If you make your income from sports betting and trading like myself, and primarily on the horses, what a stop start year its been so far.
Bad weather putting the clappers on some decent meetings, with races abandoned daily due to thick snow and ice descending on the country.
Followed by the equine flu outbreak we're currently in the middle of as I write this post, with all UK horse racing cancelled until further notice.
My opinion on this current gap in racing is it's just part of the sport, and these things need to be accepted as par for the course.
It's not ideal, but nothing to worry about from a betting perspective. Over the coming year this will be looked back on as a blip, a minor pause in the process of building our betting and trading banks.
Our greatest achievements in life can be things that start slowly requiring some work and patience to begin, but end up surpassing our expectations.
This video shows what's possible if we have a never give up attitude, work hard on our winning habits, take a long term view, and keep our eyes firmly on the prize.
The video may direct you to You Tube to watch it, so remember to come back and finish the news update.
Dave Wottle, what a legend! I was only a sprog at one year of age when this happened, but have frequently watched this race over the years as a source of inspiration.
I'm in it for my own long term goals, so a short break away from betting and trading is no big deal. It's not perfect, but it gives me time to get the house in order to speak.
I can finish vital admin work and data assessment, that normally gets juggled around my daily routine.
Nothing makes me happier than crunching data to improve strike rates, sheer bliss...(joke)... It is however essential work I can now devote my uninterrupted attention.
This will add to the services I provide to members of Exponential Bet, which improve what I deliver.
Giving my clients an exceptional service is the most important aspect of what I do, so if I can use this time wisely to assess how this can be much better, it means this break in racing is a blessing in disguise.
I've been reading reports from competitor websites they've been jumping ship to Irish racing, or creating ad hoc greyhound systems to accommodate for the break in schedule. Which they have no reported experience, and are doing so to placate their members in a desperate bid to hang on to subscriptions.
In my humble opinion we rarely see anything good arising from knee jerk reactions.
I mean I don't really care in reality what another site is doing, and I'm looking at this from an observational point of view in comparison to how I do things at Exponential Bet.
It's not me being catty, I'll come to your house and scratch your furniture for thinking this... joke... In all seriousness why panic, make the most of whatever hand is dealt while things get back to normal.
I'm not an Irish racing or greyhound expert, and can't overnight suddenly become one.
Also I never just place a bet for the sake of needing to place a bet, that's because the gambler in me is none existent.
For someone running a sports betting and trading website you may think this is little weird, but in order to create a process of betting and trading based on the investor mindset, the gambler had to be expelled.
I'm writing from experience here, from someone who's learned the lessons of a compulsive gambler.
I was the guy who could go to the casino and put a grand on red or black, or bet with money I couldn't afford to lose on the nose with the favourite in the next race, this actually happened.
The one thing that's served me well is sticking to my daily habits and routines with all my betting and trading strategies.
Learning what works over the long stretch, and through training removing that desire to recover any losses all on my next bet, or to carry on betting when I'm ahead thinking I'm on a roll.
The laws of probability in betting rarely apply, whereas sods law is prevalent.
Increasing productivity with strategies, and never having the urge to bet just because I've got something to bet on, is the foundation of every day at my desk working with Exponential Bet.
I have the desire to achieve my goals, and betting and trading is one vehicle I'm using to get there.
The days of needing to achieve everything yesterday are gone, and now as a result little by little I'm achieving more than ever before. Which I know from experience would never have been created within that destructive addictive must have a bet mindset.
I'm not getting on my high horse, just relating how I approach betting and trading, and why I see this little gap in the schedule as an opportunity to take stock to look for ways to do even better.
Before we take a look at what's happening at Exponential Bet and coming up this year, let me share a message my partner sent me earlier this week, as I feel its appropriate with the thread of this post.
Here is an overview of each service:
Let's begin with Automated Dutch Betting BETA, which I began live testing on the 6th December.
Auto Dutch - Run The Eve
746 Bets - 48% Strike Rate
64.1% Increase
£641.30 Profit 50 Betting Days
Auto Dutch - Stop at a Profit
223 Bets - 52% Strike Rate
34.3% Increase
£342.59 Profit 50 Betting Days
The current version of this automated dutching strategy requires a small amount of input with the set up throughout the evening UK racing, and is ran using Fairbot that places the bets using a clever staking plan.
Full end to end set and forget automation is coming to this strategy with the release of Expo Bot, which I'll be covering at length in a blog post next week, and I should at that point have a full specification list for version 1, with pricing, screenshots etc.
For now though users of Automated Dutch Betting BETA who've the time to go through the evening card can use the strategy, you can see in a short space of time is demonstrating a lot of long term potential adding to our income streams.
Still in beta since early access live testing began mid March 2018, as I want complete certainty the strategy is running to its optimum potential. Which is the reason I've kept it as an early access product.
In Play Betting BETA
Using 1% Stake Per Bet
918 Bets - 55% Strike Rate
103.6% Balance Growth
£1036.80 Total Profit
From £10.00 Stake Per Bet
A 100% total balance growth target was reached this month, ahead of scheduled target, and the balance has increased further since with the available racing we've had.
If you're interested in getting involved with this fully automated in play system, I posted a blog at the milestone profit point which you can find out more here: https://www.exponentialbet.co.uk/single-post/2019/02/01/100-Profit-Milestone-In-Play-Betting
Expo Bot will come with In Play BETA pre loaded for members of this system, and runs exactly to the same specification as The Bet Engine auto load feature.
Dutch Betting is a subscription based service that is available on its own, or included for One Subscription members.
This year so far the primary One Dutch strategy has only made a few appearances, albeit all winning Dutch bets at a decent margin. The bet will now resume on a regular basis weekly once the racing is back in action.
The One Dutch is one of the few exchange based strategies with virtually no limit on the available money capable of being matched, as it operates in the BSP Multiple market, which as I've previously reported has a whopping max daily payout of £1 million.
One Dutch
Variable Stake Per Bet
102 Bets - 95% Strike Rate
43.7% Increase
The second Dutch system running with this package the Top 2 Dutch bets has been hit and miss, with long win runs taken down by a few close calls. Unlike the Automated Dutch BETA where the returns are typically higher than the exposure, traditional Dutch betting requires a higher strike rate given the lower margins.
The Top 2 Dutch
Fixed Liability Staking
1% of Accumulated Bank
45 Bets - 75% Strike Rate
-1.8% Decrease
However as we know it's a long game, and we're still very much in the running to achieve target. My confidence in this bet comes from the extensive data source prior to introducing this to the service.
Betting Bot System is another set and forget strategy, and requires very little input to add the available daily bets. Once they are selected within the bot it's left unattended to place each bet, and run the staking plan for you.
With the scarcity of UK horse racing, this is one strategy at Exponential Bet unaffected as it runs in one of the most liquid markets available on the exchange, Football Match Odds.
The selection process for this strategy is black and white, with exact instructions for choosing what teams are to be included, with the bot currently being Betsender.
It's the only strategy I utilize Betsender, but the built in staking feature with the bot just works and meets my requirements for the strategy.
The annual predicted growth for this system is in comparison to other published services a lot lower, at just 20% profit increase over a twelve month period.
Given the market volumes and liquidity the amount of money available to be matched in each match is a lot higher than UK horse racing markets.
My own personal investment in to this is significant, and this is one of the strategies I rely on for my long term goals at a higher level. With the scope for compounding available at larger sums in comparison to horse racing.
I'm hoping today the 20% annual target is reached with the flood of available games I've been able to include. Which I posted to members of the Bet Bot System after which I'll begin publishing a more transparent record of balance growth.
For obvious reason, and covered in a recent blog post, I don't publish too much in depth info of what's involved with the strategy, as it's quite easy to duplicate given it's the simplest idea with a clever staking plan. It just systematically plods away doing it's thing, but works with minimal effort.
I will be adding a clearer record of my results though to the landing page once this 20% target is met, and a more open record of my own financial return on investment. More info on this to follow soon.
Additionally, Expo Bot will include this strategy in a future update so save needing to use Betsender.
Place Betting and In Play Trading advice kicked off this week, in fact the day before all UK racing was cancelled, so not much to report as yet. The target for both of these methods is circa 50% balance growth over a twelve month period.
The service is available exclusively to One Subscription members, and all the selection criteria involved for both strategies comes from Focus Ratings.
In fact Focus Ratings have developed a completely unique selection spreadsheet just for this service, which I'll begin using when the racing resumes.
The results so far come from a black and white drill down through the ratings, and the horses either qualify or they don't.
With this type of criteria we can build automation in to the mix, with an import to bot feature on the horizon for Expo Bot available for all members of this service receiving the bets.
Additionally, the In Play Trading comes with a file to import to the API Fairbot at the moment, which trades from a BSP start bet, which is very clever, and I'm thankful to Binteko for exclusive access to this Fairbot version for my members.
Early days yet, and I want to establish the service more before requesting the developer to add this to the Expo Bot, along with the import feature for place bets, but it's firmly in the pipeline and just another thing to give our members the edge.
As I approach 2000 words in this blog I have to finish with the Trade Guide V4, which shows the highest growth rate of all Exponential Bet strategies, and the most varied journey to date.
I've deployed a range of trading methods since I began publishing my pre race trade results, but the most consistent has always been Method 1, which I have now developed further in to M1 Auto.
M1 Auto is Method 1 but with the ability to set it up using Fairbot and leave it to trade for you unattended.
The process end to end from finding the applicable trades, to selecting them within the API to trade pre race for you takes approximately 25 minutes.
That's all that's really required daily either in the morning, or the evening before racing. Obviously closer to race time is better, but I've done plenty of eve before trade set ups that are reported in the results, most of which returned a profit.
£100 to £1000 Pre Race Trade Challenge
86% Strike Rate
693% Increase
£693.08 Profit Over 104 Trading Days
The available trading opportunities so far this year have been thin on the ground when I've come to apply the strategy, but still when the right trades have been identified I've been able to keep the balance heading the right way.
It's a strategy that won't always have a trade every day, and some days or weeks you may only have one or two. I tend to find that during the bigger prize money periods the trade system does the most business.
The trade guide will have more automated systems included which I was originally looking at developing for Fairbot, but with Expo Bot being introduced M1 Auto and future strategies can be included on both API's.
Future end to end trading automation is on the horizon, and as I create more time and wealth with the current crop of automated trade systems it's freeing up the time and resources to develop these to the standard required.
Another factor is time to place the trades and available exchange time if you're running other services on the same races, so if you're using In Play BETA for example across the day, and it's taking all day to hit the profit point, it may not be practical to use the Trade Guide V4, but if you're just using Automated Dutch Betting BETA across the evening racing, you can quite easily trade during the daytime races.
I get asked all the time about compounding pretty much for all my systems, but more so for trading, and always give the same reply. It's exchange based so you need to take it race to race and use common sense with regard to available market volumes.
Yes you can compound from a specific amount of say £10.00 per trade up to £100.00 a trade, but the higher you go the more chance you have of not being matched, it's just logical.
The M1 Auto aspect using automation does a very smart thing with the way it looks to hedge the trade, and doesn't leave you hanging out to dry exposed to rogue trader manipulation, but like all betting and trading on the exchange it comes down to available money.
You can't expect to be matched for mega money when with only a £20k volume across an entire field for example.
You can be matched regularly though and make a decent income if you apply common sense to your trade amounts.
Round Up
To summarize this post, I'd like to think you have my clear stand point on the current break in UK horse racing, and what's required to have a long term winning betting and trading mentality. Plus a thorough overview of the current services available.
If you're thinking of joining the site and would like all the subscription services included, with a combination or all stand alone products, ie the one off purchase systems listed above, then take a look at One Subscription as it makes a lot of sense.
Obviously if you join now we're bereft of UK horse racing and I'm quite literally just running my Bet Bot System in the football markets, so you will have a wait until racing resumes.
Hopefully I've given a good account of what's available at Exponential Bet and don't paint any false pictures, as you're going to need a long term mindset.
With the advent of the Expo Bot being readied for release, along with the other features to be included with the bot in future updates, it's an exciting time to join or be a member. Also things are about to get a whole lot simpler with one bot to run the lot.
The current bots running the services are all reputable though and work perfectly, I can't speak highly enough of each API used to run my strategies. Having our own bespoke all in one software just makes perfect sense.
I'll be posting a blog covering all the tools of the trade I've used and my reasons why. Also including a few recommended partner sites I trust and feel members and blog readers will benefit from.
Tomorrow we'll have another Sunday Slant published in the blog, as I want to cover a couple of topics I hold a strong opinion.
If you've any questions just drop me an email, and I'll get back to you asap.