A bit of reassurance.... please

The sport of kings.
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mickypaul72
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Joined: Tue May 15, 2018 1:52 pm

Hi I know the feeling but my trouble is with bots and finding one that delivers consistant profits I find it hugely frustrating, I will have a good day when everthing falls in place and then the next day it will smack me in the teeth. I'm actually on the verge of packing it in but i've gone so far that it would be a shame to do that. Good Luck.
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jimibt
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mickypaul72 wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:43 pm
Hi I know the feeling but my trouble is with bots and finding one that delivers consistant profits I find it hugely frustrating, I will have a good day when everthing falls in place and then the next day it will smack me in the teeth. I'm actually on the verge of packing it in but i've gone so far that it would be a shame to do that. Good Luck.
micky -you may find that the days that your bots don't do so good is down to some very simple factors:

1. The course(s) on the BAD day may not suit your rule (stats will back up or disprove this)
2. Weather affects the race outcome tremendously - i.e both the going and a horses temprement to extremes of heat or cold
3. Race distance and field size (as well as course) can play havoc with a rule that did really well the previous day

In short, by keeping accurate records/snapshots of your trades, as well as having solid historical data to refer back to, you might just be able to track down the anomalies of a succesful day vs a poor day. The difference between a bad day without filters vs a bad day with filters added may amount to dropping 50% of the races but at the same time, losing only 1 or 2 points over the day.

[edit] - don't know how long you've been doing this and am only guided by your BA forum signup date. I'd suggest that you allow yourself a minimum of 12-15 months to really get to grips in a manner that becomes intuitive. that goes for the generation of succesful bots as much as for manual pre-trading.
JTEDL
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I need ' a bit of reassurance' today - that Betfair won't crash!
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gutuami
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JTEDL wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 1:33 pm
I need ' a bit of reassurance' today - that Betfair won't crash!
if there was a market for it I would've offered you a lay bet for that. depends on the price of course.
spreadbetting
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Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

mickypaul72 wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:43 pm
Hi I know the feeling but my trouble is with bots and finding one that delivers consistant profits I find it hugely frustrating, I will have a good day when everthing falls in place and then the next day it will smack me in the teeth. I'm actually on the verge of packing it in but i've gone so far that it would be a shame to do that. Good Luck.
Too many people set up bots just because they've dug thru some stats and found something that's won in the past, to win long term you need to understand the reason why something should be winning. Once you know why it should win you'll understand why it's losing also , it may simply be long term there's just no edge to what you're doing.

Don't simply trawl thru more stats in the hope you can turn a losing idea into a winning one because you'll always be able to backfit something that used to win. By all means use stats to prove or disprove something you think should work but don't simply look thru the stats to find your 'winning' strategy blind.
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ruthlessimon
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spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 2:28 pm
to win long term you need to understand the reason why something should be winning.
Got any tips for this SB? I personally think this is one of the most difficult aspects.

For example, sometimes, I will "make an educated guess" where I expect something to outperform (i.e. here's an edge, here's where it should be even better) - but I wouldn't call that a "why" (& it certainly isn't sustainable). But usually, I'll "make a story", for why something is working/should work :lol: (i.e. people getting anchored) - but "whys" like that aren't really provable
spreadbetting
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ruthlessimon wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 2:47 pm
spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 2:28 pm
to win long term you need to understand the reason why something should be winning.
Got any tips for this SB? I personally think this is one of the most difficult aspects.
For me that's the easy bit. I always start any 'bot' with a reason of why I think the market will move/react, then I simply set about trying to disprove or prove I can make money from it. I might use stats to try to disprove it but usually I'll throw money into the market to find if my idea is workable or not but always have an initial idea of why it should work.

I couldn't approach the markets in the way you seem to, data mining 'winning' strategies as it'd most likely be far too hard for me to drill down to reason why something worked during that period. Once you start with stats you can never have enough, a 10 tick move at 3 minutes out will happen for reasons other than a 10 tick move 10 seconds before the off etc. Experience has shown me the simplest strategies are usually the biggest earners and it's a lot easier to find something that returns 1% rather than 20%, plus they're usually long lasting as everyone else wants the golden goose not the little eggs it's laying.
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northbound
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spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 3:20 pm
it's a lot easier to find something that returns 1% rather than 20%
If your trade risks £1 to make £1, you're basically saying that out of 101 trades, you won 56 and lost 55. Correct?

It's gonna take a massive sample to ascertain whether you really do have a 1% edge. Or is it me looking at this from the wrong angle?
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ruthlessimon
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spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 3:20 pm
For me that's the easy bit. I always start any 'bot' with a reason of why I think the market will move/react, then I simply set about trying to disprove or prove I can make money from it
Ty sb, a really interesting viewpoint :)
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ShaunWhite
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northbound wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:04 pm
spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 3:20 pm
it's a lot easier to find something that returns 1% rather than 20%
If your trade risks £1 to make £1, you're basically saying that out of 101 trades, you won 56 and lost 55. Correct?

It's gonna take a massive sample to ascertain whether you really do have a 1% edge. Or is it me looking at this from the wrong angle?
The incorrect assumption is "risks £1 to make £1".
You risk £1 to make £x.
x can be a penny or a tenner.

The same sample size would prove a 0.1% edge as accurately as a 90% edge
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
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northbound wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:04 pm
spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 3:20 pm
it's a lot easier to find something that returns 1% rather than 20%
If your trade risks £1 to make £1, you're basically saying that out of 101 trades, you won 56 and lost 55. Correct?

It's gonna take a massive sample to ascertain whether you really do have a 1% edge. Or is it me looking at this from the wrong angle?
I'm simply saying it's easier to find something that will return me £101 for every £100 I bet not necessarily 56/101 rather than something that will return me £120. If I can churn over enough 1%'s over time I'm happy enough with the crumbs everyone leaves behind.

I'm not sure why the forum seems obsessed with sample sizes, if I know something wins and think I have a good idea why it works I just bet on them I don't need to wait for 10,000 events to confirm it for me.

You're currently looking at how far the market moves just before the off to see if you can lay an overround book to get a profit. If say x-matching is turned off and the book is bouncing around 99% I know I can back all runners and guarantee a profit of 1%, I don't need a large sample to prove that to me, all I need to know is if I'm able to get in fast enough to profit from it by actually trying it.
Last edited by spreadbetting on Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jimibt
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spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:20 pm
northbound wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:04 pm
spreadbetting wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 3:20 pm
it's a lot easier to find something that returns 1% rather than 20%
If your trade risks £1 to make £1, you're basically saying that out of 101 trades, you won 56 and lost 55. Correct?

It's gonna take a massive sample to ascertain whether you really do have a 1% edge. Or is it me looking at this from the wrong angle?
I'm simply saying it's easier to find something that will return me £101 for every £100 I bet not necessarily 56/101 rather than something that will return me 20%. If I can churn over enough 1%'s over time I'm happy enough with the crumbs everyone leaves behind.

I'm not sure why the forum seems obsessed with sample sizes, if I know something wins and think I have a good idea why it works I just bet on them I don't need to wait for 10,000 events to confirm it for me.
SB, that's a breath of fresh air. i've always been a mechanics based *practitioner*, rather than a stats believer and think i get your approach quite well. i guess to acrue the profits, you need to be triggering out a fair number of those transactions. definitely the crumbs are there, as i'm sure your years of experience are telling you. as they say up here, MONY A MICKLE MAKS A MUCKLE!! ;)
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northbound
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Fair enough and I'm sure the crumbs are there, otherwise all us relative newbies would have given up long ago :)

However, if we are not yet profiting consistently, it's because we haven't found angles that can reliably produce 1%. Or perhaps plenty of beginners find them, but they are the wrong angles: they produce 1% 100 times out of 101, then lose 100% 1 time out of 100.

Hence our questions, which I'm sure look really stupid when you are on the other side of the fence and have it all figured out.
Last edited by northbound on Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ShaunWhite
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There's more than one way to skin a cat. And all of those ways can be done well or done badly.
If everyone had the same technique then we'd all just be passing round the same mickle and never make a muckle.
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northbound
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:31 pm
There's more than one way to skin a cat. And all of those ways can be done well or done badly.
I agree
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