The BTC Horse Racing Thread
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@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.
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@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
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@Tony-Hastie I started off with Bet Angel yes, but in my opinion they are two completely different approaches.
Bet Angel is more suited to what I would term "Real" trading, in that if you have the time and inclination to sit in front of it all day, watching markets and taking advantage of price swings, then there is nothing better. But if you want to "Set & Forget" where you need to be using automation and tracking a strategies performance, I found it hard work, a) to get your selections into it, b) to get the automation to replicate exactly what you wanted and c) get any meaningful data out of it to analyse.
BFBM to me is ideal for the "Set & Forget" approach, the automation logic makes a lot more sense to me personally, the importing and exporting of data is much easier plus it keeps a track of each bots performance and P & L. Plus I don't have to watch endless videos of Peter trying to explain things that I don't understand.
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@Greg-Mitchell I recall you did have Bet Angel a while back didnt you? How do you compare the 2?
I tried doing what you are doing by grouping race distances together and making about 8 different automations that would trade out around 2f from race end. It all got a bit complicated in the end...with different classes running different speeds and ground conditions constantly changing. That was quite a while ago, been a few BA updates since then, might go and have another look...
Knocked the dutching US and Auzzie races on the head today. The US races especially seem to always run 10-15 minutes late. I just happened to come across a race that where the automation had fired...and the 3 favs were no longer the 3 favs. Can once again give the laptop a rest overnight
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@Tony-Hastie, settings are a bit different in Bet Angel, but when do you get the bot to place the 8 ticks bit?
I have mine set up to place the initial Lay bet 10 seconds before the official start time, as soon as its matched it places the 8 ticks bet, although I have it set at 20% better price rather than ticks and this bet is set to "Keep", so it is still there once the race is Off.
In BFBM, you can set it to trade out at a set live race time, so I don't have my stop loss set at ticks either, I have it set to trade out 15 seconds before the anticipated end of the race regardless of the odds and if the 20% bet hasn't been matched.
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@Greg-Mitchell Yeah, bet angel damn it!
If you could explain how it works it would be much appreciated...
At the moment my bot is set to take 8 ticks, with a 16 tick stoploss placed at 24 ticks if that makes sense!(avoids the blow outs apparently) Then trade out regardless at 30 seconds. The bot works fine, I just cant seem to make it profitable...
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@Tony-Hastie Yes I have it fully automated on BFBM. Do you want my bot or are you using Bet Angel?
I've given up on the Dutching but working on a Lay 3rd Fav one, which seems to be doing ok in its early stages.
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@Greg-Mitchell Yep, finally got the discipline sorted! No closer to sorting out the automation though. How you going with that?
You still running the dutching strat on all races? Hows that gone? Ive just started doing it as wife is away and Im bored
Ive also got another up my sleeve...which I accidently found when I was trying to do something else!(A bit like Ryans HT/FT vid I watched today!) The graph is nice so im testing that now. If it goes well I will divulge...
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@Tony-Hastie L2B going alright at the moment Tony..
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@Greg-Mitchell said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
Always the way isn't it.
The rule should be whatever the strategy, if you:
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Convert it from Paper to Real Trading
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Share it with anyone
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Decide to Increase Stakes
Always reverse the Strategy for at least the first week afterwards.
One of the problems is that all of the above things are usually preceded by a good or great run for the strategy. We'd be resistant to doing any of those things if it wasn't having a great run. But we forget that regression to the mean exists even in a good strategy, so shortly after doing those things, it will often take a bit of a nosedive and we end up thinking "why tf did I do that?"
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@Greg-Mitchell hahaha this is so true about everything around trading
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@Tony-Hastie Always the way isn't it.
The rule should be whatever the strategy, if you:
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Convert it from Paper to Real Trading
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Share it with anyone
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Decide to Increase Stakes
Always reverse the Strategy for at least the first week afterwards.
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@Tony-Hastie Sods law! I swear this is like an unwritten rule of trading...
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@Greg-Mitchell 5 losses in a row since I shared this
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The odds movements in horse racing can be truly bizarre, thats why the set trade out time is needed isnt it(and thats why it can blow through a stoploss). Yesterday, a horse I was on was doing everything right for me. The odd movement was stable so I was happy to stay in the trade. Suddenly without warning(and a long way from home) I was in a huge hole. The horse had not done a single thing to warrant it. It stablised 10 or so seconds later and I got out for a slight loss, but if the bloody thing had picked that exact time to make a move I was a gonner!
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@Greg-Mitchell Never even thought to do that! Ive been looking for something to include the US and Australia racing as I feel Im missing out on profit there
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@Adam Yes indeed, practising with Tony's L2B. Desired exit bet is placed as soon as the initial bet is placed and set to keep. Originally had the stop loss set at 30 secs, which I thought was 30 seconds after the off, but was firing too soon for some reason, so have now set it to 30 seconds before the estimated end time of the race and it seemed to fire ok yesterday, saving me a few quid as were a couple of eventual winners.
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It can be a ballache getting matched in running with a bot.
I tend to make sure my desired exit is in place before the race goes off and have a fixed bail-out time in case the price is still bouncing around between the desired exit and the stop loss. But when it hits the bail-out time I figure out whether to hold a little longer or actually bail on the trade from a signal score based on the current direction and momentum of the price, distance between my desired exit price and the LTP, flow of money, queue position at my price and a couple of other more minor things.
I don't know how much of that you could configure in BFBM or BetAngel but it seems to stop me bailing out too soon in many cases, at the expense of some cases where I probably should have bailed and then end up chasing the price in the wrong direction for a few seconds.
It could probably be improved further with access to the TPD data which is something I / we're looking into.
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@Tony-Hastie So I have set a bot up on BFBM for your Dutching strategy, it is currently working on any horse race, so not just UK. Criteria as you suggested, 5 to 8 runners, favourite price 3.25 or greater, with 30% difference in price between 3rd and 4th Fav. So for example, if the 3rd Fav was 9, the 4th Fav would have to be 12 or bigger. Dutching set to give £1.20 profit if we have a winner.
Started it running on the 11th, so it's been two whole days (
). There have been 20 races that qualified, with 17 winners. Total Stake £60, Total Profit = £12.Should I give up work now?
The bot is fully automated, so no link to our software, it checks all the criteria itself.
Working on the L2B now, whilst the Dutching merrily tests itself.
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@Greg-Mitchell 5 ticks? Its not based on anything Ive seen though! I think, any more and you cut your selections down further...and theres not an abundance of qualifiers at end of day.
For example-Ive loaded 8 qualifiers into BA today. Of those only 3 have Favs over 3.25(or close), one of those, the 3rd and 4th fav are both at 6s so possibly also a non qualifier...
