HenryTD
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Posts posted by HenryTD
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@Zico10 Against BOG/evening it's in the ballpark of 20% ROI. Against BFSP it's 3%. Both figures are subject to margins of error - so the BFSP figure could easily be negative.
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@Zico10@Sir Puntalot Sadly my system is not profitable proofed against BFSP. It seems this is very common. BFSP appears super accurate whereas "evening odds" are much more prone to containing errors, i.e. accidentally offering odds that are too long. I have actually measured the accuracy of a variety of odds and can see that the closer to the race time the more accurate they become. The BFSP are the most accurate odds out there. I.e. the ranking of the odds in a race correlates best with the finishing positions of the horses.
It is just possible that my system might be profitable against the odds offered on the betfair exchange at some time well before the off, but I have not investigated this thoroughly yet. There may of course be liquidity issues with early betting so that's a lot of research and data collection to be done!
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@Sir Puntalot - I should point out that I by no means have my heart set on becoming a tipster. I am simply investigating the best way to monetize my system. Maybe I should ask a different question then... how about "If you had a system that was proven profitable (employing BOG and betting the evening before the race) - how would you best monetize it?". Of course you could say "just bet your own money" - but then you will get banned by the bookies - then what?
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Hi,
Has there ever been a thread here (or article anywhere really) discussing experiences of using platforms like BetFan, betadvisor etc from the point of view of a tipster? Things like - how many subscribers they got, could their subscribers get their bets on, did they get their payments reliably and of course - what did they earn... that sort of thing.
Thanks,
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I have been approached by a poker player to take part in what he called a "staking" arrangement though what a poker player means by staking appears different to what it means in horse racing. In horse racing AFAICT the word staking refers to systems for deciding how much to bet from one race to the next depending on things like the size of your bank (e.g. Kelly). In poker however it refers to a plan when an "investor" takes on the risk of the bets, i.e. the "tipster" gets a slice of the profits but is immune to any losses.... So my question is this: is there some speciall word for this kind of arrangement in horse betting? I'd like to be able to do a google search and look into typical percentages and ways to formulate such a deal but without knowing the right search term I am stuck.
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I just went to see how William Hill would report there races with the non runners (who's time of withdrawal we now know). Take a look at the screenshot of the 5.40 at Kempton on the 8th Aug.
It labels both Zabaletaswansong and American Patrol as non runners but only lists the rule 4 deduction for one of them!...
Thinking out loud here...
If William Hill simply did not take bets the day before the race, then only reporting rule 4 deductions for horses that withdrew on the day of the race would make perfect sense. So perhaps WH don't take bets the day before - or they sloppily put data on their site *as if* punters could not bet on the day before... just a theory.
EDIT: Oops. Just checked the 2.20 at Pontefract. WH reports both the non runners without mentioning any rule 4 deductions at all... this is crazy.
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That's very useful to know. Thank you.
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Thanks BillyHills, seems I missed Earthly - that's very useful that you spotted that - so perhaps it's not so rare after all.
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Take a look at the proofing of the very impressive Lucky 7 Naps on Betfan.com:
https://members.betfanplus.com/proof/?oppid=34&p=2&odds=1&stake=1&timeframe=4&month=2018-08-07
You will see that the system makes a nice steady profit with BOG but loses money with SP or BetfairSP. Anyone trying to beat the bookies based purely on testing against SP may get unduly discouraged. Early bets/BOG are undoubtedly a good strategy and early prices are now part of the proform data (beginning mid 2016) but then you need to know about rule 4 deductions which sadly are not included in proform. You can of course only consider races that turned out to have no non-runners.
I noticed that at 8.30pm this evening (7th Aug 18) that there wasn't a single withdrawal in any race tomorrow. Maybe withdrawals the day before the race are super rare? If it turns out they are, then maybe simply assuming that all rule4 deductions are applicable for "evening prices" might be a reasonable approximation.
With regard being blocked by bookies - well if you have a good system you could always become a tipster!
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Averaged over the whole year, about half of all races have one or more non-runners. The only way you have had so few r4 deductions is if you always bet at the last minute. But there are good reasons to believe that there may be better value available in the morning or the day before.
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If I ignored rule 4 deductions altogether then my back testing would end up overestimating my profits. If I always took off the full rule 4 deductions then my back testing would underestimate my profits. Amongst other things I want to determine the likely profitability of my system - how can I know this without handling rule 4 properly?
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Hi Thor. I am puzzled as to why you are puzzled!
Say that a race occurred on June 12th 2017. Say that the race card listed both Dobbin and Lucky Star amongst others.
I also have the information that Lucky Star was withdrawn from the race at some (unknown) point.
I have in my database the fact that at 8.30 pm on 11th June Bet365 were offering odds of 10/1 for Dobbin - but I have no idea whether Lucky star had already withdrawn or was yet to withdraw when these odds were offered.
I also have the information that Dobbin won the race.
I then want to test out the profitability of a particular algorithm by looking at past data, perhaps 1000 old races including the one on June 12th. Say that my algorithm chose Dobbin as the favourite in the race. So I need to know how much would I have won if I had bet on Dobbin at 8.30pm.
The answer to my question depends on exactly what date/time Lucky star withdrew and what the rule 4 deductions would have been.
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The BHA website lists non runners but does not say when they withdrew.
The reason I am going to so much trouble is as follows: I subscribe to the proform database which gives "evening", "breakfast" and "morning" odds which are the odds at Bet365 at pre-defined times. I am doing some back-testing of assorted prediction algorithms and betting strategies. So for example say I wanted to know what would my winnings be if I always bet the day before the race and got the evening odds (8.30pm). It is then essential to know about any rule-4 deductions that may be made to my winnings. I can find the approximate size of the deductions (using william hill data) but what I can not find anywhere is the time of withdrawal so I can not find out if the deductions apply at all. What I'm doing right now is simply looking at races with no non-runners but that means throwing away half my potential data set :-(
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I have now worked out that your data probably came from flatstats... but that leaves me with two problems:
1. I am not sure if the flatstats non-runner info is available for races more than 7 days ago.
2. The flatstats info is still ambiguous. It Simply displays a time and not a date for the withdrawal. It just so happens that in this particular case you can deduce that the withdrawal must have been the previous day but this will not always be the case, especially for late evening races.
Does anyone know of any unambiguous withdrawal time data source?:
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Thanks BillyHills for the detailed reply... of course my next question is: how do you know that Regular withdrew at 8.18? Maybe I could collect some data from that source.
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I have been getting data about rule 4 deductions from the William Hill website. The descriptions of the deductions look like the sample below:
Win - 35p reductions on bets placed between 08:54:41 and 09:48:43
Win - 15p reductions on bets placed between 09:48:44 and 12:32:38
Win - 10p reductions on bets placed between 00:00:01 and 09:04:40
Win - 20p reductions on bets placed between 00:00:01 and 10:01:43
Win - 20p reductions on bets placed between 10:01:44 and 12:15:05
Win - 15p reductions on bets placed between 00:00:01 and 15:16:14
Win - 35p reductions on bets placed between 00:00:01 and 15:03:29
Win - 25p reductions on bets placed between 00:00:01 and 14:35:28
Win - 25p reductions on bets placed between 00:00:01 and 14:23:57
Win - 30p reductions on bets placed between 00:00:01 and 14:02:44
I have collected a large number of these and was expecting to see some instances where William Hill indicated that the withdrawal happened the day before the race but all the times listed come without a date. So either by chance no horse has ever withdrawn the day before a race or perhaps William Hill don't supply enough information to tell.
One thing that would help clarify things is if anyone can think of any example races in which one or more horses withdrew the day before the race.
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Re: "so that would make the 8/1 for Veruc Delicia wrong"
I'm not sure what you mean by wrong? What do you think the 8/1 corresponds to if it's not the forecast odds? Maybe it is the actual odds at the time of withdrawal? If that's the case it's even better.
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Great find. Well done :-)
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I think Escaping Captivity was right in the first place. Take a look at this old result for example:
You see it includes the forecast:
Lead A Merry Dance (2/1), You're My Cracker (4/1), Free To Love (5/1), Princess Tansy (11/2), Verus Delicia (IRE) (8/1), Marjong (9/1), Dangerous Age (10/1), Gower Princess (12/1)
Critically, it includes the non-runner "Verus Delicia (IRE) (8/1)". That's perfect. This can be used to make an approximate rule-4 deduction.
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I had a look at some proofing websites to see what they do about rule-4 deductions and saw that on BetFan.com they use the approximation of assuming that the odds at the time of withdrawal are equal to the odds in the betting forecast. This seems quite reasonable. Though now I have a the obvious followup question:
Are historical betting forecast odds available anywhere?
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It seems that a huge amount of past data is available concerning horse races. The the trainers, the jockeys the going - all that kind of stuff in amazing detail (e.g. using proform). This is great for building and testing horse race prediction systems, but when it comes to historical odds, there is a dearth of information, especially with regard regular (non-exchange) bookmakers. It seems that the industry SP is all you can get. Does anyone know of a source of historic bookmaker prices at any times earlier than the race start time? I'd love to back-test what would happen if I placed my bets early in the morning. I did actually find one source but there was no information about rule4 reductions so the information was as good as useless.
Experiences of BetFan/betadvisor - as a tipster
in Betting Systems & Strategy
Posted
I think I explained the switcheroo in my reply to the first answer - actually I once discussed the idea of becoming a tipster on another forum and got flamed so badly for bringing up the subject of tipsters that I had to leave and never return!
Guilty as charged. I'm certainly not a gambler. I've scarcely gambled a penny my whole life... don't have the temperament for it and worse still I've eaten through all my savings doing this project (just living expenses - not from gambling) so I don't have a sufficient bankroll to start betting (using kelly criteria) other than in tiny amounts.
So now I'm trying to work out how to convert my system into some sort of income. It appears to me that my choices are either to A) become a tipster (hence my original question) or B) to persuade rich friends to start betting on my tips in return for a cut. I am currently one week into trying out B. So far we have discovered that if you bet at 6.30pm on the day before the race then it can be tricky getting the full amount of your bet on, especially if the odds are on the long side, e.g. 10/1 or more. We found that you try and put on say £100 and the bookie website comes back saying that there is a maximum of say £30 allowed for that horse. This was a total surprise to all of us and it's throttling our income.