Always was curious to this because I can only think of two things that a human can do that a bot couldnt and thats listen to the racing on TV and see if there is any news on the horses, horse playing up etc. To be perfectly honest when trading none of this ever really seemed that important to me, rarely there was some breaking news that meant you needed to get in or out of a trade.
So for that reason could a bot be taught how to trade by reading all the information gathered by the betfair API, and move through each race making consistent profit. Of course it would need to have the exact rules and formulas to follow covering a magniture of strict rules, these could be tweaked until you had created yourself the perfect trader.
I have quite a lot of spare time as I work online (not trading), and have a highly qualified team of coders from Romania who work with me on my other projects. I was thinking of trying something like this out as a hobby.
Was just interested if anyone had any thoughts on this, what are the positives/negatives. Is it completely a silly idea and not possible. Any feedback and opinions would be great.
Can a educated bot trade better than a human?
Peter has tried a lot to completely automate his trading but the results are only a shadow on doing it yourself, certainly in Peter's case. It is possible to write bots that exploit net positive strategies but they don't appear to be a patch on a decent trader. I guess its the human ability to take multiple bits of information and act on that.
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shaunybhoy
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:26 am
Interesting point, I still wonder what pieces of information a human can take that a well built bot couldn’t. I would have thought a bot could have actually taken more, hence a human cant for example store and keep in his head all the data from the first three runners in a race. Actively store where they started trading, where they are at now, weight of money, money unmatched, money matched, patterns that are repeating, the book over-round, specific market patterns, etc etc again though if anyone could programme a bot to do this it would ideally be someone like Peter anyway, as he knows all the specific signs to trading which would be set as specific rules for a bot.
In saying all that, I am probably a lazy trader as I am no good lol, seems like whatever I do something goes the opposite way, always looking for an edge, I think if you were to create a bot that did so well, it isn’t cheating in anyway, it would be no different to someone trading very good, they learned the art, this way you would be teaching and learning the art to a bot which would take time and a lot of trial and errors. Only difference being that the bot never gets tired and doesn’t emotionally get involved when something goes wrong, it cuts out and moves on to the next trade. Even if one could be created with a 70 - 80% strike rate that would be absolutely fantastic.
Interested to hear any more thoughts and opinions about this idea and thanks for yours Bet Angel.
In saying all that, I am probably a lazy trader as I am no good lol, seems like whatever I do something goes the opposite way, always looking for an edge, I think if you were to create a bot that did so well, it isn’t cheating in anyway, it would be no different to someone trading very good, they learned the art, this way you would be teaching and learning the art to a bot which would take time and a lot of trial and errors. Only difference being that the bot never gets tired and doesn’t emotionally get involved when something goes wrong, it cuts out and moves on to the next trade. Even if one could be created with a 70 - 80% strike rate that would be absolutely fantastic.
Interested to hear any more thoughts and opinions about this idea and thanks for yours Bet Angel.
I think the problem you have with a bot is that while it can act faster, it can also act faster on the wrong information and the two balance each other out. A human can make that critical judgement and that's difficult to replicate automatically.
I personally believe that a bot could be able to do a better job than a human.
However, the main problem is to define the right trading strategy. What are the patterns that leads to a profitable trade?
Also a bot could be programmed to identify "value prices". It would have to constantly scan all markets and then compare prices with bookmakers. For example if you can find lay prices at Betfair that are lower then the bookmaker price, there is a high chance it is a value price and therefore will make a profit in the long run (no need to go for the arb!)
I'm also wondering whether methods from the financial markets (chart indicators) can be used for high volume sports events, such like RSI or stochastics.
If yes, then certainly a bot would be the better trader than a human.
However, the main problem is to define the right trading strategy. What are the patterns that leads to a profitable trade?
Also a bot could be programmed to identify "value prices". It would have to constantly scan all markets and then compare prices with bookmakers. For example if you can find lay prices at Betfair that are lower then the bookmaker price, there is a high chance it is a value price and therefore will make a profit in the long run (no need to go for the arb!)
I'm also wondering whether methods from the financial markets (chart indicators) can be used for high volume sports events, such like RSI or stochastics.
If yes, then certainly a bot would be the better trader than a human.
In my view there will never be a bot that will replicate that "fine judgement" that tells a human that something is not quite right - or, conversely, is working out really well - about a particular set of circumstances in a betting/trading market.
I'm a bit reluctant to say "never"
but the human factor is critical to assessing what we actually do - or perhaps not do - that a bot can't get.
Gallilee66
I'm a bit reluctant to say "never"
but the human factor is critical to assessing what we actually do - or perhaps not do - that a bot can't get.Gallilee66
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Point2Point
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:59 am
I got match a lay bet matched at 1.30 once on a horse that was trading 27. Bot's will never be as good as a human who is watching some pictures and can see the favourite was withdrawn!
When a bot can watch TV pictures then I am sure they will be able to compete with humans.
When a bot can watch TV pictures then I am sure they will be able to compete with humans.
Have a look at the Financial markets especially Forex markets. If one was to trade only according to technical chart indicators, I think a bot would be better. The question is whether these indicators (or which of them) can be applied to sports events.
bots are better at betting to a 'system' or using fixed indicators, whether that is profitable or not is another matter.
Certainly backing/laying the whole field when there is an opportunity could only be done by a bot as you wouldn't be able to spot the opportunity, calculate the prices and available money, and then get your bets on quick enough manually.
I'm sure there are plenty of bots out there on Betfair doing there stuff.
I did read somewhere about bots that look for money coming into the market, then push the market n ticks against it to fire it's stop loss, then having taken the stop loss then bring it back again to where it was, effectively self matching a lot of the money but taking n ticks off the auto stop loss of the money that came in.
Certainly backing/laying the whole field when there is an opportunity could only be done by a bot as you wouldn't be able to spot the opportunity, calculate the prices and available money, and then get your bets on quick enough manually.
I'm sure there are plenty of bots out there on Betfair doing there stuff.
I did read somewhere about bots that look for money coming into the market, then push the market n ticks against it to fire it's stop loss, then having taken the stop loss then bring it back again to where it was, effectively self matching a lot of the money but taking n ticks off the auto stop loss of the money that came in.
I think an educated bot can trade better than a human unable to control his emotions, or a human who is currently at work or on the golf course.
The key of course is first to do the hard yards finding a strategy that works manually and then try to automat it.
I think it is a very good exercise to try to automate your trading just to analyse what exactly your entry and exit points are.
sweets
The key of course is first to do the hard yards finding a strategy that works manually and then try to automat it.
I think it is a very good exercise to try to automate your trading just to analyse what exactly your entry and exit points are.
sweets
judging by this video we should wait till 2013 for this to happen. (min 4:00). So we have 4years left till bunch of trade=minators start to go for it 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY
I think people vastly underestimate the importance of intuition and getting a feel for a market and the role it plays in trading. The ego likes to think 'if A happens then I'll do B' but in reality the markets are too complex and although there are some distinguishable recurring patterns there are literally millions of different variations of patterns and behaviours. Every markets is unique and 'alive'. If you really analysed it good traders would probably have 100s of micro-strategies, many of them performed by the subconscious, as the markets often move at such a pace that there is no time for conscious decision making. Often it is only after the trade has been opened that the thought comes into your brain as to why you have done it. You may have success with programming a bot to carry out one or two strategies, but in my opinion that markets are just far too complicated to allow one or two strategies to work on a consistant or regular basis. If anyone really is smart enough to automate 100s of small strategies into a bot then my hat goes off to them but frankly if they were that clever they should be working for NASA not messing around on betfair! Not wanting to sound arrogant but generaly when this discussion comes up it is always people that don't really understand the markets that think that bots could trade better than humans. The markets might appear as a cold bunch of numbers and graphs but what drives them is people. IMO the best 'bot' you can programme is your subconscious by taking in as many markets as possible
I think there's 2 areas of trading where bots have an edge.
Firstly, there's no emotion involved. This aligned to a slight lack of confidence can stop a trader making a move at the right time, a computer doesn't give a monkeys about that
Secondly, if you're a sports trader and are looking for a perfect trading opportunity, it's virtually impossible to scan 40-50 football matches simultaneously. A bot will happily do this
I predominately bet on football & tennis and have BetAngel's multiple excel sheets with various conditions entered. It's amazing how quickly I can make successful trades on markets thanks to this.
Firstly, there's no emotion involved. This aligned to a slight lack of confidence can stop a trader making a move at the right time, a computer doesn't give a monkeys about that
Secondly, if you're a sports trader and are looking for a perfect trading opportunity, it's virtually impossible to scan 40-50 football matches simultaneously. A bot will happily do this
I predominately bet on football & tennis and have BetAngel's multiple excel sheets with various conditions entered. It's amazing how quickly I can make successful trades on markets thanks to this.