how did you raise your bank?

In fairness Jimmy, most people on here only see things from their own perspective hence their own agenda.  Its horses for course and I think  Aye Robot thinks that what affects him affects others.  As frames has alluded to this is not necessarily the case. More then one way to skin a cat, and I personally have no problem with Betfair

Evolution , sometimes good  - sometimes bad

aye robot - correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds as though you've been successful in the past from taking advantage of rapid price movements that have over-reacted during in-running contests and have managed to do so via your bots before the market has had time to adjust.

E.g if Price A shortens by x% then price B will lengthen by x% etc so get in before anyone notices.

If I'm more or less in the right ball park, surely you must have known that Betfair would clamp down on people like yourself at some point and end up taking the share for themselves?

This post isn't meant to be a dig, it just appears that your edge has been based on being technically more efficient than those running the site.

Don't know why folk feel the need to use technology to get one over on fellow players , bots ,fast pics etc

Betfair did the right thing back then with x matching , if you can't use your brain to make a crust on here using manual methods then try something else for a living [;)]

[smiley:crazy]this conversation (on my thread) is a totall mystery to 99% of the british population. what happened to traditional straight betting on whether something will win lose or draw.

Why are you still here then The Management? I don't really understand that at all.

it's my thread, i want him here

I no more work for them than the Man in the Moon does. I think you are after a perfect life...something which doesn't exist my friend

Bottom line the Mgt. is that what I do, and hopefully you also I think, on here from a money making perspective would get me banned permanently from all other traditional bookies in the world.
So I am eternally grateful for the founders of BF coming up with and developing their tremendous alternative to my having nothing to show from my successful gambling skills.
Btw I'm still hoping to learn why cross matching is detrimental to my financial health.

and what is it you DO frog man?

Frog works for Betfair...don't we all

I gamble manually in the old fashioned way on the result of whatever sporting event I'm looking at, before the event starts and never during it.
Revealing eh ?

I'm unemployable Jimmy with the gaps in my cv. Like having not had a job now for over 25 years.

And I'm not that old either.

now there's a breathe of fresh air. if true. gambling we all know and love.

so why wud that get u banned?

..bugger...that's 4 more than me

I do exactly the same as you Froggy...rarely bet in play.

and what have you done instead for 25 years?

Paulol
Why do you think?
Because bookies love losing money to their customers ?

You'll never catch me then Jimmy.

hmm ive won money and never been banned!?

Yeah but you've given it back to them the next day and more.
They love your type.

ok so what have u done for 25 years? claimed benefit of tony blair?

Nope.
Never claimed a benefit of any type any where any time.

I robbed one.

Now you're talking.

I think the post that marky sparky posted earlier is a good assessment of those most " at risk " of BF copying their bot driven strategies and not leaving too much on the table due to technical inefficiencies.
I and most others are not in that league and are thus not over bothered by it.
But if I was I can understand how it might be quite annoying to say the least.

Right, I've been out enjoying myself and now I'm a little bit drunk but hopefully not too drunk to answer some of the questions on this thread. So here goes:

Investor, I took a holiday over the last couple of months... I kept betting whilst I was away but didn't post much, now I'm back in the thick of it though, fighting the bad fight.
I think you're completely right that most people don't notice the x-matcher because it only negatively impacts winners and they are a small group. The x-matcher is not like PC, you don't see a big chunk of money disappear every wednesday, instead it gets you bit by bit- a slightly worse price here, an unmatched bet there, but it all adds up to much, much more.

Marky Sparky,you're right that I make money by looking for over reactions in fast moving markets (that's no secret) although you're not right about the detail. That puts me right in the firing line for the X-matcher as it's job is to prevent the market from over-reacting and thereby showing value. This effects me more markedly than most, but it still effects everyone whether they realise it or not because it means that fewer value prices are available. The effect of the x-matcher is always to move prices closer to true value and that's bad for all winning players (but good for losing ones). Again - whether they know, understand or can quantify this is neither here nor there, it gets you whether you realise it or not. Even if you're winning, you're still not winning as much as you would be without it. Although it effects different players to different degrees it does effect all players who play in x-matched markets, even pre-off position takers don't get quite the price they would have done without it, the difference may seem extremely small but it adds up.

On complaining about Betfair - although I'm not delighted about the x-matcher I can well understand why they've done it, it must be making them an absolute killing and if I was them I would have done it ages ago. I don't like it, but it's fair enough. I've always been a defender of Betfair and I still am, but at a rough guess I'd say the x-matcher has cost me 40k of lost winning so far so you can understand why I'm not too chuffed about that.

On a related note - has anyone else noticed a marked decrease in PC winging threads since the introduction of the x-matcher? Personally I haven't paid a penny of PC since it came in and I have a feeling I'm not alone. For me this confirms what I've always said - the only thing worse than paying PC is NOT paying PC.

Robot:The effect of the x-matcher is always to move prices closer to true value and that's bad for all winning players (but good for losing ones)

Somebody said earlier that people only see things from their own perspective/experience, that's true.

I'm a winning player and I thrive on tight markets that offer true value, the more money on every tick the better, to the extent that I don't even bother with sparse markets. So maybe the XM will be good for me.

Trevh, tight margins are fine but you can't make money long term in true value markets. You might not want very illiquid markets but a slightly wider spread will always benefit a good player.

Management, there are two issues, one is the direct skimming, the other is the prices you miss out on.

A simple example illustrates both points, let's say two horses are looking good, two punters simultaneously offer to back each horse at 1.8. Under the old algorithm layers would be able to match either or both of these prices, and at least one of them would get a value price. With the X matcher turned on both backers get matched at 2 (in theory) and the layers get left out in the cold. So the layers miss out on a good bet whilst the backers get a form of "best execution" that gets them a better price than they asked for - although still less than true value. The real magic happens when a third horse wins the race (this happens all the time). In this case Betfair collect both backers' stakes without having to pay out to any layers. This is the skimming.

Another example has just one horse looking good, the backers go into panic "overide" betting. Under the old system they would push the price right in to a lay value level, all sorts of players would pile in to take it and at the same time the less efficient bots would push other runners out to back value prices - opportunities galore. Under the new system the price is simply never pushed in, Betfair just matches one set of mug backers against another and the opportunity to strike value best simply never arises. This is why people don't see the effect of the cross matcher, it doesn't directly take your money, it just removes the chances that you would otherwise have had to make money. This operates to a greater or lesser degree on all x-matched markets.

tight margins are fine but you can't make money long term in true value markets.

I disagree. You're only looking at one type of value, namely the odds.

It's called 'best execution' because it's the best you could get betting on a selection if you pretend that you can only bet on it directly. So in a two runner market it conveniently ignores the fact that instead of backing your selection at 1.47, you could be laying the inverse at 3.1.

Trevh,

When I use the term "value" I'm using it as short hand for "positive expected value" and I'm using it in the strict mathematical sense - that is to describe the relationship between the true probability of the outcome you're betting on and the odds at which you're betting. There is only one "type of value" - and that's it. When I use the term "true value" I mean "zero value" - ie exactly as many of your bets will win as the odds would lead you to expect.

Whether you concern yourself explicitly with "looking for value" or not changes nothing, you can ONLY win by striking value bets. This is obvious when you think about it in retrospect, for an example imagine that you've struck a large number of bets at 2. If these bets are true value then half of them will win, that means your bets break even which makes you a loser due to comm. If more than half of them win then you win - so either you got lucky or you found some value. Extrapolate this and it should be clear that ANY large series of bets that shows a profit must either show overall value or be very lucky to get some good variance. We're not interested in luck because we want to win long term, so let's hope you found some value.

All winners look for value, to illustrate this let's take an example of someone who might think he's winning without looking for value (he's wrong) - imagine a bot that could magically get every bet you strike matched immediately provided you ask for the same odds as are at the front of the queue. All you would need to do is continuously lay at the back price, back at the lay price and get on the phone to the yacht builders. So does this bettor need to bet at value? Yes - he does, and he is. Think of it like this:

When you have two prices (back and lay) there are two possibilities regarding how those prices relate to true value:

1: True value is in-between, both prices show small positive value.

2: One price is on the money true value, the other shows positive value.

By definition at least one price MUST be value, by matching both he makes sure he gets it.

So why don't you just code up the above bot and book your flight to the Maldives? It won't work - that's why. This is because there is an inverse relationship between the value of a bet and it's likelihood of getting matched. This is obvious when you think about extreme examples - if the true probability of an outcome is 0.5 (odds of 2) then I'm very unlikely to be matched if I try to back at 4 and certain to be matched if I try to back at 1.5. The same mechanism works at every scale, right down to single tick increments. I am more likely to be matched at 2 than at 2.02 - in other words, the better the price you ask for the less likely you are to get it (obvious). This is true even without the x-matcher, but the x-matcher strengthens this effect by moving the price closer to true value, closing the spread and making the poor value side of a bet even more likely to match than the good value side.

Incidentally, getting bets matched is almost the whole art of Betfair, defining and spotting value prices is easy, it's knowing which ones you'll be able to match and how to do it that's tricky

Just to make sure the core point is totally rammed home I'm going to use one more example - the "bet angel" style trader who trades off small swings in prices aiming to back and then lay shortly afterwards (or the other way round). Again this person might think he's not interested in value - and again, he's wrong. Overall market forces will always tend to move prices towards true value, this is not to say that they never move them the wrong way, but that they will much more often move them the right way. A manual trader makes his money by predicting which way prices are likely to move usually using market information, however for a market to move it must usually start by being out of line. Overall markets move because they are trending towards true value, so to get movements you have to start with value prices.

The art of the trader is to open his trade at the right moment when the market is about to move, since the market will generally move towards value this means that more often than not he must open his trades at value prices. He may look for clues to value in market information such as weight of money - but ultimately it's still value that he's looking for. If these markets are stabilised and kept close to true value from the beginning there is reduced opportunity for the trader to play his game. 

So, to sum up:
All long term winners strike value bets, like it or not, know it or not. This includes traders, bracketers and everyone else.
The x-matcher makes your value bets less likely to match and your bad bets more likely to match.
This is bad if you like money.

Hopefully that's fairly comprehensive because I don't really want to get drawn into (another) long discussion about this.

Investor: If it was truly best execution then the two backers in my example above would both be given half of their stake as a back at 1.8 and half as a lay on the other horse (also at 1.8). What's most annoying about the x-matcher is that it matches your back as a lay but doesn't pay you as one.

BF is an exchange that wants the profit margins of a bookmaker.

you can ONLY win by striking value bets.

Sorry, but this is completely false.

And anyway assumes sports matches are probalistic events which they are not.

Betting markets are merely the perceived probability of each side winning. There is no real probability. Sports matches are one time binary events.

Once you understand that you are dealing with the perceived probability, rather than the real probability (which doesn't exist) then you are on your way to making money on BF.

Froggie the Fisher, are you listening.

Trevh, tight margins are fine but you can't make money long term in true value markets.  What a load of ****!

You lose me Robot when you throw off casual phrases like " defining and spotting value prices is easy ".
It's not.
Nobody disagrees, or at least they shouldn't, with the essence of your last post, which is that long term winning at gambling is all about beating the odds you're wagering at by a large enough margin to cover commission and other transaction costs.
That's not even debatable or interesting. It's a boring fact.
However, how to go about beating the odds isan interesting and debatable subject.
Only if and when people ( like you) dare to reveal small snippets of their techniques do things become intriguing  and fascinating on here.
That's what most of us really are looking to find out from you, given your apparent record of large success.

pxb
I'm always listening in hope if not in expectation.

Froggie, you recall a system I had that I told you had a 90% hit rate a couple of months ago.

Well since then it has had a perfect 100% hit rate over 50+ matches. Although I was somewhat lucky, in that a big losing match was voided.

rather than the real probability (which doesn't exist)

It's pretty hard to answer a statement like that.

There is a point where you just have to give up.

FAFH - I just mean that at any given moment it's pretty easy to say "I would have a value bet if I could match x price" - the tricky part is getting it matched. The simplest example is given above:

I would have at least one value price if I could simply match a back at the best lay price and a lay at the back price - but in reality the good value price is always less likely to match than the bad one and that's the problem.

Another example would be to say "I would match a lot of good value prices if I were always first in the 1.01 lay line" - again, easy to spot, hard to execute.

It's quite easy to see any number of strategies that would work if you could get the bets matched. That's all I meant.

pxb
You're a genius, no doubt about it.
We're lucky to have you on here.
One day I'm sure if you try hard enough you'll even get a 101% hit rate.

As far as snippets of strategy go I'm afraid you're never going to get much from me - it's just not in my interest. I don't mind explaining the fundamentals of gambling (seemingly to little avail) and I'm happy to explain the basic mechanisms of Betfair as well as how you go about developing strategies but I'm not going to give anyone clues about how to compete directly with me. Why would I?

I'm sure I've told you before that I basically just look for betting patterns that are characteristic of market panic and over-reaction and then gush a lot of money in to bridge the gap between a panic price and something closer to a likely true price. It's all just variations on that.

I totally understand that robot.
All I said was that's really only when anything on here becomes really interesting.
As such most things posted on here by all and sundry are not revealing and thus not really interesting.
For a lot of us, it's just a harmless way of passing time between events.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Easy to get matched at value ~

You have priced X at 2.5, you place a bet at BSP for your amount and set the limit to 2.50, then place a lay at max 2.5 for liability of x amount.
Not to often will the price be exactly 2.50 (BSP) if it is less than 2.5 you have been matched for the lay at value, if BSP is 2.5 or over you have
been matched at value for the bet.

it's funny i agree and see exactly what aye robot means but i also agree with pxb statement

the XM certainly protects the loser at the expense of the long term winner which from the Betfair perspective has every business sense, now having said that, i've also been finding much less value in the goals markets than i used to, it's been getting harder and it has everything to do with what aye robot just wrote, of that im sure. So its pretty easy to understand that someone that is using an automated approach to betting can find it even more difficult

but my approach to betting is based much more on what pxb wrote...

Betting markets are merely the perceived probability of each side winning

Once you understand that you are dealing with the perceived probability, rather than the real probability (which doesn't exist)...


...so the XM just squeezes those margins of inefficiency both in the form of the price itself as in the movement pattern and thats why i've been finding it a little bit harder

That's true enough.

I'm glad you get the basic mechanisms of probability and gambling, it amazes me how many people don't. I suppose if they did they wouldn't bet though so perhaps it's better that way.

^ referring to FAFH

Wouldn't it be nice to know if you've had bets match by Aye Robot?

The real point about value is that it is intrinsic to all we do when betting on BF or elsewhere.
If you win, you are beating the odds, and thus you must be getting value somehow.
That line of reasoning/logic is unarguable.
However, the interesting thing is that not all of us select our wagers in the same manner.
For eaxmple my search criteria do not contain any value assessments at all.
Whatever value I am getting, and I must be getting it if I'm winning, is derived indirectly from my other primary selection criteria.
I am not a value driven bettor. Others are.
But that is not to say that any one way is right to the exclusion of all others.
Value has to be obtained, but how is up to the individual.
That difference is, after all, why markets exist at all.

Jimmy
I know I haven't because I never bet on the geegees.

Jimmy - if you bet in running on the GGs then I've almost certainly matched some of your bets. It'd be more interesting to know who won! I'm sure there will be players who have taken good chunks of my money when I get it wrong.

Luckily you haven't taken any of mine either Aye as I don't bet in running.

Good for you mate. It's a mugs game.

This value thing is a load of nonsense really. I see tennis markets every week where the result is known beforehand.

agree FAFH

but i know i've got value (or feel it, if you wish) when i'm seeing the event and seeing the prices, sometimes they are totally wrong regarding whats really happening and i know why they are like that and obviously i act on it

jimmy69
When: 04 Feb 11 12:16
Luckily you haven't taken any of mine either Aye as I don't bet in running.Laugh

aye robot
When: 04 Feb 11 12:17
Good for you mate. It's a mugs game.


^^thats a mug statement aye robot ^^

surely in-running has much more sense in some sports than others, or are you saying that there isn't a single winner that just bets in-running?

I think it was tongue in cheek[:p]

It's a joke mate. I'm a full on IR specialist.

ok i must take control of my thread.

what is FAFH?

this thread is for bettors to share how they raised there bank. essentially how much they are worth and how they earned there crust... jobs? lottery? betting? investment? inheritance?

*their, not there. my bad!!

Paulol - now that you have confirmed that you are a uni student. Why are you on BF and how did you obtain your bank amount (you have said previously it is zero) but I am sure you have a little bit in there ....

When starting a thread - it is probably a good idea to perhaps answer the topic question by relating it to your own circumstances which may entice others to open up a bit more to you ....

Student grants...or do they not have those any more?

no i left uni years ago.

ok my bank is 1p (i have bets pending) but i have money saved up from working in a.. i think it's called a.. job.

Paulol i'm sorry to say but you control nothing, threads have a life of their own

FAFH = Fine As Frog Hair

don't be like that Management. we're friends are we not? i have alot of respect for you. don't spoil it :):):)

I liked it though Mgt.
So spot on it hurts.

pxb
Date Joined: 07 Jun 10
Add contact | Send message
When: 04 Feb 11 10:20
BF is an exchange that wants the profit margins of a bookmaker.


That's key. They need to focus on remaining a low cost bookie, rather than scaling up their costs as much as they can get away with. If Betfair hadn't started changing their pricing structure, I would be striking 100% of my bets here. It's now dipped below 90% and will continue to decline in line with future price increases. I'm sure they make more money from me than they would under the old structure, but this is at the expense of pushing business to their competitors, which can't be a good thing.

Regading the above, I don't really want to go into a debate about it, as this has been done to death, and hasn't really been fruitful

Betfair is best price more often than any other bookie (I both take these good price and also offer prices that are often better than any other bookie). However, bookies like pinny are a very serious competitor for match odds markets.

One thing I would like to hear opinions about though, is two specific elements of the charges which I don't really understand (especially the second):

1) No commission points for PC. This means that if you have a £100 PC bill, you would be better of giving betfair a voluntary commission payment of £100 to get your points. Some PC users (like me) will feel incentivised to trade at GP breakeven to get points (if this is very easy and not time consuming, and doesn't require cash used better elsewhere). Perhaps this is good for Betfair, as it squeezes margins. It certainly isn't good for any other winners who think the PC is a good thing though.

2) data request charges offset by a multiple of commission generated. It literally makes sense to place a bunch of random bets on a day where you hit data request charge territory, as the commission paid is much smaller than data request charges would be. This obviously encourages inefficient behaviour. In this case, I'm pretty sure it's bad for Betfair, unless enough people with DR charges don't bother to do this.

Having said that, I won't suggest any changes to the charging structure with Betfair, as they will (quite rightly) only adopt them if a change benefits them, which will normally mean it does not benefit me.

pxb, when you say the real probability doesn't exist, does that mean you hold a deterministic view? Meaning a super intelligent being with acces to all information would be able to predict with probabilities 1 and 0 who will win a two runner race?

Thanks for the reply aye robot - I hadn't fully taken into acoount prices that I miss out on and never actually get to see.

Robot: tight margins are fine but you can't make money long term in true value markets.

Trevh: I disagree. You're only looking at one type of value, namely the odds.

Robot: When I use the term "value" I'm using it as short hand for "positive expected value" and I'm using it in the strict mathematical sense - that is to describe the relationship between the true probability of the outcome you're betting on and the odds at which you're betting. There is only one "type of value" - and that's it. When I use the term "true value" I mean "zero value" - ie exactly as many of your bets will win as the odds would lead you to expect. [snip]
So, to sum up:
All long term winners strike value bets, like it or not, know it or not. This includes traders, bracketers and everyone else.

I still disagree. I mentioned that you're only looking at one type of value, the other type is 'time', not often mentioned around here.

For example, the true price of a 0-0 is 10.0, if you back it at 10.5 you have the value, the only value there is in your opinion.

Yet I could lay that 0-0 at 10.0, the true value, knowing that in certain conditions other layers will hold the price at 10.0 for 5 minutes after kick off, when the true value may or may not still be 10.0 depending on match activity, then I can back it back at 10.0 having had 5 minutes exposure to a goal for free. That value would still be there even if the odds were poor value for me to lay and had drifted to 11.0 pre kick off.

I have just laid in a "true value market" or even a poor value one, and used a different value, called time. This also contradicts what you were saying about tight spreads being bad for profit.

Time is not a "type of value." Time is time - that's why it's called "time."

What you're describing is striking a true or poor value bet in the hope that you position will gain value with the passage of time - which (as you said) it might, or it might not.

If you really think you can win without hitting value I challenge you to post a series of results (fictional is fine) in which the prices matched show true value but a profit is made. Any mix of backs and lays that you like - and with any "time" or other "type of value" that you fancy. In other words show me a series of results in which half of all bets matched at 2 win, 1/3 at 3 and so on - which turns a profit. Your stake must always be 100/odds. If you plan to succeed at this cancel everything you've got planned for the rest of your life.

That's just tit for tat. I could say odds are odds - that's why they're called "odds".

I'm not hoping the bet at 10.0 will gain value, it could still be true or poor value 5 minutes after kick off.

I decline your challenge (unsuprisingly) but I do know of bets that show a profit after commission when backing as you suggest, consistently. That's not to say that they pay a profit without hitting value, just that the MMB in that market is slightly too generous.

Trev is right here. There are a whole set of circumstances where the market acts irrationally but in a predictable way. This is exploitable even when a bet struck is poor value.

Are you kidding Bayes? Occasionally you can strike it lucky and win with 2 bad value bets, and of course you can open a position at poor value and close later at value in the same way that you can open at good value and close at poor to reduce variance but by definition a series of results that shows a profit MUST have shown overall value - unless it's a small series that may have got lucky on. The bottom line is that if your results don't show more wins that the odds would imply then you have lost. There are no exceptions to this.

If you place 100 back bets at 2 with level stakes you must win more than 50 to make a profit. I can't think of a simpler example than that. Anyone who can show a profit with 50 wins or fewer gets a Nobel prize.

They're both right.
Robot because what he says is irrefutable.
Trevh because he's actually getting value in the sense that he has found a certain bet where the odds should move against him on a time deacy basis but they don't.

He may not have cared whether his bet was value or not - but he was still striking value bets. Let's take his own example:


Imagine that Every football match starts with 0-0 at 10, and that it often remains at 10 for the first five minutes unless a goal is scored. Obviously this isn't reality but it illustrates the point.

If in sufficient matches goals are scored in the first five minutes to off-set those times in which the price moved against him then at least one of the following must be true:

1: More goals were scored than were expected (or implied by the odds), this means the opening bets must have shown value.

2: (this is the more likely explanation) Prices were held up when they should have decayed - Ie prices really should have dropped below 10 after play commenced if only because the end of the match was now a bit closer. This means that his closing back bets have shown value.

A combination of the above is also possible of course - but overall if I were shown a profitable set of results using this strategy i'd go for reason two as the more likely explanation.

In this case I can understand why people find it difficult to see where the value is because every time he struck a value bet his profit for the match came up as zero - but the point is that if he hadn't been able to strike those bets he would have made a loss on the vast majority of matches and that loss would have wiped out his profit. Although on the face of it it looks like he's making his profit from the successful lays a better explanation is that his profit comes from the "non loss" he made by washing his face with value back bets.

FAFH's explanation is shorter than mine- but absolutely right.

Ok - let me put it another way - assume he followed this strategy over a large series of matches and made a profit.

If all of his bets were true value then his wins from when early goals were scored would have been wiped out by the losses he made in the matches where there was no early goal and the price moved against him in the first five minutes (which is what you would usually expect it to do).

The reason that his wins from early goals weren't wiped out was that he was able to strike value back bets after five minutes to prevent these losses. Therefore his profit is not really explained by his wins on the early goals, it's explained by the un-expected break evens that he was able to make by striking value back bets when no goals were scored.

I would be surprised if that betting opportunity now still exists, after it's exposure on here.
Anybody checked it out in the last few days ?

where is zipper today management?

Floating face down in the canal would be my guess. Copy of the racing post shoved down his throat and "I'll show you all in" scrawled across his chest.

Just in case I haven't put cheese on top of my explanation of why Trevh IS betting at value - here's one final way of looking at it, we'll stay with his strategy but to make the maths easier and to show the point more clealy let's assume that 0-0 always goes off at 2.

Say Trevh bets in 110 matches. In 10 of them a goal is scored immediately, in all of the remaining 100 he manages to wash his face by backing at 2 after 5 minutes.

That means he's struck 110 lay bets at 2, and 100 back bets, also at 2.

To show that me must have hit value lets take each set of bets separately and show what happens if they are not value:

1: If all opening bets are true value - that means that out of his total 110 lay bets 55 must have won (for the layer). Well we know that 10 lays won without backs being placed against them, so out of the remaining 100 bets only 45 more can have won- therefore 55 back bets must have won. He only placed 100 back bets, and if those were true value 50 should have won. Therefore if his lay bets show zero value his closing back bets MUST have shown value.

2: let's assume all of his back bets were true value, we know that he placed 100 back bets at 2, and since they were true value 50 must have won. He also placed 110 lay bets, 10 won without a back being placed and of the other 100 matches only 50 back bets won, so 50 more lay bets must have won there. That means that out of 110 lay bets placed 60 won in total when the odds would imply only 55 should have won - so his opening lay bets MUST have shown value.

Q.E.D.

In any case I don't think the betting opportunity is even there, at least not to any consistent degree.
The few times I have looked at this 0-0 mkt, there is certainly a material time decay in the odds in the first 5-10 minutes, particularly if you take into account the bet/lay spread.
This decay is( no suprise) virtually the same as arbitraging this mkt. with the first goal mkt for 0-10 mins.

One of the ways I work out new strategies it to assume true value, work out the implications of that and then try to disprove that this is what actually happens. In other words construct a true value model and then compare it to reality - any discrepancies between the model and the reality suggest value. If I were looking at this strategy (which I'm not) I'd be trying to quantify how the odds of 0-0 should decay and then seeing if they were systematically more stable than might be expected. Frankly though - I'd be surprised if that were the case as it would have to mean that either 0-0 was systematically going off at value (probably being under-backed) or that people weren't amending their assessments of CS outcomes during the 1st 5 minutes of a match, which I also think is unlikely. After all, if 0-0 remains static in the market then usually so must all other correct scores. it's even possible that both of these things are true, but I doubt that even more. I could be wrong though - I haven't really looked into it.

If I were Trevh and I had a long set of results which showed a profit I'd be drilling into those results to see exactly where the value was coming from because I might want to look at ditching the bad bets.

Too much cheese Aye Robot!

Neither the opening lay bet nor the closing back bet has to be value.

If the opening lay is true value, and the match has frenetic activity from the off, shots on target, corners, then the closing back price may still be true value or even poor value.

Frog, the method will always be there, it's not going to disappear because of what I've said. Even you had a look today and have dismissed it already. Of course it doesn't exist on many matches though.

On a similar point, some of the obscure in-play matches that BF have introduced are throwing up some interesting odds. One this afternoon had a few trades pre KO on the 0-0 around 14.0 to 16.0, then straight after kick off a layer put up 29.0, then 28 etc.  The match was still goalless in the 85th minute. Seen a few layers like that lately.

Trevh - you can fluke a single event without hitting value but a large set of results can only show a profit by showing value. As before I invite you to give any example of how this can be false - there is none.

I agree with that, but my opinion is that there is not "only one type of value", hence the debate that followed. Off out now, back later.

i worked as a rent boy to build my bankroll

i walk with a slight limp now but at leat I'm quids in

Back.

In your example of 17.47 above, you have already decided that value exists and have merely carried on to demonstrate that value.

I believe there's sometimes a difference between the world of theory and the real world we live in, hence my post above about frenetic first 5 minute activity sometimes holding the price at true value and denying the natural decay. I accept this may not be visible to someone who occupies a world of theory alone.

Trevh
Can you get set on these opportunitues at the usual buy/sell spreads that exist in these secondary mkts.?

If the true price is 1.069 but the market is going 1.07 1.08 and I know I can get both sides then I will do so. You may argue that I should ditch the 1.07 lay but in this case I make more money (with less variance) by executing the bad value side too.

Bayes,

That isn't inconsistent with what Aye robot was saying. His point is that on average, you have to be striking value bets.

In your example of 17.47 above, you have already decided that value exists and have merely carried on to demonstrate that value.

That's not right Trevh. What I did was demonstrate that if one set of bets was NOT value the other MUST be. I stopped at two cases because I thought that demonstrated the whole set, but to complete it let's continue and examine the only two other possibilities:

1: Neither set of bets is value; This is not possible for the following reason - 110 lays were struck, if these were true vale 55 would have won (even fewer if they were worse than true value), of the 100 back bets 50 (or fewer) would have won. That gives us 105 results - therefore this is not a valid solution because we have 5 matches in which neither the back nor the lay won.

2: Both sets of bets are value, this is possible and a good solution- it's the one you would hope for. Say for example 53 backs won and 57 lays won. That would show value on both sides.

Whichever way you cut it there is simply no way of showing a profit without showing overall value. None.

Bayes - Contrarian is right, I never said that all bets must be value, only that to win you must strike value bets. I'm certain that you understand that and I feel I've set it out quite comprehensively above.

I believe there's sometimes a difference between the world of theory and the real world we live in

In this much you are right, and I could hardly be accused of living "in the world of theory" given that I strike thousands of bets every day. The theory is used to look for points at which the reality of markets diverges from that theory and is therefore likely to show value.

holding the price at true value and denying the natural decay

This is where you're going wrong, if the price decays as you would expect then it continues to show true value, if however the price doesn't decay when it should then it starts to show positive value - which we call "value" for short. I'm not arguing that you're not striking good bets with this strategy (I have no idea whether you are or not because it's value benot my thing) - I'm just showing that if you're winning using it then it's because you're identifying ts.

Sorry - I mean:

holding the price at true value and denying the natural decay

This is where you're going wrong, if the price decays as you would expect then it continues to show true value, if however the price doesn't decay when it should then it starts to show positive value - which we call "value" for short. I'm not arguing that you're not striking good bets with this strategy (I have no idea whether you are or not because it's not my thing) - I'm just showing that if you're winning using it then it's because you're identifying value bets.

Cursor gone wrong there.....

...if however the price doesn't decay when it should then it starts to show positive value - which we call "value" for short.

This is where you're going wrong Robot.

Did you not read my posts above concerning match activity? You're making the theorist's mistake of thinking that a 0-0 always has to decay as soon as the clock starts ticking - not true in reality. If the price correctly stands still, my value is time. We may as well stop there though because we'll never see eye to eye. :)

Jeez...what's all with this nonsense stuff.

Are you wasting time value Trevh by even debating this point with Robot ?
I think you're both right btw.
Time definiely has a value and you've found it in a exploitable manner, which also fits Robot's point.