Two weeks this period, starting from 20:30 on the 19th (see last update). A good return from both the dogs and horses but the first week ended barely up. The second week was one of the most profitable I’ve had.

Saturday 4th March saw another big Betfair crash* with the exchange offline for nearly an hour and betting disabled for some time after that. As I was at the computer when it happened, I took the opportunity to run updates on the VPS OS. I have it set up to tell me when updates are available but I choose when to install them. I’d advise any botter to do this, as the last thing you want is the computer restarting mid-trade after auto-updating. I also decided to add a bit of code to change how and when the bot saves it’s log sheet. A simple enough task as I’d already written the code for another, now retired, bot. Copy, paste, change sheet references and save location, job done, what could possibly go wrong? Not testing with live updating and thinking I know best and the bot locking up at 2am trying to repeatedly save a file that at the second attempt already exists, is what can go wrong. I’ve said it myself before now – always check, check again and test live. And check again. No harm done but missed most Aus horses on Sunday. Added to the missed Saturday dogs, the results are even better.

* All major exchange crashes seem to follow a similar pattern. Some people start reporting blips, pauses in the refresh rate. Betfair Customer Service (a questionable department title if ever there was) denies all knowledge with the stock phrase “It’s all good here”. Then comes total blackout. Many an unrepeatable turn of phrase screamed by the loyal customer base and the Betfair bods half acknowledge with the second phrase of the Betfair How to Keep Customers in Suspense Guide – “We’re looking into it”. Third line, after some threats of violence, use of very specific graphic language and calls for a mass exodus to Betdaq, is- “Apologies for this guys, our techs are on it”. Following a period of silence from the exchange masters, allowing for a build up of calls for refunds and shared stories of thousands lost, comes the market controlling monopoly confirming legal statement – “Refer to our Ts&Cs”. The first few markets after reboot are played cautiously before all but the over-exposed carry on as usual, allowing said monopoly off the recently polished hook.

As previously mentioned I’ve been using my time to code my own trading bot, so this catch-up covers seven weeks by my reckoning. On the dogs the return has been ok at 0.055%. I’m still running on stakes that are not linked to balance but vary within a small  amount. All the dog’s weeks ended positive, just.

The Aus horses performed better for the period, at 0.084%, but as can be seen from the chart, there was a negative run. This stretched over approximately 10 days. Combined with a low profit for a week from the dogs, this saw the first overall weekly loss for quite some time, ending -£2.62. It does have an emotional impact, even though a small loss, after such a long time seeing the bank’s increased at the end of each Sunday. I did feel like I wanted to change something in the code but I held tight and the P&L returned to a more usual level. This is why I couldn’t trade manually – I’d drift away from the plan after each loss in an endless battle against the now.

One week. A good end to the week. Monday/Tuesday were flat but the rest of the week ran at an increased pace returning a very good 0.107%. The two large losses, 2.24 and 2.26, were both in average markets, no low matched volumes or out of the ordinary movements that I can see. With one and a half days less markets this period, there was only 4 less markets traded and 9 less settled bets than the previous week. This may be down to more participants as people were finishing for the holidays.

A similar feature to the Aus chart as on the dogs – Mon/Tues flat – but here the increased profit curve runs through Weds/Thurs/Fri, then flattens off for the Christmas Eve markets. It’s still the best return for a period on the Aus horses since the end of September. Look forward to putting the years trading results in the first Annual Review.

Three week period. The first week on the UK dogs saw a lot of variance, ending about even. This was at the higher stake level, approx £10. From the second week the stake was returned to a level from mid August, about £4. The result is 2 weeks of improved consistency.

Aus horses returned two good weeks of return, the third being reduced. I did adjust the stake going into week 3, reducing by about 20% but that put it near to £10 which I don’t particularly like as it can look obvious to others. I’ve now reduced it again, we’ll see what happens.

A quick note on my other bots – Slayr is still running but is returning about even, I’ve left it running as it’s getting me some data from Betdaq. The other bots are all paused for development.

One week period. The UK dogs have had a choppy week. After ending last week on a downward trend, I’m pleased this week has been generally upward. The higher turnover (due to stake increase as discussed last week) hasn’t increased return, which is what I expected from past experience with this strategy. If the current week is similar I may return to the stake level that returned around 0.1% for the previous 2 months.

Here’s the Aus horses. Disappointed to see another error. And this is with the server located in the UK now, so no lag excuse. A back bet was matched and then the tick offset lay was only partially matched. I’ve checked the Gruss log and found no reason for this. The greening appears to have failed, although the Cancel-All trigger, which is the first step of greening, did execute. The result left me exposed to a possible loss of -£8.33. This time the result was profit, +£26.89 . Read on for a more upbeat analysis.

This is the Aus horses minus the error. Now, with a huge increase in turnover (nearly as much in one week as the previous three) the return has maintained a similar level, bringing a proportionally higher P&L result. This is in contrast to the UK dogs where higher stakes seem to reduce return. More of this please.