Question for Arbers

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nikigatrell2
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon May 14, 2018 3:47 pm

I've been running a successful horse racing system since last year and we currently have 27 members with balances ranging from £1k (starting balance) up to £2.5k and stakes from £12.50 to £25. The system has anywhere from 3-20 selections a day and we work off an 80pt bank per month, either upping stakes or paying out if bank is over £2.5k at the end of it. This may change however but we had £25 as a max stake.

At the start we used the 3 early bookmakers and utilised their BOG. Over the months we've lost the main 3 and are now onto our next set of BOG but we're starting to struggle to get bets on and will be soon using none BOG bookies and just taking the price the night before. We're going to have to split this between multiple accounts and with 27 members this is going to become very time consuming. So I've have had an idea and would like to know your thoughts:

Instead of taking none BOG bookies and spreading stakes across multiple bookies as our stakes increase I'd like to centralise the entire fund and use the exchange, but the night before has very little liquidity and I'm going to need £1k matched per selection and this will go up as banks increase and new members are added.

My idea was at 6pm when SkyBet, bet365 and Betfair release their prices I drop my £1k into the market on all of my selections at a lower price than the bookmakers, creating an Arb.

If I did this what kind of Arb would be required in order to make it worthwhile for Arbers based on below bookie prices for example.

7/4
5/2
4/1
6/1
8/1
12/1
16/1
20/1
33/1
50/1
100/1

Would using just 3 bookies attract enough arbers and which Exchange would you recommend?

I'm hoping to use the 3 main ones early as theirs more value and if arbers have BOG they will also catch more value on the drifters, of which, there are many.
nikigatrell2
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon May 14, 2018 3:47 pm

Any opinion on this?
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BetScalper
Posts: 1139
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:47 pm

Market makers do this already 24 hours before the start of the market. In general they offer very poor odds, hoping that some mug punter makes a mistake and takes one of their bets. Sometimes though they do overprice a selection but normally the value seekers will find them and take the bet.

I think you joined the game about 10 years too late mate.

Goodluck,
nikigatrell2
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon May 14, 2018 3:47 pm

Thank you for the reply. Every single one I put in will be value.

Bookie is offering 9.0 I will look to take 8.50. I want the bets matched and let my system make the profit.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

BetScalper wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 11:56 am
Market makers do this already 24 hours before the start of the market. In general they offer very poor odds, hoping that some mug punter makes a mistake and takes one of their bets. Sometimes though they do overprice a selection but normally the value seekers will find them and take the bet.

I think you joined the game about 10 years too late mate.

Goodluck,
He's not looking for mugs, or competing with mm's, he's looking for arbers to take his bets by offering under bookies odds.

Been a long time since I've done any arbing as maintaing accounts is too much hassle. I'd say your best bet is to start dipping your toe in the waters and sticking some bets into the markets to see what sort of prices arbers will currently bite for. A lot of people will ARB for pc as well so you may we'll find you don't have to go as low as you might imagine.
weemac
Posts: 1216
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2013 8:16 pm

If they won't take your bets at their price when there isn't an arb, why on earth would they take bets from arbers, who they despise with a passion, at the same price when there is an arb?
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Derek27
Posts: 23475
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:44 am
Location: UK

nikigatrell2 wrote:
Wed May 16, 2018 1:12 pm
I've been running a successful horse racing system since last year and we currently have 27 members with balances ranging from £1k (starting balance) up to £2.5k and stakes from £12.50 to £25. The system has anywhere from 3-20 selections a day and we work off an 80pt bank per month, either upping stakes or paying out if bank is over £2.5k at the end of it. This may change however but we had £25 as a max stake.

At the start we used the 3 early bookmakers and utilised their BOG. Over the months we've lost the main 3 and are now onto our next set of BOG but we're starting to struggle to get bets on and will be soon using none BOG bookies and just taking the price the night before. We're going to have to split this between multiple accounts and with 27 members this is going to become very time consuming. So I've have had an idea and would like to know your thoughts:

Instead of taking none BOG bookies and spreading stakes across multiple bookies as our stakes increase I'd like to centralise the entire fund and use the exchange, but the night before has very little liquidity and I'm going to need £1k matched per selection and this will go up as banks increase and new members are added.

My idea was at 6pm when SkyBet, bet365 and Betfair release their prices I drop my £1k into the market on all of my selections at a lower price than the bookmakers, creating an Arb.

If I did this what kind of Arb would be required in order to make it worthwhile for Arbers based on below bookie prices for example.

7/4
5/2
4/1
6/1
8/1
12/1
16/1
20/1
33/1
50/1
100/1

Would using just 3 bookies attract enough arbers and which Exchange would you recommend?

I'm hoping to use the 3 main ones early as theirs more value and if arbers have BOG they will also catch more value on the drifters, of which, there are many.
I don't mean to be funny but I'm rather surprised you're trusted to run the betting operation if you can't even work out what price would be an arb.

Betting is all about getting a price in your favour. You cannot possibly make money if you let bookies decide what price you take, which is what your idea involves. You also need to consider commission. Arbers need a gap below what bookies are offering to compensate for commission charges and you will get an even smaller price than you are taking after accounting for commission deductions.
LinusP
Posts: 1871
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:45 pm

1k per runner is tricky (very tricky) with 5 minutes to go let alone the night before!

I think you will find bookmakers moving their price way before you even get close to 10% being matched by arbers. Is there no value in your system with 10/5mins to go?
nikigatrell2
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon May 14, 2018 3:47 pm

Derek27 wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 2:21 pm

I don't mean to be funny but I'm rather surprised you're trusted to run the betting operation if you can't even work out what price would be an arb.

Betting is all about getting a price in your favour. You cannot possibly make money if you let bookies decide what price you take, which is what your idea involves. You also need to consider commission. Arbers need a gap below what bookies are offering to compensate for commission charges and you will get an even smaller price than you are taking after accounting for commission deductions.
I know what an Arb is :D What I was meant was what sort or % size Arb would be required to make it worthwhile for an arber.

All I'm trying to do is get slightly less than the bookie price the night before via the exchange by creating an Arb.

But I'm hearing that £1k may spook the market, so maybe I need to drip the money in adjusting as the bookie does from 6pm through the night.

There is value in BSP but it's very small in comparison to wrongly priced horses the night before. The value when using BOG is unbeatable, non BOG night before is 20% lower and BSP is 50% lower.
LinusP
Posts: 1871
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:45 pm

nikigatrell2 wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 8:54 pm
Derek27 wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 2:21 pm

I don't mean to be funny but I'm rather surprised you're trusted to run the betting operation if you can't even work out what price would be an arb.

Betting is all about getting a price in your favour. You cannot possibly make money if you let bookies decide what price you take, which is what your idea involves. You also need to consider commission. Arbers need a gap below what bookies are offering to compensate for commission charges and you will get an even smaller price than you are taking after accounting for commission deductions.
I know what an Arb is :D What I was meant was what sort or % size Arb would be required to make it worthwhile for an arber.

All I'm trying to do is get slightly less than the bookie price the night before via the exchange by creating an Arb.

But I'm hearing that £1k may spook the market, so maybe I need to drip the money in adjusting as the bookie does from 6pm through the night.

There is value in BSP but it's very small in comparison to wrongly priced horses the night before. The value when using BOG is unbeatable, non BOG night before is 20% lower and BSP is 50% lower.
And 10 minutes out? If you don’t have the data it’s worth collect it.
User avatar
Derek27
Posts: 23475
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:44 am
Location: UK

I think the only way you'll get an answer to your question is to do what spreadbetting suggested, put in a few small bets on the exchange and see if or how quickly they get matched. I'm sure there are a few arbers who would bet £100 just for a guaranteed 50 pence, plus there will be bots that automatically scour the market.

I doubt you'll get £1K on by drip-feeding. I can imagine you might have to wait 20 minutes to get £5 off - the markets are very quiet the night before.

What I don't understand is that by placing bets just under what the bookies are offering you are letting the bookies decide what price you are taking, and you'll be getting a worse price than what the bookies are offering! BSP has an overround of roughly 100% so there isn't much value in it.

If you were previously profitable using bookies with best odds guaranteed and now you're thinking of betting on the exchange at worse prices and without BOG, wouldn't that make the difference between profit and loss?
nikigatrell2
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon May 14, 2018 3:47 pm

Derek27 wrote:
Thu May 17, 2018 9:50 pm
I think the only way you'll get an answer to your question is to do what spreadbetting suggested, put in a few small bets on the exchange and see if or how quickly they get matched. I'm sure there are a few arbers who would bet £100 just for a guaranteed 50 pence, plus there will be bots that automatically scour the market.

I doubt you'll get £1K on by drip-feeding. I can imagine you might have to wait 20 minutes to get £5 off - the markets are very quiet the night before.

What I don't understand is that by placing bets just under what the bookies are offering you are letting the bookies decide what price you are taking, and you'll be getting a worse price than what the bookies are offering! BSP has an overround of roughly 100% so there isn't much value in it.

If you were previously profitable using bookies with best odds guaranteed and now you're thinking of betting on the exchange at worse prices and without BOG, wouldn't that make the difference between profit and loss?
The difference between BOG and just taking the price the evening before is 20% loss but still highly profitable. It's easy putting on 27 accounts worth of bets at BOG with 1 bookie (Bet365 was a dream). But we're struggling to get £25 matched at our remaining bookies for prices over 10/1 and I think we'll hav the same issue with non BOG bookies. Every time we split the stakes further we're doubling the amount of time it takes to place the bets.

We do have somebody who has developed an app which he claims can place bets with the bookmakers for us using a web bot but they want £225 per month per account so roughly £6k. So If I can beat that by taking a lower price and getting matched on Exchange it would be worht it. I may only get some matched and the rest I take during the morning and day but I'll try and let you know how it fairs.

The past 3 days have thrown up some large drifts overnight so the morning may prove t be better but I need to keep recording the data until I have a big enough sample.

Thanks for your input.
sa7med
Posts: 800
Joined: Thu May 18, 2017 8:01 am

nikigatrell2 wrote:
Fri May 18, 2018 12:51 pm

We do have somebody who has developed an app which he claims can place bets with the bookmakers for us using a web bot but they want £225 per month per account so roughly £6k. So If I can beat that by taking a lower price and getting matched on Exchange it would be worht it. I may only get some matched and the rest I take during the morning and day but I'll try and let you know how it fairs.
I've actually been working on something similar. Problem is pages change from time to time so would have to maintain it. PM me with what exactly you're looking to do and I may be able to help out.
xitian
Posts: 457
Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2011 2:08 pm

Tricky one. I'm thinking that the strategy just won't be that scalable if you're going to rely on money matched either the night before or very early morning. But that's true of most strategies that have a high edge or margin - they just won't be scalable, otherwise why does such as massive edge exist. This is why I'd expect it to be rare for anyone to run a syndicate and accept/increase members casually. If it's not scalable then you're effectively giving away money. Why wouldn't you just run it for yourself and scale it as much as possible for 1 person? I suppose maybe it's the thing about having 27 accounts with 27 different identities. It's just not scalable though.

If you're going to use the exchange, you may find that aiming for much higher volume (closer to the start of the event) with a lower margin offers higher absolute returns overall. Of course there's no reason why you couldn't do both. If you know what prices you want to offer up, then just see how much you can match as early as possible, and if you still have remaining stake then just continue to offer up closer to the event. If it's a large amount you want to get matched, then obviously you will need to automate and drip feed it in.

From my understanding of the betting industry:
- UK bookmakers will limit you, so the only way around that is to somehow automate creation of new accounts (which I think some big techie syndicates might do, but they'll have people dedicated to just creating new accounts all the time)
- Exchanges aren't that scalable (especially early in the day), and there can be high commissions
- Totes will have a lot of money, but you don't know what price you get until the start
- Asian books who allow winners don't offer UK Racing

Best option is probably to optimise and automate your edge to work on exchanges. You'd effectively be taking bets like a bookmaker at odds you want, assuming you are the best price and the public are interested. You'd need to refine your staking model though, as it wouldn't be quite as straight forward as just a point based betting system.
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