them involve
multiples of 6 horses as in their Tote PlacePot offers.
The offers I have traded have been anything that I could trade
with a maximum of 3 horses.
A description of the spreadsheet I have been using is below in 2
previous posts.
Perhaps I have been more successful using that spreadsheet than
I thought.
From what I remember, I've used that spreadsheet for all my
Betfair Midweek Mania refund trades.
The object of this analysis was
to see where I am doing well, where I am losing, and to see what
I can do to improve my trading performance.
Football trading stands out as a loser, but until Jan 30th when
I had my biggest ever Betfair loss since opening my account
quite a few years ago, I was Plus £62.77 on my football trading
for January.
After quite a long spell with no loss since sometime in October
whilst trading Under 1.5 Goals, I decided to increase my stakes
for trading Under 1.5 Goals - my favourite football strategy at
present.
Of course, just increasing my stakes was asking for trouble, but
on top of that, I slackened off with my selection process and
started to take more risks by trading more games.
Although I was unlucky and hit a game that had 2 quick goals
scored within just a few minutes, I shouldn't have been involved
in that game.
My basic
error was my selection process.
To trade Under 1.5 Goals, I need low scoring games.
Since October, I have been looking at Premiership games
involving Birmingham, Fulham, and possibly Everton.
In my opinion, these teams don't concede many goals, but also
they don't have prolific goals scorers, so in trading games
involving these teams, I have been trying to select low scoring
games and have had some success in avoiding early goals.
In the Jan 30th game, the first
goal gave me bet odds of 8.8 and lay odds of 4.1, but
unfortunately, I only got matched for just over £1 before the
2nd goal went in which totally cocked up my trade.
This game was Fulham - Aston Villa.
I knew I needed to avoid teams in the top 6 or 7 places in the
Premiership, but Villa had not scored in their last few games.
To improve my selection process, I need to avoid Chelsea,
Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Manchester
City, & Tottenham.
Those teams have good attacking players.
I need teams such as
Birmingham, Fulham,
and Everton, that have decent defences, playing against teams
that hopefully don't score many goals.
An area that I need to improve is
my Casino Scalping.
I've eased off on casino scalping over the last 2 months or so
because I feel that I don't know what I am doing in casinos.
During January, I made 1 or 2 trades that were described in
The Community Web Site for Serious Traders that were quite
low risk, but other than those, I lack confidence because I
don't know how to trade casino offers, so I've virtually packed
up on casino offers.
Tonight, I will request a "Mickey Mouse" casino webinar to spell
things out for casino scalping beginners such as me.
There are casino bonus offers that are repeated every month that
I need to be trading, but because I don't know what I'm doing,
I'm missing out on these monthly profits.
I won't be trading for a week or so Feb 2nd to maybe Feb 5th.
Good luck with your trading, Howard. |
January 28th.
Betfair Racing Midweek Mania doubles and trebles refunds.
l considered putting my Refund spreadsheet up for sale on here
but there is some risk involved with these trades concerning
estimating the Starting Price bet odds and Tote bet returns.
Also, I have had problems working out the lay stakes to equalize
these trades.
I have had difficulty with the maths of including commission,
the refund, and unknown bet odds.
These are the risks of these trades :-
- The bet odds in
the Betfair Multiples and Tote sections are quite unpredictable.
Get your estimation of the bet odds wrong, and you could
make a loss.
There are no guaranteed winnings here.
- Interpretation of refund
offers is not always straightforward.
Quite often, no 2 offers are the same.
I've had some success whilst
developing this sheet, but I can't guarantee any future winnings
from these offers.
A lot depends on skill and luck in obtaining low odds for lays, and thinking about what you are doing whilst trading
these offers.
I avoid refund offers that
include more than 3 selections in a multiple.
Once we have layed 3 runners at shortish odds, the lay
liabilities can start to get out of proportion to the
anticipated profit from the whole trade.
Also, I don't trade refund offers that involve the Place
markets.
From what I have seen recently, these usually involve the
Tote PlacePot which is 6 races - way beyond the number of races that
I am prepared to lay in a multiple, whilst chasing a £10 refund.
The best way to trade some of these Betfair refund offers is to
lay a loser with the first bet of the multiple.
If you've done a bit of laying, you probably know that hitting
losers on a regular basis is not as easy as it sounds, so this
sheet is probably best used just to recover losses if I hit a
winner with the first runner of my double or treble.
Although I've had some success with this spreadsheet, I put that
down to having hit 2 winners in a winning double, and 3 winners
in a winning treble whilst testing the maths of the spreadsheet.
If I'd hit losers with my 2nd or 3rd runners, I may have lost a
few quid.
I've been lucky.
There are no guaranteed winnings from these trades using this
spreadsheet - unfortunately.
As always, good luck with your trading, Howard. |
January 26th 2010. Multiplie winnings from a Betfair
treble.
Betfair Racing Midweek Mania refunds.
I managed to hit 3 winners today with my Betfair Racing
Midweek Mania treble.
In doing that, I was able to test the maths of my new
spreadsheet, and my theory that winnings will multiply up as the
multiple carries winnings forward.
Whilst my winnings were carried forward in the treble that I
bet, I layed all 3 winners but still showed an overall profit of
£34.20 on the whole trade . . . . . .Super, Duper !!
This, roughly, was the Betfair
offer.
Place a horse racing £10 Treble in Betfair Multiples that
included Desperate Dex, a horse that was running in the
Sedgefield 3:00pm race.
If Desperate Dex lost, Betfair would refund the losing £10 bet
stake.
Using my new spreadsheet to work
out the staking, I layed each runner as my £10 treble
progressed.
I made
Desperate Dex my first
selection and simply placed a £6 lay.
That would have given me a £5.70 profit after commission if
Desperate Dex
had lost, since my £10 bet stake would have been refunded.
The lays I placed on the other 2 runners were calculated to
recover the liabilities from laying
Desperate Dex, plus
other liabilities such as my losing £10 bet stake and the
liability from laying the 2nd runner, and still show guaranteed
win or lose profit whatever the result of each race in turn.
For my 2nd and 3rd runners, I
selected what I thought would be the shortest priced horse in 2
races that took place after
Desperate Dex's
race.
There was a very short priced runner in a 3:10pm race, but I
avoided that to give myself plenty of time between races to
place my 2nd and 3rd lays as my treble progressed.
A big problem with this strategy is the unpredictability of the
Starting Price odds that Betfair conjures up for any payout.
The size of my lay stakes is dependant on the bet and lay odds
of each runner, so as I placed my lays, I had to "guestimate"
what the S.P. odds might be.
In the first race (Desperate Dex's race), I wasn't too bothered
as I decided just to lay £6 and take it from there if Desperate
Dex won the race.
In the 2nd and 3rd races, I was lucky in that I my estimated S.P.
odds of 1.70 & 3.30 were below the Betfair S.P.'s of 1.79 &
3.80.
Those bigger S.P.'s meant that the winnings carried forward were
even bigger than my liabilities carried forward, so the bigger
S.P.'s were an added bonus.
After the 3rd Horse had won, I
had winnings of £10 x 2.50 x 1.79 x 3.80 = £170.05 less my £10
stake = £160.05.
My liabilities from each race in turn were
-£11.88, -£14.95, -£98.98 = -£125.81
With zero commission to pay on winnings from a
multiple, that left a profit of £34.24. Betfair
paid £34.20.
That was a very nice return for trading for a refund if only
the first horse lost.
If my 2nd or 3rd horses had lost,
I would have made £5.66 or £12.34 respectively after commission
using the estimated bet odds that I put into the spreadsheet at
the time.
If it had been possible to know the Starting Price bet odds,
those 2 profits could have been equalized to £6.87 & £18.56
respectively.
When we look at those figures, we must bear in mind that the S.P.
odds of the 2nd and 3rd runners moved in my favour.
Whilst making these 3 trades, I
was expecting to lay at odds quite some way ABOVE my estimated
bet odds.
I would guess that the only way I would have lost would have
been if the S.P. odds had moved very dramatically below what I
estimated that they might be.
So, even though I expected to be betting low and laying high in
all 3 races, with big differences between my bet and lay odds, I
still expected to trade to a profit of some kind.
My profit in the end was boosted by the odds of the 3rd winner
being bigger than my estimated bet odds.
If the odds had dropped dramatically I could have made an
overall loss on the 3rd runner
If the 3rd horse had lost, I would have made £12.34 which is
some way above the £5.70 that I stood to win if Betfair's
selected horse had lost in my first race.
When I made these trades I offered to lay 20 minutes or more
before "The Off" at odds quite a bit lower than the odds on
offer at that time.
If my lays had not been matched, I would have layed just a few
minutes before the races started, so that my lay odds would
hopefully be somewhere near the Betfair Starting Price odds used
in the Betfair Multiples markets.
Today's offer changed slightly from last week.
Last week's similar offer could be traded as a double, but this
week the minimum multiple was a treble.
Good luck
with your trading, Howard |
January 21st 2010.
Betfair Racing Midweek Mania refunds.
Multiplied winnings from a Multiple with a refund ?
Regular visitors to my Blog will know that I have been
working on various bookie refund offers on and off for quite a
while.
Every month, there are all kinds of bookie refunds covering lots
of different sports and markets within those sports.
The most popular with bookies seem to be offers of various
refunds in football markets, but over the last few weeks,
Betfair have run a series of refund offers Monday to Friday on
horse racing.
Their offers appear to be the same each week, although I've only
been trading these for the last 2 weeks, so I could be wrong.
We appear to be in week 5 now judging by the "Opt In" code this
week.
All the refunds that I have seen involve bets either using the
Betfair Tote link, or Betfair Multiples.
Betfair offer to refund our Bet Stake if we hit a loser whilst
making these trades.
I have steered clear of multiples involving more than 2 bets as
laying to recover lost liabilities can get rather expensive
after 3 or 4 races.
This is what I have been doing :-
- Place the required bet
according to the Betfair offer - maximum (in my case) 2
races.
- Lay each runner until I hit
a loser and have a successful lay.
- Calculate stakes to include
the refund if I hit a loser or profit from winnings if I hit
2 winners and get no refund..
- If I hit 2 winners, my
staking should provide winnings that are more than my
liabilities since my lay liabilities will be less than my
winnings due to allowing for the refund in the lay side of
my trade if I hit a loser.
I have concentrated on the offers
of a cash refund that involve placing a Double.
After betting my Double either via the Tote link or in Betfair
Multiples, I have been laying the same selections in the Win
markets, taking into consideration the refunds of either £5 or
£10.
At first, I layed the first runner for a win or lose profit and
if necessary layed the 2nd runner just to recover any lost
stakes.
I have mainly hit a loser with my first runners, but today after
building a spreadsheet to include a refund also on the 2nd
runner, I was looking for 2 winners to test my spreadsheet.
I was very lucky and managed to hit 2 winners and tested the
calculations of my sheet.
I knew that my staking was
unbalanced, so I used the Adjust feature that I include in many
of my spreadsheets to balance the returns for a more or less
equal win or lose profit.
My theory is that if we can
hit more than 1 winner whilst staking each time for a refund,
the profit could multiply up along with the potential winnings
from a winning double.
Whilst we are laying and allowing for the refund with each lay,
every time we hit a winner, the gap between winnings and
liabilities from the UNsuccessful lays should get bigger.
If we can imagine betting a 6
fold accumulator and hitting 5 winners and losing with the 6th
runner for a refund of our original stake on the 6th horse, we
could have 5 lays at less than the carried forward winnings of
the accumulator.
After 5 winners, the winnings should far outstrip the sum of the
lay liabilities of those 5 winners.
This appeared to prove correct today with my winning Double.
On my 2nd runner, I was expecting
a Lose profit of £6.32 after a £10 refund for hitting the loser,
or a win profit of £4.51 if I hit the 2nd winner for a winning
double with no refund.
Note that the difference in the win and lose profit £6.32 &
£4.51 was caused by the Starting Price odds ending somewhere
below what I had anticipated.
My calculations proved INcorrect.
I hit a winner with both of my selections for a winning Double
(paid out at S.P. by Betfair with zero commission to pay) of
£87.47.
My lay liabilities were £42.41 for the 2nd race, plus £9.48 for
the first race = minus £51.89 in
total.
That left £30.58 including my Bet Stake of £10 for a profit on
the whole trade of £20.58. Betfair paid £20.61.
I know that if the 2nd horse had
lost I would have pocketed £6.32 after commission on my
successful lay, and would have recovered my lay liabilities from
the 1st winner.
I layed the first runner for £6 which, if it had lost, would
have given me a profit of £6 less 5% commission = £5.70.
So, with a potential Lose profit of £6.32, and an actual Win
profit of £20.61, if I can equalize the staking, there has to be
a profit of something between £6.32 and £20.61, which is more
than £5.70 (the profit if the first horse had lost).
I would guess that an equalized trade could return something
over £10 for 2 winners, or the first winner followed by a loser.
I just need to balance the staking correctly.
Trading by betting in the Tote
market and the Multiples market and laying in the win markets
isn't easy.
The bet odds in Tote and Multiple markets can be way below the
lay odds of the win markets, but even so, the Betfair refund
enables a profit to be made on these trades.
The Tote return is quite unpredictable since it is based on a
pool, so the bet odds may be bigger if the Tote takes only a few
bets on our runner.
The Multiple Starting Price (bet) odds adjust according to the
win markets, and are usually quite a bit shorter than the win
market lay odds in my experience.
To trade these, I open 2 Internet windows whilst placing my lays
so that I can input the bet odds from Tote or Multiples, plus
the lay odds from the win market into my spreadsheet.
Of course I have to place my bets some time before "The Off" as
these are doubles, but I place my lays in the last 10 minutes or
so, and try to lay as low as possible . . . . . easier said than
done as you know !
I'll keep you informed of my
progress with this spreadsheet.
I've had some success with these Betfair offers already, but
this new line of attack may squeeze a bit more profit out of
these Midweek Mania Refunds, providing of course that I can hit
a winner or 2.
However, if my first selection loses, that's end of trade and a
nice profit anyway.
To view the progress of my trades every month, follow this link.
All the trades that I do are on there, including any losses,
with NO omissions.
Good luck
with your trading, Howard. |
January 11th 2010.
Dutching and Hedging Match
Odds on Betfair.
There are 3 sections to today's post.
I wrote the first bit in the afternoon and uploaded it to this
web page.
After testing my theory in the evening, I altered the first bit
and added the second part of this post, and then a third section
shortly afterwards..
You might bear the timing in mind if you decide to read on . . .
. . . . nothing to get excited about I'm afraid.
I imagine that most of us will bet and lay a single runner to
Hedge rather than bet or lay several runners to Dutch, but the
profits work out very much the same for the same liabilities.
For example, if we take the Betfair Match Odds from last
night's football game between Juventus and AC Milan.
We could bet both teams and then bet the draw after a goal
to Dutch, or lay the draw and bet the draw after a goal to
Hedge.
A goal was
scored at 28 minutes in this game.
Odds before Kick Off |
Bet
to return £100 |
Lay to -£70.65 |
Odds
at 32 mins |
Bet at 32 mins |
Bet
at 32 mins |
Juventus
Bet 2.68
Lay
7.0 |
£37.31 |
|
7.8
& 8.0 |
|
|
AC
Milan
Bet 3.0
Lay 3.05 |
£33.33 |
|
1.63
& 1.64 |
Dutch |
Hedge |
Draw
Bet 3.35
lay 3.4 |
|
£29.43 |
3.8 & 3.85 |
£26.32 |
£26.33 |
Liability |
-£ 70.65 |
- £70.65 |
|
|
|
Profit |
|
|
|
+ £3.04 |
+
£3.10 |
The table above shows that
profits are very much the same for the same liabilities.
Now that we have got that out of the way, we can get on with
something that may have some potential :-
A spreadsheet customer last week
asked about Dutching several runners.
He wanted to be able to Dutch whilst Betting and Laying.
I have individual spreadsheets for doing that, a Dutch 3 Bets
sheet and a Dutch 3 Lays, but after some correspondence between
us, I realized that he wanted to be able to do both Bet and Lay
at the same time whilst Dutching.
I had been working on this in 2008 but had problems making the
spreadsheet work satisfactorily.
I sent him my rough spreadsheet last night, advised him that I
hadn't sorted out my problems, and left it at that.
This morning, I took another look at
this sheet, not really knowing what I was going to do next, but
almost straight away, I came up with a very simple solution, and
half an hour later sent him an updated sheet.
Once I input some odds to make sure that the sheet did what I
wanted it to do, I was amazed to find that Hedging out of a
Dutching position seemed to provide an excellent exit strategy.
I must point out that the odds I input were entirely fictitious,
but this is what the spreadsheet came up with :-
After placing a series of bets to partly Dutch 3 selections, I
changed the odds available so that to carry on Dutching would
produce a loss of -£3.94.
I then looked at what would happen if I layed all 3
selections to equalize the trade on each selection using those
same 3 current odds, which we must bear in mind would be Bet
odds not Lay odds.
The result was an overall loss of only
-£0.61.
I thought I was seeing things, so checked all the maths
using other spreadsheets, and all was ok.
So, I thought I was onto something here.
This is where the rubbish is :-
If we are able to Bet Dutch in Match Odds on Betrfair and the
odds move against us, instead of placing further bets to
equalize our trade, it may be much cheaper to place some lays to
exit the trade to a much smaller loss than if we had carried on
Dutching.
If this works with just 3 selections, it will of course work in
any market with any number of runners.
That proved to be absolute cobblers.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I tested this sheet later using small stakes in Betfair's Match
Odds of the Man City - Blackburn game.
An early goal at about 6 minutes tested my theory.
Surpise, surprise, the outcome whether I Dutched out of the
trade or Hedged out was pretty much the same . . . . a
loss of -£7.09.
Whoops !
Back to the drawing board once again.
Got a bit excited there for a while this afternoon, but back
down to Earth with a bump this evening.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I've just realized that this evening whilst trading, I only had
open trades on 2 of the 3 selections.
I was still waiting to get matched on Man City - the team that
scored to take the score to 1-0 at 6 minutes into the game..
If I had got matched on Man City and been waiting to get matched
on either Blackburn or the Draw, I would have had a profit from
laying Man City at lower odds, which would have given me only a
small loss, or even a profit.
Also, my Dutching would have been successful if I'd decided to
carry on Dutching.
As it was, the loss that I had tonight when I Hedged out of my
Dutching trade by laying Blackburn and the Draw was very close
to the loss I would have made if I had simply bet on Man City
(at low odds) to complete my Dutching.
The bets that I had open this afternoon is what I must have
overlooked.
I always test new strategies and spreadsheets on paper before
putting my money where my spreadsheet is, but today for the
first time I dived straight in and tested with cash.
Another lesson learned there.
If something looks too good to be
true, there's usually something wrong somewhere, so . . . . . .
. pass me my calculator, and I'll try again.
Good
luck with your trading,
Howard. |
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