Introduction
It's an interesting time to be involved in horse racing. We have never before experienced anything like it, with no frame of reference. Post lockdown racing is very different, but steadily returning to some recognisable normality.
Like everyone in the racing business I have opinions regarding the new race schedule, the effect its had on racing, and how its impacted betting on UK horse racing.
With any major event that occurs within all industry sectors and has a financial impact, there will be winners and losers.
If the stock market crashes and businesses go under, you can bet someone is at the other end of that disaster rubbing their hands making money.
That is just part of living in a capitalist society, whether we like it or not right or wrong, when someone wins typically someone else loses. Never more so than on the Betfair exchange, which is set up for that very purpose, you're betting against another member at all times, and when you win they lose.
My goals for Exponential Bet over the coming weeks and months as we uncover deeper patterns emerging with the new racing schedule, is to exploit this for our members, both with the automated strategies Remote Daily Betting and JV MK2 Betting System which are trend based anyway, but also turning my attention back to the Trading Service looking to introduce a new pattern of swing trading available for members.
The original Trading update will be added either along side or shortly afterwards, as the timing has to be right given that was created while trading the pre lockdown racing.
We have an opportunity to make the most out of this shift in racing, and instead of seeing it as just this huge disruption it obviously was to the industry, to instead look at what we have to work with right now, and capitalise on the trends as they adapt over the coming weeks and months seems the better way to look at it.
I'll have more information on this soon asap, as we've just finished expanding Researcher to do what I need it to in order to assess larger areas of the current race card.
I'll be able to look ahead with more clarity over the immediate few months, and have a deeper analysis of race trend based information to then tune up the automated betting systems as things develop over time, while closing down trading opportunities I'll include in the swing trade update.
It's just been a week since we restarted betting for Exponential Bet, but we've been working over lockdown, and also since racing restarted on the 1st June, but it's finally starting to feel like a clearer image is forming for how we can take the best steps forward with what we have to work with.
I will come back to this very soon and expand on this a lot more, as this is my primary focus for Exponential Bet members for the remainder of this year.
As it needs my full attention, and has the potential to massively improve the returns for RDB and JV MK2, while delivering a very smart profitable Trading Service. If we can settle on this as we wrap up this very weird 2020, I'll be satisfied.
Assessing The New Normal
Moving on to the transitional period we're in now, and how we've had to work with what we have on the fly.
We all had a good idea what to expect with the new racing schedule, as the BHA listed how it would be ahead of the restart.
Actually seeing things for ourselves and taking into account the unknown's that cannot be assessed until we see for first hand, has been a different story.
Such as horse and jockey fitness, trainer planning, how the new race set up of more quality jockeys racing together create a wide open field in races that would we'd typically be able to draw a reliable line through, the impact of no crowds, social distancing, and so on...
These things and more all needed to be watched and assessed, then watched some more to see how the situation contracts on itself to create a natural order, which we are most certainly not there at this point, but witnessing without doubt a shift towards this as things ease in our day to day lives that also affect racing.
We'd spent a lot of time developing the services to operate over the pre lockdown race card, and you can see this from the 2020 results for RDB and JV MK2, as things were definitely heading in the right direction.
What I'd hoped to see from the 1st June when racing restarted was not there in simple terms, the form and set up was and still is producing a lot more freak results than usual, and we've had to adjust our betting templates to sit on top of this new race schedule.
The selection process is still the same, but with some additional safety measures such as stop loss, stop up, working to limit betting where they are overloaded with top jockeys for example, with more besides.
We've tightened filters on what we already had in place and not re invented the wheel, as the services themselves, and the platform Cloud Bet Bot already work very well, but we have needed to look at the schedule differently to set up our stall and deal with these changes.
What is apparent with the new race schedule is given the depth of the field, with more top jockeys than typical on bigger priced runners, we're seeing less favourites win, and races that would be more weighted toward the top of the market and as such return more wins more often, are now totally wide open.
This has meant tightening the parameters as explained, to focus more on the races that are likely to perform for our automated strategies.
When I realised we'd need more time to assess the race card at the start of June, the adjustments were made to RDB and JV MK2 running on our development platform, and the live betting version, but with member betting deactivated of course while we got things in order.
I ran this through Researcher from the 1st to the 30th June, along side a series of alternate live bets on the development and live bot to stretch CBB, and ensure it was set up to reactivate betting.
The results below are from the June assessment period:
1st to 30th June
JV MK2
RDB Straight
RDB Dutch
Ahead of going live on the 1st July I had to adjust one of the filters as it was stopping us placing bets, but one to revisit later this month. This was not a problem, as overall the betting run was largely unaffected showing the exact same trend.
You can see from all three graphs that each betting system increases the points balance over time, and FYI all these strategies operate a 1 point flat stake per bet.
I'm still far from happy with these results, as JV MK2 used to have more winning days compared to losing, although this is only one month of data which I do take in to account.
Also, RDB Straight significantly slowed down after a flurry of good wins, albeit still moving in the right direction.
I'm now using the updated Researcher to straighten the line of growth, which over July and August I'm confident will begin steadying out.
However, what you can also notice immediately is the strategies do not have it all their own way all the time, and as much as you can draw an upward trending diagonal line from start to end point for all three, you will see significant downward dips before we hit the profit growth.
If you'd joined at this point would you have carried on betting is the question to ask yourself, and the question I ask again and again with these betting systems.
The reason being, I only want members to make money over the long term, and go into following our betting services with the right mindset from day one.
As they are automated, and you're authorising your Betfair account for Cloud Bet Bot to place bets on your behalf, so you need a long term view, a considered insight into what to expect, and patience to succeed.
Should you join on one of these downward dips that can last days or weeks to recoup, and I will expand on these graphs to show you what I mean by this later in the week, but you may be tempted to give up.
As you can see from June's results, and if you look back over the results on site for 2020, or in the blog I published just before we had to stop betting in March for the lockdown, the graphs and data all show the same trend shown in these examples above, up and down over time.
If you set up a sensible betting balance to absorb the dips and handle the drawdown periods, you have the best chance of success.
It's essential for you to make money long term with your betting and trading to see the bigger picture, and know that whenever you commence you may be on an upward or downward trend.
This means having your balance and expectations set up correctly is the most important factor for the best chance of balance growth, compared to being doomed to an eternal fate of stopping and starting, or jumping from service to service watching your balance diminish.
I'm not saying follow every service you come across to the bitter end, I'm saying make a firm decision, set up your balance correctly, and stick to it.
The evidence we provide shows that we don't win all the time, but it also shows we win often enough to return a points profit over the long run.
That's my lecture over, as I know the way a betting mind works, but I also know these services will perform amazing over some periods and make money over the months and years to come, but also know full well they will have runs where the bets hit the bar which can be frustrating.
We can handle frustrating, as we all know we will eventually feel better again, but we definitely don't want damaging. Which is when people join, pile in to the bets with no plan or bank management, and then leave at the first dip, which happens a lot.
Without blowing my own trumpet I think I'm one of the few websites that goes out the way to put people with this mindset off joining, and I will continue to do so, as stated above all I want is for us all to reap the longer term goal rewards.
Looking at the graphs above what I want to do it go a lot deeper in to these, and also into July's results when I have more data.
I'll assess these graphs fully and breakdown some of the betting periods this week. Showing how they performed on the ups and downs, and across a good spread of races to demonstrate what I mean.
I'll also show you how the balance went up and down over the month, to give you more of an idea what you can expect.
Giving a clear example of a good upward win run depleted, to return to a new profit high, but from the actual live bets placed.
We'll also do the same going forward with the live betting we're in now and future months. As I think it's helpful to sustain confidence in what we're doing with these systems during the downward periods, in order to help more people reach the profit points.
This is definitely an area I want to focus on over the coming months, to share more depth of data and not just produce Excel sheets with wins and losses shown. I know I give snapshots of betting runs, and strike rates etc, but I can certainly do more in this area to improve.
Once I've covered June's data in more depth I'll move on to July's racing and performance, looking at how we've progressed and what to expect this month.
As I can already begin to see a shift in the trend given lockdown restrictions are now easing, and soon enough race courses will be attended by the general public again, and this will definitely affect things trackside.
Today I just wanted to cover some points regarding what I'm working on to capitalise on the shift in racing for automated betting and trading, while laying a foundation for more detail to follow with how all these services are being continually assessed and developed.
I'll post again near the end of the week stepping in to the data giving more visual examples, and highlight key areas across the timeline to detail why and what we've done to adjust RDB and JV MK2 for the current race schedule.
Thanks for reading.
Ryan
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