12% APR, how to ....

[Datapunter]

If you had a bank of 10000 points and you wanted to make a profit of 12% APR , so after 1 year the bank is 11200, how would you go about it ?

- you need something(s) at no risk at all or extremely minimal.
- you don't want to spend a lot of time on it, minimal in fact.
- you want something scalable so the amount of money can be substantial, not a 1 million bank but lets say a bank of potentially 50k euro.
- you have the possibility of creating supporting software such as for example a personalised odds comparison tool.

Any ideas ?
I'm looking for some really practical stuff here and if i can see it working i might run it as a system here.

[Datapunter]

- you want something scalable so the amount of money can be substantial, not a 1 million bank but lets say a bank of potentially 50k euro.

This condition pretty much excludes using sign-up bonusses or free bets. Usefull to build up the bank initially but you can only get most of them once and the actual amount is quite limited.

Also excludes bookmakers known to quickly put limits on peoples account as again the amounts that can be processed are limited.

Would be interested in bookmakers that have a "rebate" as the rebate is usually a % with a large limit (if any).

[Datapunter]

- you don't want to spend a lot of time on it, minimal in fact.

Excludes arbitrage as a main strategy.
Arbitrage only works well with a lot of bookmaker accounts and constantly turning over bet after bet.

The number of bookmakers/exchanges is already limited as we need those that do not quickly limit stake amounts. And as matter of limiting risk as much as possible the used companies should be big firms only.

Finding and placing the bets for arbs takes a lot of time, even with personalised software. So i'm not excluding it completely but would be more a secondairy activity done if an opportunity happens to occur.

[Datapunter]

- you don't want to spend a lot of time on it, minimal in fact.
- you want something scalable so the amount of money can be substantial, not a 1 million bank but lets say a bank of potentially 50k euro.

These would exclude a whole range of smaller sports and markets leaving only those that attract a large betting interest. If you do spend time on it you want to be able to turn over a reasonable volume, not 1 point here and 1 point there.

So that would mean concentrating on soccer, tennis, horse racing, possibly some USA type sports as they also tend to attrack large volumes.

[Datapunter]

- you have the possibility of creating supporting software such as for example a personalised odds comparison tool.

To speed things up in this thread let's say you can run a search on any info found on www.odds-comparison.co.uk , even a search not standard on the site but entirely personalised.

[Datapunter]

In the area of USA sports i see BetJamaica and 5Dimes have a % rebate program. Both are well established so in combination with some exchanges like Betfair and Matchbook might be interesting for a grind strategy.

Odds comparison shouldn't be a problem, just need to find out a possible timeframe when a lot of bets can be placed without "dead" waiting time.

[Datapunter]

Horse racing i'm wondering if it's possible to back each-way at the bookmakers like Ladbrokes, WillHill, Paddy's and lay both win and place at Betfair for an arbitrage profit ? ( profit on the place part of the EW bet due to the blanket 1/3 1/4 calculation )

I know it's a well known technique called EW thieving so might be subject to quick limitation by the bookies but worth looking into. Anyone got any idea on how many opportunities there might be, considering you don't want to sit around all afternoon waiting for something to occur. So should be by using early prices.

[Paul176]

With that kind of bank the accounts with English bookies (Ladbrokes and co.) would be subject to limits fast. Most foreign ones wouldn't last long I suspect you would be relying on Pinny/The Greek.

Arbing would be a possibility although starting with a massive bank is probably not the way forward as errors happen and practice makes perfect.

My first thought was hoovering up betfair leftovers. A lot of money is traded in play on impossibilities (0-0 after a goal etc.) at 1000. Not sure if would be possible to create a bot for this but I suspect running 24/7 on in play events this would work.

I will give it some more thought...

[Datapunter]

No intention to start with a 50k bank but i do want it to be possible after a few years.

With the target being 12% in a year the actual stake on any individual bet would be extremely low in relation to the bank. I still need to do some calculations on this but "normal" limits should suffice plenty.

Bookies that limit to 10 euro @ 2.00 on a soccer game would be useless, but the ones that stick to say 500 can be used.

[Datapunter]

The only place where "large" stakes would be used is in the trading arena,
and even then i'd probably only use a few % of the bank on any individual trade.

[Kanga]

Correct me if I'm wrong and this may sound idiotic at first read but you would have to turn over the whole bank of 10,000 points @ 12% return to gain that 12% profit - if bets were small you could return a 12% profit, BUT if you only staked 5,000 points then your actual return would be 6% and not hitting your original target.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that stakes are going to have to be a reasonable size or plentiful ... if the former then betfair is surely the way to go rather than bookies ... or if the later then this could be time consuming.

My hunch is that you would be going for the later and using your programming skills to save on time ?

[Datapunter]

Correct me if I'm wrong and this may sound idiotic at first read but you would have to turn over the whole bank of 10,000 points @ 12% return to gain that 12% profit - if bets were small you could return a 12% profit, BUT if you only staked 5,000 points then your actual return would be 6% and not hitting your original target.

I'm not entirely with you.

I'm hoping to find some strategies in both areas. Let's say for arguments say i have a strategy with an expected yield of 1%

If i apply a strategy of low stakes then i need to find a large number of bets in order to get sufficient turnover to get 12% overall profit after a year. If i apply large stakes i only need a limited amount of bets to reach the same 12% profit overall.

The difference here is in the risk.
With large stakes i risk losing a large chunk of the bank in one go and that is to be avoided at all times. ( in this context )

Therefore, any strategy that involves a risk to the placed bets should be small stakes/large turnover. Any strategy with larger stakes should be 0 risk like in arbitrage or trading.


A small stake in this context for me is 0.5% of the bank being 50,
if the expected yield is 1% then i make 0.5 per bet and i need 2400 bets per year.

A large stake would be like 5% or 500, again with an expected yield of 1% i would need 240 bets in a year.

It's all going to come down to what strategy would be most time-efficient really.

[Datapunter]

To put it in real life if the bank actually is 50k euro then:
0.5% = 250 euro,
5% = 2500 euro

[Datapunter]

Just thinking about the time factor,

with trading you usually need to spend some time just watching how the market goes, but that's ok as you can usually do it with a large stake.

with betting it would be small stakes but here i could use "alert" tools that run in the background notifying me when an opportunity occurs, so i can spend time doing other thing and there's only minimal "dead" time.

So at the moment i'd say both ends of the scale are possible so i don't want to exclude anything just yet.

[Datapunter]

ffs, saturday afternoon and i can't login to Betfair,
went down about 30 min ago,
just as i'm about to do a bit of tennis trading,
all the more reason to keep stakes low, even for trading,
seems to happen more and more,
off to Betdaq i go, even if it is only as a backup it's worth having a funded account.

[Matthew]

If I could, I'd lay every horse in every race for £10,000 @ 1.01.

Someone does this on betfair..........

They lose £100 per race when the horse which is matched at 1.01 wins.....but they
go down more often than they should.

I checked earlier this year and whoever this person is made over £10k in a month...I
think it was Oct/Nov or Dec last year.

* Assumptions being that the £10k is entirely matched on the 1.01 and that you are
first in the queue.

[Datapunter]

May be a valid strategy but not in this context.

Risk,
(some may argue here) but there is the risk that a losing 1.01 takes a long time to happen, eating away the bank for a long time without any return. In fact you could go bancrupt only to see a couple of 1.01's losing right after that.

Time,
You'd need a bots system, that takes time to make and then you need to spend time keeping it up and running very single day. After all, you cannot affort to miss the 1 in 100 time the 1.01 doesn't win.

Scalable,
yes.

Software,
yes.

On balance i prefer first looking for strategies that add a little to the bank each time.

[Paul176]

Another method I can see is laying certain long term markets.

Teams such as Tottenham, Man City, Villa, Everton etc. at the start of this season could not have won the EPL. Possibly be wary of Villa next year. I realise this is matter of opinion but I just don't think it was possible this year short of Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool getting disqualified or massive points deductions.

Perhaps a little high risk but laying these teams at the start of the season would in my opinion be virtually risk free.

[aldric]

Laying horses at 1.01 would be difficult because you would really want your lay to be taken first. The chances are you wouldn't be able to do that every time and it would just be your luck that when a 1.01 is busted someone else got matched before you.

[Datapunter]

One area i intend to look into in more detail would be trading at 'dead" times.

For example trading football matches at half-time.

Risk,
only risk is technical malfunction with an open trade, and a trade going the wrong way but that is part of the game.

Time,
can pick the moments in time beforehand, possibly even use an alarm clock, actual trade time is 15 min at half-time and shold often be multiple matches at the same time so reasonable.

Scalable,
plenty volume when sticking to the bigger matches.

Software,
could use a bot i suppose but actually manually betting should do just fine. Finding matches and sounding an alarm 5 min before half-time would be an easy to make tool.


Now all i need is some markets and a strategy for trading


There's one i'll look into by making some price recordings and that is the price on the Draw for each possible situation the match can be in at half-time. ( HT draw, HT fav ahead, HT underdog ahead ) Does the price on the Draw move in a predictable way ? Remember i only really need a movement of 1 to 3 ticks for a successfull trade.

Anyone any experiance in this area specifically ?