I was asked about my data here and here. This is the data I collect:-

My bot collects data from each opening trade placed, attempted opening trade (unmatched) and when the market meets approx 90% criteria. The trigger includes a stoploss and tick-offset which are fired in response to the market so I don’t have any data relating to the point that they are placed.

I also record market suspension to help with analysis. I don’t record any other data about the market. If no trades are made in a market, I have no data.

The columns are as follows-

A = Market

B = Market ID

C = Time at last refresh

D = Seconds to off

E = Selection name

F thru Q = Best 3 back/lay prices (F,H,J,L,N,P) and volumes (G,I,K,M,O,Q)

R = Last price matched

S = Total matched for this selection

T = Trigger

U = My requested price

V = My stake

W = Total matched for this market

X = Timer output (time it takes for my code to run using excel’s timer)

The problem with data is how much is available. I’ve tried recording whole markets but you soon end up with megabytes of data that means nothing without refining. You first need an idea of what you want to find and then go about collecting the relevant data. For instance, I only record the data for my selection, not the other runners. You may only need data for the last 3 minutes before off, or only in-play, depending on how you want to trade. You could record prices in the morning and then at the off to look for trends. Without knowing what you want to target, data on its own is not much use. Because my data is so specific to my bot, it wont be any use to others without knowing the algorithm that picked it out.

EDIT:- below is a file of data recorded from one race. As Gruss passes the market to excel, I recorded each refresh to a sheet for each race. I only did it for a few days due to the size of the files. It’s about 280KB and taken from a day file which was 150MB in size.

recorded-data-to-share1

When I download the bet history from Betfair, the “Bet placed” data is only to the minute and I need to know to the second to have any chance of matching up with the bet entry data. This is why I’ve been testing some new code trying to handle the MyBets data which seems to come in different on each update. It’s recording some rows of data multiple times which I can’t figure out but am sure is due to the jumbled nature in which it’s received.

But then, that little voice reminded me that when I view bets on my mobile, it does include the second it was placed. So I had a look at Betfair, again, and there it is, in My bets. Easily downloadable and workable.

This is how I was getting data from Bet History –

And this is how it comes from My bets, a bit more accurate –

I’ll try matching this with my bet entry data, only problem I can see is Betfair’s time and my time being different but I might be able to offset it. Something for another day now.

Greyhounds traded ok but I would prefer a more consistent trend than that in the chart.

Aus horses were looking like a flat return until a late boost ended the week with a positive result.

First week of US horses has seen a loss but nothing too concerning for now. The main issue is the lack of activity but this is more down to the way the US markets drift away from the start time as reported by Betfair. I’m seeing most activity early on in the racing day when the post times are still close to reality. I’ve been given a good site for start times (https://classic.ebetusa.com/racing_menus/next-race.html) that drops into excel really easy but I’m trying to figure out the best way to use this info with my bot.

Last week’s charts both end positive. The UK dogs is still going good, the last week in loss was back at the beginning of January.

The Aus markets traded to a profit since being flat (excluding errors) for a month. I’d previously set the Aus stake to £2 to avoid the turnover charge and was thinking that using the same stake may make my bot stand out. Or I may be paranoid. Well I changed it to a percent of bank earlier in the week, so the stake is different most races, if only by a penny or two. I hoped this would provide some cover from bot stalkers/baiters. The proof isn’t here yet but it hasn’t had an immediate negative effect.