Test System

[michaelg]

I've been doing quite well particularly with Place betting both here and N.Z. so I'll give it a go and hope the forum curse doesn't kill it.

Mudgee R5 no.2 - Slick Sniper
Mudgee R8 no.4 - Solar Hawk
Sun Coast R6 no.2 - Paralegal
Pt Augusta R3 no.3 - Lord Zebedee
Pt Augusta R6 no.1 - Lord L'Anno
Ashburton R7 no.2 - Don't Say Clang
Ashburton R10 no.1 - Augusta.

[michaelg]

Not a bad day yesterday. From the 7 selections thre were 4 winners for a profit of $7.00, and 5 placegetters for a profit of $0.42.

One selection today:
Mildura R10 no.5 - Last Dancer.

[michaelg]

Yesterday's selection ran fourth beaten in a photo finish.

Today's selections:

Cessnock R6 n0.4 - Miss Shalaquing
Cessnock R7 no.4 - Flying Dialogue.

[michaelg]

From yesterday's two selections there was one winner paying $2.10 and $1.20, the other selection ran fourth.

Four selections today:
Murray Bridge R7 no.2 - Empowering
Belmont R5 no.3 - Kasabian
Belmont R6 no.7 - Tsarinsky
Belmont R8 no.12 - Jean.

[michaelg]

From yesterday's four selections thre were 2 winners paying a total of $5.50, and a second and a fourth paying a total of $4.10 for the place.

Today's selections:
Mackay R1 no.2 - Title King
Balaklava R3 no.4 - Blevola Miss
Balaklava R6 no.3 - Lennybe
Balaklava R7 no.11 - Pure Essence.

Interestingly, all today's selections have 100 Unitab points.

[crash]

Are you betting for the win, e/w or the place?

[michaelg]

I'm betting each way, but I think from tomorrow it'll be Win only.

I made a mistake today - Balaklava R5 no.5 was a selection which I unfortunately omitted from listing it here. It won (naturally), paying $3.30 and $1.70, but I won't record it.

In spite of today's four losses, the Win component is still in profit.

[crash]

Yep, win only is probably the way to go if your win SR supports your averaged pay out.

Good Luck!

[michaelg]

Yes, Crash. Even though I prefer to bet each way, I'll now only bet Win but I'll monitor privately the Place bet. Hopefully it'll pick up.

During the test period there were 15 selections for 6 winners for a POT of 27.3%, and 11 placegetters for a POT of 36%. Since listing the selections here, there have been 18 selections for 7 winners for a POT of 20%, and 9 placegetters for a LOT of 29%. However, combining both periods, Place is still showing a profit.

Today's selections:

Ipswich R1 no.2 - Local Talent. (it's form last three runs are 0, 0, 7)
Dubbo R4 no.1 - So Generous
Dubbo R6 no.1 - Auditorium.

Out of interest, I've been testing a Lay system from 14 June. It is doing quite well. - 194 races with a profit on 159 on them. The profit is 77 units. However, my bets have been below the minimum of $5. I have now been contacted by Betfair that if I have one more bet below $5, then my account will be closed.

[michaelg]

From yesterday's theree selections there was one winner paying $3.20.

One selection today:

Murtoa R7 no.2 - Ned's Court.

[Bhagwan]

Hi Michael,
I feel your angst Brother.

I and a number of my friends have been contacted with a similar warning letter emailed to them.

[michaelg]

Bhagwan, I wonder how many of us Aussies Betfair has contacted about the minimum bet? If there are many then they might think $5.00 is too high, seeing that we can have $0.50 bets with the TABs.

Because of the potentially high liability I (and maybe others) like to test Lay methods using small bets.

If this prevents people from using BOTs then Betfair might just end up shooting themselves in the foot.

In spite of that, the minimum bet rule may hopefully be a blessing for me because my current Lay method is still steaming along after 201 races.

[Dennis G]

Because of the potentially high liability....... Michael,
isn't that the point? A $1 lay @ $10 is really a $9.00 bet on a 10/1 on horse to lose. If your liability is $9.00, so your bet should be considered as such.

Den

[Reckless]

Correct but there chance of winning may be much greater than the odds taken.

As with conventional win betting it is still about obtaining value. Since I have been experimenting with the lay method detailed by Mark on another thread I have come across some outstanding value odds for horses that IMHO have no hope of winning.

That being said my concern with Betfair markets (on Aus races) is that the lay odds on offer are generally too long and often do not represent value. As we know if you can't get value in the long term you lose in the long term.

Contrast this with UK races were there is much more activity, liquidity and obviously people doing more trading with robots. There the lay odds appear to be much truer and shorter.

[michaelg]

Dennis G, I agree with what you say regarding the layer's bet. However I would assume that Betfair looks at it in a different way where their takeout is the prime factor. If the layer wins with his $1 bet, Betfair only gets a maximum of $0.05 in commission. But conversely, if the better wins, Betfair then gets their commission on the $9. Is this as bad as betting $5 on a very short fave where if it wins you could be paying much less commission than that of the $9 as stated in your example.

If I remember correctly, Betfair mentioned in their email that I was disadvantging the bettor with my low bets. If this is so, I fail to understand how that can be. Its a pity I no longer have their email to check this. Yesterday I had some of my $5 lay bets matched piecemeal - a few cents at a time, and I don't think I was disadvantaged. And obviously some others are betting way below the minimum allowable.

Reckless, I think many of my lay bets here in Oz probably represent value as my profit on them is quite impressive (touch wood), and the selection method is completely different to Mark's. Yet the method has not been so successful when I applied it to U.K. racing, admittedly there were only 3 days of testing with half a dozen races.

[Reckless]

Yes I agree the UK seems to work very differently. I am studying it now but haven't formed any definite conlcusions - although I have subscribed to a UK rating service which I am evaluating.

Probably I should also speak with some serious punters in the UK about what makes it tick. Those large pools are very attractive from a betting perspective.

[michaelg]

Reckless, with my limited experience with U.K. racing, I am under the impression that more of the larger outsiders win here than over there.

If this is so, maybe it could be due to us having more race tracks, so that a horse may have little or no experience with some tracks? Some states have clockwise and others anti-clockwise directions. Some tracks can have very tight bends whilst others not. Unpredictable weather so that some days we have all four seasons in the one day - running on a good track and then its next race on a rain affected one?

Of course, this may just all be conjecture on my part, but it does seem to me that fewer outsiders win in the U.K. than they do here.

[michaelg]

Hi, Bhagwan.

When Betfair emailed me they made no threat of my downloading/copying it. They did however say that they had confiscated my winnings from the below minimum bets which I naturally considered unacceptable, so I immediately checked my account to discover that they had not interfered with it in any way.

Then the next day they again contacted me to correct the original email. They confirmed they had not deducted the winnings from the under minimum bets, and that if I made a similar transgression they might cancel my account. I interpret their second email as meaning that if I have another below minimum bet then the door is open for an explanation from me which would determine the future of my account. Maybe they are now not as draconian as when you received your ultimatum?

I have been successfully testing a second lay method, but as it is based on the neurals and with only about 25 races so far, I am uneasy to have $5 bets and have consequently stopped, resulting in lost revenue for Betfair. And if I ever want to test more lay methods I would think twice about experimenting with $5 bets. And I would be surprised if I was the only small betting punter with this outlook particularly if the method was based on laying horses that are not favoured in the market with a large liability.

As you say, if Betdaq can profit on a minimum bet of $0.50 with a 3% commission, then why can't Betfair whom we are told are making massive profits???

[lomaca]

I cant see how this is not going to stop the volumn dropping, in a market that already has low liquidity.

You got it right B.

My problem was the opposite, could not be matched for the full amount I wanted, ever, because of the low liquidity.

If they don't let layers test their systems, and once tested, put real money on the table, we backers will look elsewhere.

Well, they think they know best, so let's wait and see who's got it right.

Good luck

[crash]

..... it says a lot for the good old TAB. Not if your betting shorties though I must admit. The odds are pretty good for everything else but of course you can't do lay bets on the TAB. They would never get away with some of the things [garnishing profits?] Betfair aspires to be able to do.

Sounds like England is the go with Betfair. They have the large betting pools!

I'm not going to mention any names here but like most on-line betting services, with a bit of research you will find that most of them are registered in the Channel isles [tax havens] and all bets actually go through there, not here. Most are also international companies, not Oz.

One rule [you agree too by signing up whether you know it or not] I found in one of these on-line services [haven't checked them all] was that they have the right to void any bet without explanation!

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[Mark]

Michaelg........open another BF account. Use it for a while, then return to your original a/c, use it for a while etc etc etc if needs be open a 3rd a/c.

[AngryPixie]

Michael

I think it's the number of below minimum bets you have in a single market that triggers the alert. Take Marks advice though and open some accounts for test purposes.

[michaelg]

I didn't mention that I have another account in pounds sterling.

My below minimum bets were with my Oz dollar account, and when Betfair sent me their original email they said both accounts would be cancelled.

It therefore appears that someone who has multiple accounts are linked. If this is the case then opening and experimenting with new accounts would unfortunately put both my exisiting accounts in jeopardy.

[Mark]

Not if they are in different names.

[michaelg]

I think there could be a problem when providing proof of identity?

However, I could probably open one in a friend's name but I wouldn't be comfortable involving anyone, even myself, in something deceitful.

[Marcus]

Anyone can "open" an account in a friend's name. However multiple accounts being operated by one person on the one computer can easily be identified. For example your IP address would be logged.

[Mark]

Michael, are you married, have siblings, children (over 18 of course), parents, parents in law??, I'd do it sooner rather than later as they will close you down unless you can talk sweet and fast. In my opinion (and I've told them as much) they are chasing and closing the wrong people. They should start with the bots that jump anything and everything for pennies, unfortunately no markets are immune anymore. But no, they hound the poor aaaaaa who is not a big punter/layer, or the person such as yourself who is testing something and wants to start off small.
When faced with the same dilemma about a year ago, I rang the person who was threatening to close me down to explain my situation. It was like talking to someone who had no idea what Betfair was!! He told me it was his job to investigate bets less than the minimum (was $6 at the time), detect the users, send the warnings and cancel the repeat offenders. He said if I could identify any "wrongdoers", he would investigate. I said ok let's go to a race of your choice, anywhere, anytime. I showed him pending bets on nearly every runner that were less than the minimum and asked if he was going to cancel them all. It's a start he said, so I said let's go to another race, same situation all over again. etc etc A year on and nothing has changed. Go to any race now and you'll find loads of them. Seems he has a job for life.

Having several accounts is also useful for getting around the punitive charges they have for regular winners.....even though winners are (apparently) welcome at BF.

As for multiple users being picked up by the ISP police, we're not dealing with the CIA here.

[AngryPixie]

I think for layers they should have a minimum liability similar to what they had with Betfair SP. That $30 minimum was fair enough in my view.

Michael, I also recieved that e-mail from one of my test accounts, also the same "back down" e-mail the next day. Neither made any mention of linked accounts and the account in question has the same contact details.

It may be a bit tricky to work out but if your using one of the API programs you could probably get around the issue with some conditional trickery i.e

Lay Horse 1 for $6 at 5

if matched

Back Horse 1 for $5 at 5

That type of thing. Would probably work for testing purposes.

[michaelg]

Mark, I'm sure if I really wanted to get around it would not be too diffucult as I'm sure other people have done/are doing it. By using a family member would explain the same IP address. But this would only be a ploy to deceive, even though in some people's opinions that under the circumstances it would be justified.

And if I was to successfully do it but somehow later exposed then that would be the end of me on Betfair.

In their second email they are aware of bots and told me if I was using one that it would have to be programmed for the minimum bet of $5. You are right about the many wrongdoers - quite a few of my $5 lay bets are being partially matched for only a few cents at a time.