Horse Racing Strategies Megathread

[Ian Parry]

@nick-allan said in ***Horse Racing Shared Strategies Megathread + Downloads***:

This is a genuine question for everyone who's got the horse trading software? Is anyone out there making actual money on it? I've been testing for nearly four months now using about four or five strategies and hasn't been any that have been consistently profitable and most would have lost quite a bit of money (don’t worry I’m on low stakes). I see there is a lot of information in the chat about strategies that people have been tweaking and showing the backtesting which is great, but are the actually working in a live testing environment? I understand with any new strategy you need to test it for three to four months I totally get that, but sooner or later the software has to show some form of value would you not disagree? And if none of the strategies are profitable then where is the value? Even the pace lays which had a good month last month are having an absolutely dreadful month this month.

So I'm interested to see if anyone is actually making money and on what strategy they are because maybe I'm just looking at the wrong strategies? Another example will be this recent back the favourite on Saturdays, Mondays and Tuesdays, now granted I've only been testing it for two weeks now but it's on like minus 24 points which is some drawdown.

I hope this isn't perceived as negative because it's not meant to be I'm just genuinely interested if anyone is making money in a live environment and it doesn't matter even if their one pound stakes or 50p stakes have they got any strategies that are making some form of profit?

Hi Nick. I'm pretty much in the same boat as you at the moment. I'm running about 5 strategies 1 of which is showing a small net gain, the others are at a loss, although I don't think I'm at the stage yet that I'm ready to bin them. Personally I don't think 3 to 4 months is enough - especially if they don't get more than a couple of selections a day.

What I found was that even though I had the strategy automated, I was spending too much time tracking the results and could only manage around 4-5 strategies. This is not enough in my opinion - unless you get lucky. Some strategies will have positive results over the past few years by natural variance - even if they are not intrinsically profitable. Many of these will be the ones we stumble across in the software as we discard strategies that lose money. So I suspect a pretty high proportion of strategies that we find in the software that appear profitable in the software (and were profitable in the past couple of years) will not continue to show profit.

I've been spending most of my time recently coding an automated stake management and strategy monitoring system. I've just finished that and I now spend zero time on stake management and result tracking. This will give me the ability to run dozens of strategies at once - hopefully increasing the chances of finding genuinely profitable ones. Over the next couple of months I intend to spend a lot of time in the software looking for new strategies then implementing them and letting them run. If I then go another 6 months or so without finding anything profitable then I'll probably give it away.

[John Folan]

@nick-allan said in ***Horse Racing Shared Strategies Megathread + Downloads***:

This is a genuine question for everyone who's got the horse trading software? Is anyone out there making actual money on it? I've been testing for nearly four months now using about four or five strategies and hasn't been any that have been consistently profitable and most would have lost quite a bit of money (don’t worry I’m on low stakes). I see there is a lot of information in the chat about strategies that people have been tweaking and showing the backtesting which is great, but are the actually working in a live testing environment? I understand with any new strategy you need to test it for three to four months I totally get that, but sooner or later the software has to show some form of value would you not disagree? And if none of the strategies are profitable then where is the value? Even the pace lays which had a good month last month are having an absolutely dreadful month this month.

So I'm interested to see if anyone is actually making money and on what strategy they are because maybe I'm just looking at the wrong strategies? Another example will be this recent back the favourite on Saturdays, Mondays and Tuesdays, now granted I've only been testing it for two weeks now but it's on like minus 24 points which is some drawdown.

I hope this isn't perceived as negative because it's not meant to be I'm just genuinely interested if anyone is making money in a live environment and it doesn't matter even if their one pound stakes or 50p stakes have they got any strategies that are making some form of profit?

Yep I can honestly say I am.

Short odd lays 43 points since April. Took me a while to get the bot right and august walloped me for 20 points during the heatwave. Took a while to make that back but it’s there now and is hitting new bank highs at last.

A variation on martins beaten favourites is giving me a nice amount. Laying to a liability. Took a 9 point dive when I first started them at the back of august. Probably made a good 30 points since then.

Pace backs whilst madly swingy have me about 45 points up over 3 months. October was a test and a half. Still not sure if these are for me. Prefer laying strategies.

Couple of others showing promise. Biggest problem is replicating the software. But that’s just finding the right bot and learning the rules. If I start a strategy and cant get close (allowing a margin for error) I bin it. I have had a fair few non starters while testing live.

For higher odds always try liability rather than stake. Easier on the heart and the bank.

[Nick Allan]

This is a genuine question for everyone who's got the horse trading software? Is anyone out there making actual money on it? I've been testing for nearly four months now using about four or five strategies and hasn't been any that have been consistently profitable and most would have lost quite a bit of money (don’t worry I’m on low stakes). I see there is a lot of information in the chat about strategies that people have been tweaking and showing the backtesting which is great, but are the actually working in a live testing environment? I understand with any new strategy you need to test it for three to four months I totally get that, but sooner or later the software has to show some form of value would you not disagree? And if none of the strategies are profitable then where is the value? Even the pace lays which had a good month last month are having an absolutely dreadful month this month.

So I'm interested to see if anyone is actually making money and on what strategy they are because maybe I'm just looking at the wrong strategies? Another example will be this recent back the favourite on Saturdays, Mondays and Tuesdays, now granted I've only been testing it for two weeks now but it's on like minus 24 points which is some drawdown.

I hope this isn't perceived as negative because it's not meant to be I'm just genuinely interested if anyone is making money in a live environment and it doesn't matter even if their one pound stakes or 50p stakes have they got any strategies that are making some form of profit?

[A Former User]

@jonathan-busch 1.59

[A Former User]

@richard-morris Awesome, thanks for putting your time in to doing this, really appreciate that

Unfortunately, this isn't compatable:

What version are you running? I have v1.58.0

[A Former User]

@jonathan-busch Morning Jonathan
took a look at your file and made some edits. please see below.
I think one of the problems you had with not getting matched is that some markets were moving away from your bet in the time it took to enter. I've adjusted it to take 3rd best price and rely on BF best price system to get you matched.
Has your take SP rule been firing ok?
You occasionally get two bets matched due to your rule firing twice. the second bet sees no matched bets andfires giving you two bets in the market

Give this a go and let me know
cheers

0_1668411881978_1668379724517-jb_-held-upRM.baf

[A Former User]

@richard-morris said in ***Horse Racing Shared Strategies Megathread + Downloads***:

@jonathan-busch can you link the baf file and ill take a look

I'll try - hopefully this has worked :backhand_index_pointing_down:

0_1668379717437_JB_ Held Up.baf

[A Former User]

@jonathan-busch can you link the baf file and ill take a look

[A Former User]

@richard-morris said in ***Horse Racing Shared Strategies Megathread + Downloads***:

@jonathan-busch Hi What issues are you having?
I could write a BAF file if that would help?

Hi Richard

That would be awesome. Maybe it only needs a little tweak or a different approach?

The problem I have had is the bets haven't been placed. Here is a quick snapshot to show how frequently this has occurred:

What I am trying to achieve is to place a $1 lay bet 15 seconds before the off, on guardian nominated selections 1-5, with a lay price between 1.01 and 4.0

Thanks heaps

[Kevin Pepper]

I meant to say we should really move this to the Fairbot Automation Thread...

[Kevin Pepper]

@dan-mackinnon
You can try something like the Condition below to only bet if there's a 4 tick or less offset between Best Back & Lay odds (it is a bit of a pain as you'll have to select the Horse an extra couple of times when you apply the strategy.

If you wanted to try and lay as low as possible then you could set the Rule to apply several times in the expectation your Lay offer (say at Best Back + 1 tick) will be matched in the time to the start. To do that I'd add the Condition below, set the Lay bet per the next s/shot (I've used Fill or Kill with 60 secs) and then update the General tab to repeat say 9 times with a 65 sec gap between attempts (next s/shot)
I haven't added it to Conditions but you could have a further Rule which kicks in just before the race start where if there are no matched bets you simply place a lay at the current Lay price so you ensure you've got a bet matched....

Updated Strategy file attached (but as always check it over/tailor as necessary) - 0_1668172986045_d0243a88-ff80-4b34-8080-530cf313747d-Martins Pace Lays updated for Dan 11112022.fs

[Dan MacKinnon]

@kevin-pepper good point. Which condition do I need to use?

[Kevin Pepper]

@dan-mackinnon
Hi Dan,
You might want to include a check in your conditions about the offset between the current best back and lay prices so you're not laying at a higher price than needed. For example, current best back is between 3 and 15 (say 6.0) but the best lay at that point is 8.0 (maybe the market is reforming after a non-runner). I sometimes include in the Conditions a check that the spread between back and lay prices is less than a few ticks.
Alternatively in the 'Action' you might just decide to place your Lay bet at the current Best Back Price + 1 tick. If you do that you will need to add rules to ensure that the bet is matched.
Hope that helps
Kevin

[A Former User]

@jonathan-busch Hi What issues are you having?
I could write a BAF file if that would help?

[Nick Allan]

@dan-mackinnon said in ***Horse Racing Shared Strategies Megathread + Downloads***:

Here's the file for the filter. As I'm still very much a beginner I'm sure I've made a mistake somewhere so if anyone would like to check that it'll be good to let me know
0_1668090418724_Martin's Pace Lays Rev A.json

I've also created a Fairbot strategy for the above set to £1 stakes. When you load it, the Automation tab will say "unknown" which is underlined. Click that, select the horse you want, and do the same in the conditions section. Again, if anyone wants to check that is correct please do. I'll be testing this with £1 stakes for now and see how it compares with the software
0_1668090504080_Martin's Pace Lays.fs

let me know how the testing goes dan, im not going to tweaking anything myself as the one thing ive been doing lately in trading football or horse is tweaking too much. I did take out class 1 races as i agree that a good change. But again please let me know how it goes as i would be interested to hear results. Some great analysis buddy

[Andy Donnelly]

@dan-mackinnon Interesting analysis. I also looked at some tweaks for the pace lays in recent months. I couldn’t quite get my head around the logic of not including those marked as 12 as well, so I removed the restriction on courses, added in 12s and they were also profitable.

I’ve since re-added some course restrictions but these will likely differ to the original course selections now.

Good shout on the class 1 races, removed them and it adds to profit

[Dan MacKinnon]

Here's the file for the filter. As I'm still very much a beginner I'm sure I've made a mistake somewhere so if anyone would like to check that it'll be good to let me know
0_1668090418724_Martin's Pace Lays Rev A.json

I've also created a Fairbot strategy for the above set to £1 stakes. When you load it, the Automation tab will say "unknown" which is underlined. Click that, select the horse you want, and do the same in the conditions section. Again, if anyone wants to check that is correct please do. I'll be testing this with £1 stakes for now and see how it compares with the software
0_1668090504080_Martin's Pace Lays.fs

[Dan MacKinnon]

I had another look at @Martin's Pace Lay as a good way to learn the software.

First, I cleared everything and selected all the Pace Ratings. When you filter it 10 is definitely the outlier as all the others were -pts but 10 was +300.

Next, I checked the class (along with a few other options so as not to skew results before I could check the impact). 1 was always coming up negative so got rid of that.

I checked the odds as I had set them between 1.01 and 20. Anything below 2.0 was losing, everything about was good.

I looked at the courses and only a few weren't profitable. As I'm slowly developing my horse racing knowledge I could tell some of these are evening only or have very few races so I didn't mind getting rid of them.

After each change, I checked the entry price, handicap, race type, number of runners and distance to make sure I wasn't throwing things off massively. After removing some courses the best odds were between 3-20. I tried out a few other odds and the best one seemed to be 3 - 15.

With £100 bank using flat stakes of £1 these are the results...

MARTIN'S ORIGINAL

MY AMENDS

The max. drawdown is better on Martin's as the odds are lower, however you can reduce mine down to 11 and you get similar results.
On the original there are 3 losing months, which are -10.55pts, -4.34pts and -3.8pts.
My amends have 2 losing months, -12.04 and -11.98

It gets really interesting when I compounded the results using 1% of £100 bank

MARTIN'S ORIGINAL

MY AMENDS

Quite a difference. Obviously take all of this with a pinch of salt.

The most interesting part is looking at the max. drawdown is 16% for both and comparing the losing months.
The original now has 4 losing months which are -74.5, -70.39, -26.26 and -6.58
The amends has the same 2 losing months but is now -33.03 and -20.68

[A Former User]

@john-folan If you run as free bet the ROI increases. If i'm using software correctly. I'm new here.

[John Folan]

@dan-mackinnon I usually watch most of the afternoons racing. Especially if I’ve got anything in it. Does get the blood pumping as Angus says.