Archive of activity to December 2010

 

Back to Home Page

Back to other previous posts

On this web page :-

Bot and videos.
Bot testing in Betfair horse racing markets.
Bot up and running.
Live Betfair odds, Betting Bots and Triggered Betting.
An analysis of my January 2010 trades.
Betfair Racing Midweek Mania doubles and trebles refunds.
Multiplie winnings from a Betfair treble. 
Betfair Racing Midweek Mania refunds.
Betfair Racing Midweek Mania refunds.  Multiplied winnings from a Multiple with a refund ?
Dutching and Hedging Match Odds on Betfair.
 

My websites.

betformulas.co.uk
Formulas and maths of trading

betandlay.co.uk
Football trading

betandlay.co.uk/strategies
Strategies for horse racing and football trading

betandlay.co.uk/bookie
Be A Bookie.
Laying strategies and spreadsheets for Betfair trading

startingstalls.co.uk
A very accurate analysis of U.K.  horse racing draw advantages.

.

April 8th 2010.  Bot and videos.
Shortly after my last post, Bot testing went ok, with my spreadsheet triggering in 7 races in one afternoon.
When I first got my Bot up and running, I had it attempting to lay quite quite a few runners at short prices "In Running" in horse races, with the aim of laying over a 100% book for guaranteed winnings.
If you read my previous posts below, you will see that I had some initial success doing that, but then I hit some losing races.
That was because the lays that got matched didn't reach the required book percentage of over 100%.
I was laying the winner, but not enough losers.

So, the amendment I made was to lay horses in running, but not the shortest priced horse - hoping to avoid laying the winner.
This latest bit of testing managed to lay 7 winners on the trot, each NOT being the shortest priced runner at the time of laying.
I looked on the Sporting Life web site and read the comments in the results section for these races.
The horses I layed all challenged for the lead and managed to "get up" near the Winning Post.
It may be that the odds of a challenging horse shorten to become less than the horse that is leading.
Another scenario could be that the odds flip flopped, leaving me with lays that included the winner, but my with lays on the longer priced runners not getting matched.
I need to watch the odds in a few races in order to get some idea of the different possibilities.
Maybe I need to lay the shortest priced runner when my sheet triggers and see if those manage to lose for me.
I could of course be that developing a Bot is just like trying to come up with a winning system  - - -  there isn't one with zero risk.
My stakes were only £2 lays, so my losses were very small, but those 7 straight losers put me off Bot development for a while.

Whilst developing my Bot, I needed a more up-to-date version of Excel.
This newer version has a completely different Toolbar layout, so I have been swatting up by watching some excellent free video demos on an Excel instruction web site.
Watching those videos made me realize that I need to join the 21st century and get on with my own videos, to demonstrate how my spreadsheets work, and what can be done with them.
This week, I have put a few YouTube videos together for a couple of spreadsheets.
View my efforts on my Strategies web site via this link.

Try not to laugh at my Yorkshire accent and my stuttering commentary.
Creating videos isn't as easy as you might think.
It's very easy to make mistakes such as saying "Bet" instead of "Lay" etc.
If I were an actor - sorry they're not actors are they, they're movie stars - I have been sacked by the director several times over "CUT".

In my videos, I describe the spreadsheet inputs, but after that, I show a strategy or 2 that each sheet may be used for.
These are only my ideas, but if you see something new to you in there, you may get an idea or 2 of your own for a new strategy.
All the sheets that I have available are listed on that "Strategies" web site, so my aim is to put new videos on there first before putting them on my other sites.
Once I've made some progress on the video front, I'll get back to some Bot development - certainly once the Flat Racing season gets into full swing.
As always, good luck with your trading,
Howard.

March 20th 2010.  Bot testing in Betfair horse racing markets.
This week, Bot (Robot) testing took a back seat whilst Cheltenham took a front seat.
After Cheltenham, I always look forward to the start of the Turf Flat season at the end of March, starting at Doncaster.
My Bot is primarily aimed at horse race flat racing markets on Betfair, although most of the testing I have done so far was done in jumps races.

I've made some big changes to the triggering of my bet placements.
Also, I've reduced the liabilities of my bets, so that should enable me to aim at a slightly wider range of odds.
An advantage of aiming for a wider range of odds is that (in theory) I should get matched easier on Betfair.

I started testing this latest version of my Bot again today in 6 races at Lingfield (AW), but none of the races that I watched produced the correct conditions to trigger any bets.
Once the Flat season gets going next month I will be able to do a lot more testing and hopefully make some Bot progress.

We all imagine that some "Smart Alec" is out there running his Bot and mopping up daily profits without having to put in any real effort.
From my experience of Bot building so far, I would guess that there won't be many such "Clever Dickies", and if there are any, we are not likely to hear about them as they will no doubt keep their winning Bot to themselves.
As you know, the odds in Betfair horse race markets can be quite unpredictable, so to come up with a working system of any kind to trade those markets to profit on a regular basis is probably impossible, but that is what I and others like me are trying to do.

At my first attempt at Bot building, I had a Bot that hit several winning trades with no loss before it hit some losing trades.
All I am doing now is developing that idea a little further.
If I can repeat my successes and eliminate the failures, something may come of my Bot development..
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

March 8th 2010.  Bot up and running.
After installing my Excel 2007 software, I got my Bot up and running ok.
To test it with cash, I rang Betfair and asked if it was ok to open a 2nd account with a small £ amount, so that my whole bank wasn't at risk if my Bot got itself into a loop and placed a series of bets or lays instead of just one.
After opening my 2nd account, I have been running my Bot.
To start with, I hit winners without any loss, but only using £2 stakes.
I doubled my stakes twice, up to £8, but then problems started to creep in.

Today was the worst day for my Bot.
It started to trigger at the wrong times and wiped out all my gains to leave my bank a fiver blow what I started with.
As I watched the odds movements again today and the reaction of my Bot, I could see that it had stepped into the market far too soon.
I have been making adjustments to my Bot and today I had it doing 2 things at once whilst watching 2 different markets.

What worked a treat in one market (most of the time) up until yesterday has now gone belly - up.
I'll have to back track and see what damage I've done.
So, to sum up, it appears that Bot development so far has proved to be pretty much like manual trades :-

  • A series of small gains build up confidence.
  • I increase my stakes.
  • A loser (4 in my case today) wipes out the initial gains.
  • Back to the drawing board.

It's back to £2 stakes again whilst I sort out the error of my Bot's ways, but it was very nice feeling invincible there for a few days.
Yesterday was wonderful.
I set my Bot up in the morning and let it loose on Betfair, went out for the day with my wife, and came back to count my modest winnings in the evening . . . . . Brilliant !
Unfortunately that didn't happen again today.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

Feb22nd 2010.  Live Betfair odds, Betting Bots and Triggered Betting.
Towards the end of last summer (2009), I decided it was time to put live odds into my spreadsheets.
Live Betfair odds would open up more opportunities for spreadsheet strategies.
The aim of course was to get live odds into my sheets and then set things up so that bets and lays could be placed automatically, depending on the odds movements. . . . . .Triggered Betting.
Once that is up and running, the next step would be to let the sheet loose on a series of markets in which it would place bets and lays automatically, depending on how the odds move.
Set it off, and leave it running.
We are of course talking about a "Bot" here, "Bot" being short for "Robot".

To get the ball rolling, I subscribed to Gruss.
The Gruss software supplies an Excel spreadsheet
that can be downloaded, complete with live odds.
I downloaded the Gruss spreadsheet and read up on what was required to get it to place bets and lays.
I had already built a spreadsheet to work with live odds, so I bolted my sheet onto the Gruss sheet.
It was great to see live odds in my spreadsheet, and sure enough, after a bit of tweaking, my sheet did exactly what I wanted it to do, some triggered betting.
My sheet watches odds movements and steps in to place bets or lays at the appropriate time, dependant upon what I tell it to do, such a number of runners, level of odds, Bet or Lay etc.
The sheet works a treat, but there is just one problem - - - So far, I have been unable to get it to place a single Bet or Lay.
There is something missing between my sheet and Betfair - like some money !
After quite a bit of messing about in the nuts and bolts of the Gruss spreadsheet calculations, I decided that I was flogging a dead horse, so asked for some expert assistance.
Unfortunately, I had already tried what my expert suggested, so I decide that my dinosaur version of Excel, Excel 2000 isn't up to the job.
I shelved my Bot building sometime during last October, but this week I have been prompted back into action by a web site coilleague.

I've decided to join the 21st Century, and ordered Excel 2007 over the weekend.
I've also acquired a spreadsheet that is already capable of placing bets automatically, so once I doctor that sheet to incorporate mine, I should hopefully have a working Bot.
I just hope that I can get into the calculations of the spreadsheet that I have been supplied with.

Once I get one Bot up and running, a whole new world of Bot Strategies may unfold.
I'm looking forward to this exciting new development.
I almost feel a new "Bot" web site coming on.
I'll keep you updated with Bot progress,  Howard.

Feb 1st 2010.   An analysis of my January 2010 trades.
For the past 4 months, October to January, I've been recording my trades in a Profits Diary, and uploading some detail of those trades on a Google Blog Spot that I created.

Doing that has been good for my trading as it's made me keep track of my profits..
Recording my profits "On-Line" has made me trade more often - - - -  trying to beat my previous month's profits.
I've put a hit counter on my Blog Spot to see if anyone is viewing my progress.
It doesn't matter that only a few people visit my Google Blog Spot each day.
Seeing my profit or loss on a web page has made me aware of the profit I am making, and has given me a target to aim for each month.
I started to aim for a new "Personal Best" of profits, certainly throughout January.
December was a very good month due to the wonderful contribution of £174 from the Jackpot Joy casino Christmas offer which ran throughout December and part of late November.

Today, I decided to find out which areas of my trading generate most profit.
To do that, I itemised my January profits and losses in columns on a spreadsheet shown  highlighted in grey below.

  184.02     <<  Profit so far this month.  January Bookie or Casino Free bet Betfair Football Casinos
  Profit Running            
Date Target or Loss Total           Notes          
1 3.23 -1.49 -1.49 3 x £10 deposits.  No free bet due to short odds 888Sport -1.49      
2 6.45 4.01 2.52 £5 free bet SkyBet 2.52      
3 9.68 15.91 18.43 Football trading.  Under 1.5 Goals.       15.91  
4 12.90                
5 16.13 16.31 34.74 Football trading.  Hedge 1-1       16.31  
6 19.35 0.71 35.45 Free play JackPot Joy       0.71
7 22.58 13.50 48.95 Bet £10 on Golf get £10 free. £7.28 + £6.22 Football. Hedge 1-1 Ladbrokes. 7.28   6.22  
8 25.81                
9 29.03 7.85 56.80 £20 Bookie deposit.  £12 free bet. Bodog 7.85      
10 32.26 19.94 76.74 Football trading.  Under 1.5 Goals.       19.94  
11 35.48 -7.07 69.67 Testing a spreadsheet.       -7.07  
12 38.71 1.39 71.06 Bet £10 get Free £5 cash Betfair   1.39    
13 41.94 7.28 78.34 Bet £10 get Free £10 cash.    Plus Football trading U 1.5 Goals Betfair   6.01 1.27  
14 45.16 26.23 104.57 Bet 3 x £10 get £10 free bet.  Plus football trading U 1.5 Goals VCBet 22.56   3.73  
15 48.39 11.75 116.32 Bet 3 x £10 deposits. Plus Bet £10 get £10 free cash. VCBet & Betfair 5.75 6.00    
16 51.61 8.57 124.89 Free £10 bet VCBet 8.57      
17 54.84 29.47 154.36 Football trading U 1.5 Goals £23.16 & Casino free play £6.31 Jackpot Joy     23.16 6.31
18 58.06 7.60 161.96 Bet £10 get Free £5 cash Betfair   7.60    
19 61.29 2.59 164.55 Bet £10 get Free £10 cash.  Plus football trading Betfair   1.11 1.39  
20 64.52 1.60 166.15 Casino Free play Jackpot Joy       1.60
21 67.74 20.87 187.02 Bet £10 get Free £10 cash  £20.61. Plus Free play £0.26. Betfair & Jackpot Joy   20.61   0.26
22 70.97 23.75 210.77 Casino.  2 x Deposit £10 get £10 free Football 1x2       23.75
23 74.19 0.20 210.97 Football trading U 1.5 Goals -£5.27  Bet £20 get £10 free bet + £5.47 Wm Hill   5.47 -5.27  
24 77.42 -12.82 198.15 Football trading U 1.5 Goals       -12.82  
25 80.65 3.55 201.70 Bet £10 get Free £5 cash Betfair   3.55    
26 83.87 43.63 245.33 Bet £10 get Free £10 bet £9.43. Bet £10 for possible £10 refund £34.20. Betclick.  Betfair 9.43 34.20    
27 87.10                
28 90.32                
29 93.55 25.99 271.32 Bet £25 get £22.58 free bet £18. Bet £10 get £10 cash £6.03..Free play £1.96 BetPack.Betfair Jackpot Joy 18.00 6.03   1.96
30 96.77 -86.06 185.26 Football trading U 1.5 Goals       -86.06  
31 100.00 -1.24 184.02 Tennis trade   -1.24      
      TOTALS  >>> 182.50 79.23 91.97 -23.29 34.59
          Free bet Betfair Football Casinos

I realize that there is a discrepancy of around £2 between the profit at the top of £184.02 and the total at the bottom of £182.50.
Free bets were bookie offers.  Football was football trading, and casinos was casino scalping - - - I don't do much of that.
The "Betfair" column lists my profits from trading the Betfair Horse Racing Midweek Mania refunds.

The sheet shows that my biggest earner for the month of January was my trading of Betfair's Horse Racing Midweek Mania refunds, under the heading "Betfair".
I haven't traded every Betfair offer every day, as some of them involve multiples of 6 horses as in their Tote PlacePot offers.
The offers I have traded have been anything that I could trade with a maximum of 3 horses.
A description of the spreadsheet I have been using is below in 2 previous posts.
Perhaps I have been more successful using that spreadsheet than I thought.
From what I remember, I've used that spreadsheet for all my Betfair Midweek Mania refund trades.

The object of this analysis was to see where I am doing well, where I am losing, and to see what I can do to improve my trading performance.
Football trading stands out as a loser, but until Jan 30th when I had my biggest ever Betfair loss since opening my account quite a few years ago, I was Plus £62.77 on my football trading for January.
After quite a long spell with no loss since sometime in October whilst trading Under 1.5 Goals, I decided to increase my stakes for trading Under 1.5 Goals - my favourite football strategy at present.
Of course, just increasing my stakes was asking for trouble, but on top of that, I slackened off with my selection process and started to take more risks by trading more games.
Although I was unlucky and hit a game that had 2 quick goals scored within just a few minutes, I shouldn't have been involved in that game.
My
basic error was my selection process.
To trade Under 1.5 Goals, I need low scoring games.
Since October, I have been looking at Premiership games involving Birmingham, Fulham, and possibly Everton.
In my opinion, these teams don't concede many goals, but also they don't have prolific goals scorers, so in trading games involving these teams, I have been trying to select low scoring games and have had some success in avoiding early goals.

In the Jan 30th game, the first goal gave me bet odds of 8.8 and lay odds of 4.1, but unfortunately, I only got matched for just over £1 before the 2nd goal went in which totally cocked up my trade.
This game was Fulham - Aston Villa.
I knew I needed to avoid teams in the top 6 or 7 places in the Premiership, but Villa had not scored in their last few games.
To improve my selection process, I need to avoid Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Manchester City, & Tottenham.
Those teams have good attacking players.
I need teams such as
Birmingham, Fulham, and Everton, that have decent defences, playing against teams that hopefully don't score many goals.

An area that I need to improve is my Casino Scalping.
I've eased off on casino scalping over the last 2 months or so because I feel that I don't know what I am doing in casinos.
During January, I made 1 or 2 trades that were described in The Community Web Site for Serious Traders that were quite low risk, but other than those, I lack confidence because I don't know how to trade casino offers, so I've virtually packed up on casino offers.
Tonight, I will request a "Mickey Mouse" casino webinar to spell things out for casino scalping beginners such as me.
There are casino bonus offers that are repeated every month that I need to be trading, but because I don't know what I'm doing, I'm missing out on these monthly profits.
I won't be trading for a week or so Feb 2nd to maybe Feb 5th.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

January 28th.  Betfair Racing Midweek Mania doubles and trebles refunds.
l considered putting my Refund spreadsheet up for sale on here but there is some risk involved with these trades concerning estimating the Starting Price bet odds and Tote bet returns.
Also, I have had problems working out the lay stakes to equalize these trades.
I have had difficulty with the maths of including commission, the refund, and unknown bet odds.
These are the risks of these trades :-
  • The bet odds in the Betfair Multiples and Tote sections are quite unpredictable.
    Get your estimation of the bet odds wrong, and you could make a loss.
    There are no guaranteed winnings here.
  • Interpretation of refund offers is not always straightforward.
    Quite often, no 2 offers are the same.

I've had some success whilst developing this sheet, but I can't guarantee any future winnings from these offers.
A lot depends on skill and luck in obtaining low odds for lays, and thinking about what you are doing whilst trading these offers.

I avoid refund offers that include more than 3 selections in a multiple.
Once we have layed 3 runners at shortish odds, the lay liabilities can start to get out of proportion to the anticipated profit from the whole trade.
Also, I don't trade refund offers that involve the Place markets.
From what I have seen recently, these usually involve the Tote PlacePot which is 6 races - way beyond the number of races that  I am prepared to lay in a multiple, whilst chasing a £10 refund.
The best way to trade some of these Betfair refund offers is to lay a loser with the first bet of the multiple.
If you've done a bit of laying, you probably know that hitting losers on a regular basis is not as easy as it sounds, so this sheet is probably best used just to recover losses if I hit a winner with the first runner of my double or treble.
Although I've had some success with this spreadsheet, I put that down to having hit 2 winners in a winning double, and 3 winners in a winning treble whilst testing the maths of the spreadsheet.
If I'd hit losers with my 2nd or 3rd runners, I may have lost a few quid.
I've been lucky.
There are no guaranteed winnings from these trades using this spreadsheet - unfortunately.
As always, good luck with your trading, Howard.

January 26th 2010.  Multiplie winnings from a Betfair treble.  Betfair Racing Midweek Mania refunds.
I managed to hit 3 winners today with my Betfair Racing Midweek Mania treble.
In doing that, I was able to test the maths of my new spreadsheet, and my theory that winnings will multiply up as the multiple carries winnings forward.
Whilst my winnings were carried forward in the treble that I bet, I layed all 3 winners but still showed an overall profit of £34.20 on the whole trade . . .  . . .Super, Duper !!

This, roughly, was the Betfair offer.
Place a horse racing £10 Treble in Betfair Multiples that included Desperate Dex, a horse that was running in the Sedgefield 3:00pm race.
If Desperate Dex lost, Betfair would refund the losing £10 bet stake.

Using my new spreadsheet to work out the staking, I layed each runner as my £10 treble progressed.
I made
Desperate Dex my first selection and simply placed a £6 lay.
That would have given me a £5.70 profit after commission if
Desperate Dex had lost, since my £10 bet stake would have been refunded.
The lays I placed on the other 2 runners were calculated to recover the liabilities from laying
Desperate Dex, plus other liabilities such as my losing £10 bet stake and the liability from laying the 2nd runner, and still show guaranteed win or lose profit whatever the result of each race in turn.

For my 2nd and 3rd runners, I selected what I thought would be the shortest priced horse in 2 races that took place after Desperate Dex's race.
There was a very short priced runner in a 3:10pm race, but I avoided that to give myself plenty of time between races to place my 2nd and 3rd lays as my treble progressed.
A big problem with this strategy is the unpredictability of the Starting Price odds that Betfair conjures up for any payout.
The size of my lay stakes is dependant on the bet and lay odds of each runner, so as I placed my lays, I had to "guestimate" what the S.P. odds might be.
In the first race (Desperate Dex's race), I wasn't too bothered as I decided just to lay £6 and take it from there if Desperate Dex won the race.
In the 2nd and 3rd races, I was lucky in that I my estimated S.P. odds of 1.70 & 3.30 were below the Betfair S.P.'s of 1.79 & 3.80.
Those bigger S.P.'s meant that the winnings carried forward were even bigger than my liabilities carried forward, so the bigger S.P.'s were an added bonus.

After the 3rd Horse had won, I had winnings of £10 x 2.50 x 1.79 x 3.80 = £170.05 less my £10 stake = £160.05.
My liabilities from each race in turn were -£11.88, -£14.95, -£98.98 = -£125.81
With zero commission to pay on winnings from a multiple, that left a profit of £34.24.  Betfair paid £34.20.
That was a very nice return for trading for a refund if only the first horse lost.

If my 2nd or 3rd horses had lost, I would have made £5.66 or £12.34 respectively after commission using the estimated bet odds that I put into the spreadsheet at the time.
If it had been possible to know the Starting Price bet odds, those 2 profits could have been equalized to £6.87 & £18.56 respectively.
When we look at those figures, we must bear in mind that the S.P. odds of the 2nd and 3rd runners moved in my favour.

Whilst making these 3 trades, I was expecting to lay at odds quite some way ABOVE my estimated bet odds.
I would guess that the only way I would have lost would have been if the S.P. odds had moved very dramatically below what I estimated that they might be.
So, even though I expected to be betting low and laying high in all 3 races, with big differences between my bet and lay odds, I still expected to trade to a profit of some kind.
My profit in the end was boosted by the odds of the 3rd winner being bigger than my estimated bet odds.
If the odds had dropped dramatically I could have made an overall loss on the 3rd runner
If the 3rd horse had lost, I would have made £12.34 which is some way above the £5.70 that I stood to win if Betfair's selected horse had lost in my first race.
When I made these trades I offered to lay 20 minutes or more before "The Off" at odds quite a bit lower than the odds on offer at that time.
If my lays had not been matched, I would have layed just a few minutes before the races started, so that my lay odds would hopefully be somewhere near the Betfair Starting Price odds used in the Betfair Multiples markets.

Today's offer changed slightly from last week.
Last week's similar offer could be traded as a double, but this week the minimum multiple was a treble.
Good luck with your trading, Howard

January 21st 2010.  Betfair Racing Midweek Mania refunds.  Multiplied winnings from a Multiple with a refund ?
Regular visitors to my Blog will know that I have been working on various bookie refund offers on and off for quite a while.
Every month, there are all kinds of bookie refunds covering lots of different sports and markets within those sports.
The most popular with bookies seem to be offers of various refunds in football markets, but over the last few weeks, Betfair have run a series of refund offers Monday to Friday on horse racing.
Their offers appear to be the same each week, although I've only been trading these for the last 2 weeks, so I could be wrong.
We appear to be in week 5 now judging by the "Opt In" code this week.
All the refunds that I have seen involve bets either using the Betfair Tote link, or Betfair Multiples.
Betfair offer to refund our Bet Stake if we hit a loser whilst making these trades.
I have steered clear of multiples involving more than 2 bets as laying to recover lost liabilities can get rather expensive after 3 or 4 races.
This is what I have been doing :-
  • Place the required bet according to the Betfair offer - maximum (in my case) 2 races.
  • Lay each runner until I hit a loser and have a successful lay.
  • Calculate stakes to include the refund if I hit a loser or profit from winnings if I hit 2 winners and get no refund..
  • If I hit 2 winners, my staking should provide winnings that are more than my liabilities since my lay liabilities will be less than my winnings due to allowing for the refund in the lay side of my trade if I hit a loser.

I have concentrated on the offers of a cash refund that involve placing a Double.
After betting my Double either via the Tote link or in Betfair Multiples, I have been laying the same selections in the Win markets, taking into consideration the refunds of either £5 or £10.
At first, I layed the first runner for a win or lose profit and if necessary layed the 2nd runner just to recover any lost stakes.
I have mainly hit a loser with my first runners, but today after building a spreadsheet to include a refund also on the 2nd runner, I was looking for 2 winners to test my spreadsheet.
I was very lucky and managed to hit 2 winners and tested the calculations of my sheet.

I knew that my staking was unbalanced, so I used the Adjust feature that I include in many of my spreadsheets to balance the returns for a more or less equal win or lose profit.
My theory is that if we can hit more than 1 winner whilst staking each time for a refund, the profit could multiply up along with the potential winnings from a winning double.
Whilst we are laying and allowing for the refund with each lay, every time we hit a winner, the gap between winnings and liabilities from the UNsuccessful lays should get bigger.

If we can imagine betting a 6 fold accumulator and hitting 5 winners and losing with the 6th runner for a refund of our original stake on the 6th horse, we could have 5 lays at less than the carried forward winnings of the accumulator.
After 5 winners, the winnings should far outstrip the sum of the lay liabilities of those 5 winners.
This appeared to prove correct today with my winning Double.

On my 2nd runner, I was expecting a Lose profit of £6.32 after a £10 refund for hitting the loser, or a win profit of £4.51 if I hit the 2nd winner for a winning double with no refund.
Note that the difference in the win and lose profit £6.32 & £4.51 was caused by the Starting Price odds ending somewhere below what I had anticipated.
My calculations proved INcorrect.
I hit a winner with both of my selections for a winning Double (paid out at S.P. by Betfair with zero commission to pay) of £87.47.
My lay liabilities were £42.41 for the 2nd race, plus £9.48 for the first race = minus £51.89 in total.
That left £30.58 including my Bet Stake of £10 for a profit on the whole trade of £20.58.  Betfair paid £20.61.

I know that if the 2nd horse had lost I would have pocketed £6.32 after commission on my successful lay, and would have recovered my lay liabilities from the 1st winner.
I layed the first runner for £6 which, if it had lost, would have given me a profit of £6 less 5% commission = £5.70.
So, with a potential Lose profit of £6.32, and an actual Win profit of £20.61, if I can equalize the staking, there has to be a profit of something between £6.32 and £20.61, which is more than £5.70 (the profit if the first horse had lost).
I would guess that an equalized trade could return something over £10 for 2 winners, or the first winner followed by a loser.
I just need to balance the staking correctly.

Trading by betting in the Tote market and the Multiples market and laying in the win markets isn't easy.
The bet odds in Tote and Multiple markets can be way below the lay odds of the win markets, but even so, the Betfair refund enables a profit to be made on these trades.
The Tote return is quite unpredictable since it is based on a pool, so the bet odds may be bigger if the Tote takes only a few bets on our runner.
The Multiple Starting Price (bet) odds adjust according to the win markets, and are usually quite a bit shorter than the win market lay odds in my experience.
To trade these, I open 2 Internet windows whilst placing my lays so that I can input the bet odds from Tote or Multiples, plus the lay odds from the win market into my spreadsheet.
Of course I have to place my bets some time before "The Off" as these are doubles, but I place my lays in the last 10 minutes or so, and try to lay as low as possible . . . . . easier said than done as you know !

I'll keep you informed of my progress with this spreadsheet.
I've had some success with these Betfair offers already, but this new line of attack may squeeze a bit more profit out of these Midweek Mania Refunds, providing of course that I can hit a winner or 2.
However, if my first selection loses, that's end of trade and a nice profit anyway.

To view the progress of my trades every month, follow this link.
All the trades that I do are on there, including any losses, with NO omissions.
Good luck with your trading, Howard.

January 11th 2010.   Dutching and Hedging Match Odds on Betfair.
There are 3 sections to today's post.
I wrote the first bit in the afternoon and uploaded it to this web page.
After testing my theory in the evening, I altered the first bit and added the second part of this post, and then a third section shortly afterwards..
You might bear the timing in mind if you decide to read on . . . . . . . nothing to get excited about I'm afraid.

I imagine that most of us will bet and lay a single runner to Hedge rather than bet or lay several runners to Dutch, but the profits work out very much the same for the same liabilities.
For example, if we take the Betfair Match Odds from last night's football game between Juventus and AC Milan.
We could bet both teams and then bet the draw after  a goal to Dutch, or lay the draw and bet the draw after a goal to Hedge.
A goal was scored at 28 minutes in this game.

Odds before Kick Off Bet to return £100 Lay to -£70.65 Odds at 32 mins Bet at 32 mins Bet at 32 mins
Juventus  Bet 2.68  Lay 7.0 £37.31   7.8   &  8.0    
AC Milan Bet 3.0    Lay 3.05 £33.33   1.63  &  1.64 Dutch Hedge
Draw       Bet 3.35   lay 3.4   £29.43 3.8  &  3.85 £26.32 £26.33
Liability -£ 70.65 - £70.65      
Profit       + £3.04 + £3.10

The table above shows that profits are very much the same for the same liabilities.
Now that we have got that out of the way, we can get on with something that may have some potential :-

A spreadsheet customer last week asked about Dutching several runners.
He wanted to be able to Dutch whilst Betting and Laying.
I have individual spreadsheets for doing that, a Dutch 3 Bets sheet and a Dutch 3 Lays, but after some correspondence between us, I realized that he wanted to be able to do both Bet and Lay at the same time whilst Dutching.
I had been working on this in 2008 but had problems making the spreadsheet work satisfactorily.
I sent him my rough spreadsheet last night, advised him that I hadn't sorted out my problems, and left it at that.

This morning, I took another look at this sheet, not really knowing what I was going to do next, but almost straight away, I came up with a very simple solution, and half an hour later sent him an updated sheet.
Once I input some odds to make sure that the sheet did what I wanted it to do, I was amazed to find that Hedging out of a Dutching position seemed to provide an excellent exit strategy.
I must point out that the odds I input were entirely fictitious, but this is what the spreadsheet came up with :-
After placing a series of bets to partly Dutch 3 selections, I changed the odds available so that to carry on Dutching would produce a loss of -£3.94.
I then looked at what would happen if I layed all 3 selections to equalize the trade on each selection using those same 3 current odds, which we must bear in mind would be Bet odds not Lay odds.
The result was an overall loss of only -£0.61.
I thought I was seeing things, so checked all the maths using other spreadsheets, and all was ok.
So, I thought I was onto something here.
This is where the rubbish is :-
If we are able to Bet Dutch in Match Odds on Betrfair and the odds move against us, instead of placing further bets to equalize our trade, it may be much cheaper to place some lays to exit the trade to a much smaller loss than if we had carried on Dutching.
If this works with just 3 selections, it will of course work in any market with any number of runners.
That proved to be absolute cobblers.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I tested this sheet later using small stakes in Betfair's Match Odds of the Man City - Blackburn game.
An early goal at about 6 minutes tested my theory.
Surpise, surprise, the outcome whether I Dutched out of the trade or Hedged out was pretty much the same . . . .  a loss of -£7.09.
Whoops !
Back to the drawing board once again.
Got a bit excited there for a while this afternoon, but back down to Earth with a bump this evening.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I've just realized that this evening whilst trading, I only had open trades on 2 of the 3 selections.
I was still waiting to get matched on Man City - the team that scored to take the score to 1-0 at 6 minutes into the game..
If I had got matched on Man City and been waiting to get matched on either Blackburn or the Draw, I would have had a profit from laying Man City at lower odds, which would have given me only a small loss, or even a profit.
Also, my Dutching would have been successful if I'd decided to carry on Dutching.
As it was, the loss that I had tonight when I Hedged out of my Dutching trade by laying Blackburn and the Draw was very close to the loss I would have made if I had simply bet on Man City (at low odds) to complete my Dutching.
The bets that I had open this afternoon is what I must have overlooked.
I always test new strategies and spreadsheets on paper before putting my money where my spreadsheet is, but today for the first time I dived straight in and tested with cash.
Another lesson learned there.

If something looks too good to be true, there's usually something wrong somewhere, so . . . . . . . pass me my calculator, and I'll try again.
G
ood luck with your trading,
Howard.

Contact me
Copyright © H. Hutchinson 2009 All rights reserved
Copying text or any other kind of content from a web site is a criminal offence.