Betfair Trading Techniques

Welcome to the support web page for Betfair Trading Techniques. From this web page readers can download supporting material and view additional material.

In writing this book, I have tried to please as many people as possible. Of course, not all readers will be happy, with some feeling that I could have put more in here and less there. It's the nature of the broad range of topics covered. I feel that I have given beginners a fuller understanding of what is possible and more experienced traders and bettors some new avenues for thought. I value any feedback and if I get enough direction from it then a new book at a deeper level will be written.

Erratum

Page 48 -There is a an error in the following paragraph

Victoriously has 211 + 1143 + 209 for a total of 1563 on the lay offers side and 27 + 68 + 302 for a total of 397 on the back offers side, therefore it can be said that the weight of money is 302 / (302 + 1563) = 16.2% on the back offers side. Those who use weight of money might say that with 83.8% (100 - 16.2) of the money on the lay side represents a bottoming out of the price and that the price may drift out to higher prices.

and should instead be

Victoriously has 211 + 1143 + 209 for a total of 1563 on the lay offers side and 27 + 68 + 302 for a total of 397 on the back offers side, therefore it can be said that the weight of money is 397 / (397 + 1563) = 20.2% on the back offers side. Those who use weight of money might say that with 79.8% (100 - 20.2) of the money on the lay side represents a bottoming out of the price and that the price may drift out to higher prices.

I was getting ahead of myself and was already thinking of the "at the money" WoM that follows later on the page.

Downloads

These are the downloads referred to in the book. When the Google Drive web page page has loaded, click the download option at the top-right to save the files on your own hard drive.

spreadsheet.xlxs - for Microsoft Excel

spreadsheet.ods - for open source spreadsheets such as LibreOffice and OpenOffice

data.zip - data for GA Optimiser

Extract the files within data.zip and place them in a directory called Betfair, directly at the root of your C: drive (i.e. C:\Betfair\). You can place them elsewhere but you will need to navigate to the directory within the application so that they can be loaded.

If you do not have any extraction software then 7-zip is recommeneded and can be downloaded at the following URL

Recommended Reading

Programming

As mentioned in the book it is not possible to provide programming lessons for those who are new to programming. Instead, I offer a few links to some resources below. Likewise, I cannot help more experienced programmers extend the applications.

Visual Basic in Easy Steps

For the newcomer to programming I recommend Visual Basic in easy steps, 4th edition, which may help the reader to extend their knowledge and their trading application further.

DotNetPerls

A good source of information on VB.NET programming including sample code can be found at DotNetPerls, which also includes information on other programming languages used in Visual Studio.

Web Scraping

The author can neither publish, assist, nor perform any work offline with regard to web scraping due to copyright restrictions. If I can find a website that is willing to allow me to perform some web scraping then I will put an example on this page, in due course.

Here are some resources that the reader can use at their own risk.



Mathematics for Trading and Betting

Taking Chances: Winning with Probability is the most complete book on gaming and probability that you could wish to own. Written by Dr John Haigh from the University of Sussex the book takes the reader through the required amount of probability theory to understand the topics in the rest of the book. Topics covered include football, horse racing, casino games and other game of chance where people may be tempted to back their opinion with cash. Also included is a thorough working of Kelly Criterion for both single and multiple bets. This book remains on my desk and never gets put on the shelf.

Psychology

Jospeh Buchdahl's Squares & Sharps, Suckers & Sharks should be read by everyone be they beginners or experts.

Market Efficiency

For a reading list on market efficiency I recommend the books mentioned in my article Efficient Market Hypothesis.

Fundamental Modelling

I am not a fundamental trader but I sometimes dable with fundamental data for fun. I don't trade with fundamental data as I don't have access to private information and have no patience for spending my life pouring over data when others have done it for me in the form of wisdom of crowds. However, I have read the following books, relating to the fundamentals of horse racing, association football and tennis.

Horse Racing

There are far too many books on horse race betting, most of them useless. Dutching is just a brute force process. I recommend Dr. David Edelman's The Compleat Horseplayer, for ideas on what factors are important. Finishing times can be approached from many different angles. It is best to read Mordin et al to get an idea of the current "state of the art" with regards to absolute speed. As I said, in the book, absolute speed is only half of the equation. Also, watch Benter's ICCM 2004 seminar and then research around your own ideas.

Benter's paper, Computer based horse race handicapping and wagering systems: a report, is available in two books; Mordin's Winning without Thinking (also contains useful information for building filter models)  and Ziemba's Efficiency Of Racetrack Betting Markets. Shop around for the cheapest copies or borrow them through a university library.

 
Association Football

I recommend my list of academic citations for association football. Documenting the citations is an on-going project of mine so check the list, now and again, for updates.

Tennis

If you have not already downloaded Dr. Tristan Barnett's The Mathematics of Tennis then I recommend that you do so. The mathematics within can greatly assist with the creation of a Markov model for tennis.

Also, download Barnett's paper Using Microsoft Excel to Model a Tennis Match, which explains how Excel can be used to build a Markov model. The book goes into more detail, if you wish to expand your model in Excel.

I have a list of citations for tennis too.

Other Sports

Professor Steven Skiena's book, Calculated Bets, on how he approached the game of jai alai is a fascintating read. Skiena shows in detail how he modelled the game, ran Monte Carlo simulations and then used a basic modem to be one of the first to automate his betting.

Technical Modelling

There is not much literature on technical trading sports, of which Betfair Trading Techniques is one of the first. Working on the premise that all sports trading is arbitrage and that statistical arbitrage is more fruitful than pure arbitrage then the idea is simply to find enough winning trades on price moves to compensate for the losing trades.

Whilst sports trading and financial trading are different beasts it doesn't hurt to read how others exploit markets. Usually, they do so either by not following the rules or using markets in a way that others have not considered. I recommend the books in the left-hand margin in the Strategy Modelling and Popular Finance sections. Inside The Black Box gives a good insight into algorithmic trading. Building Winning Algorithmic Trading Systems gives an insight into how a financial algorithmic trader builds systems.

A little more on exotics and synthetics can be read here. 

Money Management


Evolutionary Computation

I understand that the genetic algorithm I have put in the book is very advanced as far as its use is concerned, the result being that only experienced programmers will be able to make anything of it. In due course, I will put up one or two more simple examples of genetic algorithm at work with which readers can modify for their own purposes.

Ultimately, I intend building a software package that anyone can use, which will contain various templates suited to most requirements; Dutching, time series analysis, optimising an algorithm for finishing times or superiority etc. Much of current machine learning software is too general in nature and requires a lot of re-programming to get it to do anything useful that a sports traders might require.

For those interested in learning more about evolutionary computation there follows a list of resources.

The Heuristics and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory (HEAL) has created a software package called HeuristicsLab in which users can experiment with evolutionary computation. However, as with the genetic algorithm in the book, a trader will have to reprogram the environment specifically for their requirements. Mathematics software such as R and Matlab have genetic algorithm packages but again, they will need a lot of tailoring.

Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning. This book covers genetic algorithm, similar to the applicaiton in the book. Simple to understand, the ideas can be ported to any programming language.The book uses primarily uses Pascal to demonstrate how to code a GA but the logic will be easily ported to any language. I managed to port the code to C++ and Visual Basic without difficulty.

Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection is a weighty tome, containing everything you need to know about Genetic Programming. Includes many example applications such as classification and strategy evolution. Genetic programming is a step beyong genetic algoritm. In GP not only can the parameters for formulae be evolve but the formule themselves. Ideal for evolving solutions to unknown problem.

For those who have some experience of evolutionary computation and would like to read a more trading specific book I recommend Biologically Inspired Algorithms for Financial Modelling. The book details evolutionary computation, neural network and hybrid systems with examples of trading rule discovery and optimisation. The book is solely about financial trading but is easily adaptable. It is rather expensive so a visit to a university library is probably the best way to read this book.

 Recommended Books for Sports Traders

Reviews for many books pertinent to sports trading can be found on this website. See books.
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