Backing on Over 1.5 with a profit accumulator and a loss recovery plan
Description
I give you my report of backing on Over 1.5 goals in football, with profit accumulator and loss recovery.
It all started with an idea I drew from a public trigger request. The client asked for a trigger to back Over 1.5. While much less popular than betting on Over 0.5 goals or Over 2.5 goals, this outcome is worth attention. There is, on average, a 4.96% bigger chance of a match ending up with 2+ goals if at least one goal was scored already, than the chance of it ending up with 3+ goals with 2 previously scored goals (based on the statistics of football games in major leagues in 2018).
So my plan was to play with backing on Over 1.5 goals in a football match with a nil score.
The final edition of my triggers do the following:
1. Choose football matches with at least £500 matched. The pre-off price of Over 1.5 Goals must not be higher than the value you’ll specify.
2. Wait until the price of Over 1.5 goals raises to 1.8, then back a fixed percentage of bank.
3. If the bet lost, multiply the bet size by 1.1 and back in the next qualifying match.
4. If the bet won, provided that there is no outstanding loss to recoup, multiply the profit by 2.5 and place a back bet with the resulting value in the next qualifying football match. If there is still loss waiting to be recovered, follow the loss recovery plan in point 3.
Read about my struggles and what has come out of them.
Attention: the first point did not take part in my testing, read more below the list of constants.
Triggers
Download the trigger setup file.
Profile name: back-over-1-5-profit-accumulator
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_price | Minimum bet price |
| bet_size | Bet size (% of bank) |
| lss_multiplier | Bet multiplier after loss |
| max_lss_steps | Number of steps in loss recovery |
| prft_multiplier | Profit multiplier after win |
| cycle_length | Number of steps in the profit accumulator |
| max_minute | Maximum match minute for a bet |
| max_preoff_price | Maximum price of Over 1.5 before the off |
| min_vlm | Minimum matched volume at the time of betting |
Note: the constants min_vlm and max_preoff_price were added after the end of the testing, just so you could add these settings to your triggers. This was an afterthought, so I did not use them in my testing.
Another consideration: because the triggers do not wait for the previous bets to settle before placing the next bet, and because there are normally multiple football matches running at the same time, it is somewhat hard to trace the loss recovery plan here and to distinguish it from the profit accumulator. The available funds change all the time, and so does the size of the bet, being a percentage of the current bank.
Triggers In Action
Day 1, May 27, 2019
I started testing the triggers with the following settings:
| min_price | 2 |
| lss_multiplier | 1.5 |
| cycle_length | 3 |
| prft_multiplier | 2 |
| bet_size | 1 |
| max_minute | 70 |
| max_lss_steps | 2 |
In short, after each win I bet double the profit from the previous bet, and after each loss I multiplied the bet by 1.5.
The profit accumulation plan was 3 steps long.
Total P/L: 27.36
ROI: 18.37%
Wins: 6, losses: 5.
Download Statement for 27/05/2019
Day 2, May 28, 2019
On the previous day, I started testing way in the afternoon, hence the small number of bets. I left the settings unchanged to see where this would take me the next day.
Total P/L: 32.62
ROI: 17.34%
Wins: 8, losses: 5.
Download Statement for 28/05/2019
Day 3, May 29, 2019
I was lucky in that I did not encounter any losing streaks that day. However, 13 bets was not exactly what I was hoping for, so I lowered the maximum price at which my bets were to be placed, to start betting earlier and include more matches.
| min_price | 1.8 |
Total P/L: 39.66
ROI: 7.18%
Wins: 21, losses: 16.
Download Statement for 29/05/2019
Day 4, May 30, 2019
I was travelling over the next few days, so left the triggers run on the VPS without interfering (the best way of testing if you ask me!).
Total P/L: 156.32
ROI: 39.41%
Wins: 23, losses: 7.
Download Statement for 30/05/2019
Day 5, May 31, 2019
Wow, the figures looked good, with a record number of bets placed in one day! The bulk of my winnings seemed to come after 7 pm. What I noticed looking at my statements was that for some reason, my worst matches took place mostly between 11 am and 2 pm. Do teams score less during lunchtime?
Was I going to repeat the glorious results of the fourth day of testing?
Total P/L: -149.11
ROI: -29%
Wins: 13, losses: 17.
Download Statement for 31/05/2019
Day 6, June 01, 2019
The 31st of May was a total disaster compared to the first few days of testing! You never get really used to these swings! The choice of matches was clearly off the mark, with more losing bets and thus a waste of loss recovery. See my closing notes on this report to try filtering out the games with obviously low chances of scoring goals.
Total P/L: -181.24
ROI: -16.22%
Wins: 34, losses: 35.
Download Statement for 01/06/2019
Day 7, June 02, 2019
Another day has wiped out what I’ve earned in the first half of my testing period. This hurt to watch, but I promised you to be honest, no tricks! Despite lots and lots of football games (a typical Saturday on BetFair), most of them ended up with less than 2 goals, with long (too long) losing streaks here and there.
I was still travelling, so another day of testing went without changing my settings.
Total P/L: 0.55
ROI: 0.05%
Wins: 53, losses: 42.
Download Statement for 02/06/2019
Day 8, June 03, 2019
What I can tell from the account statement of the previous day is that despite the clearly greater number of wins over losses, the final P/L turned out mediocre because of the hideous losing streaks. In a bid to tackle these streaks I reduced the multiplier by which I multiplied each bet after a loss and increased the multiplier by which I multiplied my bets after a win.
| lss_multiplier | 1.1 |
| prft_multiplier | 2.5 |
Total P/L: 40.13
ROI: 33.34%
Wins: 7, losses: 2.
Download Statement for 03/06/2019
Day 9, June 04, 2019
Monday was drastically different from the week-end in terms of betting opportunities: there weren’t many. The profit I got was probably due to no losing streaks. I had one last day to try the latest settings, but halfway through it I stopped because we ran out of available VPSs (there was a peak in demand and we had to buy a new space urgently) and I gave mine away to a customer.
Total P/L: 19.18
ROI: 27.36%
Wins: 4, losses: 1.
Download Statement for 04/06/2019
My bank balance and statistics:
Two thoughts have come across after I have finished the testing.
First, the profit/loss dynamic is often upwards up until some point (often for a couple of days) and then it goes down, often at an ugly speed. Perhaps, it makes sense to stop once you’ve reached some target and switch to another strategy.
Second, I would suggest trying to set a maximum limit on the pre-off price of the Over 1.5 Goals selection. Unfortunately, I have not tested the triggers with such limit, but I have added it to the final configuration (the max_preoff_price constant), so that you could experiment with it. A cursory inspection of the Program Log showed that on many occasions losing bets were placed in markets where the price of Over 1.5 goals was already too high before the start of the game, which is an indication of a low chance of the teams scoring in that game. This strategy should be about chasing late goals, not about backing a demonstrably unlikely outcome.
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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.
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