Percentage of balance

[Kacadaw]

I am already using the percentage of balance option when placing a bet and it works fine, however i am doing a number of different systems that have progressive betting amounts that are different that really need to be working off their own balance and not necessarily my total Belfair balance.

Is there any way i can have maybe each of my systems working off a separate/different balance to my Betfair account without having to manually ?

[sionascaig]

I am already using the percentage of balance option when placing a bet and it works fine, however i am doing a number of different systems that have progressive betting amounts that are different that really need to be working off their own balance and not necessarily my total Belfair balance.

Is there any way i can have maybe each of my systems working off a separate/different balance to my Betfair account without having to manually ?

I set my bots up with a MaxLiability (at market level) Stored Value (SV) & a Stake SV.

You can then update that on a weekly or monthly timeframe, whatever depending on what level of risk you are comfortable with.

Not aware of any other way of doing what you ask.

PS: It can takes months & months to see you edge come through so should not be a need to adjust too frequently.

edit - and, depending on market, there will be limits to what that market can support, so at some point you will hit a max for that market type... then you move on to considering what the market volumes are expected to be and act accordingly.

[ShaunWhite]

I totally agree with sionascaig on this.... But I'll add some.

Unless you're certain the strategy works, using a % of your balance isn't a good idea. The stake will grow slowly if it works for a while, but if it then reverts, it'll start doing so on a higher stake and you'll drop faster than you went up. (*)

Much better to start with a liability if say £10 (£2.5 at 5.0 etc) and stay on that for a few weeks, then nudge it up to £12..... And repeat, then £15. When you start to reach the point of diminishing returns (bigger stakes affect the market and adverse selection starts to bite) then you start to think about using a % of market volume rather than % of balance.

The % of bank stuff is tempting as it sounds like your balance grows fast, but if you have a profitable strategy it'll grow soon enough anyway.

(*) it sounds obvious but the best way to win is to not lose. If you have a bank of £100 and lose half, you then need to double what's left to get back where you started. Ie if you lose 50% you need to win 100%, losing hurts you more than winning helps you. This is the classic "drawdown recovery" problem in investing/trading.

[ShaunWhite]

And to steal another person's quotes, Charlie Munger was an advocate of problem inversion, “It’s easier to avoid stupidity than to seek brilliance,”. Basically don't look at why people are successful, look at why unsuccessful people fail.

Hence his classic "tell me where I'm going to die and I won't go there"

Yeah so gently does it, stake small until your certain rather than staking small until you have a few lucky wins.

[Kacadaw]

Thanks for all advice
Yes i don't think there is a method of doing it, would help if you could have different wallets on Betfair
Having it as a set liability and then changing is the best semi work around i think as Shaun advised

[ShaunWhite]

Thanks for all advice
Yes i don't think there is a method of doing it, would help if you could have different wallets on Betfair
Having it as a set liability and then changing is the best semi work around i think as Shaun advised

Wallets won't help, Exchange betting always uses you Main wallet. But that's handy because you can just have a proportion of your total bank in that one so a rogue bot won't spend everything you've got.

Yep just stick to a given stake throughout the day, with % of bank you'll also have issues when markets settle late (photos or enquiries usually). And tbh % of bank is a concept when you have a fixed amount of investment money, but I doubt anyone will make a Betfair deposit and then never make another one.

The biggest reason %bank isn't a sensible idea or even a sensible option to be given, is that raising your stakes (or lowering them) based on the outcome of the previous market breaks just about every statistical rule possible regarding sample size. You'd want to adjust stake depending on the outcome of the last 100 races at least, rather than just one. It's a novelty feature for newcomers but not something anyone uses once they know their stuff.

[sionascaig]

The other thing I tend to do is vary the MaxLiability within a bot reflecting how well formed market is and when the majority of money is expected to arrive, i.e. happy with some exposure early but unwilling to fully commit until market well formed...(but it all really depends on what the strategy is).

Examples of this might be:

Football : before & after team news
Horses : over 10mins to start, 5mins, 2 mins
Dogs : over 2 mins to start, less than 2 mins to start

So for example only risk 10% of MaxLiability until money comes, then up to full Max...