In Play - maximising returns

[Gcampb]

Looking for some practical Bet Angel advice from people who trade horse racing in-play.

I’m backing two selections per race at equal stakes based on my own analysis/model. I’m fairly confident with my analysis as I’ve been producing live probabilities, out of test, for 6 months.

I enter at the off or very close to the off because I’m not trying to predict pre-off movement, the edge I’m trading is in-play performance.

At the moment my process is very manual:

* Back both runners near the off
* Watch the race live + ladders
* Manually manage the overall P&L across both positions combined

The issue is that the trades can unfold in a lot of different ways and I feel like my current approach is too crude.

For example:

* Sometimes both runners steam strongly
* Sometimes one is strongly green while the second is small green or small red
* Sometimes one places me nicely into profit while the other is effectively dead

At the moment I’m manually greening the entire market once the combined P&L hits my target which I’ve purposely kept modest at 15%, though in reality the average trade profit is mid 20’s, but I think I’m sacrificing a lot of upside by flattening everything too early.

What I’d ideally like to achieve is something more dynamic, where I can:

* Lock in a minimum guaranteed profit across the race overall early.
* But still leave profitable runners “live” if they continue steaming
* Potentially trail profits upward rather than fully cashing out
* Manage the combined position across both trades rather than treating each runner separately

I’m less interested in stop losses because usually it becomes obvious quite quickly if the race is not unfolding correctly according to my analysis and I diligently exit the market if I cross a 60% loss threshold, usually earlier if it’s clear the race is not running the way my analysis predicted. I usually average 1.5 trades in 10 that are negative/losses.

What I’m really trying to understand is:
Which built-in tools/functions for managing this kind of multi-position in-play trade should I be looking into?

Right now I’m manually greening everything, which feels inefficient and probably leaves money on the table.

Would appreciate any practical advice from traders doing similar types of in-play management.
Thanks

[Tuco]

...in-play trading across all markets is all about re-acting to what actually happens in-play.

Unless you can predict the future you always risk not maximising your returns - it's simply a game of risk and reward, fear and greed.

Be happy when you make money and move on to the next market.

[LinusP]

Download all your bets and plot the pnl of your initial (I assume are back bets) and the hedge, if you do have an edge its likely the former will be positive and the hedge is just throwing money away.

You can then focus on your model / initial execution and forget about the question you are currently asking.

[Gcampb]

Thanks for the replies.

The reason I’m focused on trading rather than outright betting is because the underlying analysis already has a proven positive edge in both win and place markets over large samples/live testing for outright betting. However, what I’ve found is that the in-play market movement often contains even more value than the outright result itself.

A lot of the edge comes from identifying runners that are likely to travel strongly or shorten significantly in-running before the market fully reacts. So I’m entering positions before that move and then trying to manage the position once the market catches up, so the initial entry is not reactive to the market.

What I’m trying to work out now is not whether to hedge, but whether there’s a more efficient way to manage the hedge/trade itself inside BetAngel.

At the moment I’m manually greening the whole market once I hit a target profit, but I think I’m sacrificing a lot of upside by flattening everything too early.

Ideally what I’d like to do is:

* quickly lock in some profit across the overall position,
* but still leave enough exposure in the market to benefit if the runners continue steaming,
* then potentially trade the remaining position out later.

So I’m really asking from a practical Bet Angel perspective:

What functions/features are best suited to this style of management?

I suspect I’m currently managing this far too manually and there may already be built-in tools specifically designed for this kind of staggered exit management

[Acheron]

It sounds like the first step is to analyse your data to identify the optimal price points that you can then put into an algorithm. I'm hardly familiar with BA automation so can't be of much help but perhaps take a look at the Dallas stickies at viewforum.php?f=37