i/r horses

[mak]

how do you find i/r horse markets?

especially last month for me is very hard.
all my bots and everything i try perform awful

sometimes feels like the only players are field players

is it me or something has change dramatically last month?

[eclipse]

Yeah has definitely got tougher recently although the majority are short races at the moment which don't help me.

[kiint]

I'm not sure about inrunning but I think that something has definitely changed recently. Pre-off seems to have changed a lot, for example there used to be a lot of gaps at the higher odds but these have all largely disappeared. I also find that when a back goes in, it gets taken very quickly and the odds will move against it almost immediately.
It could be my natural paranoia but it seems to happen a lot more than previously.
I have no evidence to support it but my theory is that Betfair are pumping money into the exchange markets from their fixed odds offering.

[Captain Sensible]

Alot of my inplay bots are just stats based and can't say I've noticed any big changes to be honest. If you're playing by reacting to the prices on offer I'd guess alot is down to more efficient track side players which generally increase in the summer months especially in the shorter races like eclipse states. Plus the NH stuff is appalling this time of year and so many 3 runners fields it gets so hard to predict

[mak]

Thanks for the replies so far.

As Captain suggest i am not a stats player. Problem is that last 2 years everything was ok, short races, field players etc..

What i also have notice in play is something like kiint have noticed
and i think is very strange.

"" I also find that when a back goes in, it gets taken very quickly and the odds will move against it almost immediately ""

I could understand that in play there are less players now (bf banned from many counties, recession etc) faster pictures, and more efficient field players but I don't know if this is happening as Kiint noticed pre off also.

[mak]

I also have found in another forum the following.
Hope that is not a problem to post the link

http://uk-betting-tips.co.uk/showthread ... s+matching

This is what the conclusion was...

Hardly anybody noticed but on the 18th February Betfair changed their bet matching engine. After we noticed we did a few tests, looked at some data and confirmed immediately that something had changed. Typically in most markets, especially in play, the market wobbles around a lot. Suddenly this had stopped happening. Armed with a fair bit of data we picked up the phone and called Betfair. Within a short amount of time we had an answer; Betfair had changed their bet matching engine. If you have any specific queries relating to this you need to contact Betfair but this is what we can gather from our conversations with them.

Basically Betfair have made the code that matches customer bets more "efficient". Previously Betfair would only attempt to match customer bet requests against unmatched bets of the opposing bet type (backs vs. lays) on the same runner in the same market. Now, where there is no opposing bet to match on the same selection, rather than just leaving a customer's bet request unmatched, bet matching will now attempt to match the bet request against unmatched bets on other runners. For example; in a soccer match odds market, if there is no unmatched lay bet on the home team against which to match a customer's back bet request, the bet matching algorithm will now attempt to match that request against back bets on the away team and the draw. As before the process matches opposing customer bets and will not result in Betfair having a position in the market.

The net effect of this change is that customer bet requests should stand a greater chance of being matched and the markets will be correspondingly more "efficient". Betfair are gradually rolling this out across all applicable markets on Betfair while ensuring there is no deterioration in bet matching performance.

So my question now mainly to Gary is if he can ask Betfair if something has change in the way cross matching formula works

[kiint]

Mak,

That would match what I have seen. Things did change a few months ago and a system that I'd got profitable stopped working. I also think things have changed again recently although it could be simply the change from the jumps to the flat.
Something is going on, I’m not sure what but I do think that things have recently got a lot more difficult.

Cheers,
Kiint

[peleus]

Was there a maintenance by any chance? I would have to agree with but it's too difficult to pinpoint it.

[KESIMKESIM]

From my own experience, playing pre-off, that 'things' changed the week after the Grand National. This definitely applied to horse racing but also Golf.

What seemed to happen is that the 'real' money dropped off markedly but was masked by what I believe is BF 'cross-matching' money. The turnover looks o.k. but I think it is now just 90% BF 'system' money.

As described by other people, whether you put a back or a lay bet in, then 90% of the time the market shifts against you. If you try and make a book, the market will very quickly adjust the odds on offer to give you a 100% book. This is why I believe it is just BF's cross matching engine.

One by product of this process, seems to be that horses odds are quite often moved to completely the wrong odds, so now you get 'value' backs or lays on most markets. A few months ago these would never have happened as the 'real' punters would have seen these and jumped on them - but not any longer.

I don't quite understand BF's strategy but it's going to kill the exchange and over the next year. I presume this is their intention as they migrate more to more fixed odds betting for their users as they must see this as more profitable- a bit like all the other online bookies.

[mak]

Unfortunately you are probably right KESIMKESIM
What i also notice especially today is how fast and accurate the odds are dropping. there is an offer for 2.8 and the next refresh have dropped at 1.8 and after one refresh it is 1.3...

if they have fast pictures and no delay they will take all the money out of system very fast...


I really would like to know further what their new "engine" do but i am sure they wont tell.

right now though is like "someone" steeling money

[Spike]

I also found June quite difficult but as ever it's very hard to say whether that's because of an underlying cause or just the normal ups and downs.

The reference to the cross matcher above is quite old, it was introduced to in-running horse racing in the Autumn of 2011, I'm not aware of any changes to the matching algorithm since then.

Looking at my data from June it looks like there were considerably fewer in running turn ups than I would normally expect - ie fewer horses trading short then losing. Although it's possible that there is some underlying cause to this it's more likely that it's just random.

If the markets were affected by the way people play (more people at the track or whatever) you would expect this to happen relatively gradually, not all of a sudden.

All in all this year has been fine so far, June was poor for me but April and May were very good so the quarter as a whole has come out pretty well.

I've been botting IR horses for a living for about 5 years, during which time I've built a huge mass of data so I don't have any problem with short races or the change of season or whatever. The last month has been unusual though, so I'll be looking at the next month or two with interest.

When the IR cross matcher was introduced that was a BIG change and a real time to adapt or die. If there are more changes then it'll simply be a case of doing that again, out with the old and in with the new...... fine by me.

[mak]

Spike thanks for your input.

After a search in other forums also, the conclusion is that almost everybody have noticed that "something strange is happening"

Even you saw that June was difficult and tricky.

I really don't know the reason but it seems that something has changed.

You are right that we'll have to look out for the next month(s) to see if it was random or not.

I rewrote my bots and even now (01-03 July) that i am positive I can see that bets are difficult to get matched.

I would really like to know later in July how things are for i/r traders so i will probably ask again.

[doris_day]

I haven't been doing much over the last few months as all my algos died. I could have spent time rethinking it all but what with the PC aswell, I just decided to give up in-running altogether.

I have however been looking ocassionally at the in-play markets and would suggest that reason for the 'strangeness' is just a result of poor liquidity.

My opinion of the Betfair management has now hit rock bottom and frankly I hope the whole thing bombs and someone who understands what an exchange is comes in to resurrect it.

[Nutter Punter]

Get yourselves over to Betdaq

[doris_day]

For i/r ? LOL