Montyless Python

It's certainly been a while since I've posted and I'm sure if anyone is actually still reading this blog you were most likely assuming my disappearance as a cowardice retreat from the exchange markets. I know I always did when noticing similar disappearances, but now I'm thinking perhaps those prior assumptions could very well have been premature.

Although this blog was initially set up for my personal development, I feel it has since evolved to a brief online record of my progress, and going all quiet certainly does not reflect recent events. Each month is becoming increasingly more financially rewarding and I feel I have only recently started to rake in the real fruits of my labour. I'd like to think if there are any struggling hopefuls reading this out there, they may take some inspiration from my latest chapter.

So last post was 19th September 2011... and things were moving in the right direction for the next few months, however the limitations of that setup were becoming more apparent as I became really specific with my botting needs. I eventually made the decision about 6 months after that post to drop the Windows MFPro route and get my hands dirty with some real programming. It seemed the only logical solution as I was at a stage where the increased customisability was required, in addition to the warmly welcomed stability and all round efficiency of the bot. Through research I made a few good contacts offering valuable advice, with one chap in particular who has asked me not to identify him (and of course I will respect that), however this guidance back then was invaluable in giving me a kick start in the right direction. Understandably having to learn a whole new programming language felt daunting at first, this is not for anyone looking for quick returns, it took me a year to confidently make my own functional scripts, but I can say without a doubt it's definitely worth the effort if you're in this for the long haul.

The general operation is now run via the free API on a 24/7 Linux platform using Python scripts to trigger the betting strategies. My first script was a very simple generic tactic that my mysterious friend helped me shape. Looking back at it now it was never going to be a big earner but the main thing at that point was to get a bot functional in this new environment, and then push on from there. Once I learnt the language a bit better I gradually added more functionality until I was confident enough to write and run entirely new scripts to reflect my ideas. I am currently running four bots daily and am working on two new strategies.

I will have to leave it there for now and will post again soon about another big part of my process, statistical analysis. I'm a big believer in stats and run all my bots on a ROT basis. Nothing gets past the testing stage if the basic thresholds are not met. I'll talk about that in more detail next time, be sure to check back if you're interested.

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.

Phootie Alpha Live

Thought I might as well post a little update.

So my first football bot Phootie went live on the 7th May. After a few successful days testing on the 2.5 goals market,  I added the 3.5 market to the equation, and after a few more days the 1.5 & match odds markets were also included. The bot itself is relatively simple and basically seeks out value and bets accordingly in-play.

I actually felt a bit gutted as it went live just in time for all the major European football competitions to come to a close. My prior analysis indicated that Phootie's tactic would be suitable for these higher liquid competitions. Plus I always feel that the end of a season is not the best time for football betting in general, as you can't help but feel that many teams & players are not quite as keen as they would otherwise be. This makes it a bit trickier to determine true value (particularly for my simpleton bot!)

I decided to continue testing during the off season anyway, mainly to gather data as I have no data for this time of the year. It would if for nothing else give me a good indication of whether to pursue with this tactic at this time of the season in the future. Surely enough, I'm noticing a clear difference in results even with this minimal data.

I've included a graph below of just under 2000 markets Phootie decided to participate in. This is not a particularly adequate sample size, but I thought I would include it here to demonstrate the clear distinction I'm noticing. Also remember this is split unevenly between 4 differnt market types and is mostly for football during the off season, as this was when all 4 were mostly firing. It would have been better if I had started all 4 markets at the same time but I needed to test the waters for a few days as I was not sure at that time if my bot was actually going to work. The green line shows approximately when the major football competitions ended and the red my starting bank.

So even form the above data the off season is looking like a clear loser for Phootie, however I will continue with it anyway for the reasons already mentioned. My staking here is tiny and the profit or loss made is not really the main purpose. What is promising is even for that small window when the major football competitions were still running, profits were being made & the bot seemed to handle a couple of busy weekends flawlessly. I don't think I will be convinced to really go for it with Phootie though until I have a full season under my botting belt.

As mentioned previously on the blog, I do like to branch out and will continue to do so. I am now working on a horse racing bot however due to the increased sophistication required for that project, it will take some more time to get that one up and running. My programming skills are improving but the learning curve has somewhat steepened as this bot will be doing much more than Phootie. Tennis, Dogs and perhaps even Basketball also look likely to follow. I also think some different football tactics might be worth pursuing. Happy to report roboguilt has subsided and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into these projects over the next few months.

Beware Bfexplorer

As you can imagine I have contacted quite a few people over past few weeks in regards to getting a simple bot operational. The main purpose is to test the waters and hopefully build a positive relationship with a developer, which will eventually give me the ability to create and run more complex botting ideas.

I did not feel the need to share all of my poor experiences, as I would expect to deal with a few parties before eventually settling on one. Plus I'm not really one to dwell on negativity and ineptitude. However I have made an exception for one chap, Stefan of bfexplorer, whos persistant amateaurish behaviour has left me with little choice. This post is mainly to warn any prospective traders/botters to stay away from bfexplorer following my poor experiences. I apologise for anyone else who may be associated with this product, however as Stefan clearly associates himself as the representaion of bfexplorer my experience reflects the product as a whole and not just Stefan.

I would consider myself a realist as in I expect a fair standard of support from someone who is offering a service for £30 a month. Even without a subscription fee there are a few basic standards that you would expect anyone to adhere to, no matter what part of this planet they came from.

The first is that personal correspondence is in fact kept between corresponding parties unless both agree otherwise. Solely deciding to share private content to others is not only terribly amateurish and unprofessional but also very worrying if you were an actual paying customer with a valued history of correspondence. Could you imagine a few months down the line, after you had spent a decent amount of time & money developing a working bot and were corresponding with Stefan throughout, he then decides to share all your correspondence with everyone just because he feels like it. I can't imagine how any long term subscribers (if indeed there are any) must be feeling knowing that all correspondence with Stefan, in his view has no privacy boundaries whatsoever. This must be doubly concerning when discussions involve sensitive information such as specific botting strategies.

Another point to consider is that Stefan likes to twist reality to validate any points he is trying to make. Let's look at an example of this. He clearly states on his site that if you have an offer for the subscription fee, or if you have a blog and are willing to promote his product then send him an email. When someone does send him an email, for one reason or another this becomes an issue for Stefan. Strange behaviour as this is what he requests, particularly if they have a blog. At any point did my email ask for free access to his product? The answer is no. Of course, he is trying to make a point and decides that I was asking for free access and that me writing in with an offer is completely unacceptable. I had to write again after he ignored me initially to get this comical response:

'I am sorry man, but what you offer is not interested for me.'
'I did not give him free access to bfexplorer.'

I have corresponded over a few emails, and although after only a couple I felt using his product would carry some additional uncertainty, I could never imagine somebody in his position to have reacted in such a childish and unprofessional manner. The sad thing is his product does actually look decent enough to do the job, but his poor communication skills coupled with his attitude makes this risk unacceptable. I suspect maybe some will feel I might have a personal problem with Stefan, or perhaps my experience is just a one off. Sadly this is not true, there is some more recent evidence here, here and here - and I can only imagine how many others have discarded his product due to this poor form. Moreover, when I first asked around the trading community about his product, it didn't take long for me to get ample feedback, confirming that my initial suspicions were regrettably all true.

The bottom line is no matter how good the product is, it pales in comparison to others because Stefan is inadequate to fulfil basic standards of support. The only reason I felt the need to post about this is because of continued poor standards and attitude, and unfortunately for Stefan my views are shared by many others in the trading community.

I do hope this serves as an adequate account of why anyone considering using bfexplorer should definitely not do so. There are plenty of alternatives out there that perform similar functionality, are cheaper to run and offer great support. As a trading app £5 a month may seem reasonable at first, but then again The Toy is a far superior product, offers great support & banter in the forum, and of course it's completely free. For botting functionality Market Feeder Pro is the way forward. Functionality is on par, price is cheaper particularly on longer term packages, and the support is excellent both by email and in their forum.

So you have been warned, I hope this post serves the purpose on saving someone the sheer shenanigans of dealing with this imbicile and everything that he represents. 

Following on nicely from that, I am testing some strategies with MFPro at the moment, and so far have been very pleased with both the performance and support. Will be posting more about this on another post.

Almost March already

Wow how the time just flies by. I hope the start to 2011 has been good to you all. Not much to post about recently in regards to my bot progress, with me basically learning how to code some basic ideas. I've also been rather limited in time due to other commitments from late 2010 hanging over into this year. Some good news though, I will have some guaranteed reprieve from May onwards, from when I have decided to reduce my working hours, giving me much needed time to focus and finalise my bot, amougst other things.

I also forgot to mention on my previous post that I have resumed selective parts of my spread betting strategy I wrote a bit about previously. It has only been for the NBA and football, the two main earners during my trial period, and the profits have continued to come in. I don't really see much use in posting weekly P&Ls here in regards to that, as it is rather dull reading. However I will keep updating with any thoughts as the season unfolds.

Manual trading has been minimal and I mainly enter markets now just to test market conditions for the bot. I do see it as crucial, keeping in touch with the movements and always trying to understand why they are happeneng. My profitability has always been proportionate to my understanding and I aim to keep that as finely tuned in as possible. Even if all goes perfectly to plan and I manage to implement a fully automated and profitable bot at some point this year, I still see myself trading manually from time to time. Might even entertin the idea of competing against my own bot in a head to head using The Toy, certainly would be an interesting little experiement.

Thank you

Would like to say thank you for all the email / forum responses in regards to my last post. Although I may of come across as hopelessly stalemated, I have had some correspondence with a few really helpful guys. It's to be expected really, needing to sift through a number of time wasters before meeting someone useful. Do not think it's particularly appropriate to mention all names but you all know who you are, so thank you once again to all who have offered support.

It seems the consensus in regards to my botting needs is to learn how to program the bot myself rather than rely on anyone else. Problem with this route is it will takes much longer before seeing any results, but in regards to the longterm it gives me many more options and the flexibility to adapt. Having spoken to a couple of guys on the forums VBA doesn't seem all that daunting, although ultimately C# appears to be the language to pursue. I suppose if and when I feel I am being limited by Excel & VBA that would be the time to look at switching to C#. As a start though I'm looking at the Excel integration route. One plus with this route is being able to use the vendor API subscription, as I can see the limitations with the free API restricting the possibilities somewhat.

Also think I am developing a serious case of roboguilt, that is for every waking moment I'm not otherwise occupied, I should be working on this damn bot! Any cures for roboguilt, you know the email address! 

Botting Help

A quick post seeking some advice. As you may have picked up from previous posts I'm looking to get involved in the Betfair botting world. However regrettably out of the six potential programmers I have been in contact with, none have come through for me. It seems going quiet rather than replying and saying you can/can't do something is in fashion at the moment - and this is from email addresses I have already had some correspondence with (not enough to give anything important away mind).

Anyway, I am asking anyone who is reading this, if you have VBA or Excel programming skills and are actually serious, or if you know of anyone with these skills, please get in contact with me either by commenting here or emailing me directly on ambergambler007(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk. It will be a spreadsheet based bot triggered either via Gruss or Bet Angel - as long as it can perform the required functions.

I'm pretty confident one of my trading styles is mechanical enough be be botted, and potentially one or two others. I just need to get this ball rolling and would really appreciate any advice whatsoever at the moment.

Hopefully get some progress on this soon!

First full(ish) day for a while

Horse Racing

Unit stake: £2

Session P&L: £3.06

Average market P&L: £0.18

It's hasn't taken long at all to get used to trading again. I'm feeling confident and motivated after today's result. Before today my cautious plan was to trade with min stakes for about 5 sessions or so (until I felt comfortable with the markets and software), but it seems that has happened already. My plan after reaching that point was to pick up where I left off in February - building up my bank with the 10%-of-bank-max-unit-stake-per-trade-rule - if that last sentence actually makes sense! Considering my staking I am very happy with the return, but moreover being able to maintain my discipline easily for the entire session. I had an hours break between 15:00-16:00, and I think that helped me finish stronger (although I probably should of timed it better considering the quality of racing).

I'm still lovin' The Toy and although I keep postponing this review, it will come when I feel I've used it thoroughly enough. Fact is this software is so customisable that I'm still finding new ways to view the markets depending on how I set it up. I'm also trading with one screen at the moment as I've decided to upgrade the two analogue to two digital monitors. Am just waiting for them to arrive (having already relocated one of the analogue displays), should be next week pending stock. It has been interesting trading with one screen, forcing me to be more efficient with the available space. I do feel that with two though it will be better. Once they're installed I'm planning on setting at least one portrait (perhaps both), so the juggling fun begins all over again.

The Geekstoy Children in Need Plugathon

Well as some of you will know already, there are some great things going on at the Geek's Toy HQ. And believe it or not this isn't an appraisal of the software's performance, but a gesture from the Geek and others for the Children in Need cause.

Having some sort of following here I thought I should at least contribute to this great cause in my own little way. If you have a blog or site  you can also help, check this post here for details.

Make sure you get involved now before it's too late, the deadline is Midnight UTC Sunday 21st November. Not only will you be helping a great cause but there are some seriously great prizes up for grabs:

- Tradesharks Tennis Trading Guide. from  Tradeshark

- Bet Notes software from the Nugget Crew

- £250 form The Geek himself

- £200 Nuggets Football Trading Toolkit from the Nugget Crew.

- €720 BFExplorer Subscriptions from BFExplorer

- Bet72 "free-bet-a-thon" from Darren Hall of Bet72

- £2000 Betfair Personal Annual API Subscription from Betfair

- £100+ Fairbot / Tradeshark Tennis / Nugget Crews BetNotes 

- £300 Bet Angel + Tradeshark Tennis Trader Toolkit

GeeksToy - Probably the Best Betfair Trading Software in the world!

Good to be back

Well it certainly has been a while, looking back the last full day of trading before this month was 16th February!

As mentioned in my last post I have now resumed trading UK horse racing markets, and the past week or so I've gotten involved in quite a few markets, mainly getting back into the swing of things. I must say it hasn't taken too long to pick up where I left off, and it seems what I had learnt has been well cemented. The only issue was concentration levels and stamina so to speak, understandably I can't expect to be in the same condition I was before straight away. In terms of motivation, which was my main issue, I'm feeling as motivated as ever to do this again.

I have also been in contact with a few people in regards to making a bot. This is an ongoing process and will take a while before it's ready, I hope to have this up and running within the next few months if it materialises. It will based on a systematic bookmaking approach that I will be testing initially with Gruss via Excel. If testing goes well I'll look into getting it coded properly and perhaps run off a remote server.

API Software
As some of you will already know my main manual trading application before I stopped was The Toy, and although it lacked a few features I found useful with Bet Angel I managed to match my performance, perhaps even exceed it slightly upto when I stopped. I still felt with the advanced charting and overview The Toy would of been even better, and these were planned for a future release. I'm happy to say that after being involved in some testing of the latest Alpha & Beta versions, they are as promising as ever. My next post will be a review so make sure you're back for that one. Unbelievably the Toy is still free!

As mentioned above I also subscribed to Gruss, and have found it to be quite decent so far. The main reason being for the Excel features, however I traded a few markets manually and it responds very well. For £6 a month this really is a bargain considering how solid the software is and all the potential options you get with Excel integration.

Happy trading everyone, be back soon with more.

Next chapter..

Well the time for research is almost done. My house move is complete, and the Broadband & TV services are being installed within the next couple of days. With it all up and running I can finally set up shop for trading again.  Have been fortunate enough to secure a late two week holiday starting next week. Great news as I really could do with a break, and it was looking less likely to happen until yesterday.  It will certainly be nice to start this new chapter well refreshed.

I have a feeling this blog will be quite important once I get going again, particularly in regards to keeping myself motivated.

to bet or not to bet?

Overall I'm happy to say that my betting exercise has gone relatively well, and it is much clearer which aspects will be repeated while others left out next season.

With the MLB performing so poorly I have decided to withdraw placing wagers and paper trade the rest of the season. It really is like no other sport I've gotten involved in with the results almost being completely random, a bookmaker's dream I'm sure. All the major football seasons are of course over, with the World Cup in full flow, there are only a few scattered leagues that I know little about - so the betting there has also finished. And of course with the NBA currently playing out the final, that season is pretty much over too. The playoffs were in comparison to the regular season a definite no-no for me next time - being much harder to predict particualrly with my style of spread betting. The next venture in the betting world will be with the NFL which I am looking forward to, but of course doesn't start until September. With that in mind the spread betting will need to be put on hold until the events I'm interested in start again.

I would also like to add my biggest respect to any punters who make a living from this. In many respects the thought and analysis that goes into a well executed and profitable betting system rivals that of trading. Some would probably even argue it requires a more organised and disciplined approach, particularly when comparing it to some intuitive trading styles. The margins for profits are tight, add to that a little variance and your clear astute can become rather clouded. At least with trading you can point the finger at your own performance whilst reflecting over a negative P&L!

Trading places 

In my absence from trading I have had time to reflect and formulate some new ideas which I feel warrant a trial. Whilst blogging my progress I have found the emails and comments helpful, and some even inspirational in regards to pushing myself further if I was to ever give trading another go. Looking over my records I wasn't actually doing too badly, and my biggest problem on my last visit to these markets was mainly motivational. This time round I aim to trade one/two full days a week, leaving me with most of my time to focus elsewhere. I am still finishing some analysis but it is looking good so far and I will be implementing some of these ideas soon. This time it will be a more systematic approach, and I will of course be blogging my progress here as usual. At the moment it is looking like starting towards the end of July - perhaps a bit sooner if I finish early. Gives me just about enough time to recover form England's glorious World Cup victory!!  Not?

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.