Is it time to bot IR and front run the hooverers.

200ms far too slow...... 13ms latency, 50ms between refreshes- should be there in half that.

You should do it! Whatever "it" is.

Also, terrible how unfair the playing field is. Authorities should be made aware, life sentences must rain,

aye robot...

you also need to wait on betfair for some answers... unless you want to risk working off outdated cached data

100ms+ consumed there ( the answers)

agreed richard

some have been shown to be so hypocritical it is not funny

Bankman/you/noodles and a few more I exclude form that criticism

I'd be interested to know how you get on with this. I've never really considerd using a bot to mimic humans as I just don't think it's thier strength. I'm also not convinced that the fastest picture/track players are all that good. I'm sure there are some good ones who do very well- but it's also clear that a lot of early moving money goes very much the wrong way.

I don't think morality comes into it at all frankly. Everyone here knows the risks and if you don't want to play you're not forced to- this is a battle of witts, "to the victor the spoils" I'd say.

Do it and write a book.

Give the winnings to charity if you want to do some good.

clyde

If I write a gambling book it will not be about botting IR...

was thinking about writing a gambling book ealrier this year actually... but it is a serious undertaking

I managed 3 1/2 days of gambling blogging before I decided it wasn't for me :(

Magician- can you tell me why you would want to write a gambling book? Also if you doint mind what you were thinking of covering in it

wiped out

just mental curiosity really,

it would mostly be data lead discussion of betting markets

Magician you are dangling a little fish in front of everyone claiming to have cracked the Da Vinci code. In the same way that punters look bemused at a Derren Brown illusion.

I'm curious how you think you can beat the fast pic players because I'd of thought it was impossible and was ** in the same way that I think Feck's idea of a blank interface with hidden bets is **.

I could make it a much wider topic, of exchanges

but I would need chapters to be wirtten by other epople to make that work.

I would be intersted to know your thoughts on the financial markets and the fairness of them compared to the gambling markets..

wiped out.

1) financial markets are much less efficient than betting markets - and have considered recruting the best from here to make a mini hedge fund. why scrap it out with each other here for 100K, when the finacial world, 100k is a scrap. rounding error to many

2) hard to comment on fairness, as I work thier and have my employer to consider

clydebank

I do not know for certain I could bot IR. but i think I could.

I have 5-6 winning years on here, botting horses races with close to zero knowledge of the 99.9% of horses/trainers/owners i bot - and that gives me some confidence I could bot the IR market

as a caveat - i dont play IR

I would agree about the best on here doing very well on the financials...

Although i would say that the successful bot makers make far more than 100k, a modest figure imo...

wiped out

sure bots make many multiples of 100K, but many very good people here win that sort of figure annually, and could make considerably more using the same skills in financials

Magician,

I am intrigued to hear you say that financial markets are much less efficient than sports betting markets.

I used to work in the financial markets, and now only work in Betfair markets, and I would say that it is the other way around.

And if you think that, then why do you bother with Betfair at all? I enjoy the fact that I can find mistakes in this markets relatively easily (and generate regular income from them), but I find the relatively low sums involved frustrating (I frequently find that I am the principle market marker in the football markets I cover, and I'm not using that much capital). If I thought that there were comparable inefficiencies in the financial markets, I'd be back there like a shot.

Are their financial markets that are the equivalent of the very low liquidity ones on here, ie where you can cover hundreds of them putting up bets with a good margin and expect to get a reasonable percentage matched? (genuine question)

Contrarian

I have been in gambling for decades - I have only joined the financial markets 2 years ago.

I have a very strong opinion that Betfair while currently very important to me financiall and intelectually will become less important on both fronts as I widen my scope within financial markets

betfair have no more than 30 horse markets a day - with no more than 300k real money matched on each race ( very rough averages - will not be orders of magnitudes wrong) - so about 9 mllion a day to play for.

lets assume you can be 2% of real matched money - and win 2% of turnover, that is 3600 a day or 1.3 million year

now while that is entirely obtainable, for a dedicated person to achieve think of the finance world alternative.


pick your favourite mid cap?

Shares per day * price / discount factor - for churn... i will not be surprised if you favourite mid cap - turns over 5-10-15 million a day

then consider there are 1000-10000 of these globally, and 60-70% of then must be easily accessable in the main 10 markets of the world

so the fish is at least 1000 times larger.

not this is avoiding the larger caps where pricing spread an inefficiency is less.

funny you moved from the banks to here - while I am moving the other way.

Richard LL

yes i belive there are

there are many 'illiquid' stocks etc with 'wide' spreads and high 'volatility'

Magician,

I suppose I might have bought too readily into the classic economic orthodoxy that the global financial markets exhibit very little inefficiency. Of course, it's debatable what it even means to say that the markets are inefficient, and how one would actually test for it.

What I do on Betfair - predominantly - involves statistical arbitrage across markets which are, assuming the correctness of my models, inconsistent. This is the sort of thing that I presume is nowadays very hard to do on the financial markets (because all the big banks have teams of maths PhDs eliminating these inefficiencies way before I could sniff them out).

Magician, how does one front run a hooverer ?

You can't intercept a hooverer's bets and put yours down first. You also can't beat a hooverer by definition - once he hoovers it's too late, there's nothing left for you.

The people you will really be undercutting or targeting IMO are the skilled/unskilled race readers who are pricing-up and maintaining the margins with a constant stream of would-be value bets throughout a race.

And what when the hooverer is wrong? ie wicket given no ball.
Follow hoover in and you will be shafted by the quick layers

Magician

'the moral conundrum is less concerning'

You may come to regret that remark

Magician

I have 5-6 winning years on here, botting horses races with close to zero knowledge of the 99.9% of horses/trainers/owners i bot
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


We've met, you seem a good bloke and your forum contributions are second to none.Your ability to make money on here is proven.

But, I am uneasy with your quote.

Why it should bothers me. In theory, I have no objections to free markets, available to all. What you do is within the rules and your integrity is unquestioned by me.


No doubt you will say that your conrtibution adds liquidity but I don't wish to get into that argument again.It's been done to death.

If I win or lose money to someone with no opinions it should be no different to winning or losing with someone who does.Certainly, losing money to an insider who knows that a horse won't win, crosses a clear line in the sand.That is not acceptable to me, but it can't be irradicated.

Losing money to someone with fast pictures falls into the same area.

But your MO is,imo, at the heart of the BF problem generally and the PC issue specifically.

What you take out is to my mind money lost to the pool. I feel the same about the 15% taken out by foreign exchanges converting $ to £ and vice versa. The charge is too high for the service provided.

You are a clever man, no doubt. But can you see my dilemma here? Does the problem lay with me and not with you, I ask myself? Would the rest of us with opinions be better off without you?

I don't expect you to agree with this, of course, but you should be aware of the issue.

"...real money matched on each race..."

What is "real money" please?

Magician,

Did you write any material for your book yet? I would be very interested, although I'm not involved with horse racing.

I don't understand the obsession with "having an opinion".

Sometimes I bet because I've got an opinion (in which case I leave my position open).

Sometimes I bet without any opinion at all (in which case I'm generally using an automated program that's careful to avoid any exposure to the outcome of the event).

As far as I'm aware, which I'm doing has no particular impact on how evil or immoral I am, or how likely I am to pump my winnings back into Betfair, or anything else of any interest to anyone other than myself.

JPL, when people talk about having an opinion I think they mean an opinion on what the odds should be, as opposed to an opinion on what is going to happen.

If you're betting without having your own opinion on what the odds should be, then what are you doing? Copying/being parasitic?

Sandown

I agree with what you say - I am (at least to date) a net extractor and as such I question my own value to Betfair. (remember my monster thread form years ago when I suggested betfair should ban winners in theory)
I know/assume I am certainly less value to Betfair than an individual that provided

Birch2

Always respect you comments on here - and as you can see form my above post - the moral conundrum of my normal bots gives me regular foder for thought.

"real money"

assuming I said it - is what I consider net position taking money into the race....

ie not in a out trading but net open interest as they race jumps

Investor

I have some scrappy flow charts and chpater titles - and though flows of what i would write.

then i some mapped out academic papers to publish on betttin data - but they are all very far from publication level

El Bandido - Yes, if my automated program (which in many cases has no idea what the true odds should be) sees that the spread between Back and Lay prices on a certain market is unreasonably wide it will place bets to narrow the spread.

You might call that "copying" or "being parasitic", but I would call it improving the prices available to ordinary punters.

If the bets that you're going (presumably one increment) in front of are cancelled do you then cancel your bets also in response? If so, then that is a host parasite situation, and you are the parasite.

You say you are improving the prices available to ordinary punters. But for ordinary punters, the situation would be improved if you were unable to see the opinion of others, and had to bet with your own opinion. This way, there would be more different opinions in the market, and ultimately it's differences of opinion that lead to bets being matched and 100% books. There would also be nothing to inhibit the placement of large bets. All in all, a much better situation for ordinary punters and for betfair.

El Bandido it doesnt matter how people win as long as they are not **ing. Magician is only using information available to everyone. What he does is highly skilled that's why he's making money on here its just a different skill to those that make money forming opinions from base information. Everyone uses the price information on here and odds comparison sites from straight punters to traders to bookmakers and arbers. It doesnt make one group more of a parasite than any of the others

Betfair does need winners because without winners they wouldn't be an exchange, they'd just be a bookmaker who would have to provide all the liquidity themselves and without winners they wouldn't know what prices to go. Winners are the lifeblood of the exchange.

Apart from **ing morals don't come into betting. It's a free market where the winners win and the losers lose and in a way its one of the fairest and morally cleanest forms of obtaining money there is. It's the operator where the moral obligations begin and end. Everybody gets what they deserve on here and everyone is held responsible for their own actions.

If The Magician feels any moral responsibility he can always give some money and time to help a charity. There are lots of worthy ones out there.

El Bandido
You say you are improving the prices available to ordinary punters. But for ordinary punters, the situation would be improved if you were unable to see the opinion of others, and had to bet with your own opinion. This way, there would be more different opinions in the market, and ultimately it's differences of opinion that lead to bets being matched and 100% books. There would also be nothing to inhibit the placement of large bets. All in all, a much better situation for ordinary punters and for betfair.

But surely an 'Ordinary Punter' takes the opinions of others and adds 10% of his own bias's and has a 'Punt'

So if he were unable to see the opinions of others, as you recomend, then he would be worse off.

I.E. NOT " a better situatiuon for the Ordinaary Punter" as you put it ?

Clydebank, my gripe is not with the people who use the information available. That information is availble to everyone. I use it as well, it would be foolish not to. But I think it would be better if this information was not available.

I don't say that the exchange doesn't need winners. But to say that they need winners that only win because of the information given to them is laughable.

Escapee, the ordinary punter is surely better served by betting into 100% books with decent volumes than betting into markets where the spread is, as JPL describes it, "unreasonably wide".

Clydebank
'Apart from **ing, morals dont come into betting'

Agree with this entirely, but if I understand the post correctly, must ask Magician, that if he sets his bots off on this quest, then he will be taking money, for example, from people who haven't seen their horse fall yet and all the other IR anomolies

For someone who has put himself at the forefront of fairness in all his submissions to the GC, BF, BHA etc., I would like to know from him, is this **ing or not?

birch2

it is borderline **ing - hence my opening statement

I could have done the same yeaqrs ago - to bot the fish from the sharkes - but morals precluded me from doing so... I know some did.

but now as I would predominantly get (slow) sharks in my net the moral conudrum is less concerning

it would be like being robin hood - stealing for those that are stealing themselves, hopefully turning the market into a non-functional state - that would focre a change in market managment.

if you recall this was my motivation for the thread proposing an IR clock beating bot ( which I did not develop - but extracted market management change)

i partial start this thread for the discussion - as building this bot is not my first priority

Magician

you know as well as me that you will catch more ordinary punters than 'slowsharks'

This isn't the Magician I know

if it forces market changes - perhaps the temporary loss of social punters will do them better in the long run

anyway if done - i will keep you posted, and I can assure it proves overly profitable - i will not be keeping the funds

You should think long and hard before embarking on this

I am a serious player on here and would probably take any penny I could from wherever it was available, so why does it bother me to tell you.............

that you were different - a moral crusader - your attempts to protect the 'innocents' captured my thought.
I read your full submission to the GC - I admired your stance on the blatant scammers - and the time, money and effort you put into trying to put it right

For several years you have been an inspiration on here, and you will be highly regarded in many spheres.

Do you want all that hard work to be lost in one fell swoop?

Birch2

I appreciate the compliments, and i reiterate ( no I am not back tracking) that sometimes the things I dicuss doing are as much about adressing issue that actually doing them.

if i really wanted to do this for profit ( not for polical reasons) I would not publicise publically that it might be the correct time to do this - to get more sharks than fish.

the motivation...

but while IR continues to dominated by humans - it will allow enough fairness ( or not show enough blantant unfairness) for the appologist of the status quo to let it remain.

if I botted it agressively - ever penny would evaporate faster than it currently is - the unfairness would be more server - and overnight somethign would have to be done.

Perhaps Betfair would just ban my bot. but i think that would be a tricky issue for them - and unless they then wanted a even more defunct product they would be forced to change it

dont worry you have not lost me to the dark side not even after 5 years of predominantly hitting my head on a brick wall.

just tonight I meet with a QC about sueing fergal lynch the day he arrives back in the UK - so will keep you posted on that

I specialise in IR horse bots which make me a decent living. My view on this idea is simply that there are better ways to make money. I tend toward the view that bots are much better suited to defeating humans by exploiting their weeknesses than by coppying them. I think the percetption that not may bots opperate in running may be wrong although it's hard to know for sure- I certainly get thouroughly stuck in and I'm sure I'm not alone as there are rich pickings to be had.

As far as the moral question goes I'd agree with the above sentiment that apart from **ing morality simply doesn't come into it. So what is **ing? I'd say **ing is breaking the rules. Betting from the track or having the fastest pictures is not against the rules- so it's not **ing. Even if it were- using price movements as a guide for placing bets (which is essentially what's being suggested) still wouldn't be. The same sort of thing is done pre off all the time- people watch for steamers or drifters- surmise that some-one knows something and bet accordingly. Betting like this may be misguided but I've never heard it described as **ing.

Betting in running is dangerous and many will be destroyed by it- frankly that's just tough, they knew the risk, took it and lost. If they didn't know the risk- they should have, if you don't look before you leap you will loose your money whatever you do. Some people are just bad losers, they are the ones who shout "**" when they're beaten, whether it's antipodean cricketers or busted out betfarians it's the same thing.

Finally- on the fast pic players, one thing that people seem not to realise is that on the whole the fast pic players are not very good. Evryone here seems to know of some mythical charcter who makes a zillion pounds a day with some huge advantage, but I watch IR price movements very carefully and I see a lot of early moving money go the wrong way. Essentially as a race progresses the market gets less and less efficient, if you want to pick a winner in running then in most cases the best back value is in the mid stages of a race where fast pic players have the least advantage. As soon as the prices start falling (often well before the final fulong) there is very little back value to be found. This is not just idle speculation, I run quite sophisticated price modelling bots that monitor and bet against price movements that are likely to be too early or to strong and I keep detailed records on all price movements which I anylise vey carefully. Based on this I can assure you- the fast picture players are NOT good at picking winners early enough to get value from them, not at all.

I can't claim to understand your post Mr Robot - I don't suppose I'd recognise a "sophisticated price modelling bot" if I found one in my cornflakes - but I nonetheless found it fascinating in a vague half-understood sort of way. I've often thought of running my own bots IR but chickened out.

Pity it seems to have killed off all further conversation on the thread though.

It's interesting that you encourage newbies to experiment inrunning using gruss and excell spreadsheets, aye robot!

On the point about market efficiency. I know a couple of guys who used to develop software for the financial markets, they became interested in Betfair (probably thinking it would be easy pickings), eventually releasing some useful software. It was intended for user in a similar fashion to building a hedge fund of various positions across multiple markets but evolved into a huge application. They also spent a lot of time analysing Betfair price data using all kind of fancy testing algorythms. The net result was their conclusion; the Betfair horse racing markets were more efficient than any financial markets world wide.

Aye good post but the below are a little contradictory

Finally- on the fast pic players, one thing that people seem not to realise is that on the whole the fast pic players are not very good. Evryone here seems to know of some mythical charcter who makes a zillion pounds a day with some huge advantage, but I watch IR price movements very carefully and I see a lot of early moving money go the wrong way. Essentially as a race progresses the market gets less and less efficient, if you want to pick a winner in running then in most cases the best back value is in the mid stages of a race where fast pic players have the least advantage. As soon as the prices start falling (often well before the final fulong) there is very little back value to be found. This is not just idle speculation, I run quite sophisticated price modelling bots that monitor and bet against price movements that are likely to be too early or to strong and I keep detailed records on all price movements which I anylise vey carefully. Based on this I can assure you- the fast picture players are NOT good at picking winners early enough to get value from them, not at all.

the bolded snetence seems to indicate that opportunities exist at the end of the race when less effieicent - but the rest of the text indicate (if not fast pictures) you need to bet early?

have I misread - can you clarify?

Aye has made a very good statement. I do not use a bot but we need the the fast pic people because they provide real value.

Aye has made a very good statement. I do not use a bot but we need the the fast pic people because they provide real value.

The fast pic people. We love them and we owe them everything.

Magician- You're right that that's not clear. What I mean is that the best backers (for winning at value) are getting on mid race. Backers in the final furlong tend to get stuffed as by then the prices are too short to cover losses when they get it wrong.

Obviously it's easier to spot the winner as the race comes to a close but if you don't do it at value then you loose out long term.

When I say that the market becomes less efficeint I mean that it runs at a greater over-round and with a greater spread, which acts against people putting in hoover bets at 1.01 hoping to get matched higher.

Hope that clears it up.

Muqbil- I'd encourage anyone to try anything (except martingdale or pure guessing)- as long as it's for £2 at a time!

Magician- I tink it's also confusing because I used the phrase "early moving money"- which might imply early in the race, which is not what I meant. What I meat was that when you see horses get backed down very sharply they're very often getting it wrong.
I'm a bit annoyed with myself for phrasing it like this as it's ver unclear, sorry.
Hope that and the above post have clarified sufficiently.

aye - aye robot.

Without doubt the most intelligent thread I've ever read on Betfair! Makes a WELCOME change!

Been thinking

with the increase of oncourse players... and more of the traditional hoovers (reportedly) finding it hard...

is it the correct time to do this, and prune the historical hoovers of thier money while they still believe it was skill that allowed them to win?

Only the best in running players in the country can still make it pay on SIS. Doubt many of them will be too concerned if you join the on course revolution.

Go for it Magician and let us know how you get on, I guess you can probably withstand the blow if it doesn't work out..... IR has been a hoot since the national hunt got going again.

Stringer

I would use bots... I would not be oncourse.... I would not even be wathcing the race

Sorry apparently I am to stupid, can someone explain what is beat the clock (count downer to place bets?) & how can you use it when you beat it?

So at the moment for example we have 3 waves of bets:

the on course guy backs the likely winner @ evens down to 1.3
the sis (3 seconds behind) guy joins in at 1.3 down to 1.1
atr guy (further 2 secs back) gets left overs 1.1 below

You will step in at 1.3 after the first wave of bets?

probably doing the sis guy a favour as hes getting bad value already which is why he is struggling.

'stringer'

Hilarious - the atr guy takes the 1.1, yeah right, you certainly know the in-running market...not

Magician, would your bot be 'watching' the race? If not, how do you expect it to operate successfully in-running?

Where do you get these bots from, and how do they work?
Also, how much do they cost?

And finally, i've placed bets before in numerous different markets, involving different sports, and as I submit my bet, straight away, the same bet appears on the other side. How can this be done.....

and finally my 5th question.....why do these guys do this? I don't see where they'd make money. I have a small idea why, but I'd prefer someone who knows, to explain.

So 5 questions, anyone mind answering one or two, if not all. Thanks, and as mentioned above, great read, very intelligent!!!

To answer your fourth question, the bet appearing 'on the other side' is simply the inverse of your own bet, and is Betfair's cross matching logic in operation. So the second bet is actually your own bet, and your money, just inversed.

Have a look at the "CROSS MATCHING ANNOUNCEMENT" post in the service section of the forum for extra info.

special cargo - it was an example - maybe too tricky for you too understand. I know the ir market 250k worth - maybe i got lucky

Where do you get these bots from, and how do they work?
Also, how much do they cost?

And finally, i've placed bets before in numerous different markets, involving different sports, and as I submit my bet, straight away, the same bet appears on the other side. How can this be done.....

and finally my 5th question.....why do these guys do this? I don't see where they'd make money. I have a small idea why, but I'd prefer someone who knows, to explain.

So 5 questions, anyone mind answering one or two, if not all. Thanks, and as mentioned above, great read, very intelligent!!!

The only way to get a decent bot is to build it yourself. I run bots on the football, and they require constant tinkering to remain optimal. Even if you could buy one that worked, it would probably very soon weaken because the markets are constantly changing.

The money that you see appearing on the other side when you submit your bet is not actually another person's bet. It's Betfair's own cross-matching mechanism that places a (near) equivalent figure to your bet on the other side of the market. Eg. if you put up a back of £100 at 1.49 on runner A (in a two horse race), the Betfair cross-matcher shows a bet of £50 available to back on runner B, because if someone were to try to back B at shorter odds (2.4, say) they would be matched at 3 against your 1.49 (Betfair pockets the difference, by the way).

Thanks for answering guys. I always thought it was a bot. I want to lay HORSE A @ £100 at 3.05 (Liability - £100.45), so the bot's bet then appears as £100.45 to back the HORSE B @ 1.49 (Potential Winnings - £49.22) Hence making the bot 22p.

But as you said, Betfair pockets the difference. So by saying this, you mean Betfair pockets the 22p going by my above example?

The one thing i don't understand about the 1.01 hoover situation is that they have the inplay delays to stop anyone getting a significant edge from being in front

yet it happens with so many in play events every day and is likely to be the same people over and over again.

They could easily stop it but they won't because there is so much volume in this part of the market

That should say lay HORSE A for £49.00, at 3.05, not £100 :-)

I may be wrong, but I heard that laying every single horse at 1.01, is profitable?

Also, how do you make a bot. :-(

Your posting too many contradictory posts here, magician

You take the moral high ground with the BHA/GC/ layers using inside info/ jockeys etc. - then you attempt something like this.......

just a technical way of **ing someone else

Are you really any different from them, magician?

I just don't get it.
How can you beat ther hooverers, if they're the ones hitting submit first??????????

And again, backing 1.01's on the gg's is not profitable.

What am I missing here?

Backing 1.01 is only profitable if it already won and hence you are at the racecourse... if you are just building a bot I can't see what edge you would have...??

ttt

Been thinking. Why not mind your own business, and if you don't like the in running set up DON'T BET. Who appointed you the moral guardian of other Betfair players ?

Been thinking. Why not mind your own business, and if you don't like this forum in running thread DON'T POST. Who appointed you the moral guardian of other forum posters ?

Magician, I haven't read the entire thread but my view is you are correct, it would be possible. The problem with taking money off any shark though is that they WILL give up, unlike your average punter who will carry on even when losing. So Iwould think it's a limited opportunity. Why don't you give it a go though and let us know how you get on.

Deffo go for it Magician and report back on how it goes. Will be an interesting read for sure.

Birch2

I can assure I different.

1) I have a legal clock beating method I dont use.
2) This IR bot would predominantly hurt the sharks, destroy liquidity, and force betfair to make the IR platform fair - so while I might get some short term money form innocent punters, in the long run the sharles would be gone and causal punter better off... and I would then turn of this IT bot ( and this is largely a theoretical discussion also)
3) you know my 7 years history here - I am surpsied you doubt my motivations

slayer

my point2 to Birch2 should largely cover you questions also..... but yes defo possible

artie

thanks for the criticism..... gives me confidence I am doing the correct thing

The problem with taking money off any shark though is that they WILL give up, unlike your average punter who will carry on even when losing.

Perhaps not- the biggest mystery of IR is where the money comes from. Despite what people say huge ammounts are traded in running on most races, even the crappiest ones- in fact it looks to me like generally the less is traded on a race the greater the proportion of the total traded changes hands in running (I don't have figures- it's just an impression).

It's clear to anyone that IR markets are where money is made and lost quickest and that there are massive edges to be had in running by all kinds of different means. Betfair informs us that typical IR players are more experienced and pay less comission than typical pre-off players- they are bigger players. This must mean that there are many IR players who are pouring money down the drain day in-day out and who are not quitting. I have absoluetly no idea who these people are and why they don't give up.

I don't buy the idea that a few experienced pros are continuously bleeding new players dry, if you look at the way bets go into the market the evidence just doen't support that hypothesis. If the IR markets were funded by a continuous stream of new players you would expect to see many very small bets coming in, in the part of the market that I'm most active in (between 4 and 1.3) the typical "click" seems to be about £100, which for many normal people (who might be new players) is a day's wages and much more than they would risk on such a flimsy chance. Surely most new players do what I did- start off at £2 a time, if they find themselves bleeding money most will quit without losing the farm.

I don't know what keeps the "big losers" going, but I wonder whether part of it may be to do with an un-realistic self image, I think there may be a lot of players who would like to see themselves as "sharks" who's P&L might suggest another description. It might be a bit like the way some "traders" don't like to be described as gamblers, there's an ellement of self dellusion about it. Perhaps some of these people like the idea of being a Pro Gambler more than they should.

It's clear to anyone that IR markets are where money is made and lost quickest and that there are massive edges to be had in running by all kinds of different means. Betfair informs us that typical IR players are more experienced and pay less comission than typical pre-off players- they are bigger players. This must mean that there are many IR players who are pouring money down the drain day in-day out and who are not quitting. I have absoluetly no idea who these people are and why they don't give up.

perhaps they dont know..... maybe they make 2x pre-off and lose x IR

I asked the GC (during thier investigationg into IR) to make it manidotry for all IR opperators, to provide pre-off and IR PnLs to thier clients

the GC refused to answer or discuss this request

Magician,i have a couple of questions for you,if you have the time/will to answer would be much appreciated.
the bots you use/created - are you getting an edge from fast pics or is it based on statistical analysis and predictive price analysis and weight of money?

what im trying to get it at is are bot users on betfair hoovering up profits based on markets sometimes being inneficient for a period of time and say for example taking the profits off a market thats at 97% and therefore correcting it to 100%?or is there some form of opinion made which their bots are then programmed to carry out?

for transpareny im not a techy guy so im just curious.i generally take a position based on an opinion and then trade out in play(never on horses).Ive made small profits only and just wondering am i completely wasting my time due to bot guys with superior technological knowledge being only way to make long term consistent profits here.

any insight would be appreciated and i apologise for any unclear assertions above.

Zekial- although you addressed your question to Magician I thought I'd let you know what I'm doing as IR botting is my speciality and I can probably shed some light on it for you.

First- my bots are not watching the race and responding to things that happen on the track, nor is there any human input going into them telling them what to do as the race is running. They are merely watching the market activity and responding to it. Some of them are keeping track of roughly how much of the race is run (they estimate how long the race will take and time it to see what stage it's at), but that's all the infomation they have.

Stripping out market inefficency in a similar way to what you describe is part of what they do, but they go much further than that. They are continuously asessing the total market conditions and taking positions wherever they see probable value. As you suggest this is based on analysis of betting patterns- your term "predicitve price analysis" is spot on.

Typically my bots are looking for signs of human failings- greed, fear, confusion or panic, if they think the market is showing betting paterns that are unlikely to be rational they will try to exploit them in a variety of ways. For a simple example- if they think a horse is being backed in too steeply with plenty of race left to run and plenty of runners still in it they will take a view and lay it. On the other hand if a horse has been heavily backed pre-off then drifts early on in running they might back it because nervous odds-on backers are probably just chickening out sooner than they should. If they think a whole bunch of horses are likely to trade short then they put in multiple simultaneous lays to make a book and if they think the market's idientified a winner they'll try to back it IF they can get a good price. I use many and various strategies and no successful bot maker will ever tell you exaclty what his bots do but you get the idea.

Although I don't run any "hoover" bots such as Magician is describing I suppose I think it could work as my experience is that if you work on it you can make almost anything work.

The answer to bettors who wonder whether they're being sh@fted by a bunch of clever robots is this; If you're betting sensibly- reading the race well, only taking good value prices, not getting in a flap and not jumping on when it's already too late then there's nothing any bot can do to get your money, but if you're betting like a baboon, getting emotional, chasing or losing your nerve then bots will take your shirt but it really doesn't matter- you're going to loose it anyway.

ROBOT -
so for a novice ir punter do you think it might be an idea to have "KEEP" bets at below SP and cancel all after , say a 1/4 of the race has gone ?

That's a very popular strategy, some people say it's profitable although I'm not really convinced. I experimented with it at the start of my gambling "career" and quickly moved on but it was a perfectly good starting point. If you are going to do it I'd say put your prices in pretty short (about 1.6 ish) and don't cancel them at all. You might make a few quid, you deffinately won't loose much, and if you watch the markets whilst they run you'll get a good grounding in how it all works. Good luck.

Thanks Robot .

aye robot 22 Jan 23:50
Zekial- although you addressed your question to Magician I thought I'd let you know what I'm doing as IR botting is my speciality and I can probably shed some light on it for you.

First- my bots are not watching the race and responding to things that happen on the track,...

Good post. I don't know much about horse-racing markets but a technical approach if worked hard enough upon with good strategies can be a profitable method in most tennis matches of sufficient liquidity.

thanks robot.appreciate response.

quick question which you can include yourself in if you wish.

Are most succesful bot users math and software programming types?

I don't know to be honest. Speaking for myself I'm not a "maths type," maths does interest me but I don't have any formal training in it beyond GCSE, and although I've a few basic programming skills I certainly couldn't work in that field. I learned the programming I know from making bots- not the other way round.

I do have a high level of education, but that's in another field.

You certainly need to be able to think logically to make a living from botting, but I think a creative mind is very usefull too- you need the imagination to see angle that other people are missing and the willingness to go against the flow of opinion.

Know this was directed at aye robot, but I'll try and give an input.

Two strands to this for me:
1/ Specifications and strategies to be employed;
2/ Design & implementation, including backtesting of the strategies and then phased deployment.
Of course it's a continuous process of tweaking, debugging, improving, etc.

Although I am familiar with a few very specialised functional languages, I wouldn't consider myself in a position to learn and develop in Java, C++, etc. However, on the maths side of things for specs and strategy I am. That has involved some fairly high-level stats and optimisation methods and meshing them in with the programming side of things can be quite tricky. The actual programming though is done by a work colleague and somebody else I know who are fully involved and have formal training in computing.*

Obviously I can only comment from my own experience and it's dependent on the scale of your operation. Therefore I'm not going to say you definitively need to possess mathematical skills to develop successful strategies, beyond of course basic arithmetic and an understanding of basic probabilities.
In much the same way, while you don't need to know the maths behind value betting & staking you ought to be aware of the resultant logic.
However, I would think that along with a bit of creativity in the strategies-side of things, being rigorous in your programming and in your backtesting is a prerequisite for developing successful bots.

*As a sidenote, I don't know much about the costs, flexibility, etc of those bespoke solutions you can get off API vendors, but I would think that'd be an option if you a) don't want to dive into learning how to program yourself or b) don't know anybody suitable well enough.

Interesting thread developed out of the original "let's get the baddies" theme.

Magician


Betfair markets are a mirage at times and when really test then for liquidity they are often found lacking ( I dont mind I dont expect the market to absorb my 5K at 50/1 without making the horse start 20s but that is the reality in most races

Can you really get 5k on a beast and only shorten it from 50's to 20's?

I was under the impression it was more like a couple of hundred but prehaps thats just me playing before the course shows appear.

thanks

supernal bawd

No not really..... I was kind of saying that was the reality (or worse)

perhaps a 1milion matched race you would onyl shorten to 20's
but a 250k matched race, it would be much shorter.

it naturally depends on many things;

how you feed the market.
do you back it synthetically through others
do you prop up the market to match more
does an opponent have confidence
does a big player want to back it also.

2 bigger players liking the same 50/1 chance destroys any relaistic chnace of getting it.

they alone can be 70-80-90% of the matched stakes on these horses.... and you have to think

a) what price would it be if they where not there trying to back it
b) should the let it drift and get 200 @ 66 instead of 1000 @ 33 - and naturally that depends on the trues price, and the logevity you see in market liquidity