General Betting
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A well-opined gambler can outperform an automaton many times over. However, the automaton is scalable - the gambler is not.
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Isn't that the truth! ^^
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And whom exactly will these " more and more winning position takers" take their increased winnings from.?
The bots I presume. Unless you're saying that the overall pot will get bigger and bigger for the position takers and bots to share proportionately. |
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Btw Sandown baby jesus had a less than normal day for these super traders.
He only made just over 10,000% pa ROC on the day. Pretty p!ss poor really comparative to the others. |
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Fck I really have to try harder to get the obvious envy out of my posts.
Destroying any credibility I might ever had had on here. No that would be impossible come to think of it. |
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Also I had an excellent day winning too, but I would be far too embarassed to put my figures up here.
I might post them on a public forum on general money matters though. But there I think I would be laughed down there for posting utter bs. Here I would be laughed down for being such a pathetic, plodding type performer. Such a contradictory world. |
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Hello Frog.
How are you ? Fine tks. Bit worried about you though. Why? Talking to yourself for starters. |
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Froggy, you are getting too hung up on things.
It's quite obvious from your postings you want to be further on with your approach to betting. Do some homework on the area you are interested in. Searching for answers on here will only get you so far. |
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And whom exactly will these " more and more winning position takers" take their increased winnings from.?
I'm not sure but what I think I see is this: Market makers have a built in edge where they have the spread (or overround) and sometimes the clock on their side. As they make more money, or if competition increases, the money available at a given price increases. This incentivises good match readers to evolve and take them on. I'm pretty sure this is what we see in football in running. A model will struggle to predict the movement in match odds over time as the match readers spar with the market makers, who constantly have to marry their model to supply and demand. The mug money is the mug money full stop. It pays the spread and funds the winners. Who takes the majority of the proceeds depends on who out of the match readers and market makers get it most right. |
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I'd love to know what the record mount of profit achieved in one calender year is. Elliot Short doesn't count
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FINE AS FROG HAIR,
as long as you don't start fighting with yourself you'll be ok. I started doing that years ago and kept losing !!!!.Thanks for the invite, but unfortunately I have to go and do serious damage to some nice French red with her "Who must be obeyed".Catch you again mate. Good luck for tomorrow.  |
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Bayes
That's totally correct. And I'm saying that essentially. That the super returns currently made by the traders will decrease over time as their methodoligies become more transparent and people ( no traders) find ways to take advantage of them. That is how things work out in all markets, not just BF. And you're then going to say that the bots will evolve into being even smarter, and will stay one step ahead of the pack always. Maybe you're right. Time will tell. |
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"-- and people( not traders) find ways ----
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Dave
I think I'm a bit like you say you are. I'm happy with my approach and results. But if there is a better way, which I could latch onto in some form or manner, I would be stupid not to try to do so. But, also maybe like you, I do not have the statistical modelling and computer pprogramming skills necessary to do all of it. Of course I could go out and buy people with these skills, but I'm just not motivated enough to do that as basically I don't NEED the rewards. But there must some others out there who do have the skills required and the motivation neede to get into this apparently enormously lucrative way of making money. Most of the research students and even high level tenured Uni professors in maths depts around the world are not really all that well off. Struggling to survive in many cases. Where are all those types of people in all this ? Don't they know about it for some reason ? |
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I think alot of the methodoligies are already transparent Frog but there just aren't that many position takers out there willing to take them on. Whether that's due to the financial side of things that goes with holding positions or the fact those methodoligies aren't giving enough value away who knows. I've tried my hand at form reading/position taking in the past and just didn't have the skillset or discipline to make it work. I know a couple of people who make it pay form reading but for them it's almost a vocation , I don't think too many people out there are that dedicated to what is essentialy a hobby for them.
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Baby Jesus, taking the example of football, one of the key problems with position takers being able to take on someone making the market is building themselves up to the point where they are strong enough to do it. The vast majority will be going through the boom/bust/treading water scenario & it basically relates to their fundamental lack of understanding of what influences the outcome of a football match.
I'm sure there would be plenty willing to have a go, but unfortunately many struggle to process the available data effectively. |
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I don't really do the football Dave. I'm one of those that struggle to process that football data effectively and wouldn't be able to spot those out of line prices especially as the main football markets play to such a tight spread and volume compared to the horses. Plus some of the football market makers seem large enough to ride roughshod over any positional players and still move markets where they want them to be.
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I'd agree Dave, takes alot of belief to take on the market makers and sustain any losing runs especially as I'd think the majority of mispricing would be on the outside prices.That requires a decent bank just to overcome the enevitable losing runs
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Gambling isn't a noble profession for fine men, it's a structure by which smart people rip off stupid people. It always has been and always will be. Doing it by one technique or another doesn't make any one us morally superior to any other
My thinking entirely. |
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There's no point in moralising how people play on here , the simple fact that you have a matched bet means you were either best priced at the time for someone or willing to take an offer someone else has freely put up.
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I think another thing with the football is that some of the market makers are more interested in making a book rather than accurately predicting the outcome of a match, Dave. Because all the markets are more or less related to each other that always gives rise to inefficient sub markets that are ripe for any positional players.
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Can the traders on here recognise when a big successful backer is around? Does it show up on their P&L's?
If by traders you mean people like me then the short answer is no, there's really nothing a manual punter can do to take a lot of money off me AND keep it for them-self. Simply put, good bots will never offer a value position (to their counter-party). It may be possible to manipulate some very crude bots, but not anything decent. It is possible to screw bots over, and make them loose money - but it's nigh on impossible to get a hold of that money yourself, it will usually go to other players who unwittingly become the beneficiaries. If somebody wanted to spoof my bots out they'd have to accept a pretty substantial cost to themselves for doing so- we'd be talking thousands for each hit. They would undoubtedly loose more money than I did. There is a little bit of sparring that goes on as automated players attack each-other but it's not something I indulge in because it's potentially expensive and generally pointless. I have occasionally cooked up plans to try to take out some rival players but I never executed them because the potential fall out is just not worth it. By the way- I made the mighty sum of £4.26 today. So it's not all roses and kittens. |
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Sandown,
One approach that might appeal to you (or might not, but I thought I'd throw it out there) is to price up a false tissue when bots are clearly operating the market. Imagine the scenario (forgetting commission for the example) where you could price up the throw of a die in a very low liquidity bot ridden market. You could price it up 1: 4.2 2: 6.0 3: 2.42 4: 3.5 5: 6.0 6: 5.1 You could play around with the weight of money you leave up on the six selections to see how the bots respond, you could also put up bets behind the six above to give the impression of extra market depth, and again test how the bots respond. I've made money this way before, and might appeal more to your pre-off nature. The situation where it's very useful doesn't come up very often, and I have no knowledge of horse racing early markets (other than i know they're thin) but it's worth the look as if you do find a bot willing to jump in front of you in that scenario, or in the dream scenario two bots fighting, they do what they're told so you can make money fast. I realise that accurate pricing in horse racing seems to be much harder than in other sports, but maybe you can use this idea in some manner. |
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FINE AS FROG HAIR 25 Nov 10 21:57 And whom exactly will these " more and more winning position takers" take their increased winnings from.?
The bots I presume. Unless you're saying that the overall pot will get bigger and bigger for the position takers and bots to share proportionately. There seems to be a common misconception of what a bot actually is. It is simply software used to automate a process (ro-"bot"). A bot could be used by a position taker to simply feed in their bets - to use terminology more familiar to yourself - iceberging. Anyway, pedanticism aside, I knew what you meant in this context (automatons/traders). The Betfairy 25 Nov 10 21:43 A well-opined gambler can outperform an automaton many times over. However, the automaton is scalable - the gambler is not. I'm afraid I disagree with this unless you can prove otherwise. Surely the act of position-takers compounding their winnings into their future bets is a scalable action? Maybe trading is "more" scalable in many cases. Just to add some extra thoughts into this discussion, if betfair do become more active in the markets it will hit the traders hardest as these strategies (unless form involved) will be more easily replicable. With respect to copying position-taker's bets, I would have thought it a breach of privacy to copy (apart from trying to determine where the icebergs are using same data everyone else has)? Even if they did copy it would soon become apparent to those involved. In which case the war would get more complicated, spoof bets etc used to throw off where the real bets are (with a trade off of spoof in final minute before start of event) etc. |
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Getafix, I think Betfairy was referring to the fact an in running bot will happily play every market whereas it's unlikely a good positional player will pick a selection for every race.
As for spoofing and the last minute rush, where people show their hands and try to get on, I think thats already begun. |
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Nirvana
Date Joined: 08 Jun 06 When: 07 Mar 08 11:57 Koo, weren't you the guy who backed the 1000 winner IR a few months ago when someone put up 237 to back it by mistake? You laid some off and won 200k, which is where that figure comes from? Koo... Date Joined: 01 Jan 08 When: 07 Mar 08 12:08 Yes Nirvana, i made 228k from that bet. I guess after that i thought i had a comfort zone to bet from. But the comfort zone can get uncomfortable quickly. I also had some lost bank cards which meant i couldnt withdraw the winnings. So i was left playing with a 6 figure bank. And to start with i was winning so i got used to having the bank and as such found it hard to tell myself to drop the bank back to the levels i was using before the win. Its all money earnt from here and im still living the life by betting all day and its really something i love doing could a Bot ever make a bet like this ??? or better, was this a mistake from a Bot?? |
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^^^^I know this is an "rare" extreme event but talk about scalabilty ^^^^
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Most of the research students and even high level tenured Uni professors in maths depts around the world are not really all that well off. Struggling to survive in many cases. Where are all those types of people in all this ?
Don't they know about it for some reason ? I tried to explain this in an earlier post. |
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Here it is:
Contrarian 19 Nov 10 19:41 FINE AS FROG HAIR 19 Nov 10 18:27 If I was based in the UK I think I would be round at the gates of University College tomorrow trying to recruit a tem of financially struggling students. It's interesting that academics tend not to find it easy to actually make money on the sports (or financial) markets, although they may be experts on, say, the underlying mathematics. I spent part of my earlier career in academia - and have been working with a team at a UK university over the past 12 months - and I have always been struck by their inability to put their theoretical perspectives into practice. It's partly that in order to make money on the markets, you need (ideally) both an understanding of the mathematics, and experience with those markets - experience which takes quite some time. I've read tons of papers by people working in machine learning, who claim to have uncovered a statistical blip in some market or other, but who wouldn't have a clue how to profit from it, because they don't have the sort of in-depth understanding of market behaviour that can only come from years of experience. The other reason, simply, is that most academics lack the b@lls to actually take any sort of risk! |
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Contrarian - this may sound a silly question but will ask anyway, are there any tax issues when employing others, considering your ultimate profit is tax free?
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That question is actually aimed at anyone with such knowledge?
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I would expect you would pay tax on the wages but not on the profit from the actual bets. Seems a bit of a grey area...i.e., from what I've read for example, there are some strange circumstances where someone does have to pay tax on their betting profits i.e., when for example a poker player is sponsored to play in an event etc. (I may have got this example wrong)
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Getafix,
You are right with your assumption. Wages would be taxable, and also any profit sharing to any parties who have had no personal financial risk. Sponsored poker players fall into this category. Any income is assumed as 'commission' and not winnings according to the tax man. |
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I agree with Contrian Re academia. I also have a good deal of experience in academia - although in a different field. Academic culture tends to push people away from engaging in the real world whatever their subject in favour of "pure" knowledge or expertise. The climate is rarely suitably pragmatic and the individuals tend not to be all that interested in real life. This applies to all subjects, but in gambling there is an additional barrier which is the stigma that is attached to it. The middle classes dominate academia and they hate the idea of being associated with gambling because they think it's just for stupid plebs who will end up living under bridges. There is also truth in Contrarian's summation that "they haven't got the balls," generally academics are "play it safe" types- which is why they're still in academia. Finally- what research department would fund a professor betting on horses? You can bet he won't use his own money!
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This thread has opened up an issue which I think is worth discussing again. The majority (if not all) of replies in the affirmative to the question posited in the OP has come from those who have a very high frequency of bets,use mixed strategies, and are automated. We may call them "New" school as against the more traditional players "Old " school (I'll not use "positional" the term having been described as useless as a differentiator).
As a semi-retired paid-up member of the "Old" school, I could have answered the question in the past quite easily - but not with the added words "on here". In fact, just to be factual (and not boastful) I could have qualified the answer to per month or on occasion to per week and on rare occasions to per race.The consequence of success is closure of accounts both off and on-course so one was forced to use putters-on with various degrees of success. (I greatly admire the organisation of Patrick Veitch and his ability to get large amounts on through shops. PV is below the radar and the biggest player that I am aware of apart from the HK syndicates who I understand have entered these shores.)Without that set-up, BF is the only place one ends up. Now I play for relative pennies as an alternative to doing the crossword.I would think that it is nigh impossible to bet in such previous amounts on here. When I asked the question about whether a large player could affect the P&L's of automatons I realised that the answer was already known to me as I had said earlier that I see these players as de facto sub-contractors to BF itself. I wouldn't expect to take money off Bf so why should one expect to take it off "efficiency" strategies.Aye robot states the case clearly. Apart from Harry Findlay, who is soon to depart to Oz, I don't know of anyone who plays really large - and is successful - on BF. I'm sure that some exist otherwise BF's Key Account people would have very little to do.Insiders can still bet in £10ks I suppose and get on through drip-feeding but how many "professional gamblers" are there? The other side of the coin to winning large sums is losing large sums which can have a huge psychological effect which seriously affects judgment. Balls of steel are needed plus an unlimited supply of Gavascon.This is the real edge that the New school has over Old school. No need for huge capital base. No need for massive displays of courage.No huge cycles of elation and despair.No excitement. Is there a place for Old school on BF? I've asked this question before on a long thread in the past. I'm not sure but this is the proposition that BF seek to promote. That you can win - or at least get better odds -but maybe they should promote the benefits of trading and automation instead. Or perhaps they know there is very little appeal in that. |
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Sandown, the HK people. Do you know what area of betting they are interested in?
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Baby Jesus, your point about the market makers wanting to make book I agree with & am rather happy about. Whilst they may squeeze the market in their favour on their perception of the likely outcome, they still have to offer something in the region of the book that the punters are expecting to see or they wouldn't get enough takers to make it worth their while.
It is the catering for the masses that very much interests me. |
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Dave
The HK syndicates bet on horse racing. They are highly organised, computerised and have been betting for years into the HK pools. They have highly developed computer models for estimating chances and their success is based o models which may run up to 100 factors. You can read about them. William Bentner is one of the originals but there have been many others, mostly Australian or American, I believe. I know of the existence of certain people in the UK who supply data to them on UK races as well as HK races. They make their money ($ millions pa) from exotics where they have a much better understanding of the odds than joe punter who may know win odds but not combinations too well.The HK race game is more easily modelled because of the limited parameters, than is UK racing. |
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Thanks Sandown, I was hoping there would be more money in the football pool!
As much as I love to watch horse racing it was never an area that I got to grips with. |
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You can bet pretty much what you like on high liquidity football markets on here. My ultimate aim is to bet six figure sums per game, on the match odds. Hopefully I will get there one day.
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