After posting in July 2020 I continued the bot for a few more months, then switched it off and closed the VPS due to not spending any time on it. I had plenty of ideas I still wanted to try but other things took priority.

Apparently nothing in 2021, that I can remember.

Throughout 2022 I worked on a strategy based around Australian harness racing. This was mainly due to the availability of race data from harness.org.au, and my ability to collect and work on it. I built my VBA code initially to scrape the previous 18 months of data, and then altered it to run on a daily basis, adding all the new daily data and working backwards to calculate my own ratings, then picking some value bets. It was at this point that the obvious fact I’d missed became apparent – relatively few harness races are available on Betfair. Top tip – always research ideas thoroughly before acting.

Late 2023 and into early 24 I modified a bot to trade on the dogs following prices movements over time. The code was a bit messy and took a while to refine to something that worked. The main problem was once I’d got the code working, I struggled with finding an effective trigger. I thought there was something not quite right and I was planning on moving that to a VPS, but it slipped away for a while.

Then after this last Christmas holiday and into 2025, I picked it up again. Almost immediately spotting an absolute wanger of an error in the code, meaning my price tracking was out of sync with the market. It’s so obvious now as to be almost embarrassing. Simply, each refresh added selected price/volume data to an array and, to keep things trim, deleted entries deemed old. New data was added to the next available slot, but as refreshed are not at set intervals, new data was being dropped in almost randomly. Anyway, I popped that to one side and focused on getting back to basics. With bloated code and masses of notes, I wanted to refine my old favourite bot to be as minimal, or as fast, as possible. The code is now down to the bare minimum, with a clear flow and separated market navigation and trading. So far this approach hasn’t failed. That’s where I got to before starting a VPS and trading from there.

With the bot running ok, although not producing much, it’s the solid base I wanted to get to for my new developments which continue on and off.