The Phootie Brothers

I am happy to report things have finally been falling into place the last couple of weeks. The long wait for the football season was followed by a few weeks of continuous testing and updating of triggers. Initially I wasn't happy with some of the actual functionality of my bots compared to how I wanted them to be performing, so I had to go back to the drawing board and rewrite all my triggers. Having learnt a bit along the way, my latest attempts went much better and the processes were more efficient for it.

This was actually the first weekend I felt comfortable enough to allow my football bots to run completely on their own. It was a nice feeling checking the P&L at the end of the weekend to see everything working the way it was supposed to. Part of me just wants to ramp up stakes and just let rip but I know that's not what I need to do right now. Stakes started small and are increasing proportionately to the bank, I keep a % of bank liability per market to ensure that each market can only cost me a certain amount (if for instance my bot goes on strike or BF goes down etc.).

My results this weekend are from the two football bots I'm running right now, Phootie Alpha, which I mentioned before here, and Phootie Beta. Alpha is the main earner by far, as it has been running longer and has had more time to grow it's bank and increase it's staking. Phootie Beta is a different style bot scalping small gains and aims to be more of a consistent and slow earner. It started well and mimics my scalping techniques when I first started participating in these markets in 2009. I have only been running Beta for a week, so it's early days yet, and I'll need much more of my own data to be sure it will be profitable longterm. At this stage I'm more confident about Alpha but it's not anywhere near a certainty, I keep telling myself I will need at least 10,000 results before I can start making any conclusions on any of this.

My horse racing bot is still a work in progress. I haven't really gotten my teeth stuck into it yet, mainly as I could see early on my trigger writing skills needed considerable improvements. Now the Phootie bots are up an running it will most likely be my next project. I'm also quite optimistic about a Basketball strategy I've been testing last week on the Eurobasket competition. Once the NBA kicks back in that particular strategy should be ideally suited.

Week 11

Spread Betting - NBA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 171.63%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 101.54%
MLB 1% * 75.51%

A bit of a sucker punch on Week 11. The main reason being the NBA had a terrible run of 6 consecutive losses, the worst run I've had all season, with the progressive staking system on these bets it made quite an impressive dent. Add to this the worst week I've had on the baseball, the relatively small profit gained on the football hardly made a difference to the total. The losses on the NBA are not a big concern as I know it's a decent system that has made me a nice total overall, however my doubts over the baseball continue to grow, I will be reviewing this after next week when I have some time to look a few details over.

Week 10

Spread Betting - NBA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 200.81%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 94.96%

MLB 1% * 87.12%

Falling a bit behind with the updates. do not seem to be spending half the time I used to behind a PC, which is probably a good thing. Anyway here are the updates for the past couple of weeks.
 
Week 10 brings another good result for the NBA breaking yet another milestone in reaching a 200% bank. This has pretty much secured the NBA for next season, and I will need to consider carefully about how large a bank ro commit next season. Until then I will stick to the current staking system until the season ends. Nothing done again with the football, pretty much breaking even although I do feel with a slight adjustemnt to my selection process I could make this pay better. Finally, we have a profitable week for the MLB, have not really changed anything although the bank is still down sitting at 87.12%. I'm the least confident with the MLB although it has had it's best week to date.

Week 9

Spread Betting - NBA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 190.20%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 95.39%

MLB 1% * 82.58%

 

 

Better week but still relatively poor. The main culprit continues to be the MLB with the bank dropping further to 82.58%. With a 1% profit target per bet you can see just how poor a start to the season it has been for the MLB. The football has almost redeemed itself having a much better week, bank now sitting at 95.39%. Not long before the footy season is over, and I'm being extra selective with my picks, due to the 'little to play for factor'. We hear it all the time players saying that they are professionals and that they put the same effort into every game, but realistically many players will be grateful to get out of the season injury free, not just so that they can waterski in Hawaii, but also many will have their minds on making it the World Cup fully fit - that to me is not 100% committed. NBA as usual going well, the bets are reducing due to the fewer matches in the play offs. Some great matches too which I like to catch whenever possible. 

 

Speaking of which really looking forward to the Barca Vs Milan 2nd leg tonight, can the special one finish the job, not long until kick off now.. 

Week 8

Spread Betting - NBA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 180.02%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 87.49%

MLB 0.5 or 1% * 88.79%

Regrettalbly week 8 did not make a great impression although I am happy to have moved back into profitable territory, albeit a very small one.

As soon as the playoffs started I was ready and the NBA has picked up where it left off, bank now sitting at 180.02%. More last minute draws have undone a healthy looking week for the football, and once again I'm left with little to shout about, bank is now 87.49%. I have added three new Scandinavian leagues this week, and my staking on these new additions is even more cautious (if that's even possible!) with 0.25% & 0.5% bets. These leagues were added as a test due to them running throughout the summer, giving me an option when all other major leagues stop. Another tough week for the MLB, bank now sitting at 88.79%. It is still finding it's feet and unless we have an anomaly of a season the winners should start to come - we've only had 2 weeks from a 7 months season, so plenty of time to go yet.

Weak Number Sleven

Spread Betting - NBA/NCAA/MLB/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 173.32%

NCAA BB 0.5 or 1% * 94.40%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 91.33%

MLB 0.5 or 1% * 93.99%

First off apologies for the lack of regular updates recently, I was halfway through week 8 before I found time to update the blog so I thought I'd wait a few more days and do weeks 7 and 8 together.

Onto week 7 and I must admit it's a week I'd rather forget. I stopped betting on the NBA about halfway through the week (until the playoffs began), as the risk of star players being rested and other unexpected tactics, which are too common at this time of the season. I almost felt like I was resting my star player, and I was right to be concerned as the other sports continued to struggle, without the NBA to bail them out this time. I had a bet on the College basketball final which lost and concluded my NCAA BB bank at 94.40%. The draws in the football have been making things very difficult, that has meant another poor week for the footy, with the bank now sitting at 91.33%. To make things even tougher the MLB has had a rough start to the season, with the bank sitting at 93.99% at the end of it's first week. Week 7 has quite rightfully claimed it's place in history as my largest losing week.

Week 6

Spread Betting - NBA/NCAA/Football

Stakes & Banks

NBA 1 or 2% * 167.04%

NCAA BB 0.5 or 1% * 95.66%

Football 0.5 or 1% * 102.25%

Another decent week comes to an end, must admit I did fall prey of bigger picture blidness for a few moments when my last couple of NBA bets lost. If they had also come in I would of been looking at my best week since starting. After I had reminded myself how silly my mindset was I felt much better. I have a longterm P&L bank growth graph which I look at whenever I feel bad about one particular result, it always reminds me of how insignificant it is, as that result is hardly visible causing a mere blip if I looks really hard.

It was a good week overall for the Basketball with even the NCAA giving me some profits in its finale. After a nightmare start about 4 weeks ago the NCAA bank is now sitting at 95.66%, not a bad effort. With just the final to go, I'm happy to have turned it round from 87.71% a couple of weeks ago. Don't think I'll be continuing with this unless I find a different edge somewhere else and am glad to have clawed back most of my losses in the end. The third week of the football has turned over a slight profit, once again the draw as predicted, is making it hard to get paid as often as I would of liked, although I'm confident it will maintain profitable until the season ends.

I'm quite looking forward to the MLB which has just started, so many games to choose from and my stats are showing a clear edge here so I'm hopeful this could even rival my NBA success. I'll be starting on the standard 1% bets though until I hit 150%, there's no hurry with months of the season to get stuck into, and I intend to build the test bank slowly but surely.

Marchish Review

Ok so the first full month of this spread betting exercise has now ended, with just over 5 weeks to review as I will also include the last week of February. Looking over the results I also managed to mix up some of the dates between week 4 & 5 due to the time differences in the US & UK, however all the totals match depending on how you add it up. I've changed my records to UK time only now to prevent this from happening again. Here is the total of all 5 weeks and the break down of each one:

All new systems started off on the 0.5-1% of bank staking and once they have built the bank to 150% an increase to the 1-2% of bank is made. So far the NBA is the only one to have made it through, but to be fair it has been running for 5 weeks whereas the football has been for 2 and the NCAA for 3. April will be an important month to get a better idea of how good the football picks are, the second week predictably didn't go well and almost wiped out all of the profits from the previous week. I need more results to come to any conclusions and will keep it running until the season ends. The NCAA BB has been poor, as you can see from the red bar it has had a terrible start and only had a marginally profitable week in week 5.  Not long to go before this one is finished so I will see it out, unlikely to continue with it in the future if it continues to return so little. The NBA has been consistently profitable even on a weekly basis, and it's profits continue to lead the way.

I'm also pretty sure I will be delving into the MLB which is starting soon, and the NFL when it restarts. The overall aim is to make better use of the bank and spread the liability whilst maintaining the quality of selections. This is already showing early on in Week 4 where the football profits covered for the heavy NCAA losses and in Week 5 where the NBA profits covered for the football. Ideally I'd like at least 3 sports running simultaneously, and with the NCAA on the way out I'm hoping the MLB will prove more fruitful. Once the football season finishes I can't see myself delving into the World Cup, as the stats just don't show any clear edge, at least I can't see one. I'll probably end up trading these matches prematch like I used to do, although I'm not quite sure what to expect as it will be my first World Cup I have got involved in betting wise. Will as ever keep looking out for other opportunities.

Apart from that the only other point to mention is that I have been almost exclusively using Pinnacle in March, roughly speaking over 95% of my bets have been with them. Have to say they have been very good and with 96 bets placed so far, I have not had any issues at all. Will need to look more seriously at spreading the bets out in April onwards, one good thing is the football bets can easily be placed with an exchange at the expense of the commission, so I'm likely to use the exchanges for that, and any other selections that can be used elsewhere. Betdaq offer only 2% commission on all football asian line handicaps which is pretty good to know, even if its just for hedging purposes. In regards to the US sports it will be Pinnacle or 5Dimes, Bet365 also give you good options on the lines so it's good to have them as a backup albeit at a poorer price. Will Hill and Ladbrokes have consistently been poor value so far so I'm unlikely to go with them. Ideally I need to find another competitive US bookmaker as it's looking like many of my bets will be on US sports in the next few months. As ever will keep an eye out, haven't really been looking that hard since discovering Pinnacle.

Week 4

Spread Betting - NBA/NCAA/Football

Stakes profit target of bank:

NBA 1 or 2%

NCAA BB 0.5 or 1%

Football 0.5 or 1%

Since last update:

NBA P&L: £23.48 * Current Bank: 153.25%

NCAA BB P&L: -£29.48 * Current Bank: 91.66%

Football P&L: £35.69 * Current Bank: 107.14%

I have now added Football picks to my ever increasing repertoire. This is for the major European leagues where I have decent enough stats to analyse. I have been looking at Football for a while and the draw has always made any edge quite small in the longterm. Placing some filters on price range has helped increase this enough to warrant giving it a go, and for only 5 days it has certainly proved worthwhile already. It's nice to see something new have such a positive start, but of course it is mainly one good weekend that could easily be wiped by an equally poor one. So staking is strict and the discipline to stick to the rules is as ever paramount.

The NCAA BB started off terribly and clawed back a couple of percent in the past few days, overall though it is still underperforming. Plenty of games to go though and I'm confident that it will eventually return an overall profit once the mean is met, or at least break even. 

And of course let's not forget the NBA, which has been my star performer and continues to go from strength to strength. Not the best of weeks but another profitable one is warmly welcomed and has helped push the total in the right direction.

Staking Plan

My staking plan has changed again as predicted. The previous one was causing too many permutations and although it did save me some large losses in the NCAA BB in comparison to a direct martingale approach, just straight bets would have produced similar results.

With some testing of the previous results, surprisingly a straight 3 stage martingale approach (3 bets) or a 3 stage semi-martingale approach (with the liability split equally for the last stage - 4 bets) seem to produce the highest profitability. A fourth stage opens up potential for losses that are unacceptable, so it has to be limted to 3 stages to be effective. At the moment this is the best staking system I can find in relation to my betting style. I think the 3 or 4 bets decision will probably be made when I get to that third stage, and will be based mainly on probabilities. I'll need more results to see which one of these is more profitable in the long term, although I can't see a huge variance as the first two stages are identical, I'm leaning more towards the straight 3 stages at the moment.

Staking Systems & Week 3

Spread Betting - NBA/NCAA

Stake: 1 or 2% of bank

Session P&L: £12.30

Current Bank %: 144.32%

It has been a bit of an up and down week. I had my best ever sequence of results followed by my worst ever sequence, with the net result being a slight profit. And as you have probably noticed I have started to apply the same statistical approach to the NCAA basketball, with mixed results so far, 3 wins and 3 loses.

I also spent some time looking at applying a more rewarding staking system, as upto now I have mainly been using a fixed profits approach with a slight Kelly criterion twist either at 1 or 2%. I have then explored higher risk/reward alternatives such as the pyramind and martingale systems. Although I'm still changing things and wll most probably switch it up again, I'm going to try a semi-martingale approach in addition to the methods I mentioned above. So 1, 2 or 3% will be the initial stake, if this loses I then split the losses between the next 2 bets which also have a profit target of the same percentage, again if one of these bets loses I will split it again into two further bets. For this to work I would need 2 out of 3 bets to win (66.7%) or ideally 3 out of 4 (75%). At the moment I am on a 70% average following my recent worst run of results, and for most of the time I was sitting on 80%+, so in theory I should clear my liability with this system. But to be even safer I have added a 1% reduction in profit after each loss, so for example on a 2% bet that loses, instead of going for the full 2% on each of the following 2 bets, I will go for 2%*0.99 plus half the liability of the previous stake. This effectively reduces the rate at which the stake increases and prevents it from increasing indefinitely, as this reduction eventually causes a biting point where the liability increase and profit decrease cancel eachother out, effectively causing a level stake system. This occurs at approximately double the initial stake, so effectively what I am doing is implementing a stake system that goes from level stakes of 2% to 4% through a sequence of a few semi martingale recovery stages. Worst comes to worst I'll be level staking at 4%, and if that happens then my strike rate must be quite poor. Any staking system, even level stakes with such a poor strike rate would marginally profitable at best or unprofitable anyway. I would see reaching this stage as a sign to review the system.

I started this on the day I had my worst sequence of results, out of 8 bets 6 were losers, so this has now left me with 10 follow up bets (having won 2 follow up bets already). Worst timing ever I suppose but it has given me a good sequence to test if this really works. Before that I had 15 winners out of 16, so another run like that and all the liability loops will be easily covered. Sequences of 3, 4 or 5 winners in a row have been quite frequent throughout, so let's see how it goes. What I like the most is that the limiter of profit per bet prevents the martingale approach from escalating the stakes indefinitely and limits me to about double my initial stake at its highest. I've also introduced a 3% bet, but have not used it yet, it is for when I find an 80% probability bet in the spread, as you can imagine this is very rare, particularly at an average price of 1.9. However when going over my data I have seen it crop up once or twice so it is there for those rare occasions. With this in mind almost all my initial bets will be split between 1 or 2% initially, with a rare 3% if that opportunity arises.

NBA - Week 2

Spread Betting - NBA

Stake: 1 or 2% profit

Session P&L: £65.31

Current Bank %: 141.25%

My second week of the NBA spread betting exercise has gone well. A profit of £65.31 with my bank now standing at 141.25%. I've gotten much more comfortable with each bet as the winners have started rolling in knowing that each one is making it less and less likely for this to go tits up. The statistical analysis shows it will be profitable, over the past 7 NBA seasons, and this is also true for the NFL, but with only 24 bets placed so far since deciding to put money into it, I'm not counting my chickens yet! Ideally I want a large sample size near 1000 bets to analyse but we're talking 14 seasons or so for that, I'd be better off going for a PHD on the subject!

Some observations I have found interesting, not sure why this is and perhaps an experienced bettor could shed some light on this, but most days at about 8pm UK time I was placing my bets. Nothing wrong with that of course, however I found if I took 5 minutes to place them the price and sometimes lines would more often than not shorten in those few minutes. Of course this was a tad frustrating for me knowing that if I was a minute or so faster I would of gotten a better deal. This pattern continued most of last week and yesterday I decided to make some time at 7pm to get my bet on, no problems at that time. I then checked the prices again at about 8pm, and surely enough at 8.03pm Pinnacle's price on my selection shortened from 1.952 to 1.920. Coincidence? I think not, particularly as I've been noticing it all week. The only conclusion I can come to is that someone is lumping serious amounts of cash on the same selections, causing the bookie to manage the liability and shorten the price or adjust the line. A bookie as huge as Pinnacle though, to even cause a dent we must be talking the max stake, which online is indicated on my account as about £8k! With an average of 1.7 selections a day and a price of 1.89, you do the math, someone must be making an absolute mint if this is the case. If this is the cause it does give me more confidence in my relatively tiny stakes!

On the manual trading front, once again disappointingly I have not had time off in the afternoons at all. We are making some changes at work in the next couple of months which will eventually give me more afternoons off. Until then though the horse racing trading is on hold. Football and Tennis look much more likely due to the times they are on, so we'll see how it goes with that.

Spead betting update

Spread Betting - NBA

Stake: 1 or 2.5% profit of bank

Session P&L: £49.73
Current Bank %: 124.92%

No trading since my last post as I have been working this weekend. Good news is that my spread betting exercise is going well with another 5 winners out of 6 giving me a total profit of £99.66 in my first week. My stake has increased slightly as the bank has now grown 24.92% since starting which is encouraging.

It's been quite interesting dealing with different bookmakers, especially when comparing how they operate. I think Pinnacle already don't like me as for some strange coincidence all 11 winning bets have been with them. With such small stakes I don't think they'll even care at the moment, although I am keeping a separate P&L record for each bookie as if this does escalate to higher stakes, I'll know exactly where I stand with each. I have struggled to find better value in the spreads than with Pinnacle although I have spent 5-10 minutes each day comparing prices, so far they always seem to offer the best deal, particularly when buying points. Whenever someone else comes close I did use them instead as I want to spread the bets out as much as possible, and so far Bet365 have mostly been second best. Also Pinnacle's policy on withdrawals is unlike what we're used to in the UK. You get one free withdrawal a month and after that they charge you to withdraw your funds. A bit pointless when looking for value if you’re going to get your profits further reduced from transactional charges, so at the moment it's either one withdrawal a month with Pinnacle or taking the worse price with Bet365 and free withdrawals.

I suppose I could hedge with an exchange if I want to withdraw more from Pinnacle or reduce a specific P&L. It's nice to know I still have that option although at the cost of the commission, probably better to use Betdaq if possible to prevent increasing Betfair's P&L.

Of course it's early days yet having only just started the second week, although I think it's important to keep good records early on and be prepared for the worst. So far so good though, I'm happy with a £100 return with only 10-15 minutes work a day last week.

US Spreads

Spread Betting - NBA

Stake: 1 or 2.5% profit of bank

Session P&L: £49.93
Current Bank %: 112.48%

As ever it's been a busy old week, have been working for six days on the trot and am enjoying a well earnt day off.

Although due to work commitments I have had no time to trade the racing markets, I have been quite busy most evenings looking at many US markets and entertaining a statistical betting system that's been kicking about in the back of my mind for a while. I decided to test this with small stakes for the time being as all the maths and data I have reviewed suggest it will be profitable. I am basing my picks on the spreads offered in the current NBA season, and am quite strict as to what spreads I accept, buying points if necessary. It doesn't take too long to calculate my picks and they can vary from night to night, for instance sometimes I don't find any and last night I found three.

After a bit of thought I've decide to make a staking system based on percentage profit of bank, which also includes two bet types, one for strong selections (2.5% profit per bet) and one for other good selections (1% proft per bet). This well automate the increase in stake per bet if things go well and will also protect the bank from any potential losing runs.

So I then went shopping and have opened about eight new accounts with leading bookmakers, mainly based in the US where the juice on these spreads is more varied. Placed my first bet on Sunday and have now placed eight so far, winning six and losing two, giving me a 12.48% increase to my bank. I'm quite happy with that as my first two bets were losers, but I stuck to it knowing that the stats made sense and have had a warmly welcomed winning streak since.

What I like most about this is the little effort involved as opposed to trading price movements or swings in-play. It takes me about 10 minutes a day to check the fixtures and make a decision on the picks, then another 5 minutes to browse over a few bookies and find the best deal to place my bets, and that's it job done. No need to sweat over how it's panning out or lay off some of the liability or hedge etc. It's a simple betting strategy based on stats, and that's why I like it. Another plus is that I can do this everyday, working or not, as at the moment the first game starts around midnight giving me ample time to get all my bets on during the day. I am also looking at expanding to the NFL when the new season is underway, although will need to do a bit more research before committing to that.  

As I did last night, if I haven't got work the next day I might stay up to catch a game or two, basketball is another sport I really enjoy watching, particualrly the NBA. I'm also entertaining the idea of trading the match odds with The Toy, as I'm noticing certain point leads are key in the fluctuation of odds (and the liquidity traded isn't too bad at all). Although I will need to keep monitoring this for a bit longer before I do get involved. A couple of factors are the reliability of the streaming and scoreboards. Also I'm not too sure if I really want to interfere with my enjoyment of the game, as this would involve sacrificing kicking back and having a beer or two!

Little time to progress with anything else this week although now I have this system set up and running I will have more time next week to work on other areas.