Analysis of November 2009

Hello,

Another month is over and it is time for a summary.
The way I am working on Betfair changed a little during November, so I will change my analysis too. There will be a part handling the betting bot performance and a part related to my personal trades:

Personal Trades:

American Football: €47.20
I was a little lucky this month. Missed a few bets, because I was not at home to place some bets. The bets I missed all lost.

Horse Racing: -€20.77
My horse laying selections did not worked well this month. It was quite difficult to identify good laying opportunities, so I just had a few bets. Three of those won so I finished the month with a loss.

Motor Sport: €15.40
A small profit from the start of the month. Nothing interesting to say. I am looking forward to the next season.
Will Schumacher come back and drive for Mercedes GP?

Soccer: €10.52
Inspired by Psychoff I had a look at trading on soccer with Soccer Mystic. The good news is that I know how to trade on soccer. The bad news is, it is really boring. I do not enjoy trading on soccer. It is quite exhausting to watch the matches and the odds closely. Quite different to trading tennis.

Tennis: €45.17
I am happy about the result of trading tennis for November. There were not many matches, but I traded really well. During the last three months I think I have found my way of trading tennis: Just lay low!
That’s it. The earlier you lay low, the higher is the chance that the selection you laid will trade at higher odds. There are matches were I can not identify such a situation, but if so, then I do not trade this match. There is no reason to waste money.
Staking has been a big issue for me on trading tennis during the whole year. During the last three months I always traded with a fixed stake of €20.00 which worked quite well. With that staking it is also easy to evaluate my trades afterwards. For the next tennis season I will raise that stake size, but I will write about that in detail in my preview of 2010. I just need to avoid over staking, a mistake I made this year and which let me struggle during the mid season in tennis.

Total P&L: €97.52
Overall a really pleasant profit for the month. My time/trading ratio decreased too, which is another motivation. I do not need to fight to make a profit like this. Just need to do, what I know.

Betting Bots:

Both bots started exceptional profitable, but this month was not that good as the past months on simulation mode:

HorstBecker
LaylaCheval
  
HorstBecker had a really awful month, but I assume this should just happen to separate the boys from the men. We need to have balls and trust the system. There will be winning streaks and there will be losing runs. You can not avoid one of them. You need to deal with both. Have a look at an article from Harry Fox:

Losing Runs versus Winning Runs in Horse Race Betting

Layla had a profitable month, but made all the profit in the first two weeks of November. The last two weeks have been not that good and Layla produced a loss. All in all LaylaCheval made a decent profit in November, but we just started putting money on it from mid November. It had to happen to start with a loss :)

At the beginning of the month I was watching many of the races the bots were involved, but this will make you crazy. I will not do it anymore. It is too stressful. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. A single race or a single days is not important. Getting a long term view is what you need, if you are doing something like that.

Both bots are now running on a windows server. No need to run a personal computer for the bots. We just need to log in the windows server via remote desktop and we can watch both of them working. The bots are doing their work reliable. No crashes, no bugs so far.

There are still a few things to work out:
Firstly, we want to have a central tracking platform for tracking the bets and market activities on Betfair for both bots. So we want to be able to have a real time overview about both bots performance. This also includes to get a daily report about the profit/loss figure and other indicators.
Secondly we want to implement a reporting and alert system to get emails and SMS when there is an issue with the bots or with the Betfair API.
You see, there is still a lot of work in front of us.
I will keep you updated.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

Update:
No selections for tomorrow. Will be out of office.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

2009-11-28    13:45    Ling (AW)    KING´S SALUTE  1st

Update: KING´S SALUTE won the race. I got matched at 3.00 while Betfair starting price was 3.61.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selection:

2009-11-26 12:45     Uttox     HORSFORD  3rd

Update:
HORSEFORD finished 3rd. I got matched at 3.55 while Betfair starting price was 3.87. A tough month so far for the lay selections, but there are still a few days in front of us.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Soccer Mystic Trading Lab

Hello,

currently there not many tennis matches around, so I started an experiment on trading on soccer. I purchased the Bet Angel trial for 30 days for 15 pounds. This includes Soccer Mystic too. The goal is to get comfortable with Soccer Mystic and the soccer markets on Betfair. The first game I traded was Germany v Ivory Coast on Wednesday.

 
I traded soccer in the past too, but today my style is different. In the past I was looking for value bets inplay, but today my entry and exit points are based only on odds movement, so I will not depend on the outcome of the game.

I traded the match above with EUR10 stakes. There is to goal about making a certain amount of profit during the trial period. I just need to learn and understand the market movements. If I can stay in profit and pay the trail period charge for Soccer Mystic with the profit I make I will be fine.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

2009-11-19    12:40    Hunt    SERETH  1st

Update:
SERETH won comfortably. I got matched @2.98 while Betfair Starting Price was 1.97.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

2009-11-18    12:50    MrktR    BALLYBRIGGAN  2nd

Update:
What an exciting race! I watched it live via Betfair Live Video. BALLYBRIGGAN ran really well after the last hurdle it was well in front. CITY THEATRE with A.P. McCoy came from behind and could win the race by 1/2 length. Both horses traded below 1.3x inplay. I got matched @3.6 while Betfair starting price was 3.5. Lovely!

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

LaylaCheval Is Up And Running

Hello,

today was a really happy day for Muxor and me. We started LaylaCheval our betting bot for laying horses on Betfair. It was the first day with real money on the selections the bot produced.

Here is an overview of today’s profit of LaylaCheval:


It is always good to start with a profit when setting up new strategies and ideas, but today Layla had a really great performance!

I am really excited about the next days. Will the profit continue? Will the bot do the work reliable? Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

2009-11-16    14:50    Plump    STORMHOEK  3rd

Update:
We had a long period without selections(eight days in a row), but we kept patient. Betfair starting price was 5.9. I got matched @3.3 early in the afternoon.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

A Betfair Betting Bot Called HorstBecker

Hello,

HorstBecker performed really impressive today:

 
It looks like the hard work will pay off. I am a little overwhelmed about the performance of the software so far. I knew what is possible with the system and the bot by the historical data we collected so far, but it is a difference to see those data just in Excel with virtual money rather than to see it with real money. It is still performing that good! Amazing!!!

Automated betting and trading is a good way to make money on Betfair. Once you did your homework you can see a machine doing the work for you.

If there is any interest I will do a tutorial series on the blog about building a betting bot. Any wishes or comments on the blog or via e-mail are much appreciated.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Horse Racing

Hello,

when we started the blog tennis was the main sport I traded on. This year I struggled a little with trading on tennis, so I had a look at other sports too. My horse laying selections seem to be steady profitable, but with only 10 to 20 selections per month the bank will grow slowly.

Since July we are working on two betting bots: One for laying and one for backing horses. The backing bot called HorstBecker is running in simulation mode since October. Since last week it is running with real money on it and it is nearly 25 points in profit so far. At the moment all selections are matched manually, but during the next few days I will work on the automated bet placing and hopefully this will reduce some work, too.
Sometimes I am also watching the races and the odds during the races.


Today there was really big money on CHARINGWORTH. Did someone had some insider information?


CHARINGWORTH won the race. I am happy HorstBecker had this selection too.
LaylaCheval (the laying bot) is still running in simulation mode (since mid September), but it shows decent results so far. It is 41 points up for November.

It was hard work to get to the point we are at the moment and I am pretty sure there will be more work in the future to improve both betting bots.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

2009-11-07 13:40    Sand      ZARINSKI  2nd

Update:
ZARINSKI finished 2nd. I got matched @2.82 while Betfair starting price was 2.88.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

2009-11-04    14:05    Chep    MANYRIVERSTOCROSS  1st

Update:
MANYRIVERSTOCROSS won the race. I got matched at 1.97, while Betfair starting price was 1.88.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

2009-10-02    13:45    Plump    MAYBERRY 4th

Update:
Good start into November! Got matched early @3.45, while BSP was 5.40. A good example why taking early odds is the best decision.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Trading Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi

Hello,

yesterday was the last Grand Prix of the 2009 Formula 1 season. Here is an overview of my trades:

 
Trading fastest lap was not easy, because at the beginning the odds did not move significantly, so I concentrated on the other markets. In the Safety Car market I got in trouble because of low liquidity.
Trading the Winner market was much better. I laid Hamilton at 1.49 before the first pit stop. Then the market realized that it might be difficult for Hamilton to stay on top after the pit stop and the odds moved up. The odds moved to 3.0. Then the McLaren team said on team radio that there might a problem with the car. That was a sign for me to stay in the trade and let it run. A few laps later Hamilton retired and the profit was secure.

I also got some money out of “Schumacher to Race for Ferrari”.
Overall I made +€307.08 profit during the 2009 Formula 1 season. I expected to make +€100 profit, so I am really impressed about what I achieved.

That’s it so far. Will post possible selections later.

Cheers, Loocie

Lay Selections

Hello,

Today’s selections:

No selections.

NB. All selections are lay selections. Only lay the given selections, if the odds are less or equal 5.0. If the price is greater than 5.0 it is not a bet. I recommend to take the early odds and a maximum liability of 5% of your bank roll on each given selection.

Cheers, Loocie

Analysis Of October 2009

Hello,

another month is over, so it is time to review the results of the month.

American Football: -€7.64
The selections of Stock Lemon did not perform that good in October. Overall there is still a profit, so no problem with that.

Football: €20.90
Just one bet on Germany versus Russia. Great value and nice profit.

Horse Racing: €19.60
The lay selections had a tough month. Two losers at the start of the month. Then we had 10 days without selections, but the patience paid off. Five winnings in the row secured the profit. I used a fixed liability staking of €15.00 per selection.

Motor Sport: -€5.79
Just two races in October: Brazil and Japan. It was not possible to trade the fastest lap market, because there was no liquidity. Tried to discover other markets, which ended in a small loss.

Tennis: €53.35
A really decent result so far. Could have been better, but yesterday I lost on V Williams v Jankovic. This was a great lesson, because I saw what was my mistake: I tried to trade momentum. Trading momentum in WTA tennis matches is the worst thing you could do. Just keep patient and lay low. That’s what I did the whole month except the match yesterday.

Total P&L: €80.42
A nice profit for the month. Currently my maximum stake size is €20.00. Raising stake size is definitely a task for the next year. That’s something I struggled with this year.

The tennis season is nearly over, so I will spend more time on developing the trading bots.
HorstBecker is a bot I developed, which bets on horses. At the moment it is running in simulation mode and showing promising results.
LaylaCheval is a bot, which lays horses. It is also running in simulation mode, but I need to do more coding, to make it easier to get the daily profit/loss figure.
At the moment Muxor is doing all the daily reporting manually, which is a lot of work.
The goal is to have two bots, one for backing, one for laying, which do their work fully automated.

That’s it so far. Will post later possible lay selections.

Cheers, Loocie