How's everyone doing?

I wish!

I'm struggling on with my bot. Every new strategy I try seems to make money for a few days then has a big loss which wipes out all the profit (and more!).

Have you seen this, I thought it was interesting...
http://dynamicnotions.blogspot.com/

I gave up on Betfair. As soon as you find a winning method, they introduce things like data charges and "bet matching logic" which nullifies your edge. To me, it's quite obvious that winners are NOT welcome. Don't get me wrong though, it makes a lot of sense from a business point of view - a nice level playing field where nobody wins and nobody loses (significantly) keeps the commission rolling in...

Things are slow here. I've had a few strategies go pear shaped of late and haven't replaced them yet. I also lost an income stream due to betfair's bet matching logic change but I've still got a bunch of bots that usually make an overall monthly profit. I'm still wishing I could trade but haven't found the motivation to get there yet.

bennean, yes I've been watching the dynamicnotions blog, my best betting day dreams involve an AI or 2 :)

likewise - quiet.  Though I've got a couple of models in the wings.  One on the footy - looks strong in back testing, looks ok in out of sample testing, no doubt will follow the others as soon as I put any real money on to it  :-(

Has anyone written the code to build the same prices you see on screen from the prices you get from the API?  This is related to the matching algorithm changes, in that the screen shows more prices than the API gives - they've filled in the missing odds on screen.  From what I can tell you need to round up when converting lay odds to back odds, and round down for the other way round.

I went a bit quiet on the betfair front. I'd rewritten my bot from scratch, to almost the point of making bets, then had a look through it and wondered what the hell I was doing with it. It was so complicated and convoluted that nothing was making any sense from a fresh eyes perspective.

I've just started rewriting it again, using all the principles from the software design course I'm doing and things are starting to make a lot more sense now.

University edumacation seems to be making a difference! This is the dullest course I have ever done, but the principles it's teaching me make real sense, so I'm slogging on and applying them. Seems to be working so far. Watch this space I guess.

Alan

Good to hear Alan.  

Just noticed this on the bdp news feed - the algorithm for creating the prices displayed from the API prices.
Will try coding it up and if successful will post the code here. 

Might not stand up to much scrutiny by your newly gained computer science skills though.

hiya denp,

I dunno about that - this course is teaching me a lot about the underlying mechanics, but I think an awful lot about design of any kind has to be taken with a grain of salt really.

Design of any kind is too subjective to be given a binary result. Sure, there are general principles which need to be applied, but they just principles, not rules.

Also, I've seen some of your code - once I figure out what you have written, I'm a bit awestruck tbh.

Alan