Dobbin Day - User Guide

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1 Dobbin Day - User Guide Introduction Dobbin Day is an in running performance form analysis tool. A runner s in-running performance is solely based on the price difference between its BSP (Betfair Starting Price) and the lowest price taken in play for all of its previous runs. Other data is included for comparison to the current race. This information is shown in a table and graphically with 2 mode options that analyses the performance in 2 distinct ways. The aim of the analysis is to enable the user to find runners with good past in-running performance and to assess the level of that performance with a view to betting the selection to run well in the coming race. The bets are queued and the software places the required bets at the correct times to win if the horse runs as well as expected, in this capacity it is also an automated bet placement tool. A back bet and a lay bet on the same horses are ordered at the same time prerace with the lay bet being held active in play. All the bets are monitored and stored with a bets history view showing tabular and a graphical output of the bets placed with the software. Some betting history analysis tools are provided. Definitions Dobbin Is just a brand name, a shortened version of dobbing or a slang term for a horse. Dobbing A Double or Bust bet where you will either win or lose the same amount, equivalent to an evens money bet. Hedge To protect yourself against loss by supporting more than one possible result or both sides in a race. After backing the horse, a lay bet is ordered such that if the price falls a profit is made no matter the race outcome. To Note Once the learning curve to the Dobbin Day software is achieved, it s day to day use if fast and effective. Please read this manual carefully before use, and please ask for assistance if required. Demo Videos Videos are available at

2 Logging In After opening the software the login screen will show: Enter your Betfair username and password and click Login. You can register for an account here if you need to. Registering your Software The first time you use the software you will be asked to register it. This is NOT registering it to a particular machine, but to your Betfair account. Once registered your license is locked to this account. Enter the you used to purchase the software and the Activation Code to you. This is in 4 sets of 2 character, all in uppercase. The software will then monitor your activation status with Betfair, this can sometimes take up to 10 minutes. Once activated the markets will load into the main software and your Betfair balance will be shown.

3 Runner Selection Modes There are two ways to find horses to hedge, each option has its own tab ( Full Markets List and Best Of ): Full Markets List Selecting a Market Simply click on the market name in the list on the left to select or change the market runners you wish to view The market list simply shows the time, venue and number of runners. You can refresh the list using the blue refresh button on the top right of the markets list Selecting a Runner After selecting a market, the runners for that market will show in the vertical panel to the right of the markets list. The runner column shows the runner name, the number of runs, the number of wins within those runs the horse has had and the current exchange odds of the runner. The odds will update every 5 seconds. The chart column shows a graphical representation of the horse s in-running performance for its previous runs. Clicking on the chart shows a bigger version (see after selecting a runner)

4 Best Of The Best Of view aims to list all the best dobbing runners of the day in 1 simple convenient list, this is to save you having to iterate over all the races of the day. While this is a lot easier it is slightly more restrictive and you have less ability to compare the runner with others in the same race as you can in the Full Markets List view. List Runners Return Mode: Set the return dobbing odds you are interested in seeing historically profitable horse and set the max odds Risk Mode: Set the risk level and max odds you want the search to return. More on MODES later! Then click the blue refresh button The best of horses must have made at least 0.1 points per run on average and have run 3 times or more to qualify for best-of, the horses are listed in race time order, mainly so you can see groups of best of horses running against each other. Each horse shows relevant information including: race time, race venue, horse name, the points profit and wins / runs stats for the horse. Here, wins refers to the number of times the hedge has won not the number of times it has won a race which is what is show in the full markets list view. The left chart shows risk / profit or return / profit depending on the mode on the software is in. The chart on the right shows profit in points over time should you have hedged out at the set level on all its previous runs. Click on the row to bring the selection into the main viewing area. Click on the red X to remove it from the list.

5 Main Viewing Area After selecting a runner its details will be displayed in the main viewing area This area includes the return / risk chart, the profit / time chart, the full previous runs history list, the betting area including the hedging options and profit information. Hovering the mouse over the top chart changes the historical profit chart and table information to suit the risk level (low to high from left to right on the top chart) The information shown will depend on the main mode selected.

6 Main Modes There are 2 main modes, Risk and Return. The mode can be changed by clicking on the desired option on the top right of the software. The section Surf And Turf will be used as an example here: Return Mode: In straight forward dobbing we are looking to realize a return odds of 2.00 (evens money) from a combination of backing and laying. With Dobbin Day we can look through a range or returns. Here we are looking at 1.01 to You can reset the max of the range with the slider above the chart. Sometimes, not all previous runs are be included in the data for all returns as the BSP may have been too small for the return you are looking for. A 2.00 return in this case is about 0 profit overall, but a lower return of 1.30 (that s about 3/10) shows a profit over time of more than 5 points over its last 20 runs. Hovering over the risk chart shows a historical profit / time chart. Clicking on the risk chart at a return value of 1.31 locks the charts at that value, as shown here: There is a slight disparity between the two charts profits which is due to Betfair odds increments being accounted for in the profit / time chart. We can see here that there are 4 wins, 1 loss (on its 5 th run see the downturn early in the chart), and another 15 wins in a row. This makes this horse quite consistent at in-running to this level of return.

7 Risk Mode: The risk mode is different from the return mode in that all previous runs are included no matter the what starting BSP is. The profitability is shown against risk, this is how well the horse has run as a percentage of its starting odds of each of its previous races. The best way to explain this might be by looking at some of the horses previous runs. The risk level here has been set at 33%. In each previous run the BSP has been reduced in the following way: ((BSP-1) * (1 (RISK/100))) + 1, a 0% risk would result in Lay = BSP, 100% would mean Lay = 1.01, as lay odds are rounded up to the nearest Betfair increment. The benefit to this way of looking at previous performance is that all runs for all risk levels can be included. The down side is that each previous run returns a different amount, as you can see in the Prof column, the higher the BSP odds the better you are looking for that horse to run and the more profit it gains should it have run well enough.

8 Previous Runs More Info. Compare this to an example of a return mode with a 1.45 return the profit remains consistent at around 0.45 (slight variations are caused by Betfair odds increments) Here is another example where the return is set to 2.0 (a traditional DOB). Where the BSP odds are 2 or under, in this case the last line at 1.94, no bet could have been made so the race is ignored, also if the BSP was not available, due to it being a French race for example it will be shown but ignored. Date - is the date of the previous run BSP - is the Betfair Starting Price of that run Low - is the lowest price the horse was traded at in-play. Lay - is the lay price required to fulfill the risk or return you have set by hovering or clicking on the chart. A green thumbs up if that previous run would have seen successful for you, red thumbs down if not and a NO sign if it was a no bet. No Bets: Either the odds were too low in return mode and the return could not be realized or we do not have the BSP data race was a French race for example. Prof - shows the resultant profit. PM The price money of the race, 5K denotes 5000 for example. Dist The race distance in yards. Type The race type. Can be Flat, Chase, HN or HNF. Pos - shows the finishing position against the number of runners.

9 Hedging Types Essentially what Dobbin Day is doing in finding runners to back and hedges your bet to make a profit. There are 3 ways to hedge a bet. Upon both your bets being matched: Hedge no matter what horse wins you will win the same amount Win Max You will win if the runner goes on to win and lose nothing if the horse does not win. Loss Max You will win if the horse does not win but lose nothing if it goes on to win the race. The amount you return on Win Max and Loss Max will depend on the odds but in general you ll win the least with Hedge (but you ll win every time if both bets are matched), more with Loss Max as more often than not the horse will lose (unless odds on), and even more with Win Max but not as often as the horse has to win the race. This obviously all depends on the odds you bet at. Here we can see profit / loss for Hedge, Loss Max, and Win Max if dobbing on Hoy Hoy: Above the list of runners there are the options to include all the hedge options, blue: equal hedge, green: win max and red: loss max. The runner charts will show the profit lines selected. Clicking on the runner chart will reload the main chart if you change, add or remove hedge options.

10 Changing Hedging Type With all hedge types checked on, you ll 3 lines on each chart. The blue line is normal hedge, green is win max and red is loss max. Simply click on the type hedge radio button and your bets will be placed accordingly. Changing the hedge type changes the information in the Add Bets area, which shows: Liability (what you will lose if the horse does not run as well as expected) The target profit (this can change depending on the actual back odds matched at) The yield of today s bet S/R is Strike Rate, historically how many races would have won under for this risk percentage or return target. Here you can alter the Back Stake, a minimum of 2 (for a UK account) is required for a BSP back bet type. The current back odds and the lay odds required (based on the current back odds) are shown in blue and pink border containers.

11 Adding Bets The ADD button (see above) adds the bets into the bets grid, and as the day goes on the status of those bets are updated To remove a bet click the red X and it will be removed: Stopping Bets You can automatically stop the software from running when a profit or loss level is reached. The values are actual profit (not points) of the account currency. Here I have set the software to stop if I have made 10 or more or if I ve lost 15 or more. (My account is in ). You can reset the values and restart the software if you wish

12 History of Bets Made The My Betting History Tab shows all historical bets made in a table and a chart, the table can be sorted by clicking on the column header. You may set the options to only view todays bet s and whether to include a 5% commission in the results. You may also set a date range and a back odds range for analysis purposes. To refresh the results Update button updates the BSP, LOW and POS (position) fields from. These records are retrieved from our servers. It can take over 48 hours from the race for the runner to be updated. The data can be exported to a CSV sheet for your further study. The black line shows the profit / loss made over time, the blue just the backs and the red just the lay side of the bets. Here we can see the lays I made were much more profitable than the backs but very inconsistent over time. There are 3 tabs on the lower charting panel. Profit History, Scatter and DOBS. The Profit History view here shows profit order by time. You can click on the table column header to show different charts. The date time, ret, risk, back, lay, bsp and low show line charts while the mode and hedge columns show as stacked bar charts.

13 The profit order by back price is a useful example: The profits ae shows accumulatively, so that we can see the ranges that have been most effective The black line shows that for my example set of betting data a back odds range of about 3 to 8 was the best range. Scatter Chart The scatter view compares the lay prices requested against the actual lowest price the runner was in the race. Please note, this is quite advanced (and complicated stuff). I am available to help out if required. Points above the line a profitable bets, below the line the lay was not matched and so was a loss. The further over the line the winning hedge was the less profitable it was against how profitable it could have been as the lay bet could have been lower and still have been matched. I can instantly see that the bigger the lay odds the further from the line they are, so in fact these bets are doing better that I am anticipating pre-race. The red line shows a situation where the outcome would have been a lot better for me.

14 We can adjust the lay odds that we ordered by changing the variables in the lay odds formula: Lay effectively allows us to alter the angle and vertical offset of the black line but this is show as shifting lay prices. Lay is applied to the lay price as such: New Lay = ((Lay -1) * Lay) + 1 Your betting history will be different to mine but in this case a -7 and -7 setting changes the outcomes to this: My profit is up from just over 8 points to 43.5 points. This by NO MEANS insured that your future profits will be multiple times better, as past performance is not a representation of future performance, but it does give you a clear view of where you might want to tweak your strategies. This is one of the purposes of the date range to view the data, you can select to see data from a period of time where you employed a specific strategy so they don t overlap on the chart data. You can do react to this in 3 ways, don t do anything, mentally change you perception of future races or stick to your previous analysis of runners but apply the formula you arrive at in the best you order with the building price adjustment system on the software: Click alterations to bring up the settings to apply to your lay bets Enter the required settings and close the window, the settings will be saved and the new calculation shown in place of the alterations label: Lay = (lay * -7) -7 The adjustments to your lay prices will be made AT BET TIME and NOT in the data shown as you select the bets to place. The new price will not exceed 90% of the back price in the case where the new lay is higher.

15 Summary Dobbin Day is an involved piece of software but quite a simple concept, it may be a little daunting at first but as you become accustomed to it, the process of using it to make dobbin s should be easy and fast. You can use it as a very simple tool, only using the best-of mode and not getting involved in anything else, or get involved in the more complex side of it as you see fit. Either way, I hope you enjoy this software and you find it as useful as I have. Nigel Level Software.