Bots and trading - I want to try it

you have to tell them what to do you don't start them up in the morning then come home to find an extra 1k in your account

good topic mate,ive been thnking the same thing

Thanks, i am well aware they are not miracle workers. I have been a gambler for many years, so im not looking for get rich quick! Just something I want to try.

if you know how the market reacts in certain situations you programme your bot to take advantage of those situations

So the bot does what u tell it to do? would i not be right in saying its still basically conventional gambling, but just seems to reduce losses over a longer period of time?

as buzzer says they just do what you tell them so no they won't reduce losses over a long period of time.

Is it worth me trying? if even to satisfy my curiousity.

absolutely

Don't worry 'bout bots, me bucko. ye need to undestand how to trade first. All ye need be some knowledge 'o markets 'n then a program to automatically hedge ye position. thar be several around fer free or extra cheap. fer now, forget 'bout high-speed tradin' 'n bots. spy wit' ye eye me thread 'bout tradin' on here fer details. jolly luck me bucko!

thanks for the advice snapper

wen u think about it shud be so easy on here,1 tick either way and if enough money in market u can make a gd living,alas as we all know easier said than done

An odd day to think of it, as the bots have been going through hell backwards since this morning's upgrade.

So true Tez123, it makes sense and sounds so plausible thats why I want to give it a go. Im a realistic gambler but this seems like it could make a few pound.

If you're reasonable intelligent its worth learning how to write your own.
Trust me its not as hard as it forst appears and also gives you the confidence that its actually going to do what you expect (and behave sensibly in unexpected situations).

Sounds interesting, but I wouldnt have the first clue where to start to write my own. I consider myself reasonably intelligent. I graduated for university!lol.

BF used to have code examples which performed all the basic actions.
I started off reverse engineering those and getting them to do my bidding.
Never looked back.

And how has it been going for u Zola? financially sucessful? and over what period of time?

If you're reasonable intelligent its worth learning how to write your own.

Only if you are an experienced programmer.

That i definately am not!

Slow and steady over the last few years.

1) hindcast test strategies with a database of events
2) then deploy them live but in test mode "e-paper trading"
3) deploy them live for real with small stakes

I don't use high data rate strategies. I try and implement stretegies I can test by hand first.

There are some things on here that never change and can consistently be exploited.

Are there any particular markets that work better than others.

You can only get it to do what you want it to do - so you have to ask yourself the question - are there any markets where I'm better than most.

I understand, but from doing a few trades in the best some markets seem better than others. Due to the amount of money in the market and the stability of the market.

Then you'll find yourself quickly at HR - like everyone else ;)

Thats what I was thinking.

You don't need to be a programmer to start writing bots- you can get going just fine using Gruss and Excel and then graduate, honestly - it's a piece of p1ss.

The problem is not the programming, it's the strategy that's hard to get right. Even so there's no reason not to make a profit right off the bat if you're the logically minded sort

The first real difficulty I hit was scaling- IE it's dead esy to knock up a little somehting to make £5 a race- but it's much harder to make the same or a similar strategy make £50 a race, it's not just a matter of increasing stakes. That's what you have to work on.

Making major isnt my major motivation (would be great tho). A fiver a race would be great. Would love to make a staedy profit it possible. £30 - £50 a day would be great.

To win at gambling long term you have to be patient, disciplined and objective.
All criteria that are optimally manisfested by using a well programmed, reliable bot.
But as always the output of a bot is only as good as the input ( that is the betting algorithm underlying it, simply put the basic betting strategy).
If you don't have a mathematically repeatable strategy, your bot will be useless.

GRuss and Excel are a reasonable idea.
If you lack technical development experience, you have as much chance of writing a betfair bot as you have of jumping over the moon.

AND DO NOT FORGET YOU PLAY AGAINSTTHE FIRMS WHO HAVE ALL THE ADVANTAGES

I taught myself to program from a library book. Anyone can build a bot if they want to.

Learning to trade is much harder, I can't seem to master that. Yet I wrote my own ladder-style trading program because I didn't know there was a cheap one available.

Gallivanter trading is a lot easier than proggraming iff you can programe you sure can trade.

I've tried trading, EMM, but I just lose money at a trickle. I haven't got a clue about when to enter or exit a trade. However, I've asked Santa for a few trading books (stock exchange trading) and I might be wiser when I've read them.

how are you playing .betfair against who.

I'm not arbing.

well best of luck but you have very little chance i have programme that bets and lays at certain instuctions but it can still go wrong but when i instruct small stakes ie 25 a time i win 90 percent of time

Yes, I have programs that can back or lay on both horses and greyhounds but they do it according to form study and checking if the price is in the appropriate range. Good luck to you, too.

trading is arbing so iff you are winning keep going if not keep trying to come up with.somthing differant and think of playing one firm against another.

Thanks, I'll look into that in the New Year when I've got my striped blazer.

I've nothing against arbing, it's just that I haven't figured out how to automate it.

well be skillfull its there if your good enough to twig it.

aye robot. how can i make 5 quid a race or even 2 quid a race