The BTC Horse Racing Thread

Martin

Keep all your horse trading discussion in here!

Tony Hastie

@Adam Yeah, Ive started that, will be finished by christmas 2027

Adam

@Tony-Hastie I'm not sure tbh, I use their API to set stored values but thinking about it they're more for dynamic numbers that change over time.

Can you just hardcode them in an automation rule? I know you'd need a rule for each course / distance / going combo, but maybe you could just use the minimum times for each 4 furlong distance increment as a starting point or something.

Tony Hastie

@Adam Try as I might Ive not been able to put this file into BA stored values. Forum unhelpful and AI just seemed to take me around in circles!(using notepad mainly) Would you have any insight into how to do it? Could it be as simple as it not being an exel file? I run Libre office....

Greg Mitchell

@Adam Excellent thank you, exactly the same outcome as I had, just needed to check.

Adam

@Greg-Mitchell said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

Ok experts, can you help me out so I can check my calculations are correct please?

The Scenario is this:

I back a horse pre-off at odds of 4.0.
I want to trade out in running at a better price by 20% with a stop loss at a worse price by 40%

For a £1 initial bet stake, what is my P & L (excluding commission) in the following scenarios:

It trades out at the better price

It trades out at the stop loss price

This is the maths I would use if calculating manually:

Back price = 4.0
Back stake = 1.0

Desired odds movement = 20%
Desired exit price = 4.0 * (1 - 0.2) + (0.2) = 3.4
Desired lay stake = (4.0 * 1.0) / 3.4 = £1.18
Profit = 1.18 - 1.0 = £0.18

Stoploss odds movement = 40%
Stoploss price = 4.0 * (1 + 0.4) - (0.4) = 5.2
Stoploss lay stake = (4.0 * 1.0) / 5.2 = £0.77
Loss = 0.77 - 1.0 = -£0.23

Greg Mitchell

Ok experts, can you help me out so I can check my calculations are correct please?

The Scenario is this:

I back a horse pre-off at odds of 4.0.
I want to trade out in running at a better price by 20% with a stop loss at a worse price by 40%

For a £1 initial bet stake, what is my P & L (excluding commission) in the following scenarios:

It trades out at the better price
It trades out at the stop loss price

Adam

@Tony-Hastie I guess for this it would be good to know the fastest times as well so you don't get caught short trying to exit too late, so these are those:

min_times.csv

I haven't restricted these to the last year so those are literally the fastest times in our entire DB for the same breakdown.

Tony Hastie

@Adam This is awesome! Thanks a bunch...

The race % completed seems fairly accurate on BA for flats but jumps are much less so! Admittedly a very small sample size of the last 2 weeks but a 93% trade out time has traded me out anywhere from 5 to 59 seconds for the 2m jumps. Other distances not much better...

Adam

@Tony-Hastie Attached is a CSV with the times for each course, distance and going combo.

Some notes:

This is calculated from the last year's worth of races (there's a tendency towards faster races as time goes on)
It uses the median time rather than average to remove outliers
I've rounded to the nearest second which should be fine for this
It uses the actual going rather than the pre-race predicted going
The distances are also rounded to the nearest furlong or there would have been even more results!

Not sure about BFBM but you should be able to load these into BA as stored values so you can use them as automation triggers.

median_times.csv

Tony Hastie

I could share some data on min, average and max times for different conditions from our data if it would help.

That would be awesome if you could do that thanks @Adam

Adam

There are issues with Betfair's streaming API currently so advise everyone to be careful if you're running bots on Aussie horses, dogs etc right now.

As usual their service status page is the last to know and is currently reporting everything is fine

EDIT: Seems to now be resolved as of about 08:58 UK time.

Adam

@Tony-Hastie said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

I tested mine all yesterday on random selections(and didnt have a loss! Who needs racing software) Found that set at 70% race distance I would green up 20 sec from finish of a 5f. That time increased the longer the distance on the flats. With jumps Id set it to 95% and it would still be a minutue or more from race end! BFBM more accurate than that?

I could subscribe to a site called Total Performance Data and could use the automation to get very accurate trade out times...but its another sub on top of the 4 Im already paying

I'm surprised BA wasn't more accurate than that, there's not that much variation in times once you account for the basic things that affect the speeds. You could research this pretty well in our software, although it would be easier if you could group by multiple factors which is on the roadmap.

I could share some data on min, average and max times for different conditions from our data if it would help.

% completion of the race would be a good trigger for us to add to the betting rules actually, I have added this to the roadmap too.

Greg Mitchell

@Tony-Hastie I'm not really sure if BFBM is more accurate than that, I don't really check, it's working at 15 seconds, so just let it crack on. I will tray and keep an eye on it this week if possible to let you know. But glad you found something that seems to work.

And yes, subscriptions, subscriptions, subscriptions. I have managed to get mine down to only 2 now, but was looking at that Total Performance Data, might give it a trial myself.

John Folan

@Tony-Hastie said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

@Greg-Mitchell Talking in metres, I like

I tested mine all yesterday on random selections(and didnt have a loss! Who needs racing software) Found that set at 70% race distance I would green up 20 sec from finish of a 5f. That time increased the longer the distance on the flats. With jumps Id set it to 95% and it would still be a minutue or more from race end! BFBM more accurate than that?

I could subscribe to a site called Total Performance Data and could use the automation to get very accurate trade out times...but its another sub on top of the 4 Im already paying

This isn’t a bad shout this. I don’t ever think you will get it 100^ accurate on race completion but it will be workable

Tony Hastie

@Greg-Mitchell Talking in metres, I like

I tested mine all yesterday on random selections(and didnt have a loss! Who needs racing software) Found that set at 70% race distance I would green up 20 sec from finish of a 5f. That time increased the longer the distance on the flats. With jumps Id set it to 95% and it would still be a minutue or more from race end! BFBM more accurate than that?

I could subscribe to a site called Total Performance Data and could use the automation to get very accurate trade out times...but its another sub on top of the 4 Im already paying

Greg Mitchell

@Tony-Hastie I like to try and keep things simple, so I use it for all race types and have race speed set at a default of 6 secs per 100m, so it should trade out 250m from the finish line approx.

Tony Hastie

@Greg-Mitchell Ive discovered a Race completed % (using race meter settings) and I think I may have created an automation with the help of AI! Its currently set to exiting after 75% of race is complete while I play around. So, a question if I may.....The 15 sec before race end number, is that for all races? Or do you treat flat and jumps differently?

Greg Mitchell

@Tony-Hastie plus the integration with the BTC horse racing software takes a lot of donkey work out of it. When you change and if you want any help, give us a shout.

Tony Hastie

@Greg-Mitchell Yeah, I think it is overly complicated tbh. Peters made an art form of telling you how to do something...without actually telling you how to do it! Maybe it just goes over my head. I think my sub is up in march, BFBM sounds more like me, although I am very resistant to change