My Journey

[Terrier089]

Good morning all.

I have been dipping my toe in the Betfair waters for a couple of years now, but have only really started to get serious with it over the last few months. I read the forum regularly and have considered starting this thread multiple times, I am inexperienced compared to most on here and am simply looking for advice.

I am going to be trading the Horse Racing markets, but my trading plan and strategies beyond that are open for debate. I want to use a fully automated strategy, not because I think it's a way to sit back, do nothing and earn easy money, but because I have tried both manaul and automated trading and so far my results lean far more positively towards automated. The main reason for this is simply a flaw in my own character/personality, I tilt and end up making stupid decisions when something goes wrong! I make fairly consistent profit using a couple of bots but the profits are small (we are talking a few quid on a decent day)

So where am I at currently? I have a fully functional data scraper for horse racing markets, which captures all form data for each races daily. I use BetAngel to capture snapshots of best back/lay/ltp every 5 seconds from 60 minutes out for each race on a daily basis. Then I try to marry these to find any correlation between the two.

What I really want to know initially is, do you think I am on the right track? Or do you think this method is a waste of time? As I said I have managed to form a couple of strategies that make small profit on a fairly consistent basis but haven't tried to scale these up yet.

I will use this thread as a journal with the hope of getting some advice from some of you.

[ShaunWhite]

I want to use a fully automated strategy, not because I think it's a way to sit back, do nothing and earn easy money,

So where am I at currently? I have a fully functional data scraper for horse racing markets, which captures all form data for each races daily. I use BetAngel to capture snapshots of best back/lay/ltp every 5 seconds from 60 minutes out for each race on a daily basis. Then I try to marry these to find any correlation between the two.

Hi. There's nothing wrong with wanting a passive income. and personality does come into it, not just the tilting etc but also when you prefer to work. Being at a screen most afternoons isn't the freedom many are looking for. With auto you can work when it suits you.

There's as many methods as there are people so with that brief description I don't see anything inherently wrong..... Some people just trade price action and others like you are using the fundamentals to price up the race and then monitor the market to try and get some value. But you can't have enough data, you don't know what you'll want to look at next year so collect anything and everything.

[Terrier089]

Thanks for your reply Shaun.

Some kind of passive income is definitely the end goal, I just appreciate that (for me anyway) its not just a case of putting in a bit of work, then sitting back and relaxing whilst the profit rolls in. I have spent 100's of hours to get to where I am and could just about afford a meal out with the family with what I make per month, so a long way to go!

I have thought about just trying to trade price action, but every strategy that pops into my head, I assume people way smarter than me will already be doing the same/similar (although that is also without doubt the case when trying to identity value using other metrics) I guess I just wanted reassurance that I wasn't completely barking up the wrong tree.

I have around 3 months worth of form data for horse racing and about 6 months for greyhounds. I also have data from the same time period relating to price movements. Should I be collecting data other than best back/lay offer and ltp from BetAngel? WOM, Book% etc? Is it just a case of collecting absolutely everything i can think of?

Thanks again

[ShaunWhite]

Thanks for your reply Shaun.

Some kind of passive income is definitely the end goal, I just appreciate that (for me anyway) its not just a case of putting in a bit of work, then sitting back and relaxing whilst the profit rolls in. I have spent 100's of hours to get to where I am and could just about afford a meal out with the family with what I make per month, so a long way to go!

I have thought about just trying to trade price action, but every strategy that pops into my head, I assume people way smarter than me will already be doing the same/similar (although that is also without doubt the case when trying to identity value using other metrics) I guess I just wanted reassurance that I wasn't completely barking up the wrong tree.

I have around 3 months worth of form data for horse racing and about 6 months for greyhounds. I also have data from the same time period relating to price movements. Should I be collecting data other than best back/lay offer and ltp from BetAngel? WOM, Book% etc? Is it just a case of collecting absolutely everything i can think of?

Thanks again

It's rarely a case of needing to do nothing at all, there's always improvements, but a solid strategy should pretty much look after itself.

"people doing that same..." definately not a reason to avoid it, quite the opposite.

When it comes to data then try to get all the raw data you'd need to calculate the other things, eg you needn't store book% if you have the fields' prices. And you don't need one version of wom if you have the top few prices and volumes. But to use it to trade price action will be tough at the frequency you're likely to be collecting it, and then you need some sort of database of it all and a reply mechanism. Even if you don't feel you're at that stage yet don't let that put you off collecting it ready for when you do add complexity.

[Terrier089]

That's great Shaun, you've given me plenty to think about. Much appreciated