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Interesting point, there, Matron!
I don’t know the answer. Perhaps there isn’t one.
For years, I’ve looked at ways to make fav backing pay ( inc your own thread, Matron), but I regret to say that the low returns on the winners is what has been discouraging for me.
Seagull’s old mate’s method is going extremely well, imo. I think the first fav of the day is winning about 25%. Pity this wasn’t enough to make a decent profit with just the one level(ish) bet a day! On second thoughts, perhaps it is.
Finally, one positive but possibly unscientific thing I have learnt:
" when one odds on shot goes down, the next one usually goes in."
With a bit of tweaking, taking this view has got me out of a hole several times, when my "carefully chosen, "value" bets have gone down the pan.
Sorry to clog your thread, Seagull.I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s episode.
I just do not think it possible to calculate what day it may all fail.
Know one actually knows what any future s.p. will ever be.
I will tell Mark not to have any bets on day 137!
Sorry about this morning’s hurried reply. It was borne of frustration with my own lack of thought about posting a long and detailed reply on the forum.
I should have prepared the reply on Word instead of typing it straight into the message box on the forum. If you navigate away from the box accidentally, you can lose everything.For your benefit, Wallace, I will post a detailed reply with workings once I’ve got it typed up on word.
Just a quick one, Matron. I meant the system had a 99.7% of failing in UNDER 137 days. Of course no-one can predict the exact day when it will go bust. It’s all about what will probably happen given the available data.
Show rolls on!
1 April
ANY FAV
Golden Penny won the 5th race @11/8profit on day £35.00
bank to c/f £4,047.52
ANY FAV NON HAND TO 9 RUNNERS
Golden Penny won @11/8
profit on day £25.00bank to c/f £448.17
Artemis
The price of any horse especially the favourite and those at the top end of the market are all governed by supply and demand.Supply and Demand causing one horse to shorten or lenghten in price could be based on racecourse whispers or rumours. Some tipping line or Pricewise could also alter the market.
Yesterday Golden Penny was down as the second favourite with another horse trading at evens in the betfair morning market. Just before the race Golden Penny was being backed into 11/8 fav.
Who could have predicted that?Traders betting on futures markets in the city have no mathematical formulae to predcit future prices. They may ‘ramp’ markets to try and assist them but if there was some mathematical solution that worked there would be no one trading on futures. Companies use traders in these markets to assist them in getting a fixed return in the future but nothing is certain.
Gordon Brown sold some of the U.K.s Gold at the wrong price as he had no way of knowing what the future Gold price may hit on the World Market.
There is absolutely no way anyone can predict to a day when this may or may not fail.
From your posts so far Marks method was ‘extremely lucky to last 3 weeks’ (14 Jan)On the 25th Jan ‘you gave it 25 days’.
On the 27th Jan ‘expectations of profit is negative’ and ‘mug punting’ were words you chose.
31 Jan ‘certain failure in the long run’ . We will all suffer that fate one day!
24th Feb ‘failure in 250 days then failure in 2 years 8 months’
Now its back to 137 days!
So now 16th May is the day it will go bust!
Hi Seagull
I know I sound like a Cassandra with warnings of doom, but my predictions are changing because the main variable(the average price of the favourite) was unclear at the outset and is changing all the time.
My latest calculation(shown below) is based upon your historical data for 81 days.I stress again that I’m not saying what will happen, only what is extremely likely to happen given the mathematical techniques available to analyse such situations.
The statistics for 81 days of this system provided by Seagull indicate a strike rate for favourites of 34%, which would be consistent with an average starting price of around 7/4(36% probability), allowing for the bookmaker’s profit margin.
Although the prices of favourites vary, the average price can be used as a typical price when calculating probabilities for various systems.
The bank for this system is £2,500. This would be lost if there was a sequence of 9 consecutive losers.The probability of 9 consecutive losers at 7/4 is about 1.8% every time you start a sequence of such bets(every day). Therefore the system will probably fail about twice every 100 attempts, or translated into days, once every 55 days on average.
I emphasise the ‘on average’ because the days before failure can vary between 1 and ‘never fails’.
Statisticians use a measure called standard deviation to measure how far data can be expected to vary from the average. To do this properly, you really need a large sample of data about a system, although with betting odds and probabilities it is usually safe to assume that the variation will follow what is called a normal distribution.
You can set up a model of the present system using dice, playing cards, roulette or random numbers to simulate the chances of a 7/4 favourite winning.
I’ve invented a typical set of figures for such an experiment and found that the standard deviation around the average of 55 days is 27.5 days for the sample of 20 values I used.
For a normal probability distribution, there is a 99.7% chance of the losing sequence of 9 occurring within 3 standard deviations of the average(55 days).
3 standard deviations is 3×27.5=82.5 days
55 days + 82.5 days = 137 daysThe calculation shows that if you repeat this type of system ad infinitum, it is likely to fail within 137 days on 99.7% of your attempts.
The majority of financial market players use statistical models to try and predict how the market will react to various happenings
More than 9 losers are now needed to bust the system as the bank is up to 1.6 times the original £2,500
I agree with the figures Artemis has produced and failure is inevitable. Common sense and over forty years of punting tell me it is not possible to win consistently backing favourites.
A change in the market dynamics taking place and results are amazingly consistent as the market is very efficient. Betfair is the biggest opinion poll in the world and the odds close to the off are about as good as it gets in probability forecasting.
A few real world Fav stats;
Jan to Mar 2007
SR 34.54%
Loss at SP -£143
Average SP 2.02
Average SP winners 1.57Jan to Mar 2008
SR 34.5%
Loss at SP -£150
Average SP 2.05
Average SP winners 1.67On a practical point, I find this system crazy as it performs best following a series of losers. So people playing this for real money actually prefer the first few Favs each day to lose?
Wed 2 April
ANY FAV
Grizebeck led all the way to win the 5th race @100/30profit on day £189.00
bank to c/f £4,236.52
ANY FAV NON HAND TO 9 RUNNERS
Sonny Red won the 3rd race @4/5profit on day £2.00
bank to c/f £450.17
Artemis,
Thanks for your figures.
I roughly knew what you were going to write as the books I used to write were based solely on stats so I learned a little about how they are compiled. I agree it is a complicated subject.When I first met Mark and he told me what he was doing he did admit to losing his bank on more than one occasion but he explained that it is possible to win that back and still make a profit overall in a single year.
On the current winnings/time ratio if the prices were more or less the same as they have been in the last 3 months he could lose the current winnings and the £2,500 bank and still have time to recover and return a profit 3 times in a single year.
I first took the view that it would not make the profit he said it does but I have to admit now I think it could be possible.
Mark does have a stop system in place and that is £2,500. So currently he could quite easily lose £2,500 in one day and still start again without touching his original bank.Anyway it has generated a lot of interest judging that over 100 view the results every day………no doubt awaiting the crash!
Wallace,
I am personally doing the non hand races up to 9 runners. I just want the first one to win as after that there is no pressure.Today I was happy for Mark that a couple of odds on favs lost and he ended with a nice odds against winner but I am not personally risking money like he is.
david brady,
It’s true that the bank does exceed £2500 at the moment and will no doubt do so again in the future. However, the old boy(Mark) has a stop loss of £2500 and presumably stops after 9 losers – otherwise he might really get into trouble! Any balance remaining after the bank of £2500 is lost, will presumably be used for the next sequence.
I’ve been following the evolution of this thread with interest as it seems to be a classic illustration of rational theory (hypothetical winning/losing runs and risk of ruin) going head-to-head with empirical experiment (actual evidence) , and all credit to Seagull for persevering with it.
Those well versed in probability/statistical theory (Artemis and Wallace) tell us it must face ruination at some time and have supplied some forecasts as to when this may occur, or at least has a high prercentage chance of occuring. That of course is not the same thing as categorically stating it will happen at some pre-determined time or after a certain number of bets: the probability is greater that’s all.
I’m not particularly au fait with applied statistics but am sufficiently aware to realise that systems like this – as Wallace aptly put it “high stakes gambling” – cannot work long term. What that ‘long term’ is nobody knows, only educated guesses (statistical models) can be formulated.
I suspect many are currently watching this thread and are becoming increasingly confident it is ‘easy money’. To dissuade them I feel it is now imperative that the experiment continues until ruin occurs, whenever that may be.
The flaws in human intuition when dealing with probabilistic events that manifest themselves in a nutshell as the Gambler’s Fallacy nonetheless exert a powerful pull, as many an emptied bank account would testify.
Drone has come up with (imo) the perfect responce.
I know that Mark is no betting or gambling guru but I will phone him later this morning as I dont know 100% if he intends to stop after losing £2,500 in a single day or if its after losing £2,500 and any current winnings.
He could also stop after winning a set sum of course. So if he stopped after just doubling his bank. He would have made the sum he claims.
I do not wish to convey any ideas to anyone who reads this post whether or not they are a member of this site or not that it is easy money. I take no blame for any future losses should they occur.
All I am doing is calculating and reporting what I supsect he his doing.
I know the average stake per bet in high street betting shops is actually very low at around £2.70 per slip so it can be called high stakes gambling compared to average shop slips but if he has made so far this season over £4k he only went to stake a total of £310.00 for 10 bets in the last 2 days.
So it is not high stakes gambling compared to his pocket.I thank Wallace and Artemis for their contributions showing how they both agree it will all end. I just cannot agree with Artemis however how one can be confident and predict with any certainty what day it will all end in tears.
God Willing I will continue posting daily results win or lose.
As to running the 2 filters which ensures far less bets per day on historically races where favourites have shown an above average of winning compared to races in general I think my (betfair) bank of £2,500 looks pretty safe.So that may indeed may make some sort of profit and the end of this year.
I think it was John Lennon that said; ‘Life passes us by while we sit and make plans for the future.’
I think Drone has put the situation very well and I’m in total agreement with the sentiments expressed by Pompete.
About 2.000 years before John Lennon(who did well to remind us):
‘While we’re talking, envious time is fleeing: seize the day, put no trust in the future.
(Horace)
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