where do you find maths/computer grads?

you want to find skilled, dissapointed applicants?

Do you still have contact with the previous bunch Magician, not the same i know, Biggsy (i think) and a couple of others?

What you more need is perhaps some of the types that formed the MIT gang that raided the BJ tables in Vegas.
Rebels and misfitseven before they have graduated.
Look more for someone who is not likely to graduate and thus not be drawn inexorably into the City perhaps ?

quick observations Magician -

c++ is not a skillset widely taught at schools or Unis any more, and anyone good at this can command frankly ludicrous salaries, bonuses and contract rates in the financial world (since there is still a big legacy c++ codebase that nobody enjoys maintaining)

similar issue with the London base - frankly a good c++ programmer in London will not want for work any time soon

and similar issue with your 'high frequency' skillset demand - direct competition with finance, who will pay silly money for people good at this

also your assumption that work in the city starts with a 6am tube to Bank... techies are rarely demanded to put in those kind of hours, unless they are working directly on a trading desk

and if you are looking for good maths as will as good tech, you are narrowing the field even further. there is a decent candidate base of people strong and maths and OK at tech, or strong at tech and OK at maths. people who are strong at maths and tech (ie could genuinely work in either area as a professional) will, again, not want for work any time soon

And in case you don't know Magician, subversion is quite modestly not pointing out that he is a retired ex-quant.
So he does know a few things about all this.

how did you first get a job in the City subversion?

first City job? that seems such a long time ago now. my background was engineering and tech, so had the maths/tech background they were looking for. started out in non-business roles, studied the financial maths on the job. worked my way closer and closer to the trading floor, until i was as close to the chaos as i wanted to get.

pretty common story really... an engineer disheartened by the lack of good engineering jobs in the UK, lured by the City.

Sub
Did you suddenly find yourself shouting obscenities too much too often ?

i probably agree with most of what has been said about how (perceived!) better offers will be available to a lot your targets

have you thought about some alternatives?
1 - employ students part time / in holidays?
2 - find gambling enthusiast student / new grad?  the one thing that you offer to this kind of candidate is access to capital

Probably the best bet would be someone who has retired relatively early from the City, wealth in hand, and looking for a new challenge.
Magician could give him an entree at a pretty advanced level into an apparently proven successful gambling environment.
He/she wouldn't have to dick around learning the ropes from the ground up.

Buzzer

no not really... assume a few of them are still betting here.

Micky Biggs, called me perhaps a year ago for a catch-up (but it might have been longer ago time flies)

Subversion.

I have current robots in C++. .net LISP ruby and VBA but in choosing C++/.net as the target going forward (I was informed) opened the widest number of candidates (by a very knowledgeable HFreq city trader) would you not agree that is the best or even a good laungague to base my future robots?

I only retired from the city myself 7 months ago... so am well aware of what is on offer there... and sure I can offer more than comparable financial rewards.  granted the lifestyle is different and is the career path, but they both may suit some people.

city probably use c++ because its fast and they are looking for ultra low latency. titting about with the kernal etc

might be limited extra benefit for betting depends what your apps use. Engineers probably are more familiar with c or c++ these days than comp sci students who woyld imagine would be mostly OO

Bredanuk1

every ms counts

Magician - I think the advice you've been given is a little oversimplified.

just to give you a bit more about my background (so you can better judge whether I'm full of sh!t or not), towards the end of my career (as I got more senior) I spent quite a lot of time in 'strategic graduate recruitment' roles for the whole 'analytics' based skillset - ie quants, quant developers, and front-office tech, and finding pools of graduate talent to convert into these roles. by 'strategic' it basically meant scouring the various business regions, and has led me to take part in recruiting trips from Oxbridge, to top European Unis, to Indian IITs and mainland Chinese Unis, and even west-coast USA institutions such as CalTech, UC Berkeley and Stanford (just try convincing wannabe future google-founder type Comp Sci grads that they'd rather work in finance!)

its true that quants and HFT in the city still heavily use C++, and in fact there is a lot of C++ used in the city fullstop (although an awful lot of this is now legacy, ie new projects are using C++ less and less).

but this is the slightly perverse thing about your ad. areas such as graduate 'quant' courses will often teach C++, and low-level programming areas like electronic engineering may still teach C/C++ since its 'closer to the metal'. but C++ teaching in Comp Sci has been in decline for years, and your ad is specifically asking for a Comp Sci-esque degree.

because of this reduction in C++ teaching at Uni level, someone with good C++ definitely can demand a 'premium' in the jobs market compared to other languages (i often ended up looking for raw intellect in the graduate candidates to work for me, and training them in C++ myself)

in addition, although C++ is still the 'language of choice' for certain tasks, in others it is overkill.

in short be careful of taking techie advice from techies. in my experience, many of them are too keen to relate problems to their own skillsets (if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail), and haven't had to actually figure out how to solve problems at a business level, such as how to actually build and retain teams with certain skillsets etc

anyway, maybe we should continue this discussion offline? I don't really want to clutter up the forum with too much techie jargon.

subversion

Happy to take this offline... but this is also a slightly techie forum.

I am less worried about the degree than the skill set - and perhaps in future versions that will be made more clear.

to be honest, C++ makes sense as that probably allows the person to dovetail into my existing programmers and robots the most efficient way ( though I am also aware that some programmers say dovetailing into existing code is harder that rewriting it from scratch)

is short i need in order of importance.

excellent programmer for ms accurate API interaction with BF
database management of bet history etc
stats/analysis of bet history
modelling

so if you have a good idea of what graduate course i should target - I can look.

if you want to chat... and I would like too, contact me at the email on the bottom of this link

https://sites.google.com/site/betfairdata/home

In reading this thread, I fear for the world of gambling ( or my world to be more specific) if, to be successful, you need anything remotely like the skillsets, in part or whole, being described/discussed on here.
I suppose one can still hang onto the encouraging fact that apparently although Warren Buffet still has trouble using his office answer phone equipment, he can still apparently manage an operation that makes money head to head against all the quants and traders and hedgies on Wall St.
But maybe even his days are numbered ?

Incidentally from some books I've read it's more a case of the investment bankers looking in the gambling arenas for talent rather than vice versa.
I hear many an investment bank has used bridge and poker playing skills as good indicators for recruiting purposes.

To sub, my last post.

magician, glad to hear you've jacked the city and are now attempting to go straight. Have you thought about learning programming yourself? Why don't you get yourself a tutor instead?

In reading this thread, I fear for the world of gambling ( or my world to be more specific) if, to be successful, you need anything remotely like the skillsets, in part or whole, being described/discussed on here.

This highlights betfair's stupidity FAFH. The information available through betfair's API encourages parasitic behaviour and has created a glut of "professional gamblers" who generally supply nothing in the way of real liquidity and know nothing about the sport they're "betting" on. It took betfair 8 or 9 years to realise this but their solution to the problem is as imbecilic as their creation of it.

You don't need those skillsets to be a successful gambler but the betfair platform opens up opportunities for programmers and mathematicians to carve out new niches the vast majority of which, I would wager, have a beneficial impact on the platform as a whole.

FAFH - tbh, I've never been involved with hiring traders directly (mainly wannabe traders, ie dangling the carrot of a possible future trading job after they've put in the hard time in non-trading roles)... but more generally, nearly all revenue generation in financial markets, online gambling, and 'traditional gambling', involve the ability to extract value from systems or games in various ways. so yes the skillsets overlap and are used in recruiting.

Getafix
Tax implications seem pretty clear, if he joins you as a risk partner it is a syndicate and gambling is tax free.
If he joins you as an employee he is a service provider separate from your betting, and your betting remains tax free
Needs to be document and structured but seems pretty simple.


Seems to me that definitions of what is a "business" are somewhat outdated and in need of revision. Must say that I have sympathy for the argument thatsome  players of betting exchanges are avoiding the payment of "levy" even though they are benefitting from the product provided by others.My feeling is that spohisticated operators like The Magician (good bloke he undoubtedly is)are nothing other than "takers" just like BF themselves but whose benefit to others is somewhat less well-defined. The argument that large sums may be put up as "opinion" plays might be put forward as the case for the defence, I guess.Nevertheless, I am left feeling that the existance of such skilled operators must be seriously off-putting to many less sophisticated players who will feel that the cards are stacked against them. In the meantime, the only way forward for those of us who are not "techies" is to continue to find areas of knowledge which cannot be found in data-bases and which can be used to beat the market.

The difficulty of the task of beating the market, was nicely illustrated in the BBC prog "The Code" in which 160 people were asked to estimate the number of jelly beans in a jar. Nobody got the anser right but the average of all the widely differing estimates came to only 5 more than the actual number which was something like 4510 if I recall proving how accurate the market can be.To succeed, you must know something important that the market doesn't (yet) know. This particular forum is largely dominated by automated players and i wonder how the share of of winning players is split between types of operator. Anyone like to price up the runners?

Feck/cat - re. API-based trading etc... as usual the truth lies somewhere in between.

up to a point, increased liquidity in financial markets via electronic trading has indeed led to smaller spreads, and thus better prices as well as much faster execution for investors.

however, beyond a certain point... things change. the speed of trading (millisecond speeds and faster) drove a lot of traditional market makers out of the markets, and now the vast majority is driven by algorithms. we now have a new phenomenon - the 'flash crash'. a spectacular one happened on May 2010 in the Dow Jones. what good is liquidity if it can all disappear in milliseconds?

i can't be bothered to write too much on this subject, but there are other problems too. google '2010 flash crash', 'quote stuffing', 'subpennying' for starters. curiously enough, these phenomenon are quite similar to the things Feck often complains about.

Feck
While I have coded pretty complex VBA before, it was very hard work, not my skill set and not something I want to do or dedicate my time too.
I am much more a gambling man that realises what IT support I need to maximise winning, while minimising hours drip feeding bets into Betfair.

Sandown
I can understand the argument that some people on here are business like etc. But the law does not make people that are ‘diligent’ gamblers businesses or taxable.  It does not even make high frequency traders businesses or taxable. And I have now the legal advice of 3 exceptionally reputable law firms to clarify this. So to me it now seems black and white – thought in the past I was concerned.

Granted I am a taker... but I am pretty sure I take in a very symbiotic way for Betfair, as I provide massive amounts of liquidity, across  markets and products they need liquidity support in. What makes me symbiotic is a) I almost exclusively supply rather than take liquidity 2) I win at volatile yet low rates – as such Betfair obviously feel I am good for them as they Designed PC2 in a way that did not effect me

FAFH

The city initially recruited me for my Gambling record and entrepreneurial spirit in that area – but the reality is the city does not want entrepreneurs, and politics of the city largely stifle it...  there is little doubt that people than win on BF would win significantly more in the city, if they can overcome two hurdles. 1) Tolerating banking structures and politics – which most would not for the pay they receive there and 2) having the bank and capital to play the city game. (it requires mush more capital than playing Betfair)

I do hope in 2-3 years the ‘syndicate’ i am currently looking to build in gambling will win enough to turn some of our attention onto city projects, as those markets are infinity less efficient and sophisticated than Betfair. (granted Betfair is a Vanilla product)

Just a few points c++ for api programming is not really required as the speed benefits are effectively lost due to the speed of your internet connection which will always be inferior.  Therefore using say c#/vb.net is probably easier and quicker to develop.  Though server side calculations etc will be quicker in c++ if there is a need for database connection then going directly through the dbms i.e., tsql sprocs in sqlserver, would be quicker still (except memory intensive processes where it is quicker to "download" data into an app and process).  I try to avoid c++ where possible as its easier to create errors and slower to build solid applications... I know my comments are slightly off topic as I know you would like somebody who can dip into previous code but wanted to make this point if it'd help you widen your search?

Sandown, I agree there are probably few opinion players amongst us (I am one).  The problem is automation is becoming a necessity due to the platform betfair provides...bets have to be drip fed in to hide large bets from being copied.  The opinion players are being unfairly treated (imo - obviously biased lol) as they don't require massive resources from betfair (a check of bets status every minute or so is sufficient) and provide most "real" liquidity but this is another topic and has been discussed elsewhere...  The issue of the levy could be easily solved imo if the bha were to develop their own exclusive exchange but I would fear they would get it seriously wrong - I haven't given this any thought as may be obvious?...oops I keep digressing :S

Graduation is over-rated

The difficulty of the task of beating the market, was nicely illustrated in the BBC prog "The Code" in which 160 people were asked to estimate the number of jelly beans in a jar. Nobody got the anser right but the average of all the widely differing estimates came to only 5 more than the actual number which was something like 4510 if I recall proving how accurate the market can be.


Sandown,

If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Surowiecki's book "The Wisdom of Crowds":

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wisdom-Crowds-Many-Smarter-Than/dp/0349116059/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313150457&sr=1-1

about precisely this subject, and its relation to markets etc.

Contrarian

Thanks. I haven't read it so I'll check it out.

Yes, great book.

subversion
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Feck/cat - re. API-based trading etc... as usual the truth lies somewhere in between.

up to a point, increased liquidity in financial markets via electronic trading has indeed led to smaller spreads, and thus better prices as well as much faster execution for investors.

however, beyond a certain point... things change. the speed of trading (millisecond speeds and faster) drove a lot of traditional market makers out of the markets, and now the vast majority is driven by algorithms. we now have a new phenomenon - the 'flash crash'. a spectacular one happened on May 2010 in the Dow Jones. what good is liquidity if it can all disappear in milliseconds?

i can't be bothered to write too much on this subject, but there are other problems too. google '2010 flash crash', 'quote stuffing', 'subpennying' for starters. curiously enough, these phenomenon are quite similar to the things Feck often complains about.


I guess none of those risks exist in betting exchange trading though. Also uncorrelated markets, really are uncorrelated. They don't all start moving in lockstep in times of a 'crisis'.

You could say to paraphrase:

up to a point, increased liquidity in betting markets via automated trading has indeed led to smaller spreads, with no negative side effects for leisure punters (but negative side effects for winners displaced by bots).

www.wilmott.com

will ONLY place adds for LISTED companies...

subversion,
The good market makers still make the markets although they now do it after the bots have loaded the money in, how else does the market form accurately?  Probably the poor market makers can't compete but that's tough.

increased liquidity in betting markets via automated trading has indeed led to smaller spreads, with no negative side effects for leisure punters (but negative side effects for winners displaced by bots)

With the exception of odds aware bots and flies-round-sh1te shell and pea bots, I'd dispute the increased "liquidity". Also, wrt these bot providers of the famous "liquidity", if there's no negative side effects for leisure punters who do they make their money from?

I'd say the bots help to create tighter spreads, not just because they happen to be bots, but because the more winners there are competing with each other the tighter the spreads will be.

So leisure punters still lose, but they suffer no negative side effects as they were already losing anyway, and will probably lose less with tighter spreads.

Also, wrt these bot providers of the famous "liquidity", if there's no negative side effects for leisure punters who do they make their money from?

Spot on, Investor.

Almost by definition, the leisure punters are generally placing negative expectation bets (particularly once commission is factored in). The bots and traders help to keep this negative expectation to a minimal level. Much as you would like a reversion to 110% books, Feck, it's not going to happen.

Take a look at the "tight spreads" on horse racing on last5minutes.com and try pinning the tail on the donkey. I suppose these pendulum bots are just doing it out of their love of leisure punters?

Re: wilmott.com - there is a pretty active forum on there and I'm sure you could generate some interest.

My favourite difference between financial and gambling markets is that in finance it's true, as Keynes' says, that "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent". Whereas in the world of gambling that race/match/event will happen tomorrow and prove that you were right.

...except when the match was **** and everyone knew except you.

Magician - I think you're getting diverted from what you really want, which I believe is a statistician. It sounds like you know enough coding or could rent a coder to build the tools you need. What you're really looking for is someone to sniff out biases with some mathematical rigour, no?

I suppose these pendulum bots are just doing it out of their love of leisure punters?

Obviously, virtually all price offerers operating on here are acting entirely out of self-interest (even you, Feck!). It is a feature of a free market, though, that such collective pursuance of self-interest on the part of the 'suppliers' tends to result in a fairer deal for consumers.

Fk me, there's two of them.

I can just see it now. A betfair without the famous liquidity. All the layers going 1.8 and all the backers asking for 2.25. They stare at each other across the chasm for the entire 5 minutes up to the off while  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmdAsL1n6q4 plays on last5minutes.com.

You clowns really do believe your own publicity.

such collective pursuance of self-interest on the part of the 'suppliers' tends to result in a fairer deal for consumers.

WALOFS

What's the alternative?

State-dictated prices?

A middlemen free market.

Oh come on Feck. Admit it - you'd be all lonely without us middlemen [;)]

I would still be around in a middleman free market. I'd just stop being a middleman.

I only trade because Betfair's charging structure makes it rational for me to do so, and things like PC change how I operate over time.

Almost all my profit is from manual betting/trading by the way, so I'm not saying what I said about bots through self interest.

It just stands to reason that the more competing winners there are, the better off the leisure punter will be. I've never really heard a feasible argument to the contrary.

Sorry to hi-jack your thread Magician [;)]

First walk out, nobody noticed. Second walkout never happened because the Ferengi noticed nobody noticed. The famous liquidity = fool's gold.

It just stands to reason that the more competing winners there are, the better off the leisure punter will be. I've never really heard a feasible argument to the contrary.

I've yet to hear a feasible argument that makes your point. Mark Davies "competition among course players supplies accurate ir prices to stay at home punters" and you and Contrarian's "backers and layers would be staring at each other across an abyss without us" just don't do it for me.

DivideByZeroError

I think  my most immediate need is more programmers, to build my ideas into bots....

the maths/stats/modeling is also required... and perhaps need to be a second different person.

if I have to do one of the two jobs, I will do the maths/stats one

I'm not saying "backers and layers would be staring at each other across an abyss without us".

What I am saying is that if I quit tomorrow, other winners operating in my markets would be marginally better off, and leisure punters in my markets would marginally worse off.

Fairly obvious really: if a market is priced to 103%, and I add my prices causing it to go to 102%, the less sophisticated are going to benefit from this. The people negatively affected are those trying to get larger margins than I am, and are also unable or unwilling to undercut me.

Feck, I remember the good old days too.  Backers didn't stare at layers across the abyss, they used to either go elsewhere or take a cr@p price.  Great for the layer, I used to have such fun on the F1 markets.  But honestly, with my bot I am providing tons more liquidity at much better prices - that's got to be good for the average punter and (therefore) betfair and I'm not going to walk out, or even threaten to, until I've been swallowed up by the competition that is still tightening.

Investor, your mistake is you assume it wouldn't go 102% (or 100% for that matter) without you. Your shallow argument also presumes betfair's crummy stock market interface is all there is and ever will be.

catfloppo, what's your point?

Just because it's worse for you doesn't make it worse.

Who said it was worse for me? I didn't even join back in the "good old days". If you think I joined because traders filled in the abyss with £2 bets you're way wide of the mark. I'm not anti-API BTW (although it would be much less relevant given a decent interface), I'm anti-middlemen.

Feck N. Eejit
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Investor, your mistake is you assume it wouldn't go 102% (or 100% for that matter) without you. Your shallow argument also presumes betfair's crummy stock market interface is all there is and ever will be.


That's a self defeating argument, if it went to 100% without me, I wouldn't be able to make money. I make money because I put up better prices than anyone else at a particular moment in time and hence I get matched.

In an illiquid market, I might make a market to 110%. If other winners step in and jump in front of me, I will jump in front of them and tighten the spread. I'm not going to make a 102% book in an illiquid market if I don't have to, it's just a no brainer that winners competing tightens the spread in the way described.

Let me ask you Ferengi this. If I want to place a bet and the spread's 2.0-2.2 what makes you think I won't place my offer inside the spread? What makes you think the next backer up won't undercut me? And so on (remember existing offers may be shortened up as well). Is your argument that there aren't enough backers and layers to fill in the spread themselves or they're too dumb or what?

In an illiquid market, I might make a market to 110%. If other winners step in and jump in front of me, I will jump in front of them and tighten the spread. I'm not going to make a 102% book in an illiquid market if I don't have to, it's just a no brainer that winners competing tightens the spread in the way described.

Like all traders you fall back on the quiet markets. Where would we all be without the quiet markets? Next time I get 2K @ 6.0 on a horse race I must remember to thank god for the market makers on lady's hockey.

Apologies magician.

Anyone can fill that spread.

Due to the pricing structure, it's more likely to be a trader though, as he can profit from small spreads.

Imagine there was a market for virtual coin tossing. I'd happily be backing at 2.00 and laying at 1.99. A good old fashioned gambler wouldn't be able to profit, so the only people left in the market are traders and leisure punters. It would be impossible for anyone to undercut me.

In a similar situation with more uncertainty, I might price to 1.96-2.04. You and others are free to undercut me if you want, but I make money exactly because people don't (always) undercut me.

Due to the pricing structure, it's more likely to be a trader though, as he can profit from small spreads.

Traders need gamblers to fill them in so the trader can only go where gamblers already are or will follow. Your "boldly going where no positional punter would dare to tread" claim is therefore silly.

Imagine there was a market for virtual coin tossing. I'd happily be backing at 2.00 and laying at 1.99. A good old fashioned gambler wouldn't be able to profit, so the only people left in the market are traders and leisure punters. It would be impossible for anyone to undercut me.

So what? You'd still only be acting as a middleman robbing either the backers on one end of your trade or the layers on the other end of a better deal. This is supposed to be an example of how you supply liquidity AND how your presence saves leisure punters money?

Traders need gamblers to fill them in so the trader can only go where gamblers already are or will follow. Your "boldly going where no positional punter would dare to tread" claim is therefore silly.


Yes, but I'm saying I'll "boldly going where no winning positional punter would dare to tread"

They have to beat commission, I don't.


So what? You'd still only be acting as a middleman robbing either the backers on one end of your trade or the layers on the other end of a better deal. This is supposed to be an example of how you supply liquidity AND how your presence saves leisure punters money?

If you call taking money from leisure punters 'robbing' that is what we are all doing. Just because you are a gambler does not change the fact that you are taking money off the leisure punters just like the traders are.

I'm looking at it from a different viewpoint. You seem to split Betfair users broadly into two groups: gamblers and middlemen.

I think a more natural split is winners and leisure punters.

Punters aren't competing against traders, winners are competing against winners.

Yes, but I'm saying I'll "boldly going where no winning positional punter would dare to tread"

Heads v Tails you'd hardly be needed. Anything else you're assuming the betfair prices would be efficient and you still need the leisure layers and gamblers to tread there to fill you in. You still seem redundant to me.


If you call taking money from leisure punters 'robbing' that is what we are all doing. Just because you are a gambler does not change the fact that you are taking money off the leisure punters just like the traders are.

I'm not the one claiming to be doing leisure punters a favour though.


You seem to split Betfair users broadly into two groups: gamblers and middlemen.

I thought it was you that did that. Does traders saving leisure punters from the big bad evil winning gamblers not ring a bell?

I'm looking at it from a different viewpoint. You seem to split Betfair users broadly into two groups: gamblers and middlemen.

This is the core of Feck's blindspot. He is unable to understand that someone trading a market inevitably ends up taking a position. It might be possible to make small profits by making very swift almost risk-free trades, but any trader looking to make decent money (even with the help of automation) has to take some sort of position/view. That view might not be as simple as, say, 'team A is playing really well, so there probability of winning this match is greater than that implied by the market' - a straightforward 'positional' view - but more along the lines of 'my analysis shows that the Betfair markets tend to under/overestimate the probability of x happening in this sort of situation'. Nevertheless it is still a view, and the trader taking it is not simply a mindless broker.

Horse racing is also a different beast to other sports. havent looked at a horse race here in years so god knows what goes on in those markets. When one poster says "try backing a horse, blah, blah" and the other says "team A" they are talking different languages imo

Have no idea why my post of midnight last night has disappeared?,anyway,like the stockmarket when any system becomes available to the masses it becomes useless,i.e. Tecnical Analysis.
Big money short shares,triggering a computer generated sell,then close their bear positions.You have to develop [or find] something that others are not doing,as with everything,your own research is the way to go.

Investor - quiet markets, Contrarian - ir markets. Last refuges of the defeated traders supply liquidity delusionals.

"makes sense as that probably allows the person to dovetail into my existing programmers"

EXISTING programmers? How many do you have or possibly require! (I may have missed it).

Oh and can't believe you've let an interesting thread be sidetracked by that tedious F++-ing obsessve "feck" and his utterly predictable crap again :(

Just checking

I have a few people currently syndicated with various projects - but they most have other demands on their time - so dont have more capacity for the syndicate work they do with me

But I am on the lookout to expand ( with 1 or 2)  full time syndicate members - or service providers (depending on what suits them.

Feck is a legend, and while I don't exactly agree with him on this point (he has many valid sub points), his presence on this thread is bringing in traffic to my little thread that might have died without him.

Long live the 'untouchable' Feck....

Well sayed magician. Up yours Just B1tching.

Feck N. Eejit
| Topic/replies: 4,734 | Blogger: Feck N. Eejit's blog
Investor - quiet markets, Contrarian - ir markets. Last refuges of the defeated traders supply liquidity delusionals.


If the markets aren't quiet (gaps in the spread) the trader obviously can't make the spread smaller.

My profits are correlated to liquidity: the better the liquidity the more I make. In low liquidity markets my margins are obviously higher, but I only get a tiny fraction matched compared to high liquidity ones.

I find it ironic that during extremely quiet periods such as summer without World Cup or other major tournaments, I got hit with data request charges (2009) for the first time. I wasn't making more data requests, just getting hardly anything matched. So Betfair was penalising me for providing liquidity to p!ss poor markets, and I stopped bothering. I can't imagine that was a good outcome for Betfair. Who cares if someone is making a lot of data requests when the site overall is extremely quiet anyway.

I was making a book for in play Correct Score on several matches that were virtually dead, I got so little matched that a chunk of my (already very small) profit was eaten away by DRC.

If the markets aren't quiet (gaps in the spread) the trader obviously can't make the spread smaller.

Some of the Ferengi think markets that aren't quiet are that way because they and their buddies have filled in the chasm between the greedy gamblers.

Investor, re data charges, how many requests would you have to make to be charged and why would you have to make that many (particularly on a slow changing market)? Are you on the free or paid api? I'm not getting at you btw, I know little about this and I'm asking out of interest.

I just realised, you were probably doing numerous markets but I'd appreciate an answer anyway.

It was actually through the website. I have multiple screens, and literally have dozens of markets open at the same time on weekends.
I don't get charged, as commission easily covers everything, but this was the exception.

The way data requests and transaction charges apply uniformly is daft because betfair gain nothing by people throttling back when the system has capacity.

When the transaction charges first came in I suggested they implement a system whereby these charges were imposed only when the system was busy and an api call to report the status.  This call could be used to generate a warning flag to interactive users which although wouldn't mean you were being charged due to the commission offset, would mean that there would be times you knew you definitely wouldn't be charged.

Maybe it's harder than is sounds?

I would suggest using personal recommendations and building a team of more experienced people you trust for model building. Even then I find it is important to keep your cards close to your chest.

In my experience students and new graduates have to be spoon fed and are not particularly self motivated. They also will not have the experience you require. Even with a first in maths/cs they will not be able to add any flair to your ideas and take them forward. If they are the sort of person that could they will be off once they realise how easily/much a decent system makes. I find students/new graduates are useful for specific tasks though such as maintaining code or developing new code around very set parameters.

Also selling the job offer as something around 'betting' is not appealing. It is really project work that can be adapted to different markets. Although I started on here most of my attention is elsewhere now in fields people are much more approving of and willing to work on. Betfair is changing and will continue to change. A year or two from now it could look completely different with far less opportunities (they keep moving the goal posts).

Thanks Investor. Catfloppo are you paid or free API? In the free API

http://bdp.betfair.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=64

if two procedures are "60 times p/m" does that mean you can call both procedures 60 times inside a minute  or would you only be able to call each 30 times?

brendanuk1 Joined: 12 Jan 02
Replies: 16229 12 Aug 11 18:31   
Horse racing is also a different beast to other sports. havent looked at a horse race here in years so god knows what goes on in those markets. When one poster says "try backing a horse, blah, blah" and the other says "team A" they are talking different languages imo 

I've learned this the hard way through a zillion different arguments too. I don't think I'll ever properly understand how horse racing markets work.

Magician,

You will need two people.. one programmer and another analyst who can translate your ideas for programmer to code... it will be good if one of these two has good database skills so that they can provide stats for future models.. C++ programmer are expensive and no one will leave their banking jobs to join you unless they have interested in gambling too..  so you have to target either young grads or retired programmers

good luck

Paid, Feck.

Feck,

It means that you can call each one 60 times/minute. Though, of course, if you were querying more than one market at a time, this would reduce accordingly.

Thanks Contrarian.

Catfloppo, why do you feel you need the paid one?

Transactions. I exceed the limit even on the paid version all the time, sometimes incurring extra cost.

I suppose if you're covering a lot of markets 60 calls p/m might mean you'd only be covering each market every 20 or 30 seconds. Not much use if one of the markets has entered the busy period on Last5minutes.com.

I get nowhere neat the limit for data requests

testing


8,720,926      365,989,285     1.240403964    0.897571616
2,837,273      435,557,759     1.083750138    0.745193262
408,548      9,128,209     0.730405204    0.245315385
325,657      108,424,470     1.259823128    0.575277389
4,208,940      28,245,542     0.95849385    1.006733714
98,802      3,484,872     3.175366905    0.376875931
1,186,473      66,670,118     0.892335111    1.111010516

Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3

2,837,273      435,557,759     1.083750138    0.745193262
408,548      9,128,209     0.730405204    0.245315385
325,657      108,424,470     1.259823128    0.575277389
4,208,940      28,245,542     0.95849385    1.006733714
98,802      3,484,872     3.175366905    0.376875931
1,186,473      66,670,118     0.892335111    1.111010516
4||

Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3

2,837,273      435,557,759     1.083750138    0.745193262
408,548      9,128,209     0.730405204    0.245315385
325,657      108,424,470     1.259823128    0.575277389
4,208,940      28,245,542     0.95849385    1.006733714
98,802      3,484,872     3.175366905    0.376875931
1,186,473      66,670,118     0.892335111    1.111010516
4||||Cell 1||Cell 2||

Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4		Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4

honestly

you could not make this forum any more **** - if yuo set out to do so....

8,720,926	365,989,285	1.240403964	0.897571616
2,837,273	435,557,759	1.083750138	0.745193262
408,548	9,128,209	0.730405204	0.245315385
325,657	108,424,470	1.259823128	0.575277389
4,208,940	28,245,542	0.95849385	1.006733714
98,802	3,484,872	3.175366905	0.376875931
1,186,473	66,670,118	0.892335111	1.111010516

Deltâ 16 Aug 11 22:20 
the magician101


in excel - insert column between the figures and after

in the new columns put ||


copy and paste

jobs a goodun'

do I get the main gig now?

sure you do....

await my new thread... and feel free to correct it

I think the c++ requirement is not relevant these days with regard to speed. Even a poor programmer would struggle to lose a millisecond within code execution. When I started using the api, probably like every user, speed was paramount, you soon learn that measuring code execution blocks in milliseconds is always 0! Clock ticks are more accurate but considering a pentium I7 processes 100,000,000,000+ instructions per second the application / processor are unlikely to be a bottleneck. Getting the data to and from Betfair is where the time is taken, a few hundred clock ticks saved in code execution becomes meaningless.

Writing data to disk is also a potential bottleneck, but such operations could be saved until quiet moments if sufficient memory is in place, and multi threading is used effectively. Also solid state disks might be a worthwhile option.

(minor digression)....
I'm sure there will be some mad Russian scientists locked away who still bash out their code in assembly language, jumping to absolute memory locations, recalculating each jmp instruction by hand!

Magician,where are you based?.

London

If you are North London,are you up for a visit?.

sure contact me...

(minor digression)....
I'm sure there will be some mad Russian scientists locked away who still bash out their code in assembly language, jumping to absolute memory locations, recalculating each jmp instruction by hand!

hmmm.... takes me back to the early 1980's, just bought a zx81, taught myself 8080 assembly language but too skint to be able to afford a compiler so I had to write it out on paper and then labouriously look up each instruction in a manual and convert it hex
.

Magician send me your contact number on Jimwalkw@hut meal.coom.