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Soft vs soft

Is this the new hack of smart gambling?
VidaBlue
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Re: Soft vs soft

Fri Nov 17, 2017 9:30 pm

Well Alfa1234. I think we should consider the initial question, whether an arb between two soft books is worth for value betting. That's what triggered my response. It is very common that I see approx 5% arbs, for instance 2.1 vs 2.1 at basketball match where one part is bet365 and the other part is my local betting shop. If I assume that they are equally good at setting the odds, betting on any side an infinite number of times, my profits should converge towards 5%. But I assume, based on my own betting history, that bet365 is better at this, than my local betting shop (no sharps involved), and therefore I take the bet at the betting shop. My resulting profit to this day at shop betting is well above what would have been the theoretical profit if both sides were assumed to be equally good. In other words, if I had consistently been betting on the other soft side, I would have lost much money to this day.

I do not want to confuse anyone, but the thread is about value betting, the question about soft vs soft, and I am profiting playing on minor matches in shops using bet365 as reference, so I wanted to contribute to this forum with these experiences of mine. Feel free to call it nonsense if you will, it just seems to work for me.
Alfa1234
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Re: Soft vs soft

Fri Nov 17, 2017 9:51 pm

It's perfectly possible Bet365 has been "better" at setting opening odds in comparison to your local shop...but there is no way to know if this is a simple short term (9000 bets is not a very big sample) thing and you have been getting lucky or a long term sustainable thing.

The fact that you are making bets on odds of markets which don't have a base book reference (yet) is very dangerous as there is no possible way for you to determine the correct market odds so there is no way to calculate if you are actually getting value or have simply just been getting lucky.

You should at least be adding the closing (sharp) odds of your bets to your statistics to see if you have been beating those...
MisterRodriguez
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Re: Soft vs soft

Fri Nov 17, 2017 11:37 pm

One of the most important betting principles is if your bets have negative expectation value or you estimate wrongly your edge your bankroll will turn into ashes

You are making the second mistake listed surely as alfa said bet365 or any bookmaker who doesnt adhere to market efficiency principles meaning (high number  of investments and opinions)cant serve as a benchmark to correct odds.

It doesnt work that way,you can not use 365 as precise odds,just because they are less imprecise than other softs.

You will lose money if you do this,but you seem the kind of guy that likes to have  the pleasure of going against the grain.I prefer to make money
VidaBlue
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Re: Soft vs soft

Fri Nov 17, 2017 11:55 pm

I agree with you alfa1234 on recording the closing odds, as this would give a more precise picture of how well the bets are doing, especially if sharps enter the markets. So yes, I have not cared to record this on every single bet I have placed and I cannot provide this on the statistics. But getting in before the initial short term movement, getting a head start, has sufficed for me to dare taking the bets. I subsequently see the offline odds correcting towards the bet365 odds and I rarely see the opposite. Of course, one can wait till later getting nearer the closing odds, reducing risk, but the advantage is mostly long gone. With a significant head start, the odds may even swing back a bit and the bet is still a very good one, very often with a two-digit edge over the true odds. Again, people should observe and judge for themselves as there are many ways this can be done.

You're right, a 9000 bet sample size is not large enough - at least if you want a very precise result. 9000 bets have been more than enough to tell me, that with the way I have used bet365, I have ended up with 0-2 % ROI not because it should have been 6-8% like the others and I was just subject to variance. In order to convince myself, I have done the simulation thousands of times on 9000 bets 2.0 true probability, 2.1 odds and I had a median ROI of 5.0% with a standard variation converging towards 1.1% which tells me that there's 95% probability that the resulting ROI should lie within the interval of 2.8% to 7.2% after 9000 bets on this setup. This is an artificial setup and the real world is more complex with an uneven range of odds, different edges, seasonal variation, etc. Still, I think that the 0-2 % ROI that I had, is too far from the 6-8% of the other bookies with bets placed on the same conditions and thereby I make my conclusion that bet365 is better among softs in my regime (they are all bad compared to sharps). By the way, none of the other 14 online soft books used for value betting has had negative ROI after 500 bets. When I once started shop betting, I ran into a losing streak, but after 101 bets I was break even and from then I started to profit, which is a long time ago now.

People value bet in many different ways, with different presets, different betting patterns, and bet365 could probably be down in the pool with some of the other large soft books, when the setup is different. So therefore I think people should make their own research.
VidaBlue
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Re: Soft vs soft

Fri Nov 17, 2017 11:59 pm

You are making the second mistake listed surely as alfa said bet365 or any bookmaker who doesnt adhere to market efficiency principles meaning (high number  of investments and opinions)cant serve as a benchmark to correct odds.
Very true Rodriguez. But in the absence of high number of investments (asians, exchanges) and no professional opinions (pinnacle) and 2 softs each offering 2.1 odds on each side of a basketball game: you will know for sure that at least one part is awfully wrong. It leaves an opportunity with more chance of winning than losing.

Just an example: today I saw offline bookie 1.64, bet365 3.00 respectively, on Saone - Toulon match (French basket). I could just have made a random guess, as there is more chance of winning than losing, but knowing that bet365 often is more right, I decided to take the Saone bet. Pinnacle came online later with 1.36, odds on offline is now 1.37 and bet365 is still 1.41-3.00. I made a biased guess.
Last edited by VidaBlue on Sat Nov 18, 2017 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Soft vs soft

Sat Nov 18, 2017 2:19 pm

Pinnacle came online later with 1.36, odds on offline is now 1.37 and bet365 is still 1.41-3.00. I made a biased guess.
This is indeed a risk that i am OK to take.If you are right,you have made a profit and if you are wrong you can still hegde it.If you commit enought time to study how the market moves on different bookies you can find which one is "approximately" correct most of the time.Also you can use common sense in order to see that a specific line is incorrect.For example,
lets asume that there is a live basketball match in which the score is 100-102 and this match is offered for betting only from soft bookies.The match is on 4Q and has 2 minutes to finish and the ball is on the home team.Bet365 moneyline odds are 2.25-1.64 and other an other soft has 3.00-1.35.There is an obvious value here if you bet on the 3.00 on the other soft,even if there is no pinnacle or asian odds to compare with.Maybe for someone it doesn't make any sense,for me it does.
Last edited by makarid on Sat Nov 18, 2017 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
VidaBlue
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Re: Soft vs soft

Sat Nov 18, 2017 8:14 pm

Also you can use common sense in order to see that a specific line is incorrect.
Indeed, and this is the road to some very high edge value bets! Last week, by coincidence, I found a Over 100.5 1st half NBA at 2.04. I had noticed that asian lines were being launched in the range of 102.5 to 105.5, so I took the 2.04 bet as this was obviously of huge value. The bet stood for a long time until it finally jumped to Over 104.5. I think the reason was that no other bookmaker was offering this bet, so this was not caught by any value bet / arbitrage service and therefore not being bet on.

Our common sense may be used to discover bargains with huge value, whether the reference is a sharp, a group of softs or something else. It is also comfortable, when you find these picks, to bet at your own pace, and not to be rushing together with an army of value betters / arbers who all instantly get the same trigger from their software.
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Re: Soft vs soft

Sun Nov 19, 2017 9:25 pm

Vidal whats your staking method for this strategy?Remember if you bet 2times your edge your RoR is certain.I am interested to see how your experience goes,because i´m very sceptic about using a soft bookie odds as a benchmark of the correct fair odds at the moment.

That is what Pinny and only Pinny does(in liquid markets)

But then again if you really see that the opening prices on Pinny are way closer to365 as long you don t overbet your edge you might have there a positive expectation strategy.
VidaBlue
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Re: Soft vs soft

Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:06 pm

That is what Pinny and only Pinny does(in liquid markets)
I've seen NO substantial evidence of specific areas where someone else does better than Pinnacle in terms of correct odds, so I perfectly agree with you and also adhere to this rule ALWAYS where Pinnacle is present. (but it could be that with some very specific setup this rule does not apply, I will keep searching). So therefore I also lean against Pinnacle on many value bets, but it is just not the only thing I do.
Vidal whats your staking method for this strategy?
I stake using 30% Kelly, but to be honest I am not very rigid in selecting a very exact amount. In a regime with high turnover, very low margins, such as value betting on asians, discipline in correct execution of the staking strategy would be crucial as any finetuning would mean a lot. With high edges, low turnover, I consider this less significant and I prioritize getting very even amounts in order to viewed upon in public as a regular high roller. So I have a table of even stakes (such as 100, 125, 150, 200, 250, 300, etc.) which I choose from. Also, if I was to register each and every bet/win/loss continuously that would seriously hamper my production/turnover, so I prefer to do all the accounting at once on a bi-monthly basis (Mondays for instance), and then I set a new baseline for my stake sizes for the coming weeks. This maximizes production.
I´m very sceptic about using a soft bookie odds as a benchmark of the correct fair odds at the moment
And you should always be sceptical. But some markets are without presence of any sharps, either because it is a very early market or because it is a very minor sport / league. So it is like a board of experts where the chairs of pinnacle, exchanges and asians are empty. Someone must take the lead and become the new expert. If you like, you could start observing some of the smaller leagues, and be your own judge of who does best. That's what I do. This could for instance be Spanish 3rd division soccer where bet365 and others offer plenty of matches but are rarely touched upon by sharps.
Alfa1234
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Re: Soft vs soft

Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:59 pm

Since you don't keep your accounting up to date every day, don't you ever have any problems with bets that were settled wrongly?  This happens a few times a week for me and I'd never notice if I didn't update my accounting every single day.  I spend several hours every week trying to get things settled correctly...if I didn't update it daily it would cost me thousands.
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Re: Soft vs soft

Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:42 pm

I rarely notice wrongly settled bets with the bookies I use nowadays, it used to be much more frequent - or maybe I have just cut down on the discipline. I will do some self-reflection on this.

There's still a minimum during betting action that I do in order not to get lost.

When betting.
I place the bet, notice the edge and I record the bet in my sports result app. When game has been played and I have confirmed a win AND confirmed the proper transfer of money, I delete the bet from my results app. I confirm all my losses also, although I rarely get a positive surprise. In the case of shop betting I put all inactive paper bet slips in a pile when I come home, due to lack of an online record.

Accounting day.
I put into a spreadsheet all stake sizes, money transfers, team names, bet type, bookmaker, league, sports type, bet placement time, match time, results, edge. I then confirm my cash balance is as expected and try to trace major errors which of course can exist (type errors mostly), so I might also spend several hours per week doing this. I reset any differences with a positve/negative correction. Occasionally I find balance errors that I give up tracing, I guess it won't help me anyways. The accounting is a rigorous and tedious process, but the time and place can be chosen more freely.

Share your routines if you like - it could be a good inspiration on how to optimize things.
Last edited by VidaBlue on Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Alfa1234
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Re: Soft vs soft

Mon Nov 20, 2017 2:42 pm

I place the bets and immediately note them in my exel file, it then automatically updates the balance of the bookie, my total balance, outstanding bets balance etc etc.  I made this exel myself.

When I'm working and games are being played, I update the results in the file as well as the outcome of the game is known...I make sure I'm never more than 2 days behind on this so I notice errors almost immediately.

Shop bets are the same, I pick up the slips once every day, sometimes every other day.  Then put them all in a binder and note the results as the game finishes.  Settlement is done by me also every day or so, so errors are almost immediately spotted.  I make it a point to check even losing betslips in the machine, because it's happened to me more than once that they are settled incorrectly as well by those shops (making for a nice extra profit).

Once a week (Sunday evening or Monday morning usually) I check my accounting balance and see if it corresponds with the actual bookmaker balances.  If there's a discrepancy I can go and check every bet placed with that bookie in the last week and usually there's either a typo or a settlement error somewhere.

I'd say 1 in every 350 bets or so are settled incorrectly.
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Re: Soft vs soft

Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:23 am

Thank you for sharing Alfa1234. You seem to have a solid accounting setup.

I envy the high number of bets you may have, which may give you few to none weeks/months with deficit. I've rarely had a losing month with value betting (1 out of 15 so far), but on a weekly basis there are large swings. My frequency of bets has fallen drastically as I have been limited on most accounts and transitioned to value betting (playing the softest side of arbs) mostly in shops with increasingly higher stakes, but also on some semi-limited accounts. Turnover is the same however, and profits are higher on average as there is no "insurance fee" paid to the sharps - the big (mental) challenge is variance which I can only fight with high edges and high betting frequency.

I recognize the meticulous accounting scheme you have, from when I was arbing and had many bets on non-limited accounts, and I feel kind of sloppy in my behaviour now compared to then. Your information on 1 error in 350 bets is valuable and I should pay more attention. When I was arbing, I think this occured much more rarely and I am sure that I always noticed, since there always was a counterbet to discover this.

Where do these errors occur the most for you? is it in shops or on online accounts?
Last edited by VidaBlue on Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Alfa1234
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Re: Soft vs soft

Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:38 am

Id's say it's about 50/50...some shops/bookies never have an error but others (for me 10bet clones and shops are the worst) have them all the time. 

You should know not all my bets are value bets, about half are still arbs which is probably why I do the meticulous accounting.

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