The most profitable bots

[northbound]

I’m interested in what bots are working for some of you, so far I haven’t heard any and am even more curious now.

Personally, I so far invested 1.5 years into trading, collecting unique data, testing ideas, etc. So far, I came up with only a couple of profitable bots. Here's a very remote hint of what they do:

Horses pre-off trade
Based on certain market metrics, it lays a horse X minutes before the off, then closes the trade at scheduled off time. It does around 10 trades per month: some win, some lose. Given a trading stake of £100, it makes a profit of £20-60 every month. Here's the thing: I tested this for 12 months with £2 stakes. It performed really well every month with the exception of Jun-Aug. Only last month, after a year of testing, I was confident enough to raise stakes. Going well so far.

Greyhound value betting
Based on certain market metrics, it backs a greyhound to win the race. It places 200+ bets every month. If you bet £1 per dog, you can expect at the end of the month to be up £10-20. Bear in mind that almost every month at some point this strategy finds itself down £10+ because of losing streaks. What matters is the bottom line after hundreds of bets at the end of the month. Again, this has been profitable every single month since May (when my data recording began) but only in the last couple of months I felt confident enough to raise the stakes.

[northbound]

I forgot to mention a tennis inplay bot which worked really well during the clay season, but stopped being profitable after that.

Looking forward to unleash it again next April-May to see if it worked due to pure luck or because of clay courts.

[jimibt]

I forgot to mention a tennis inplay bot which worked really well during the clay season, but stopped being profitable after that.

Looking forward to unleash it again next April-May to see if it worked due to pure luck or because of clay courts.

singing from the same sheet on this one. i had a rule that worked great fromJune-October (with a blip in Aug). However, that simply does notwork now -probably due to the fact that it was geared twds the Flat season.

To make a go at it, you need to be constantly evolving and looking at stuff that no-one else is covering and/or being a bit contrarian.

[northbound]

To make a go at it, you need to be constantly evolving and looking at stuff that no-one else is covering and/or being a bit contrarian.

Indeed, recently I read the Betfair Pro Trader blog and he mentions something about strategy angles: the more weird, the better.

Weird doesn't mean complicated. Dallas is right that simple is the best.

Weird means an angle that no-one talks about.

Stupid example which probably doesn't work: find a Flat horse who never placed when the temperature was above 25C. To do this, you would probably have to build your own database by cross matching race start times with historical weather data.

[Dallas]

I always remember a comment from PeterLe on here (for those who don't know he's solely an automated trader who has consistently made very good money year after year on in-running horse racing markets)

He once posted if he were to sell his most profitable bot for £20, buyers would ask for there money back as it was so simple

[Dallas]

Thought I'd have a search for it and unbelievably I found it in a thread with the same title as this thread minus the word 'The'
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=11918&start=17

[northbound]

That's brilliant

[ruthlessimon]

To make a go at it, you need to be constantly evolving and looking at stuff that no-one else is covering and/or being a bit contrarian.

I think the word "contrarian" is slightly misleading - & invokes thoughts of "only mean-reversion works"

I prefer: "What worked last month? What's worked for the last year?"

I don't care how that strategy then gets labelled, & I guess the fact it worked implies it's contrarian.

That said, there are plenty of issues with the above statements - & personally - finding "fundamental" reasons for these technical biases (assuming they are biases ), is a serious issue for me - as certain members know

[ruthlessimon]

Weird means an angle that no-one talks about.

Although an order flow trader would argue otherwise:

"I have an idea about where price should go, but I want to see someone else go into the trade first"

[northbound]

Weird means an angle that no-one talks about.

Although an order flow trader would argue otherwise:
"I have an idea about where price should go, but I want to see someone else go into the trade first"

Just because someone goes into that trade first, it doesn't mean that the direction will be correct. Or that he went into the trade for your same reason. It might well be an outright bet or lay.

In fact, in the context of botting, it's not really relevant whether you pick the direction correctly on the individual trade. It's not even important that you pick the direction correctly more often than not.

It's important, over many trades, if you made more money with winning trades than lost money with losing trades.

[jimibt]

Weird means an angle that no-one talks about.

Although an order flow trader would argue otherwise:
"I have an idea about where price should go, but I want to see someone else go into the trade first"

Just because someone goes into that trade first, it doesn't mean that the direction will be correct. Or that he went into the trade for your same reason. It might well be an outright bet or lay.

In fact, in the context of botting, it's not really relevant whether you pick the direction correctly on the individual trade. It's not even important that you pick the direction correctly more often than not.

It's important, over many trades, if you made more money with winning trades than lost money with losing trades.

divide and conqer - lol

[ShaunWhite]

Weird means an angle that no-one talks about.

Although an order flow trader would argue otherwise:

There's more ways to automate than there are ways trade manually, everything from looking for blue moon events to HFT. The typically manual techniques you're talking about tend to be less popular as they need 'soft' skills.

To paraphrase northbound, it's a balance between being a little bit right a lot of the time, or being a lot right a little bit of the time.

[ruthlessimon]

Just because someone goes into that trade first, it doesn't mean that the direction will be correct.

(bear in mind I'm a longterm swinger)

Although I haven't seen the data yet, I'm convinced I've improved some highly algorithmic biases (which probably should be automated), by reacting to movement, rather than preempting the movement (in the majority of cases). i.e. getting a "Worse entry", paradoxically, improves the expectancy - because I can get better entries - on the original entries that would've taken an initial drawdown

[ruthlessimon]

There's more ways to automate than there are ways trade manually, everything from looking for blue moon events to HFT. The typically manual techniques you're talking about tend to be less popular as they need 'soft' skills.

To paraphrase northbound, it's a balance between being a little bit right a lot of the time, or being a lot right a little bit of the time.

I do agree. but I have to justify why I'm manual - when I probably should be auto

I'd love to understand a bit more, just why the real big manual traders struggle to go auto - if all edges are "simple"

-Because my edges are indeed simple, but they make up for that - by not being that good

[northbound]

I'd love to understand a bit more, just why the real big manual traders struggle to go auto - if all edges are "simple"

My guess would simply be that most people struggle with technology.

Also most people can feel things but are unable to break them down into numbers or logic constructs.

Also perhaps order flow trades are not that simple to automate: one thing is to take snapshots at certain moments in time and build rules around that.

Writing software to interpret real-time flowing data is a whole other thing entirely.