How to automatically 'fire' a back bet "in play"

[pegasus]

I have been using a technique which 'old hands' probably know, and that is to wait till a match is "in play", and then wait until the price of a horse starts to dip rapidily; this usually means they're reaching the finishing line.

At present, I am manually watching the graphs for the price to hit 1.6 - 1.4 before entering my bet. Is there a way to do this automatically ?

I just tried BACK THE FIELD @1.4, but before it was "in play" In l/v, the result was -13.00 against the horse in question, and various green amounts on all the others. Should I be pressing LAY THE FIELD when "in play" ??

Needless to say, the horse duly won and I lost the £13 ... so I don't want to do that again whilst learning!!

[Mitch]

To do what you want to do you need to use Excel to trigger the bet.
Have you used the triggered betting in Excel, and if not are you familiar with Excel?

[Mitch]

Try here, this is about the same thing.

http://domain921509.sites.fasthosts.com ... highlight=

[pegasus]

I have used Excel as a simple "mail merge" database, but not in the context of this program. (I have only had the program about six days, so I'm fairly 'chuffed' at discovering the graph trick, and have yet to find all the fine-tuning features.) So having typed this reply, I will go and have a "butcher's" (cockney slang: butcher's hook=look)

Of interest, I slipped up badly, watching one horse I THOUGHT was racing to the line ... when it suddenly shot up to 10's. It was then I saw another horse lower down the screen was at 1.17. I did this three times!! The upshot is my £7:29 - which I'd pushed up to £29 - now stands at 0.09p!!

So anything that automates the process, the better!!

[pegasus]

As stated, I had a look at the software loading the results to Excel, and can see how the "IF" statement will fire a back into the market.

I'm going to take it one stage further to avoid errors. I will use a double "IF" statement such that it will watch the "Not In Play/In Play" field so that it will only watch the odds once the race is in progress.

I cannot believe that this software is FREE ... but I'm awfully glad it is.

(Author: How about adding a PayPal donation button to your page? Bet you would get quite a few offers via that!!)

I shall be suggesting the software on my blog in due course.

[Mitch]

There is a PayPal button on Gary's software page.

Just one point about backing below a certain odds when the market is in-play......
Beware of photo-finishes. The market goes in-play after the race has finished and the odds go crazy. I had a similar formula and because I wasn't expecting it a bet was submitted at 1.1 which was matched at 1000. Obviously the nag hadn't won. Before anyone says it I also had a condition in the formula which wouldn't back unless the lay odds were under a certain level, and that the second best was over a certain level.
I still don't know how it did it but be careful.

[mikeeboy]

I've been down this road, and it's not quite as straight forward as it sounds. Firing the bet is no problem, once you've sussed out the technicalities. But assuming you're on a winner when the price hits 1.6, 1.5, 1,4 isn't quite what it seems. Firstly there's the delay, where the price could diminish further (still a profit so no problem) or the price could go the other way. Not only that but horses get below that price and still don't win more often than you would think. One race last week had 3 horses reach 1.01 in the same race!

So just keep an eye out for these things.

[pegasus]

Life is never simple.

I've been doing this manually, and the graphs show when the odds are dipping down. If its say a 2mile race, I think that lasts about 1min or so. I tend to watch for about 3/1 around this time. If it drops once, and then again, I wait till it droops the third time, and then MANUALLy click in. Of course, watching for those drops means you sometimes miss the other one changing lower down the screen - and then miss out completely.

Automating also seems to be a bit tricky too. So far, got the sheet to register "BACK" if below 1.5 ...and now I'm trying to get it to 'lock' so that other price changes will not be registered, but its not easy. And as for incorporating previous price drops / lay values into formulae as well, that's tricky!

Oh well. Never say never...

NB: After I'd typed that bit about the PayPal button, guess who found it on the site!!

Mikeeboy: THREE horses at 1.01 in one race?? I've only been monitoring for a few days, so never seen that eventuality - yet! That's why I thought of adding the lockout above, assuming that the 1.5 - 1.1 meant it was a virtual nailed on at-the-post winner, so the first to that price was the winner

[Mitch]

If you wanted to ensure that only one horse was backed you could put an extra criteria in the AND part of the trigger formula such as....

If the horses are in A5 to A10..... COUNTA("N5:N10")=0

which will ensure that nothing is in the bet ref. column for any horse before a bet is placed.

But.........
I'm not sure why you would want to do that, because if your first bet isn't going to win you may as well back the second and cut the loss a little.
I know the 3 x 1.01 race would hurt but that is very rare.

To avoid backing at false prices, I would also put 2 more criteria into the AND part of the formula.
1) The lay odds for the selection are also under a certain value, for example 1.6
2) The odds for the 2nd fav are above a certain value, maybe 4.0

By the way, my very short trial showed me that I couldn't make this pay (bad punter probably) so I thought lets LAY every horse that goes under 1.5 and I couldn't make that pay either.
I can only guess that the in-play delay kills any edge that I might gain by firing bets in quickly.

Either that or I really do suck as a punter and I should just stick to writing code for others

[mikeeboy]

I've been digging around this area on and off for quite a while still searching for the missing ingredient. I've now downloaded the historical data into access and writing some programs to analyse it but still no joy so far.

Like you, my short trials so far have failed.

[fraybentos]

i am new to comps but im well into the horse betting. i have read all of the posts with a lot of interest. Couldanybodytell me how i cud fire a bet in- running automatically so that when i bet a horse at a big price i can put a bet in running at a lower price so all it needs to do is look like winning and i can lock a profit i do this at the moment with very good results(manually) but when im at work i sometimes struggle because i have to get to a comp during the race. I would really appreciate it. Because im new to the excel program could you give me a real basic example. Do i write when "in-play" etc
Please someone help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mitch]

It sounds like you still want to make the first bet manually, because it's based on your judgement.

If you have trading mode ticked, then after you make your first bet a figure will appear in the green box on the same row as your selection. This is the profit (or loss) you could make by laying the horse back at hopefully lower odds. When you're happy with the figure click the green button with the amount in it and the software works out the required stake and places the bet for you. All of this is done without using Excel. I'd say this was worth a try to see if it suits your purpose before you play with Excel.

Having said that, Excel is definately worth looking at if it interests you because you can do so much with it (although nothing is ever as quick or easy as you think it should be).
Try looking up IF, AND, and OR in the help files for starters if you want to learn about it.

[fraybentos]

Appreciate the reply but i need the 2nd bet triggered during in play.I will always know what price to put the selection in at but when i am at work i am not able to i have been known to phone the wife to put the bet on during the race but she cant always do it.I would be very grateful if someone could give me the exact formula.

[fraybentos]

Oh yeah where abouts are the help files please!!

Also must i congratulate Gary on such a brilliant bit of software, a true legend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The Gambling Monkey]

Are you looking to lock in a "free bet" on just your selection or do you want a level profit accross the entire field?