Re : Does Scalping work anymore

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Iron
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Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Yes.

When the favourites switched, I ended up trading both favourites, as I hadn't programmed by spreadsheet to stick to the horse that was favourite when I arrived at the market.

I appreciate that higher priced horses are generally better for scalping, but as you had traded low priced horses in your 'random scalping' experiment, I thought I'd include them and see what happened.

I've attached my results.
Scalping Experiment.xls
Jeff
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Iron
Posts: 6793
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Maybe two races aren't representative.

Plus, the fact that the bot stopped trading a favourite when it stopped being a favourite may not have helped (I've since amended it so that it only trades the horse that's favourite when I arrive at the market).

I'll trade the rest of today's races using 10p stakes and let you guys know how I get on.

Jeff
Iron
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I've decided to call time on my experiment.

Since my post below about an hour ago, the results are as follows:

Stake: 10p
Number of bets: 1073
Turnover: £140.54
P/L: £2.94 loss
ROI: -2.09%

I've excluded races where, due to a bug in my bot, I traded more than one horse.

Possible reasons why I wasn't more successful:

- I was trading the favourite.
- I was using a 0.2 second refresh

Any thoughts?

I've attached my results spreadsheet.

Jeff
Scalping Experiment II.xls
Ferru123 wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:42 pm
Maybe two races aren't representative.

Plus, the fact that the bot stopped trading a favourite when it stopped being a favourite may not have helped (I've since amended it so that it only trades the horse that's favourite when I arrive at the market).

I'll trade the rest of today's races using 10p stakes and let you guys know how I get on.

Jeff
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LeTiss
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I don't know if you saw Peter's post the other day on automation on Greyhounds.

He had a cracking day, bagging £144 just on dog automation, but Peter stressed that it was a bot that was on it's 27th version.

Don't scrap everything Jeff, just try to separate the aspects that are good from the bits that are shit, and then try to re-work it using the successful elements
Iron
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Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Thanks LeTiss

I agree. :)

Today's experiment was to test 'unrefined' blind scalping, but the result doesn't mean that scalping can't be made to work.

If I throw some directional bias or wom into the mix, the result may be different.

Jeff
weemac
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Maybe Euler can confirm, but I can hardly imagine a much more volatile/risky race type to attempt a 1-tick scalp than a NHF race. I've tried a similar experiment on handicaps in the past (at odds of between 6.0 and 11.0 to get the bigger tick increment values) with similarly poor results. The main problem seemed to be that when the price moves significantly against you, you're just building up a bigger and bigger position on an ever worsening price movement. That was where the real killer lay, and the one tick successes came nowhere near mitigating the losses.

Also, beware of betfair's transaction charges for over 1,000 bets in any hour. These charges are very deviously hidden within your account statement and can only be found by visually scanning your account statement. They are not listed as totals in a separate category and can't be downloaded; you have to ask betfair to send you a spreadsheet. Every sub-£2 scalp attempt counts as 4 bets placed - not 2.
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ruthlessimon
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weemac wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:20 pm
The main problem seemed to be that when the price moves significantly against you, you're just building up a bigger and bigger position on an ever worsening price movement.
& it's easy to get away with that for a long long time. Ironically the biggest profits come when the price goes miles against you (by this time you have a massive position), & completely bailing after a slight retracement gets a gigantic winning trade.
Iron
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weemac wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:20 pm
The main problem seemed to be that when the price moves significantly against you, you're just building up a bigger and bigger position on an ever worsening price movement.
I agree.

My main concern about one tick scalping is that the market can move strongly against you, and you end up trying to sell to a market that is, itself, selling, and therefore isn't interested in what you're selling.

I'm open minded about the possibility that the constant 'Brownian motion' in the market that allows you to get loads of trades through by offering might more than compensate for this.
weemac wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:20 pm
Also, beware of betfair's transaction charges for over 1,000 bets in any hour.
Good point, I wasn't aware of that.

As it's a one off, hopefully Betfair will show a bit of clemency.

Thanks

Jeff
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Derek27
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I started off trading as a scalper and learned the hard way, 5 one-tick profits followed by a 10 tick loss!

Scalping is fine on very stable markets, I've often executed the same scalp repeatedly and built up a nice profit, but try it on a volatile market and you are doomed.

You also need to take care on markets that look liquid enough but are low in activity - they often stay static for a period of time and then BANG - someone moves the market several ticks.

I usually have my potential scalps two or three ticks apart, wait till ones taken and then move the other.
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Derek27
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Ferru123 wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:38 pm
My main concern about one tick scalping is that the market can move strongly against you, and you end up trying to sell to a market that is, itself, selling, and therefore isn't interested in what you're selling.
That's a problem I've encountered many times, when a horse drifts upwards, nobody wants to back it. The situation is probably compounded by other traders who want to lay off their trades.
weemac
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Ferru123 wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:38 pm

weemac wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:20 pm
Also, beware of betfair's transaction charges for over 1,000 bets in any hour.
Good point, I wasn't aware of that.

As it's a one off, hopefully Betfair will show a bit of clemency.

Thanks

Jeff
They showed absolutely no clemency to me after removing over £1,000 from my account without my knowledge.
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Dallas
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Years ago you could happily scalp an outsider and its only moving if a influx of money comes in on it, thanks to XM thats no longer the case and a flurry of money on any of the front runners can now send it soaring off.
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ruthlessimon
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Derek27 wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:51 pm
The situation is probably compounded by other traders
They'll certainly be traders on the sidelines, with strategies designed deliberately to exploit these trapped scalpers needing an exit (i.e. every trader looking for a breakout ;) )
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Just been chatting with Betfair support on Twitter.

It seems that, because I made a net loss during the hour in question, I'll be fine (though the adviser wasn't very clear).

He told me: 'This is the activity on Chilli Jam'. Yeah, cheers mate, that clarifies it perfectly! :lol:

Jeff
weemac wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:57 pm

They showed absolutely no clemency to me after removing over £1,000 from my account without my knowledge.
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Euler
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If you just try and scalp everything has never worked as a plain vanilla type strategy, apart from perhaps in the very early days. But if you are selective and use all the information in front of you it still works. But just pumping lots of orders into a market randomly with a spread in-between will just produce random results.
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