Trading Greyhound racing

[sionascaig]

. IMO your figures on greyhounds look high...

I'm just wondering if its the way Memphis calculates his RoI - often quoted at 30% that causes confusion...

If I do a £10 trade & make 10p I've made a 1% return.
If I repeat this trade 30 times successfully, I've made £3 (or 1% on a turnover of the £300 matched or 30% on the £10 stake)...

==> If its the same £10 I've reused (or leveraged as Peter describes it in his video) isn't your return 30% as that is all the capital you invested?

[Euler]

I think it's legitimate to count it both ways.

I tend to look at return on turnover as that is better long-term measure, but that can be tiny. Maybe 10th's of a % often.

If you measure as return on capital used it will be very high. If you measure it that way your return can almost be infinite! There was one year early when I earned 12.5 times my maximum liability, so that doesn't seem an appropriate measure long term IMHO.

[xitian]

I don't think it makes a massive amount of sense calculating return on working capital, as that will vary hugely depending on trading style and can be massive numbers like Peter said. Calculated that way, one of my strategies averages around 33% a day, or 12166% a year! That's in-running though, so limited scalability.

Profit on turnover makes a lot more sense, and shows you how small a margin you have on each individual bet. Like Peter said, for a trader with a scalpy type style, this is likely to be around 0.5% or even less, and when you compare that to the margins between ticks which are of the magnitude in the 0.5% range (depending on where you are on the ladder) you can see that an edge is often as little as 1 tick. From that you can see that taking a price vs offering a price can have a noticeable impact on the success of a strategy.

[MemphisFlash]

tweaking my greyhound bot again

dog.JPG

[Emmson]

If people would show their trading results by video there will be no room for suspicion, for example here is my work on India Lanka test match that finishes tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni_kKZ2JkcQ

Personally I am appalled that some may be falsifying p&l's.

[Iron]

It's a shame it isn't possible to do a poll in the forum, as I'd be interested in whether people welcome profit statements.

Personally, I find them distasteful, and they seem to generate bad feeling, but I'm open to the possibility that some people may find them inspiring.

Jeff

[whimsies]

If people would show their trading results by video there will be no room for suspicion, for example here is my work on India Lanka test match that finishes tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni_kKZ2JkcQ

Personally I am appalled that some may be falsifying p&l's.

Did you do this manually or with automation either way very impressive

[EyePeaSea]

If people would show their trading results by video there will be no room for suspicion, for example here is my work on India Lanka test match that finishes tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni_kKZ2JkcQ

Personally I am appalled that some may be falsifying p&l's.

Videos of actual trading or even, a shaky phone video displaying the P&L page from BF. It takes far more skill to fake a video than a screenshot, unless we have anyone on here who also works at Dreamworks

For me, occasional posts are ok. But almost daily posts come across in the same way as a 13 year old in school showing off his Nike ParaNorman trainers. I know people on here do make money (**where else has all my cash gone over the last 6 years??) and the people who make money but devote a huge amount of time on here helping others, are more believable than the ones who just post great P&L shots.

Ian

** Talking of which, I must get round to posting to the "systems that don't work" topic...

[Emmson]

If people would show their trading results by video there will be no room for suspicion, for example here is my work on India Lanka test match that finishes tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni_kKZ2JkcQ

Personally I am appalled that some may be falsifying p&l's.

Did you do this manually or with automation either way very impressive

Maybe 15-20 times I used Global Settings Tick Offset of 1 or 2.................everything else manual trading.

[EyePeaSea]

It takes far more skill to fake a video than a screenshot, unless we have anyone on here who also works at Dreamworks

Actually, I was wrong. It doesn't take more skill.

Here's a video showing my healthy P&L for some races between 20th October and 20th November (just 6 races). You'll see the browser is on a secure page to the BetFair site and I've made £5,489.11 profit. The blurry image isn't part of the 'trick' - that's just my phone.

Just to be clear, this is fake. But I thought I'd see how easy it was to do. So, neither screen shots nor video should be taken too seriously. If you trust the poster, and they say they are doing ok, then that's enough. If you don't trust the poster then everything that they post/show should be taken with a pinch of salt.

https://youtu.be/3VrnhFvHXzE

[Euler]

I've argued for ages that Betfair should offer some level of proofing ability, it would really open up eyes to people who actually do it versus those that are all talk. As it is, people just mimic what real traders do and pass themselves off as real traders.

[Naffman]

Problem is then you'll get furry animals who'll say they arb to keep Betfair profits at break even/loss so they don't have to pay PC. Which would be next to impossible but how could you prove it.

[Iron]

The only time someone else's success or failure would be relevant to me is if I'm thinking of taking a course or buying a system. And even then, it's of limited relevance.

An analogy. Is a beginner golfer going to learn more from a day with Tiger Woods than with the guy ranked 10,000 in the world? Also, while Woods is a great golfer, he might not be any good at explaining what he does.

Plus, is there not a risk that having such data would increase the amount of mimicry that goes on, as opposed to people coming up independently with theories of how the market works and then testing those theories?

I'm sure that many people have spent hours worrying about what your secret sauce is, for example, and trying to do what they think you're doing, when a more productive approach would be for them to find their own way (as you excellently demonstrated in your locks video the other day).

Jeff

[DRED1]

I've argued for ages that Betfair should offer some level of proofing ability, it would really open up eyes to people who actually do it versus those that are all talk. As it is, people just mimic what real traders do and pass themselves off as real traders.

I totally agree Peter, it's stunning that anyone can call themselves an expert and basically con people. It always surprised me Betfair didn't get involved in this.

It's not the only industry though, my industry is the same, there are people purporting to be experts and educators, they're charging all sorts of fees, basically it's the same problem, you cannot show earnings , or it's frowned upon.

Unlike my favourites poker and golf
It's hard to keep your earnings hidden live or online , OPR show details of ROI , some people exclude , but there are still ways to check, I had a guy offer me an online poker lesson , he was a loser , basically a fish trying to make money.

Golf the scores are there to see you can't cheat
Had lessons from the top coaches and some duffers who can't break 80. I know some great teachers are crap, but a simple check does the job

Funny most of the above frequent forums too. Not here of course!

Imagine having to show your profit and loss before you could teach trading

Sorry for the rant
DR

[Iron]

I think having a reviews site on the Betfair website where verified course attendees/system buyers could give feedback and provide ratings would be the best way forward.

That would tell me far more about what I would be getting for my money than would the trader's lifetime earnings.

Jeff