Laying on Greyhounds with loss recovery
Description
Laying on Greyhounds is very popular among our Brazilian customers, to the extent of having multiple requests to this effect on our forum. There must be something to it, so see below.
At 30 seconds before the start of a race, lay a percentage of the bank (or to a liability which is a percentage of a bank) on the chosen favourite in a Greyhound Win market, with the minimum and maximum price. Do not bet in markets where at least one dog is replaced with a reserved one.
Any loss should be recovered in steps over the next specified number of races, then return to the initial percentage of the bank. Stop trading once the total profit or total loss for the day have reached the specified percentage of the starting bank.
The list of dogs to lay on is often imported from a text file, in which case there is an additional condition to skip the race if the dog is the first favourite.
Triggers
Download the trigger installation file.
Profile name: lay-greyhound-loss-recovery
How to run this trigger package:
1. Download and run the above installation file.
2. It contains three files: the trigger file, the Market Locator search template and the program settings. These files will be copied to corresponding folders on your computer (where other triggers and templates are already stored).
3. Run MarketFeeder Pro and choose the right settings profile from the drop-down list:
Here are the constants you can adjust:
| min_odds | Minimum lay price |
| max_odds | Maximum lay price |
| min_runners | Minimum number of runners |
| min_rank | Minimum rank of the favourite (1 - the first favourite) |
| max_rank | Maximum rank of the favourite (1 - the first favourite) |
| mins_before_start | When to start betting (minutes before the off) |
| init_liab | Size of liability (% of current bank) |
| target_loss | Maximum loss (% of bank) after which the triggers stop betting |
| target_profit | Maximum profit (% of bank) after which the triggers stop betting |
| cycle_length | Number of steps in the loss recovery cycle |
| max_recovery_odds | Maximum price during the loss recovery cycle |
| max_bets | Maximum number of markets with simultaneous bets |
Triggers In Action
Day 1. December 11, 2018
I took the existing set of triggers we had on this page and just ran it through that day's Greyhound races. I did not use any tipster's service, so I did not import my selections from the file, although you could do it if needed. If you choose to import your selections, watch the video below on how to do it:
How to import selections for auto-trading
This day was not bad at all: with my target profit set at 5% of the starting bank (£1,000), the triggers stopped after having generated £52.63 in profit.
My settings:
| min_odds | 4 |
| max_odds | 12 |
| min_runners | 6 |
| min_rank | 3 |
| max_rank | 6 |
| mins_before_start | 0.5 |
| init_liab | 1 |
| target_loss | 15 |
| target_profit | 5 |
| cycle_length | 3 |
| max_recovery_odds | 9 |
| max_bets | 1 |
Total P/L: 52.63
ROI: 31.24%
Wins: 24, losses: 5
Day 2. December 12, 2018
Inspired by my previous day, I decided to increase my loss and profit targets to enjoy this game longer.
My settings (only those that are different to the previous day):
| target_loss | 20 |
| target_profit | 10 |
It seemed to work well, doubling my profit compared to the previous day.
Total P/L: 105.47
ROI: 24.16%
Wins: 48, losses: 10
Day 3. December 13, 2018
This day was a waste of testing time due to repeated errors from the BetFair server, which started occurring soon after I launched my triggers, so I had to scratch that day's results and just wait till the next day.
Day 4. December 14, 2018
The greedy demon in me pushed me to further increase my target profit.
My settings (only those that are different to the previous day):
| target_profit | 15 |
Was I punished for this? Not at all, although I had a dangerous moment at around 6 pm, when I had to recover from a losing streak.
Total P/L: 174.51
ROI: 21.27%
Wins: 77, losses: 19
Day 5. December 15, 2018
I made no changes to my settings that day. I expected another day's profit of 15%, however, I stumbled upon a frustrating obstacle: some Greyhound races do not settle until much later, after dozens of other races have already finished. This, in effect, meant that the triggers were waiting for that race to settle and did not place any more bets. That's what happened with 18:22 Sheffield that day (20:22 in my time zone) -- it never got settled. In fact, the winner is still unknown as of today (December 19)!
Total P/L: 149.25
ROI: 34.76%
Wins: 57, losses: 7
Day 6. December 16, 2018
Preparing for this day, I added a new trigger that would restart the betting cycle after the maximum loss has been reached, rather than stopping it altogether:
Also, I had to do something about the previous day's problem. I added this little trigger to decrement the internal bet counter if a race takes too long to settle:
Sadly, this did not seem to help as there was another such race, but it stopped refreshing due to being "Finished", so my trigger could not kick in in that race, as triggers can only be executed in markets that are refreshing.
After checking my logs in the evening, I saw that the triggers had been stuck again, so I manually reset the bet_cntr variable to 0 and let the triggers run for the rest of the day. Thus my profit was less impressive due to an almost 3-hours gap in betting.
Total P/L: 99.74
ROI: 12.77%
Wins: 50, losses: 14
Day 7. December 17, 2018
Trying to further tackle the no-settle situation, I added the following block of conditions to the laying trigger:
It effectively stipulated that if a race was not settled within 15 minutes of its start, then ignore it and move on.
This did help to overcome the waste of time and bets. But that day was still a total disaster! On such days as this one, you start feeling a strong desire to quit, that's why you need automated betting -- to remove all the emotions from the equation!
Total P/L: -304.31
ROI: -22.42%
Wins: 88, losses: 16
Day 8. December 18, 2018
At 18:58 that day (16:58 UK time) there was another dead-end race which refused to settle, and as it was the last day of my testing and I was already satisfied with my results, I decided to call it a day and stop the triggers.
Total P/L: 145.19
ROI: 37.64%
Wins: 63, losses: 8
Let's summarise this week's experience.
Overall, I'm impressed. Even with the miserable dip in my balance, I still made a hefty amount of £422.44 by placing small-sized bets. If I had more time, I would experiment with the loss cycle settings to somehow protect myself against long losing streaks, generating liabilities of hundreds of pounds. For example, after a certain liability threshold, I could make the staking plan less aggressive by laying fixed amounts until my current loss was decreased to a certain point, then proceed with the predefined staking plan.
I'd also experiment with horse races, as prices may be more attractive there, although you will have much less markets to run.
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Download the trigger installation file above and start testing this strategy right now! Are you not using MarketFeeder Pro yet? Try now!
How and where I test the triggers?
I use our BetVPS service to pre-set the triggers and Market Locator and leave it to run on its own until I check on the results at the end of the day.I occasionally use Time Machine to get a proof of concept or test any tweaks that I want to make to my triggers, on historical markets similar to the ones in which I bet when testing a particular strategy.
I use Test Mode only.
You can generate your own graph and statistics like the ones in these Triggers in Action reports. Read how to do this.
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