Help With My Betting System
 

Hi all,

Just joined this forum today.

I'm a computer programmer by trade and over the past week have developed a program that will: -

Download all info on races, race results, previous horse wins, etc from the tabonline site and store it in a local database.

The program will then scan throw all races for a given day, track, or a individual race, and attempt to rate all the runners by:-

Barrier draw, weight, form, previous starts, aap rating, odds, late tips, radio tab tip, etc.

Anyway to cut a long story short it get's it very right on some entire track's on a particular day (3-4 or more winners, and as many places in a 9 race meeting) but very badly on other's (sometimes only a few places for the complete event).

Obviously it's only early day's but I feel the program is showing some promise and I want to take it to the next step (need to add filtering, etc).

By the way I've got a partial analysis module working, so that you can put in various “virtual” bet's (win, place, quinella, and any 2 currently) and it will cycle through past results and tell you what you would have won/lost for a given day/track/race.

It's come a long way in a short time!!

I am looking for any help from anyone to: -

1. Assist with suggestions on what the program should be using to pick winners (needs to be scientific as “gut feels”, and other stuff like that is very hard for the computer to understand!).
2. Find data (freely available) for other things. For example I have the last 3 start's for each horse, but a complete history of all start's would be very useful.What about some form of jockey ratings? Is there a list available.
3. Give me some useful suggestions on what should be in the program.
4. Offer any other advice.
5. Data - I have all the data from tabonline, but if you have access to other stat's trainer info, jockey rankings, stuff more than 3 years old, I'd appreciate looking at it.

I'm not planning to sell this program, and I would be happy to give people copies of it free of charge if they contribute toward's it's development.

If there is enough interest I'll knock up a website and post the program on there for people to download. It's not ready for prime time yet as it does not have an interface at all and it's using my local database, etc.

You know I think it would be a great system if we all added our bit of wisdom on what we do to pick winners. We could all benefit from this.

Is there any interest from others looking to work together to create a “community” horse tipping system that works with our knowledge and has only the stuff in it we need?

As an aside, I work from home full time, but still need to pay a mortgage, so if you have any idea's on a niche racing product that needs to be developed please let me know. Again I'm not wanting to sell the horse tipping system (I'm not a good saleman) but some other useful program that “sell's itself” could be the way to go and would allow me to work on this stuff full time!

Please post here or drop me a line to journich@gmail.com. I'm happy to keep your information confidential if you prefer (e.g. Your secret formula's for picking winners, etc).

Cheers










Tim

Welcome to the madhouse Journich. It's a pretty good bunch here.

There are quite a few here who will be able to [genuinely] help you with your program. Just watch out you don't get 'milked' for your own programing ideas [and see what was basically your effort being used for profitable gain by selling to the public it's selections by someone else]. In other words, don't be too free and easy passing on your programing efforts so far, as I'm sure your are going to have a heap of [private] em's.

Personally I'm an old fashioned punter and form student and until a computer program can filter in a horse's advantage who just had a 2kg.dump [effectively, a sudden 2kg. weight drop] before going into the starting barrier, or a thousand other incalculable things that can effect winning outcome, I'll stick to what I do and enjoy best 8-)

Good luck with all your efforts to turn computer digits into gold :-).

Thanks crash :)

Well I haven't exactly been swamped yet, yours is the only response to date!. Is no one interested is this?

I've got some other idea so I'll go off and work on those.

Thanks for the response.

Cheers

I wish you luck with your projects, but I am not surprised by the lack of response.
If it only took programming skills to win at the races, quite a few of us would have retired in luxury long ago.
As I mentioned here before, I know someone who wouldn't know what to do with a computer if he fell over one, but he is winning constantly.
And he is not telling!!!
Regards

Ummm really? That's why I was asking for help from others, because I don't know much about horse racing.

Thanks for stating the bleeding obvious! ha ha just kidding.

I know I am on to something though picked first 3 winners at BR,SR, and NR today, still analysing the other results. Maybe it's just pure luck.

Cheers

Yeah right,
another carrot an a stick ?

Mate, you don't need to know much about horse racing IMHO. I started doing what you're doing about 18 months ago and finished my first year's punting with 9% POT over about a thousand bets. There is no substitute for having a lot of data. I collect any and all data I can get my hands on if it's free. I find my results stabilise after about 5 years races have gone through but my method is rating each race and each horse using weights and margins (not sure if it's the same as you're trying to do). Don't let anyone tell you it doesn't work, cause it does.

KV

Thanks for your reply, I'll keep plodding on and see what I can come up with!

If you could share any sources of useful free stat's that can be downloaded, I'd appreciate it... Post here or sent to journich@gmail.com. I've taken a look at the paid services, but they really do seem quite expensive. Obviously I know of tabonline, but there are bound to be others I havent found yet.

By the way when you say POTS - What does this stand for? I presume it's Nett profit but just curious as to what it stands for.

Cheers

Sorry, I don't follow?

Do you have a phone number ?
if so,
email me: blutownroks@shinyfeet.com
if you are serious on this project you posted.

email sent.

Profit on turnover. I'm probably using it wrong but it means (to me) that every hundred dollars I bet I get 109 back.

I started with waturf.org.au You can get past results on WA races going way back in a csv format. West aussie racing suited me. It wasn't corrupted by too many "outside" horses with form that I didn't have coming in and winning races. And not many heavy tracks which can throw a spanner in the works. Since then I've gone on to NSW races which you can get results for from racingnsw, also in csv format.

A word of warning, I don't know about results you pay for but there are mistakes in a lot of the free stuff I've downloaded from various places. I spend more time fixing data than I do working out ratings.

Best of luck,

KV

Thanks for your help, and advice much appreciated.

Cheers




Tim

POT= Profit on Turnover

Hi!
My irony must have been too subtle?
Why would anyone give me, you, or anyone else their secrets re. racing, if it works?

If you call a sledgehammer subtle, then yes it was. There are heaps of reasons why people might give some secrets out.

Case in point. I contribute towards open source software development where I develop and give away a program for free. Why? I like programming and helping people. Technically it costing me to do this since I am not working on paid work to do it. Perhaps other people in this industry may do the same thing. Maybe not.

Who knows accumulating all our little tips and having the ability to analyse the information might collectively put us all in a better position than if we just kept our little secret to ourself.

marcus,
all things being mutual, welcome back !

If the architecture of a program is done in a certain way, no secrets are lost !
Just because we all get dealt the same deck of cards, does not mean we all have Aces. (Not countng the Joker/Wild card)

Meaning, if a race is is a race, then it's a race. Over all it's an object.
How that object is percieved may have many variations.
Then it's how one acts onto the object according to the allowable controls of the variations, pertaining to the object.
Default variable = 0 !

Yes, a program or database is a tool like any other tradesman's tool.

Give a hammer to a chippy and you have a beautiful two-storey house, give it to an accountant, and you have a sore thumb and some bent nails :D

Yes CP
But both accountant and chippy had to work from the architects design in the first place.
The better of the architect's design, wins the contract.

journich,I use ********************.com for collecting my data. They have race results and horse history with all the horses starts.Don't be put off that some days you get lots of winners and some days none. It happens.Good luck with it.

Excellent, thanks for your help, the site looks very useful. Cheers

help with system
 

hi journich
i,m not sure if what i do is suitable but i bet using a formula based on odds at jump time.the problem i have is that i need to be in front of the screen at all times to effect the bets, this can be monotonus and tiring.
i have approx 2000 bets p/mth and have a pot of around5% month on month.
Given this scenario does your programming provide for software that could do this function and place the bets given certain parameters. i use qld tab site to do this currently. given the tight margins i use this would not be suitable for general publication as the odds would seriously diminish even if bets sizes were to go up 4 fold due to many small pool sizes in many races in which i bet.
anyway let me know if u think your offering could do the above.
good luck

You can download daily racing data free from aapracingandsports.com in csv format, it's what they use for their neural algorithms. Also you can get some very good jockey stats from racenet.com.au

Try these for other data:

tabform.thewest.com.au/
********************.com
australianracing.com

CheersThe Weaver

Journich,

Your idea is an interesting one and if I had the programming skills I would probably be trying to do it myself.

I use lots of sources of data, the only one of which I pay for is the downloadable sportsman (specialised form guide).

I find ******************** the best of the rest but also use the QTAB (tabonline.com.auwebsite) , the aapracing website and a set of par times for various tracks (can't remember the address but will email you).

As far as variables go, I spent a bit of time retrospectively assessing data (about 18months worth) and the ones that seemed to be useful to me were, in no particular order:
1. first 4 in the betting
2. first 4 in order of average winnings
3. proven at distance
4. Placed in first four in last 2 starts
5. Place percentage >60% (this has been mentioned elsewhere in this forum).

I rely on horses placing to make a profit and have been going along steadily (albeit slowly) for about 7 months.

Hi KennyVictor,
I use an access database and rate horses performances using weights and margins. I am very happy with my ratings for horses older than 3, but sometimes I get ratings wrong for 3 year olds and 2 year olds. Would you (or any other poster) like to compare ratings? A second opinion could be very useful.

Regards,
siam

Hi there,

At this stage I have no automatic bet facility in the system, but I suspect it could be added in the future.

Cheers



Tim

Are you allowing for the improvement of young horses due to getting older. Probably not very important if they are only a fortnight between races but a two year old improves something like 10Kg in it's first year and a 3Yo maybe 6 or 7 over the year (figures from an old Don Scott book I have). Fairly important if a horse has had a 6 month spell.

KV

auto bet
 

thanks for the feed back it would be possible for sure although even after close time i still get some wild fluctations.
let me know if u go down this track and i could give u what i do in exchange once we established that the program was able to do the job
pardon me

Is post #14 on the thread below what you're after?
http://forums.ozmium.com.au/showthread.php?t=10740
KV

Hi KV,
I have factored in the WFA table to my ratings. An example of the problem I have, will be when the new 2-y-o season starts. The 2-y-o's have no history so I have trouble determining what rating to give initially. Similarly, in most midweek meetings the 3-y-o's have limited history and I find it difficult to rate them.

Interesting reading so far.

But the way I see it, everyone has a "system" wanted to be developed.
So there are many "systems" and many ideas,and If I can relate in contrast to a poker game, there are 2 ways I know how to deal a deck, as an "object".
1 "object" deck of cards is with 52 cards ( Full Deck)
2 "object" deck of cards is 32 cards ( 7's up to Ace)
But both method of play can still have a full house on Aces and Queens for example.
It's how one play's the game.

So what has this got to do with a horse race program ?
It's relatively the same in principle.
1 wants to use form
2 wants markets and/or form.

At the end of the day it has to come down to a factor when selections are obtained either from form, then bet according to price available ?


Both require data feed. ( form data feed and market price data feed )
The computerable data feed, where is it's most stable "raw source" going to come from to compute a method of selections, and be commonly agreed upon ?

And why ?

You can't achieve the impossible. If a horse hasn't raced before, as far as I'm concerned it's an unknown quantity. I don't take any notice of trials as they don't neccessarily reflect a horse's true form. I have a "what if" program which tells me how much I would have won or lost if I'd done whatever. I use it to see what my return would be if I allowed no runners without form, then I'll do a run to see what happens if I allow one new runner in a race, etc. In my old system I allow up to 50% of the field to be new runners. Slightly less PTO but compensated by the increased number of bets. 50% (for me) was a nice cut off point. Betting Quinellas I don't allow any races where there is an untried runner - I find that works better for me.
Once a horse has run it has form in my book, some may improve or get worse greatly at the second run but then many other horses aren't particularly reliable at the best of times either. Again, my what if program tells me my PTO is better if I make it a rule that every horse has to have had 6 runs but that cuts the bets down so much that the overall profit is diminished.
Just use common sense, work with what you've got and don't cry over races you can't rate, there's always another one tomorrow.

KV

Hello Siam, how many records do you have in an Access database and does it go slowly when doing searches on queries?

Tailwag

software suitability
 

hi KennyVictor
thank u for the thread, it is not what i need unfortunately.
u see my way of betting is based on tab prices at jump time,certain conditions need to be met and i do not know which horse/dog i will be betting on till secs before jump so i have to sit here in front of the screen for each race , make the brief calculations then place the bet as late as i possibly can to avoid/minimise wild fluctatuions in the prices. ideally what i need is software that does all this for me,it just contains the % and parameters , if that is possible.Then i could set it up, go out for the day , come home and verify results and bets.
today is a case in point, it was a real beauty, one of my best days ever in terms of strike rate but it was along day with 177 bets . thats why im on this site at midnight, but i hate to miss the winning opportunities so i have to persist manually for the time being i guess.
thanks again

persisting manually will send you blind........

Hi Pardon me,
My goal is a bit like yours, I hope to have a program where I can set it up in the morning and let it run and make bets for me.
I can see a way I can achieve this but it is going to take at least a couple of months till I'm there (started learning Java yesterday as a possible way to do it). If I have any success I will make it known on this site.

Cheers,

KV

I am not sure if this program would suit anyones needs but i found it a long time ago but have never realy looked in to it http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.php
this program is free it will create scrips to automate anything....you could use it in conjuction with excel create the paramaters you need in excel and at the right time you could execute your script to place the bet

Shaun,
it's sems like a good start and it has a forum. The problem with many forums on most devlopment software, is the experts are not "Horse Racing" literate.
Many good programmers no doupt in their respected field.
Try asking on their forum, " I want to develop a horse racing program and I want it to get data from here and go to there, rada rada."
They don't seem to understand that once the race starts, it'a all over.
They don't understand "late Scratchings"
They don't understand,
So how on earth does a punter with an idea ask, "how do get this to happen"?
and it's not about some cad program, paint-shop-pro, web design, etc etc ?

It seems to me no one wants to answer the obvious and logical

HOW DOES A PUNTER WITH THE WINNING EDGE ASK IN A PROGRAM FORUM,
"HOW CAN I MAKE *my* OWN HORSE RACING PROGRAM AND NOT BE IGNORED OR STEALTHED OF THE IDEA !?

Bluetown,

The only ways I can see are:
A: Learn to program yourself.
B: Get together with someone who programs that you can trust and build it together.
C: Pay squillions to a reputable maker of custom computer programs safe in the knowledge that they will be dweebs and very unlikely to be interested in horse racing for profit.

Programmers often have 3 figure IQs and can get their head around something like racing if you can explain what you want clearly. I've written custom computer programs for people on many and varied obscure things in the past. I learn enough about what they want in order to write the program, make sure they are happy with the result then take my money and promptly forget about it.
If you wanted Partypooper's "One at the bottom of the list if it has a C or D next to it approach you'd probably get out of it for 10 grand. :-)

KV