Betfair SP database -Useful or Useless?

We've gone to the dogs.
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shakey1964
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I have added February's figures to the spreadsheet and laying all the favourites that month would put you into a £76 profit for feb and £52 so far for the year
NB these are figures for last year not this (2021 - a year we should all remember as the chinese year of the bat flu)
this file is now too large to be lodged on the forum
If anyone wants it please PM me
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shakey1964
Posts: 118
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: Usually in my truck

User avatar
shakey1964
Posts: 118
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: Usually in my truck

I am sure you will all agree that the data I have produced so far is limited in its content with only 2 months available but I thought I would share with you the Idea behind what I will eventually and hopefully achieve is a "better than probable" set of data that can be used to determine whether to lay the favourite in a certain class, distance, track, or trap -or not
To illustrate this quickly I will take the first winning favourite on Saturday which was Mini Mo in the 09:02 at Harlow
This was run over 415m and the Class was A7
ISP was 13/8 and I was matched at 3.15 10 seconds before post time - or what ever they call it in greyhound terms
The odds are irrelevant at the moment but putting the race details into my workbook I immediately see that Laying the fav in A7 races produces a horrific Loss in the first 2 months of 2021
laying the fav in races over 415m gave just £18.00 profit
More work on the sheet will eventually produce a single P/L figure for Track, Distance, Class and Trap number but in this case an avoidance of laying favourites in A7 class races may be a sound policy.
a7 race 1.gif
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ilovepizza82
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As far as i can tell even if you find it to be profitable the ROI will be extremely tiny. Think 1-2% (MAX)
You can download all the data and see it for yourself (from betfair.)
People here tried everything and i mean literally everything (age of a dog, trap, course, time of race, split time, fastest time, gender etc) and usually its the same story. Not very profitable to say the least. Maybe a few found smth short term but if these are straight bets then eventually it all evens out in the end.
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ShaunWhite
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shakey1964 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:08 pm
I will eventually and hopefully achieve is a "better than probable" set of data that can be used to determine whether to...
Just a word of caution. Whenever you look at data and see that a given situation happens more or less than it ought to it doesn't necessarily mean that's going to continue. In fact because all data has a tendency to revert to the mean it could be that the opposite becomes more likely. But that where there's a bit of a psychological dialema, mean reversion apparently contradicts the Gamblers' Fallacy but statistical anomalies don't 'catch up' they just become less statistically significant (queue the "law of large numbers").

All that's basically to say because trap X has been a winner it doesn't say much about that always been true and might even suggest the opposite... Especially when so many people are looking at these quite simple things and gradually altering the prices accordingly over time. All reasons why data requires more subjectivity than people think it does.
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napshnap
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 4:08 pm
shakey1964 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:08 pm
I will eventually and hopefully achieve is a "better than probable" set of data that can be used to determine whether to...
... Especially when so many people are looking at these quite simple things and gradually altering the prices accordingly over time. All reasons why data requires more subjectivity than people think it does.
So fn true, Shaun! There are some "americas" to discover 8-) !

I should add, that it absolutely won't hurt to combine fundamentals with some markets specific data (timeframes, prices, volumes and other market activity). But systematic extraction of this data may require different skills (programming, knowing of bf api and etc.).
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shakey1964
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Location: Usually in my truck

ilovepizza82 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 3:14 pm
As far as i can tell even if you find it to be profitable the ROI will be extremely tiny. Think 1-2% (MAX)
This was your post and I just thought it would be fun to do the spreadsheet
ROI is a great stat to quote when you want to talk yourself out of a system
Where do you calculate the point of ROI?
If you use just the first 3 races in February 2021 for instance then all 3 won so my ROI would have been 98%
Bottom Line figures are better in my point of view if the total today is bigger than the total yesterday then its a good thing
If we go a step further We can work out the Hourly rate
Taking just Jan and Feb 2021 figures into account the:
total time it took me to make the automation file 3 mins
Time taken to load the daily run on Guardian 15 secs / day
Total time taken (58 x 15 secs) + 3 mins = 17.5 mins
Total profit £51.15
Hourly rate £174.86/hour
Not bad in terms of ROI if time is your investment :D
deestar
Posts: 178
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2020 6:17 pm

shakey1964 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:08 pm
I am sure you will all agree that the data I have produced so far is limited in its content with only 2 months available but I thought I would share with you the Idea behind what I will eventually and hopefully achieve is a "better than probable" set of data that can be used to determine whether to lay the favourite in a certain class, distance, track, or trap -or not
To illustrate this quickly I will take the first winning favourite on Saturday which was Mini Mo in the 09:02 at Harlow
This was run over 415m and the Class was A7
ISP was 13/8 and I was matched at 3.15 10 seconds before post time - or what ever they call it in greyhound terms
The odds are irrelevant at the moment but putting the race details into my workbook I immediately see that Laying the fav in A7 races produces a horrific Loss in the first 2 months of 2021
laying the fav in races over 415m gave just £18.00 profit
More work on the sheet will eventually produce a single P/L figure for Track, Distance, Class and Trap number but in this case an avoidance of laying favourites in A7 class races may be a sound policy.a7 race 1.gif
I have all the results from the BSP files sorted and arranged since 2013 for UK GH in excel if you want them. PM me
But, sorry to say, a quick run though shows a lay Fav approach is not the goldmine you might be hoping for unless you are back fitting mercilessly.
Have you considered looking at P-tests and running monte carlo simulations to give a sense of how likely your results are a product of chance?
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goat68
Posts: 2019
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Location: Hampshire, UK

shakey1964 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:08 pm
I am sure you will all agree that the data I have produced so far is limited in its content with only 2 months available but I thought I would share with you the Idea behind what I will eventually and hopefully achieve is a "better than probable" set of data that can be used to determine whether to lay the favourite in a certain class, distance, track, or trap -or not
To illustrate this quickly I will take the first winning favourite on Saturday which was Mini Mo in the 09:02 at Harlow
This was run over 415m and the Class was A7
ISP was 13/8 and I was matched at 3.15 10 seconds before post time - or what ever they call it in greyhound terms
The odds are irrelevant at the moment but putting the race details into my workbook I immediately see that Laying the fav in A7 races produces a horrific Loss in the first 2 months of 2021
laying the fav in races over 415m gave just £18.00 profit
More work on the sheet will eventually produce a single P/L figure for Track, Distance, Class and Trap number but in this case an avoidance of laying favourites in A7 class races may be a sound policy.a7 race 1.gif
I know I get called out for "fitting" quite a bit, but I think you maybe going down that route here. Fav in A7 races, why not A6 or A8? What's the issue with A7 favs for the "crowd"? I can think of one reason maybe crowd psychology on the "lucky no 7" idea!
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ilovepizza82
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Why dont you download betfair data from at least 2019 and see what the roi really is ? :)
My point of this post "useful or useless" is that basing any system on betfair free data files is pointless thing to do, waste of time as you wont find anything there.
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shakey1964
Posts: 118
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Location: Usually in my truck

goat68 wrote:
Thu Feb 10, 2022 9:54 am
shakey1964 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:08 pm
I am sure you will all agree that the data I have produced so far is limited in its content with only 2 months available but I thought I would share with you the Idea behind what I will eventually and hopefully achieve is a "better than probable" set of data that can be used to determine whether to lay the favourite in a certain class, distance, track, or trap -or not
To illustrate this quickly I will take the first winning favourite on Saturday which was Mini Mo in the 09:02 at Harlow
This was run over 415m and the Class was A7
ISP was 13/8 and I was matched at 3.15 10 seconds before post time - or what ever they call it in greyhound terms
The odds are irrelevant at the moment but putting the race details into my workbook I immediately see that Laying the fav in A7 races produces a horrific Loss in the first 2 months of 2021
laying the fav in races over 415m gave just £18.00 profit
More work on the sheet will eventually produce a single P/L figure for Track, Distance, Class and Trap number but in this case an avoidance of laying favourites in A7 class races may be a sound policy.a7 race 1.gif
I know I get called out for "fitting" quite a bit, but I think you maybe going down that route here. Fav in A7 races, why not A6 or A8? What's the issue with A7 favs for the "crowd"? I can think of one reason maybe crowd psychology on the "lucky no 7" idea!
I wasnt picking A7 races in particular it was just the first winning favourite in the example
the aim of my participation in this thread is to answer the opening question "Betfair SP database -Useful or Useless?" to a degree
on first look from the data provided and the way that I have looked at it I would say that yes to an extent it is useful and as Euler says I have never used a lamp post for support it has other much more practical uses
I will keep plodding on though
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shakey1964
Posts: 118
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: Usually in my truck

deestar wrote:
Thu Feb 10, 2022 8:33 am
shakey1964 wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:08 pm
I am sure you will all agree that the data I have produced so far is limited in its content with only 2 months available but I thought I would share with you the Idea behind what I will eventually and hopefully achieve is a "better than probable" set of data that can be used to determine whether to lay the favourite in a certain class, distance, track, or trap -or not
To illustrate this quickly I will take the first winning favourite on Saturday which was Mini Mo in the 09:02 at Harlow
This was run over 415m and the Class was A7
ISP was 13/8 and I was matched at 3.15 10 seconds before post time - or what ever they call it in greyhound terms
The odds are irrelevant at the moment but putting the race details into my workbook I immediately see that Laying the fav in A7 races produces a horrific Loss in the first 2 months of 2021
laying the fav in races over 415m gave just £18.00 profit
More work on the sheet will eventually produce a single P/L figure for Track, Distance, Class and Trap number but in this case an avoidance of laying favourites in A7 class races may be a sound policy.a7 race 1.gif
I have all the results from the BSP files sorted and arranged since 2013 for UK GH in excel if you want them. PM me
But, sorry to say, a quick run though shows a lay Fav approach is not the goldmine you might be hoping for unless you are back fitting mercilessly.
Have you considered looking at P-tests and running monte carlo simulations to give a sense of how likely your results are a product of chance?
Thanks for the offer check your inbox
I have absolutly no Idea what a monte carlo or a p-test is
Perhaps you could enlighten us
The file must be horrendously huge
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shakey1964
Posts: 118
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: Usually in my truck

ilovepizza82 wrote:
Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:47 am
Why dont you download betfair data from at least 2019 and see what the roi really is ? :)
My point of this post "useful or useless" is that basing any system on betfair free data files is pointless thing to do, waste of time as you wont find anything there.
Knowledge is king If you don't seek it be a serf forever
I liked your post and pursued it as a result I am 20 quid better off
if I had lost I would be equally as wise as I am now just poorer
Also I have taught myself a couple of things I never knew excel could do
How can you say that is pointless :shock:
BTW Challenge accepted - may take me a while ;)
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shakey1964
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Bad News Campers

Laying the Fav at Minimum betfair stake of 2 quid in March 2021 averaged a £4 loss per day
yep -£121.85

Oversized file on my Blog
https://bet-or-not.com/2022/02/10/greyhounds-again/
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shakey1964
Posts: 118
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: Usually in my truck

April 2021 data has been added to the workbook
Not a good month again with £112.76 loss over the month however there is light in the tunnel as If you layed the favourite that started from Trap 1 in the first 4 months of 2021 you would have a £267.36 profit
Available to download from the usual place
https://bet-or-not.com/2022/02/11/layin ... pril-2021/
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