Betfair Trade: Power Trading Systems. Semi Automated Betting Systems Using Bet Angel Professional Trading Interface, Bookmaking And Dutching: Part 1

A key driver in developing specifications for my “Power Trading” systems was feedback from punters that there was a growing disquiet about the distribution of profits amongst the Betfair masses.

Inevitably there has to be some disparity to some extent between winners and losers in the Betfair arena in that by its very nature for every winner there has to be a loser.

But exactly in the same way as Bookies were able to take advantage of punters by setting excessive overrounds, there was a feeling that professionals have an unfair advantage over the novice punter.

Perhaps the primary driving force behind the techniques was a requirement to empower advanced and intermediate traders with new innovative systems that would enhance their betting strategies and complement existing ones to provide an overall increase in profits from betting on Betfair.

Potentially a lot more people should be able to profit through Betfair, and my aim was offer anyone prepared to invest in their trade or hobby a chance at winning.

I advocate hard work and commitment throughout my work and techniques.

Nobody should believe claims of instant life changing wealth through Betfair. It doesn’t work like that.

Life changing results can and do happen but not without effort and dedication.

Experienced gamblers know that in reality there is NO single racing system that works all the time, throughout the racing season.

Even further from ever being a reality is the possibility of a racing system that can be automated by computer software that will work all the time.

Betfair will be on the scene for decades to come and with gambling being positively encouraged by establishments in Europe, America and Asia, marketeers and unscrupulous companies are literally throwing systems together in the hope of making a fast buck from the constant supply of novice and desperate gamblers.

I have long been an advocate of studying fundamentals and the greatest racing experts make good profits by focussing their predictions around races where they have gathered immense amounts of data and analysis.

Becoming an “expert” in a given area of racing is well recognized as providing enormous dividends over time.

Similarly true, with the advent of powerful computer software and systems combined with fastidious technical analysis and an advanced staking strategy, punters can for the first time shift the odds in their favour without being fundamental form gurus.

It’s been several decades since professional bettors first came up with the idea of automating betting systems to increase their overall profit margins.

A major barrier to being able to build “positions” in a betting shop was that tax was levied on all wagers until as recently as 2002. Betting shops also maintained the right to act against anyone who was deemed to be in breach of their regulations, put another way, anyone who should have the nerve to attempt to beat them!!

Bookies and Betting shops were up in arms in 2001 with the arrival of Betfair and other Betting Exchanges.

The revolution that had been needed for years had finally arrived.

Commission was charged by Betfair only on net winnings, and uniquely it presented a two sided market, back to win or back to lose, so placing punters in direct competition with each other, without the interference of the third party bookmaker.

Punters were allowed to recycle their money through the market, and build their positions before an event had even started.

City Traders, Betting Professionals, even Bookmakers themselves (after the initial shock and revulsion) saw the opportunities that now presented to take positions on sporting events in much the same was as one would in financial markets.

It came as no surprise to the industry that as soon as 2002 the tax rules were finally changed in Betting shops from a tax on the punters wager, to a tax on the Bookmakers profits (Pity the poor Bookie!!).

Scalping, hedging, taking a position and greening up were born and have been well documented in dozens of early online resources.

Newcomers to Betfair can quickly learn the basic arts of trading and are usually elated that they can build winning positions quite quickly. I myself am a great proponent of Ladder Trading pre race via Bet Angel to increase profitable positions or reduce liabilities on Dutches or Books that I have made.

In advance of designing my systems I conducted several surveys of Betfair traders and the feedback I was getting was that aiming for £10 profit from trading via the basic Betfair interface was really about all punters could cope with on a daily basis.

Mitigating factors people would talk to me about included stress, anxiety, headaches, computer problems, broadband problems and a whole range of issues that prevented them from achieving their goals.

Successful steamer identification pre race is, and will remain a consistently tricky business.

There are an inordinate number of factors to account for in price movements. Weight of Money can prove inconsistent, Market movers can manipulate false prices, and without the benefits of SIS and other “hot” feeds the average punter will always be several seconds or minutes behind the professionals and other insiders.

The Betfair databases were opened up in 2004 with the advent of the Betfair API technology. This enables external companies to design their own client/ server interfaces and robots as alternative enhancements and improvements to the basic Betfair GUI.

Robots are often referred to in the trade as simply “Bots”.

What is considered to be the most advanced collection of interfaces and bots was developed by Optic Ltd and presented as the package called “Bet Angel”

The interface covers everything needed by a financial day trader to make the conversion to trading on sports events.

Features presented include:

1. moving averages,
2. enhanced interface charting,
3. one click trading,
4. trade calculators,
5. trailing stops,
6. stop losses,
7. offset betting,
8. matched bets,
9. fill or kill orders,
10. saved bets,
11. timers
12. betting logs,
13. a host of other features.

Bookmaking and Dutching are the core “Bots” with an Automation Rules Interface providing the trigger rule based events across the entire collection of bots and trading tools.

During requirements and specification gathering it became apparent that the 2 basic facets of the systems would need to be:

• The systems must provide daily betting opportunities that can deliver an achievable percentage daily return on capital.

• The systems had to be basic, rule driven and able to be activated in a routine and consistent manner

From an early stage of system design I was using the entire feature set of Bet Angel’s trading interfaces, bots and automation triggers.

This article continues in:

Technical Analysis Of Semi Automated Betting Systems Using Bet Angel Professional Trading Interface, Bookmaking And Dutching. Part 2

Mike J Davies is a Horse Racing Analyst, LSE Day trader and a Betfair Trader and Advisor.

He has completed his seminal work “Power Trading Systems”, a highly acclaimed advanced technical training manual for intermediate and advanced Betfair users.

More information, advice, articles and a FREE REPORT showing how to trade the pre-race Betfair markets using BetAngel trading software are available at Mike's website=>

http://www.Betfair-Trade.com

Copyright: Betfair-Trade.com : 2008.
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