Monday, 3 December 2007

Scam!

I hate scammers! This post is going to be a bit off topic (although I'll try and pull it back on-topic later on). Well, its on topic-ish, as I'm going to mention systems, ebooks and gambling. The gambling in question is related to on-line casinos. What am I on about? Well, I came across a forum post promising a wealth build system that wasn't the usual list. My thought, if something promises to be too good to be true is that it is too good to be true. I was intrigued though. I followed the link, expecting to see an advert for an ebook that made lots of big promises, showed little and demanded a big price. Instead I found the usual big promises but this time the ebook was offered for free in exchange for testimonials "when you start making big money too". Hmmm, that pulled me in somewhat. Suddenly there seemed no risk. Ok, I thought, what is this system that promised money without setting up a web site, a business, adwords or similar? I read the ebook and the first half was all about trying to get you to think you had found a gold mine and to think about how you're going to spend the money! The second half contained the system. I read it through. It started by saying that it involved on-line casinos. "What a waste of time", I thought and was ready to close the ebook, delete it and forget it, but then the next lines held my interest when they started talking about a loop hole in computer based gambling systems that can be exploited. I read on. It stated that a system had been found that would not work on real roulette but was ideal for on-line roulette due to the problem with computer generated random numbers. This almost had me. I know about computers and I know that a desktop computer can't create true random numbers. A computer has to use a formula that gives what look like random numbers, called pseudo random numbers. The system revolved around the fact that pseudo random numbers can be relied upon to be distributed evenly across the range of numbers. So, the idea came in two parts: 1) When to bet and on what and 2) A staking system. This made sense and I started to wonder if it could actually be legit, I mean, if this is being offered "pre-release" in order to get testimonials, that kind of made sense and it is always good to get something for free when it normally has a price tag attached (which the ebook claimed to have) and the system seemed plausible. Well, almost plausible. I did some more research. I wrote a roulette wheel sim and tested the system on it, it worked. With the random numbers my computer generated, the system worked. I was a step away from giving it a try. The system said to use a specific online casino and provided a link to it and set up instructions. I checked out the casino, to see if it was legit and it was. Whilst doing that I noticed that the casino said that it used a RNG (Random Number Generator). This was the problem. A RNG is a special piece of kit that can be used to generate real random numbers for use by computers, e.g. it doesn't rely on computer formulae to get numbers, it samples white noise levels or other random external events and feeds that back to the computer. So, the system would not work, so I wondered why the free ebook was there and then I thought about the link to set up an account at the casino (the ebook said that at least £50 should be deposited, in order for it to work!). The link was an affiliate link, the ebook author gets a percentage of any money that anyone they sign up loses! Very sneaky, especially when you look at the staking system. It was a slightly disguised martingale system!

So, how can I make this post relevant? (even if it hopefully will help save some people money signing up to this scam) Well, I think, before engaging money, other than a trivial amount, into any system or idea, you need to do the research yourself and not just trust the sales pitch, no matter how great the promises.

Sunday, 25 November 2007

Don't Fall In Love!

No, I havn't gone soppy. Don't fall in love with your trades. Last night I let a loss run and it wasn't until afterwards when I was kicking myself for it that I worked out why. I had "fell in love" with the price. It took me ages to get the lay side filled. The price kept moving and I nearly had it and then when I finally had the lay matched, the price moved up a tick and I was looking for another tick when it turned back. It bounced up and down a few times and I sat staring. Finally, the price went down to the price I had managed to lay. If I was sticking to plan, I would have scratched out, but I let it run and down it went. Stupid really and I knew it, but when I thought back at how long it had taken to get the lay filled, I was kind of reluctant to end the trade for nothing and 'hoping' for a price rise. Classic newbie behaviour and something I thought I was well over and normally would be. So, that's that. Back to the mind set of getting out quickly if it looks like the vicious flaky bitch, that is the price, turns on me!

Sunday, 18 November 2007

Handling the ups and downs

I love the videos that Adam Todd, from Racing Traders, puts together! That said, I only just watched the October vid called, "Betfair Trading Using Advanced Coin Flipping and Guesswork Techniques". Essentially, Adam goes through a number of races and randomly guesses which way the price is going. He then either scratches out or takes a small loss if the price is heading in the wrong direction, but lets winning trades run, taking, for example, a 10 tick profit. The essential point of the video was that it is not so important how you determine the direction you think the market is going to move, but the important bit is limiting any losses and riding any profits. This is pretty much the same point given by financial trading gurus like George Soros. Its good to see this demonstrated and commentated on in Adam's usual amusing style.

Thursday, 15 November 2007

In Summary

If reading through all the betting and trading blogs that are popping up is becoming a bind, there is a blog in town that does a lot of the grunt work for you. It is called Betting Blogs and it is basically a summary of what the latest posts are around the betting/trading blogosphere.

My eBook is ready for release, yay!

Well, I've finally finished the last set of changes to my eBook about building your own betting/trading software/bot. I plan to keep adding more examples and expanding it further, but for now, I'll release what I have. So far, I have added 9 new different examples, showing how to do the following.
  1. Log on to your account using the Betfair free API
  2. Getting a list of events
  3. Getting a list of markets and runners
  4. Displaying market prices in a "ladder" style.
  5. Matched price and Bollinger band graphs
  6. Volume graphs

  7. Weight of money graphs
  8. Placing a bet
  9. Placing a below minimum stake bet, updating bets, cancelling bets.

At the top of this post, there is a screen shot.

Is this a blatant ad? Yeah, I suppose so, but I'm really excited that I've got this far. It's been hard to find time to work on this and seems to have taken me bloody ages.

Saturday, 10 November 2007

Support?

Wife, girlfriend, partner-in-crime, other-half, spouse, husband, boyfriend, whatever you call them, they have a big impact on our lives. I was thinking about this the other day and wondered what your other halves thought about your trading activities? Are they supportive, encouraging, uninterested or downright anti-trading? For myself, my wife kind of treats it like it is my little hobby to be tolerated, like stamp collecting or something. It's okay, unless it looks like it will interfere with something "important"! A bit less than ideal from my point of view, but I just get on with it.

Sunday, 4 November 2007

GetMarketPricesCompressed

I've had a few hits on the blog from people searching for information on the betfair API function "GetMarketPricesCompressed", so I have put a post about it in the forum at: http://thebreakthroughpartnership.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=3.0


Hope that helps.