Trading What I see !?

Learn sports betting strategies and discuss key factors to consider when placing a bet.
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ShaunWhite
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...btw that also demonstrates the efficency of SP. With or without the SP hedge bets (or near SP) the PL isn't much different long term.
Leeds1919
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Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2020 5:20 pm

ShaunWhite wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:58 pm
Leeds1919 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:37 pm

Do the same criteria apply if you hedge all your trades at post time like I do?
yes & no, This might not all be relevent but I'll try and put the topic to bed.

If the hedge doesn't always produce exactly the same amount across the card or you don't hedge, then you can measure your performance like this:

Add up all your pre-hedge bets for any given selection you'll arrive at two figures:

The amount you'll win/lose if the selection loses (IfLose)
The amount you'll win/lose if the selection wins (IfWin)
ie your net position

Then calculate what the SP 'clean' green up figure would have been eg .. IfLose+(IfWin-IfLose)/BSP
If that figure is +ve then you had a net position that was better than bsp, and if it is -ve then you had a net position that was worse than bsp.

I don't actually take much notice of my cash PL, my automation gets close to a level figure across the card but there might be a pound or two difference and quite often a bigger difference if there was a very late bet and I didn't adjust my hedge in time. So I always look at my 'clean' green figure because over time the two are very similar.

In this, the red line is the 'clean' PL and the blue line is the actual messy real world figure. Even though the blue has bad patches, the red line is the sanity figure that says you're doing ok. It also has the advantage of seeing if you've been winning more or less than you 'should' and to expect a better or worse patch soon. It's essential for betting strategies because you can be losing cash when the strategy is sound or winning cash when it isn't. If the red line, the amount you've beaten BSP by, is going up then hang in there.

Screenshot_9.jpg

Hope that helped. fyi that's a 6 month view so quite long good & bad spells that would have been headscratchers without the truer bsp benchmarked figure.
Thanks for taking the time to explain Shaun appreciate it.

Is there somewhere I can get the exchange bsp after the result or do I have to keep a note of it manually for each race?

I'm guessing there's a way of logging it with Guardian?
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ShaunWhite
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Leeds1919 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 3:46 pm
Thanks for taking the time to explain Shaun appreciate it.


I'm guessing there's a way of logging it with Guardian?
No probs Leeds.

I'll have to leave that question to someone else (Dallas?), I'm sure it can but I'm not sure how. The tricky bit might be matching the SPs with what you can get from your Betfair bet history without having a marketID or selectionID. I'm fortunate enough to use my own software so can't really offer a solution but lots on here probaby could suggest a way.
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Trader724
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The Bsp's and winners are here. Just xlookup them.
Leeds1919
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:58 pm

Add up all your pre-hedge bets for any given selection you'll arrive at two figures:

The amount you'll win/lose if the selection loses (IfLose)
The amount you'll win/lose if the selection wins (IfWin)
ie your net position

Then calculate what the SP 'clean' green up figure would have been eg .. IfLose+(IfWin-IfLose)/BSP
If that figure is +ve then you had a net position that was better than bsp, and if it is -ve then you had a net position that was worse than bsp.
In the example above lets say I placed a back bet of £100 at 4.4 and the horse loses, it would be 100+(340-100)/BSP?

And if it wins 340+(340-100)/BSP?

In the example I used the horse lost and the BSP was 3.97 so I get a figure of 85.64. Stupid question klaxon but how do I know if that figure is plus or minus +ve?
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goat68
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Location: Hampshire, UK

Leeds1919 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:44 pm
ShaunWhite wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:58 pm

Add up all your pre-hedge bets for any given selection you'll arrive at two figures:

The amount you'll win/lose if the selection loses (IfLose)
The amount you'll win/lose if the selection wins (IfWin)
ie your net position

Then calculate what the SP 'clean' green up figure would have been eg .. IfLose+(IfWin-IfLose)/BSP
If that figure is +ve then you had a net position that was better than bsp, and if it is -ve then you had a net position that was worse than bsp.
In the example above lets say I placed a back bet of £100 at 4.4 and the horse loses, it would be 100+(340-100)/BSP?

And if it wins 340+(340-100)/BSP?

In the example I used the horse lost and the BSP was 3.97 so I get a figure of 85.64. Stupid question klaxon but how do I know if that figure is plus or minus +ve?

not quite I think. Here's a hedging example:

Say you Back £100 at 4.4
Then hedge Lay say £110 at 3.8

If horse wins: 340 - 308 = £32
If horse loses: -100 + 110 = £10
So that's what I coin a "wonky hedge" !

BSP then works out to be 3.97

Your theoretical profit ie Shaun's red line is:
10 + (32-10)/3.97 = £15.54
Last edited by goat68 on Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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goat68
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Location: Hampshire, UK

Leeds1919 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:44 pm
ShaunWhite wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:58 pm

Add up all your pre-hedge bets for any given selection you'll arrive at two figures:

The amount you'll win/lose if the selection loses (IfLose)
The amount you'll win/lose if the selection wins (IfWin)
ie your net position

Then calculate what the SP 'clean' green up figure would have been eg .. IfLose+(IfWin-IfLose)/BSP
If that figure is +ve then you had a net position that was better than bsp, and if it is -ve then you had a net position that was worse than bsp.
In the example above lets say I placed a back bet of £100 at 4.4 and the horse loses, it would be 100+(340-100)/BSP?

And if it wins 340+(340-100)/BSP?

In the example I used the horse lost and the BSP was 3.97 so I get a figure of 85.64. Stupid question klaxon but how do I know if that figure is plus or minus +ve?
Ah, so you worked out the figure as if you didn't hedge, which is fine too, except you didn't quite work it out right:

-100 + (340-(-100))/3.97 = £10.83
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goat68
Posts: 2019
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Location: Hampshire, UK

Leeds1919 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:44 pm
ShaunWhite wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:58 pm

Add up all your pre-hedge bets for any given selection you'll arrive at two figures:

The amount you'll win/lose if the selection loses (IfLose)
The amount you'll win/lose if the selection wins (IfWin)
ie your net position

Then calculate what the SP 'clean' green up figure would have been eg .. IfLose+(IfWin-IfLose)/BSP
If that figure is +ve then you had a net position that was better than bsp, and if it is -ve then you had a net position that was worse than bsp.
In the example above lets say I placed a back bet of £100 at 4.4 and the horse loses, it would be 100+(340-100)/BSP?

And if it wins 340+(340-100)/BSP?

In the example I used the horse lost and the BSP was 3.97 so I get a figure of 85.64. Stupid question klaxon but how do I know if that figure is plus or minus +ve?
So in this example roughly 25% of the time you will win 340, and 75% lose 100, the theoretical average is thus +£10.83 in the long run.
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ShaunWhite
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Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am

goat68 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:38 pm

-100 + (340-(-100))/3.97 = £10.83
You beat me to it, you need to keep the signs so that two minuses are a plus.
Leeds1919
Posts: 81
Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2020 5:20 pm

goat68 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:36 pm
Leeds1919 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:44 pm
ShaunWhite wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 2:58 pm

Add up all your pre-hedge bets for any given selection you'll arrive at two figures:

The amount you'll win/lose if the selection loses (IfLose)
The amount you'll win/lose if the selection wins (IfWin)
ie your net position

Then calculate what the SP 'clean' green up figure would have been eg .. IfLose+(IfWin-IfLose)/BSP
If that figure is +ve then you had a net position that was better than bsp, and if it is -ve then you had a net position that was worse than bsp.
In the example above lets say I placed a back bet of £100 at 4.4 and the horse loses, it would be 100+(340-100)/BSP?

And if it wins 340+(340-100)/BSP?

In the example I used the horse lost and the BSP was 3.97 so I get a figure of 85.64. Stupid question klaxon but how do I know if that figure is plus or minus +ve?

not quite I think. Here's a hedging example:

Say you Back £100 at 4.4
Then hedge Lay say £110 at 3.8

If horse wins: 340 - 308 = £32
If horse loses: -100 + 110 = £10
So that's what I coin a "wonky hedge" !

BSP then works out to be 3.97

Your theoretical profit ie Shaun's red line is:
10 + (32-10)/3.97 = £15.54
This is a real trade I did yesterday on a race at York. I backed at 4.4 and placed lay trades at 4.3, 4.2 and 4.1 and the final hedge was at 4.2. My profit fully hedged after commission was £3.62.

To get the hedged amount from your example I'm guessing I must divide £15.54 by BSP which gives a total of £3.71 after commission.

So my actual profit is £3.62 and Shaun's 'clean' PL is £3.71 so in this case I didn't beat BSP?
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Trader724
Posts: 559
Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2019 11:22 pm

Leeds1919 wrote:
Sat Aug 20, 2022 10:37 am
goat68 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:36 pm
Leeds1919 wrote:
Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:44 pm


In the example above lets say I placed a back bet of £100 at 4.4 and the horse loses, it would be 100+(340-100)/BSP?

And if it wins 340+(340-100)/BSP?

In the example I used the horse lost and the BSP was 3.97 so I get a figure of 85.64. Stupid question klaxon but how do I know if that figure is plus or minus +ve?

not quite I think. Here's a hedging example:

Say you Back £100 at 4.4
Then hedge Lay say £110 at 3.8

If horse wins: 340 - 308 = £32
If horse loses: -100 + 110 = £10
So that's what I coin a "wonky hedge" !

BSP then works out to be 3.97

Your theoretical profit ie Shaun's red line is:
10 + (32-10)/3.97 = £15.54
This is a real trade I did yesterday on a race at York. I backed at 4.4 and placed lay trades at 4.3, 4.2 and 4.1 and the final hedge was at 4.2. My profit fully hedged after commission was £3.62.

To get the hedged amount from your example I'm guessing I must divide £15.54 by BSP which gives a total of £3.71 after commission.

So my actual profit is £3.62 and Shaun's 'clean' PL is £3.71 so in this case I didn't beat BSP?
As long as the outcome of the formula is positive you have beaten the bsp overall, but some of your bets in that trade did not beat the bsp, which happens very often in trading.

You didn't beat the bsp with your lay bets, but you did backing at 4.4.

Virtually all lay bets at a higher price or back bets at a lower price than the bsp didn't beat the bsp, which is quite obvious. :D

However the formula is helpful in calculating the net position as Shaun mentioned, especially when you are not staking/hedging perfectly and the outcome may differ from the expected value in that you may end up with a profitable/bigger trade when in fact you should have made a loss or vice versa. You get a much more accurate EV than P&L.
Leeds1919
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Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2020 5:20 pm

Thanks for all your help on this chaps, its a very interesting way of looking at profit and loss.

Unfortunately it seems way too time consuming having to manually calculate all this information at the end of a days trading.
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ShaunWhite
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Leeds1919 wrote:
Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:39 pm
Unfortunately it seems way too time consuming having to manually calculate all this information at the end of a days trading.
Manually :shock:? It's 2022 mate, load your bet history into Excel and job done. If you're not sure how to, then just doing that will take as long to learn as doing it manually for a couple of days.

Excel is something you'll ideally need to keep your stats etc in too so a fairly essential part of a trader's skill set.

But... You fully hedge anyway so all this benchmarking stuff is academic. :)
Leeds1919
Posts: 81
Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2020 5:20 pm

ShaunWhite wrote:
Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:05 pm
Leeds1919 wrote:
Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:39 pm
Unfortunately it seems way too time consuming having to manually calculate all this information at the end of a days trading.
Manually :shock:? It's 2022 mate, load your bet history into Excel and job done. If you're not sure how to, then just doing that will take as long to learn as doing it manually for a couple of days.

Excel is something you'll ideally need to keep your stats etc in too so a fairly essential part of a trader's skill set.

But... You fully hedge anyway so all this benchmarking stuff is academic. :)
Well thank you Shaun, I've just learned that you can teach an old dog a new trick! I didn't realise I could go to my account then exchange bets and download all my bets over a period of time into excel. I was manually downloading one race at a time! :oops:

Back to the problem at hand are you saying its not possible to work out the VE if I hedge? How about if I slightly change my trading style and net out my stake then hedge as the very last thing I do in the market? That way I should be able to work it out just by leaving the hedge bet out of the calculations. Would that work?
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ShaunWhite
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If you're hedging then you already have that figure. The calc is just working out the fully hedged figure for when the amount you win or lose depends on the result. And just FYI that's not the same as expected value which is the difference between the real world likelihood and the odds you got. You can't really use the hedged amount for that because getting a return for zero liability is implied odds of infinity. :)
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