aye robot

Increasing a suitably small bank in gambling by 400 times is a trivial matter and always has been, the difficult part is increasing a large bank by 2 times.

Exactly right.


I imagine Frog's well aware of that but continually quoting 40,000% pa ROC and ignoring any posts regarding scaleability suits his purposes much more.

When I read this thread & other postings by Bayes & Aye Robot I'm always left wondering what on earth it is they are doing!

As I described on the previous page, I imagine they're making markets, how many other bot methods are there?

When ever you have fun with someones bot (lol sad I know) by jumping infront of it by a tick or two, some of them will go all the way to meet each other at say 2.78 and 2.8 after starting at 2.28 and 3.3. Others will stop and leave you some room to undercut them.

I often wonder how many people are running MMB's?

I can't speak for anyone else but personally I don't make markets. Essentially most of my bots are looking at betting patterns and making a judgement about whether the market movements are likely to be over reactions, in which case it's likely that there's value to be had. It's all about hitting peaks and troughs on the price graphs. I also do some other tricks, but most of it adds up to laying short.

No, I don't. I started of gambling as a bonus wh0re, did a little arbing then graduated when I twigged that it might be possible to detect when markets were likely to be inefficient.

FINE AS FROG HAIR
Date Joined: 12 Mar 07
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When: 24 Nov 10 01:58
Trevh
But won't other bots just start to undercut this spread in due course, as the field becomes " crowded".

I think that in a state of equilibrium there will always be a small proportion of customers making a huge chunk of the profit.

High liquidity events are more profitable, not less so. In fact during summer (after the world cup) I was getting very little matched, where it seemed like most of the people in the market were out to make money in a systematic way just like me.

This actually has the effect of making the spread larger, as people can't afford to seed markets with tiny spreads and get hardly anything matched.

The contributors on here illustrate how far the exchange concept has progressed since the original proposition of "person to person" betting.

If I were a so-called "mug punter" reading this thread I would have little doubt that this game - exchange betting - is not for me, because it is clear that I would have less than zero chance of winning on here. In fact, I am surprised that bookmakers have not cottoned onto the idea of making this public knowledge - it would frighten the living daylights out of most ordinary punters. They - the BM's -could easily claim that you have more chance not less of winning with them what with their special offers, best prices etc etc instead of competing with the seemingly risk-free bot players that now populate this exchange.

It seems that the most vocal forum users are successful traders, not traditional position/opinion players.In fact, I would be very surprised if there are more than a handful who manage to make it pay - let alone make the kind of returns stated -on here with that MO, especially as it become necessary to stake in much larger amounts - and take larger risks - than do traders.

I make no moral judgement on the status on the multi-various approaches employed. Indeed, I respect the abilities of the people involved. But I have  to admit that when I read that many of the players state that they have no need of real sports knowledge for them to be a success, I do wonder whether this is the promised land that Betfair set out in their original advertiising..

I do wonder why BF has seemingly constructed a product which favours bot players and indeed I wonder why the commission system is still so much in favour of high volume/low margin players something which the PC has only partially off-set. The playing field is still not equal. I know that people like Feck n Eejit have made a lot of noise about this and are not listened to, but he has a very seriouc point. This state of affairs may -will -not last. It is only the difficulty of getting-on with major BM's which has forced position playerswho have been successful to migrate to exchanges, not the idea of better prices.

I appreciate that betting has become far more sophisticated since BF's inception and the techniques used by the traders have not gone unnoticed and are part now of my own armoury. I also recognize that some will say that as a knowledgeable player who has made a living for many years out of betting, all I want is a return to a state where my superior knowledge allows me to make a profit at the expense of the less knowledgeable. That is partially true. But I also see that the possible cause of any demise of this site is inherent in the evolution of the type of betting which is being discussed.

Bayes

Yes, I'm sure that overlapping MO's represent a large sector especially if the definitions are not too tight. There was certainly no intention to mislead on this point so I am happy to have it clarified.

However, I still maintain that the MO for large positional players is limited by the amounts that can be got on unless one is playing - on horses at least - on one or both of the top 2 in the market. (I know that larger amounts can be played in markets for big football matches and other events.)This is a severe limiting factor. As is the need for a larger capital to cover losing runs which are to be expected. Those who do like to play large on bigger prices have found also that their money is taken for potential losers much more frequently than for those which go on to win. The edge required to play as a positional player on horses - at least in the pre-market - has been eroded other than for those with inside information. All of which supports my argument that there are more and bigger profits to be had with other MO's.If I had to advise someone starting now on the best road I would certainly say go with the traders rather than with the opinion players.

My main point however is that the results mentioned here would be very off-putting if generally available to all and sundry who are potential players of BF.It certainly gives me food for thought at least.

Sandown
A couple of very interesting posts by you.
Perhaps a relevant point you missed is that many of the bot players are apparently not trading in value prices per se. They are just trading prices, whatever they are, as long as they can model attractive exit strategies more often than not. This would explain their apparent lack of concern with their complete lack of knowledge of the sports they're trading in,
As such perhaps a lot of good value is still to be had in the markets for those punters patient and keen enough to look hard and long and, if and when they find it, the trading bots are there to provide much needed liquidity.

FAFH

Yes, I understand your point re. trading strategies and I also agree that predicting how people might react is not an exact science. It's possible that enough will not be put off. But, I think it's a fallacy to believe that the players attracted to BF, after 10 years, comprise a high percentage of "mugs" at least in the maturer markets where skill and knowhow is important. I  can't answer for the games players except I suppose that they contradict my argument to some extent.Anyway, I feel that the more intelligent one is, the more likely one is to ask the question re. the value of playing on BFif this is the competiton. A final thought. Why aren't BF mopping up these methods which generate such large profits,for themselves? Or perhaps they are already in the process of doing so?

Also as far as the non-mug long term non bot playing punters on here, they all presumably think they have some sort of edge and that the trading bots just fill their orders to their ( the punters) satisfaction.
Otherwise, I agree, why would they continue ?

Truth be told I'm starting to believe some of the claims, amazing though they are.
But it's still rarer than hen's teeth to be able to do it.
You're a HR expert.
Do you think that it is the most likely sport for these bot operators to be getting these types of returns?
I just don't see the money volumes available in the other sports for them to be consistently getting, if not the returns on capital, then the absolute amounts of profits they are ALL talking about getting. I just don't see where the money would be coming from for them ALL to be getting well over 100K a year etc.

I'll put a few figures to you here Frog. Betfair (pre PC) had receipts of the order of 200m. They then introduced PC. You don't have to be a genius to work out that they wouldn't change the whole exchange model for less than of the order of 10m, maybe as much as 50m, extra revenue. That means their winningest customers are making a lot of money between them. I wouldn't mind an even 20 quid that the top 10% of Betfair's customers make more than Betfair themselves.

Bookies will be by and large hedging and therefore losing on Betfair.

Nice summary btw Investor.

Bayes, I have a question relating to the point made above concerning the position taker/mathematician situation. I assume you are both & as I am sure you'll have gathered by now I am the former.

If I wanted to learn more about maths where would I start & to what level should one take it, any particular areas to concentrate on? (my background is Pure & Applied A level). It would be me doing it myself too.

As a position taker I'm not so blinkered as too assume that I couldn't tighten things up.

Also, would you stop at mathematical modelling or consider neural networks. I have read a paper relating to this that was done in the USA for greyhound racing, but it was rather naive I felt.

Picking an outright selection to back or lay as opposed to any form of trading, thats all.

can i add u as a contact on new forum?

sure, Chelsea V Man City last season was a perfect example.

My bet, was lay Chelsea. Score 2-4. When I posted my thoughts on the football forum it was met with the usual response prior to K.O. That was the last one I posted & I'm keeping it that way from now on.

tbh I can't remember exactly, but they were just short of evens if I remember correctly.

copy my strategy? I didn't give anything away!

Every so often, the world turns, the new replaces the old and after a while we forget there ever was an old. (eg Cars replacing horses)

The gambling world has turned with the introduction of exchanges.There is no going back. The experts who made a decent living before now have to update their methods or accept defeat and pack it in.

The new experts are to be found on this thread, and I salute them. The Investor sets out their case with clarity.

To answer to FAFH's question "Do you think that it (horse racing)is the most likely sport for these bot operators to be getting these types of returns? I see no reason to exclude the sport given what I understand to be the MO of the people involved as they have explained. The IR market, in particular, is clearly where the gold seams are to be found in this sport because of the parameters  - short time spans, subject to strong, irrational/emotional responses creating wild swings; technical edge issues,etc.all creating huge value on spikes.As for the pre-race market, I'm not so sure. The competition here is heavily influenced by computer models now but good old insider trading is still alive and kicking.It is still possible to find big value and to work towards large returns on stakes but imo the golden years are behind us.

I see these new players as de facto sub-contractors from BF who have improved the efficiency of the site and the model and who have enlarged the hole in the bucket from which they and BF take something with each play.(Why doesn't BF take on this role?) But the bucket needs constant filling and surely it must be obvious that the people filling the bucket, have in total a negative expectation. Some. like BM's hedging or arbers, accept this because they are collecting on the other side of the bet.The majority however must be players who have an opinion - whether they be professionals or so called recreational - and it is they who must decide whether the combined deductions of commission, PC and now losses to "efficiency players" is worthwhile. Would I want to return to the old game of playing against single odds-compilers from BM's. ? You betcha I would. Can I improve my strategies using knowledge and expertise of the sport as a core asset? Yes I can. Bit I am being made to work harder for it.

The number of punters who are addicted to gambling and who are prepared to accept losing for the enjoyment and pleasure of having an interest in an event is not infinite. And the BM's have proven to be adept at hanging on to them.I think that in mature markets, like UK horse racing, further growth for BF is limited. It certainly doesn't correlate with the growth ratings given to their share price.