July 20th – Sept 28th -$3,194.40
Am I glad I went on holidays and did not have to suffer through the last 2 months of bets. To be honest, I’m not sure if I would still be betting if I had stayed home. I left with $40,000 in profit and my monkey all trained up. He was to place Tennis, MLB, AFL and set the Formbet autobot. The hope was to see my profit climb over $50,000 for the first time as it was this time last year that my bank went on a nice run.
My first stop was London and after 7 days the bank was down $10,000. This wasn’t that unexpected as I’ve hit the $40,000 barrier a few times and it is always quickly followed by a crash back down. I checked all bets to make sure the monkey was doing things right and it seemed as though I am an awesome teacher as everything was correct.
After a week in London, it was time to drive around England for a bit. I headed to my old abode in Bristol and then to catch up with some friends in Taunton, before heading to Dartmoor and Torquay. This 7 day period was spent driving, drinking (not at the same time), and exploring. I didn’t bother checking my spreadsheet as I was having too much fun. I was off to Paris the next day and wasn’t sure what sort of internet access I would have so I logged in just to check that everything was going OK. Everything was not OK, my total profit read $11,000, so a fall of $20,000 in a week. If you have been reading my blog religiously (and why shouldn’t you be, it’s a great read), then you will know that I have had one other week like this before, but that was quickly followed by my best ever week.
So now I had lost $30,000 within 2 weeks of getting on the plane. Most of the losses were due to Formbet but I will speak about that later.
Off to Paris for 3 days and then Milan to catch up with some old friends. The 8th of August was 1 year, 1 month and 8 days after I had started this crazy ride and also the day that it seemed like a complete waste of time. Profit was $0. Over a year of work for nothing. I would say on average I spend 2 hours a day placing bets and recording results. So 806 hours had been spent for nothing, if I had been on minimum wage ($15.51) that would have given me $12,501. I remember logging into my computer and seeing that result and realising that this dream was more then likely over. I had given it a good try and it had not worked. Now I was more worried about losing even more money. The holiday wasn’t cheap and with this $40,000 loss only 3 weeks in things were not looking very rosy.
The next week I was having a great time travelling through Tuscany, I don’t even think I thought about how bad the betting was going. Travelling does that to me, it is one of the things I really do love to do and de-stresses me. If i was sat at home I would have been worrying about every single bet and just getting more and more depressed. I am enjoying placing bets again but now that I know I have someone who can do the job for me, I might just hand it off to them for good. When I checked again at the end of the week it had been a break even week.
Back to the UK and then to Dover to board my cruise ship. A quick side note, the cruise was pretty great and the food in the main dining hall was some of the best I have ever had, but the service was terrible. Within 15minutes they had ruined my laptop by breaking the screen, and all they said was bad luck, we hope you have insurance, they would not help out at all with a replacement and just didn’t seem to care. I emailed their customer support and over 6 weeks and I still have not received a reply. Holland America Line, you are pathetic. ahh, got that off my chest. So now I was on this cruise and very pissed that they had ruined my laptop, i still had my ipad but was not going to pay 75cent a minute for dial up speed internet. So I could only check how I was going when in port.
The 25th of August I was in Lisbon and found a cafe with free Wifi, I logged into my computer and my profit/loss read -$8371. It was time to make some drastic changes. Formbet had been on a terrible run and Dave was chopping and changing the bot and making it very hard to keep following the service, and then sent out an email saying that the bot picks should only be supplementary to people doing their own work. This was more then enough for me to quit using his service all together. I told the monkey to stop using the bot and to concentrate on just the sportpunter models which were also having a poor time but which I had much more faith in. This turned out to be a master stroke, as formbet would have dragged me down even further over the coming weeks. I made a lot of errors with formbet, i was staking too high, missed a winning day, but in the end I now believe the service the way I wanted to use it was not profitable. I bet daily for over 9 months and in the end I was down over $25,000. I feel it has some merit in its ratings but the autobot and systems did not produce a long term profit for me. Dave seems like a nice guy and Formbet may work for other punters but it did not work for me.
So now i was staring down the barrel, the first real time I had been in any sort of negative territory, and it had all come about so quickly. My starting bank was 50k and I wasn’t going to do anything until it reached -$20,000, so I told the monkey to carry on, he was worried it was his fault but I reassured him that it wasn’t and gave him a few bananas to quiet him down. Without the constant drain of Formbet (MLB and Tennis were also doing badly), and with the start of the US open, the bank managed to claw its way back up to evens.
I flew back to the UK from Barcelona and then hopped on a plane to New York on the 1st of September. During this 2 day period, Sportpunter had the greatest run of long priced winners I have ever seen. After settling into New York, i logged into my computer to see a profit of $19,700. I instantly thought a mistake had been made and went over each bet, but there was no mistake, the Sportpunter tennis model was back. After 2 days of poor results it continued it’s climb into the $20,000, this was helped by the MLBs resurrection also. By the time I left Vegas it was back at $24,000 profit.
Yosemite and San Fran were next and with AFL having a great week and MLB and Tennis going along nicely the profit climbed back into the $30,000 area. I really couldn’t believe the comeback. From dropping $48,000 to almost making it all back in the same amount of time. I left LA and returned home last Friday to a profit of $37,000, it has hovered around that mark for the last 5 days also.
So in the end, after the craziest 2 months, I have lost a total of around $3,000. In the next few days I will share my thoughts on this and the lessons learnt. But to put it quickly, the main lesson learnt was to not worry about short term losses or gains and to make sure each model in my portfolio has the correct bank size.
On another note, I had a look through my past results and if I had just followed Sportpunter models and no others, I would be up over $75,000. In saying that, I have now signed up for another well known Horse racing model, and FB Elite and Football Investor to go along with Skeeve. Time will tell if I was stupid to not just bet the Sportpunter models.
Total loss for the 2 months was $3,194.40
Baseball $425,890.01 $15,994.01 3.8%
2 month profit/loss: -295.98
Baseball Line $566,544.00 $21,583.17 3.8%
2 month profit/loss: 1578.15
AFL $86,564.00 $(1,228.90) -1.4%
2 month profit/loss: -2776.51
AFL line $276,350.00 $27,893.76 10.1%
2 month profit/loss: -152.61
Tennis – ATP $479,036.13 $26,924.50 5.6%
2 month profit/loss: 15839.27
WTA – Tennis $511,712.00 $12,305.42 2.4%
2 month profit/loss: -311.45
NRL $28,367.00 $(7,863.97) -27.7%
2 month profit/loss: -38.40
Formbet $224,207.44 $(20,388.12) -9.1%
2 month profit/loss: -17424.12
Stats
Total bet amount: $3,874,400.94
Profit/Loss: $37,636.17
POT: 1.0%
Bets Placed: 8,833
Won: 3,643
Lost: 4,888
Half Payout: 4
Refunded: 298
Winning %: 42.7%
Profit per day: 37,636.17 / 455 = $82.72
Click to enlarge
Wow, you must have really big balls! It is not easy to handle those massive swings in your betting bank.
Hi Loocie.
They are fairly standard size, but they did shrink after that recent poor run. I have a $50,000 bank shared over all the models I follow and bet on average about $500 a bet which is just 1% of bank size. But runs like those that happened over the last 2 months really affect my psychology, I’m usually fairly calm but they do play with your head-space at times. It probably would have been a very entertaining read if I stayed and updated the blog weekly.
Actually just to correct a couple of points, firstly you went out on the lash on one of our more profitable days in July.
Secondly, the bot was not ‘chopping and changing’, upgrades were made to the bot and improved filtering twice over the duration of your subscription…the base rules of the systems remained the same.
Thirdly, not sure what this terrible run was in August as it was a breakeven month.
Finally, September (just as you stopped) was our best every month and am sure you would have easily recouped all the previous losses and made some handsome profits…it’s a long term game betting and I would appreciate it if you didn’t paint a false picture of the service for which most other people don’t have a problem with when staking sensibly and maintaining a long-term outlook.
The formbet bot dropped some models for being unprofitable, then they proceeded to win a couple of hundred points whilst deactivated, and then results starting appearing on facebook for the year with the deactivated profitable bets in!
Nothing is made clear about what results in testing are vs results in action.
9 months and a loss of over $25000 (which is a “mere” 250 points at your stakes blogger) tells you all that you need to know about formbet I think. That along with the fact that the systems are quite clearly massively backtested – making 40-50% ROI which is totally unrealistic in the “(back)tested phase”, whilst struggling to break even in the real world.
It would be interested to see the REAL autobot P and L since the first autobot was launched, but that just isn’t available. Strange. Instead the date is picked completely NOT at random, once results are known, to show a good period. All the analysis is done after the fact, rather than showing a P and L of any meaningful sort.
Combine that with the fact that Formbet proof a million different bets to a million different sites, and then when one of those sites makes them look good, it all gets plastered everywhere for a few weeks, whereas the likes of:
http://www.racing-index.com/tipsters/proofed/formbet.html
despite being one of the biggest and most well known proofing sites, if not the biggest, just gets given up upon because formbet looks poor on there. It does make one wonder an awful lot.
GL in your future endeavours. To me so far you have proved that sportpunter sells good but low yielding models, that work if you have discipline, and most of the rest of the free or paid for stuff out there is just a total waste of time.
Hi Dave,
I’m sure timing is everything, but I did give it 9 months, from before there was a bot to when I quit. I have tried to be as complimentary as possible about your service even though it has cost me $25,000 plus subscription fees.
I have said in each post it didn’t work for me, and let people know I missed a day. I’ll reiterate that FOR ME, it did not work. For other subscribers it might work.
I was betting too large compared to my other models and if I was betting half that bank I would only be $12,500 down and might still be continuing, but I did run the bot after I stopped following it for another 2 weeks and I would have been down over $35k if I had.
I realise you need to defend your product but 9 months and many thousand bets is a large enough sample size to base my decision on, I wish you all the best with formbet and even though I won’t be following it, I wish you many profitable years.
Hi Sid, welcome to the blog. I didn’t know that about Formbet, I had initially found them through betadvisor. I feel that I gave it a good run and the data which is a big enough sample told me I had to stop.
I’ve also stopped betting many sportpunter models as well. NRL, College Ball and NBA line bets have all been stopped.
Sportpunter aims for about 5% ROI per model, take into account getting slightly worse prices then advised and If I can crack 4% on average then I’ll be a happy gambler. My current ROI of 1% is rubbish, but I feel the last year and a bit has been a testing phase of what works and what doesn’t. Now, hopefully I have some sort of idea of what I should be betting and at what stakes.
So it sounds as though sportpunter.com are the best place for you to bet at? And sid, great comments there, however I have to defend SP. You said low yeild? 3% ROI is low yield? I know lots of professional punters who would have happy with 1% yield.
Also considering the turnover at sportpunter is so much bigger than tipsters. eg 3000+ bets a year in tennis, 1000+ bets a year baseball, the 3% ROI with so many bets not only increases profit but decreases variability.
First of all I’ve not used Racing Index for ‘proofing’ any system bets only for testing out different systems in the past as it’s easier for me than recording new systems myself…and certainly not for about a year. I’ve never used it for proofing any selections given to subscribers.
For the last 3 years I have primarily used racingproofing.com for selective value bets from the ratings which I send out on the daily mail and the last year or so via Betadvisor with pretty much the same bets for the last year and remain the most profitable ‘tipster’ on there for the last 12 months but I often don’t have the time to do them every day due to time constraints and the fact that ‘tipstering’ is not the main focus of the service.
I am not a tipster and it’s impossible to proof in advance the system bets as the final qualifiers are not known until a few minutes before each race as Steve well knows…they are ‘unproofable’ in that respect unlike a tipster as they require differing levels of value to be offered at the time the bet is placed.
We also haven’t dropped any models, only a lay strategy where the ROI was not worth the effort but still made a profit while testing. The dirty dozen systems have remained in effect since the start of this year and although some filters have been changed to improve ROI, the core principals for each system remain the same and the systems are improving as they mature.
The TOP3 strategy to back the TOP3 in selective handicap races (providing they offer value) has been in place for the last 2 years and has had just 3 losing months in 24.
The system bets for the BACK system which was de-activated still doesn’t change the fact they were system bets, just that they were de-activated from the bot while a systems db, a new version of the bot was being developed and filters being investigate for that ONE particular system to improve it’s consistency and profitablity…this is called being cautious and looking out for my subscribers while investigating profitable filters. Of course they went on a winning spell during that time, it’s called the law of sod that I am sure Steve is familiar with.
There is absolute clarity over the system bets, every subscribers bot records them and there is a thread for each on on the private forum…those that use the bot as advised with cautious level staking and stay in for the long term have been handsomely rewarded this month. I am sure even Steve will admit from this month’s results that he bailed prematurely as this has been one of our best months…but that is betting, it’s hard to maintain that long-term outlook after lean/quiet spells but it’s essential for long term profitability and even more so when value betting.
Those that dip in out and quit during bad spells before upturns start also pay the penalty, unfortunately Steve has just chosen the wrong time I personally think to stop having also missed out on one of our very best days it has affected his confidence in the service and the systems which I can understand…he is still on the mailing list and has seen the daily results this month sent out to subscribers so he knows this for a fact this month…just bad timing on his part unfortunately that he chose to give up on it before then.
The systems this month are showing 40% ROI this month alone…NOT backtested but in a real life scenario and neither have the previous systems being backfitted or results been manipulated at all and I resent that accusation.
I used a split-half testing for every system in there and test thoroughly before releasing. Sure some filtering is required in a real-world scenario but all results are published up front, warts and all, win or lose.
Unfortunately Sid clearly has an axe to grind, I think I know who it is, pretty sad really that he has to resort to putting out false comments like this on a public forum. Steve should know at least from the time he has spent with me that I am 100% genuine, hard working and the results are as stated.
Below are this month’s Betfair results from my test bot running at £10 on every system bet. If you want a full breakdown on them just drop me a mail and I’ll be more than happy to provide full results from each system from my own Betfair test bot account but please ‘Sid’, get your facts straight before you post and keep your witch hunts to yourself and Steve best of luck with your future projects but I would advise to take a serious look at your staking methods.
http://screencast.com/t/rAY5l1AnOFQ6
Geez, It seems I’ve caused a bit of a shit storm. I’ll put it bluntly.
I stopped using Formbet because I lost money over an extended period of time after looking at what I feel is a big enough sample to be statistically significant.
Yes I missed a winning day, but I also missed losing days, these things usually equal out over time.
This is only my interpretation of using the Formbet service, Dave has said others use it differently and they are making good profit. The way I wanted to use it (Hands off and let the bot do all the work), did not work for me.
Maybe if I had held out for September then it would have turned around and I would be praising the service, but I didn’t. I started in a month that had a great return, If I had started 2 months earlier then I might have quit sooner, timing is timing and we all start using services at different times, but 9 months is a fair enough time-frame in my book. In saying that, Sportpunter Tennis was down 20k after 6 months, and is now up almost 40k after a year, but that downturn was due to an error in Jonnos model which he fixed and apologised to his members for.
Dave seems like an honest guy and I think there is merit to his service, but it isn’t for me. This is my story of my betting history and everything I’m doing to try and make money through sports betting. Do not take my word as gospel, I am still a calf, struggling to walk, but one day I will be that strong and powerful OX, haha.
Dave, I realise this can have an impact on your business and you need to look out for that, but I feel I have been very kind whenever I make comments about your service.
In the end, I lost 25k with your service over 9 months. Yes I was betting too big and that’s my fault. Yes, if I timed it perfectly I might still be with your service. But that’s not how it worked out.
If anyone is thinking about signing up to Formbet then please do so, email Dave if you have any concerns, he is always quick to reply.
Dave is right when he said it is hard to proof his service as it is dependent on prices just before the off, so we can never really know if it is profitable, if it is then I’m sure other bloggers who use the service will happily let people know.
In response to Jonno, 1% was total ROI, including all services I have used (these include sportpunter, formbet, free tips, so on). I havent done the maths but Sportpunter alone would be around 3-4% ROI.
That in my books is good enough.
The problem with Dave is its just so easy to pick him apart. Since he seems convinced that he knows everything about gambling, I’ll just stick to the below:
“The system bets for the BACK system which was de-activated still doesn’t change the fact they were system bets, just that they were de-activated from the bot while a systems db, a new version of the bot was being developed and filters being investigate for that ONE particular system to improve it’s consistency and profitablity…this is called being cautious and looking out for my subscribers while investigating profitable filters. Of course they went on a winning spell during that time, it’s called the law of sod that I am sure Steve is familiar with.”
Dave McAuley, Sept 28th 2011.
Point 1) Very handy way of explaining it. Of course had the system continued to haemorrage, it would have been laudatory that it had been cut loose. But there’s no way of proving that after the fact, because it went on a great run whilst deactivated.
Here’s a few contrasting snippets:
“Another example is the BACK system which when I first noted it I posted up the qualifiers in advance and it produced a stream of winners at 33, 40 and even 60+ and since going on the bot it’s been relatively quiet…those winners will be produced again but whether they all come in one wave like that again or are more spaced out, who knows but again over time it’s a proven, profitable approach.”
Dave McAuley, 27 Jun 2011.
Note: It’s a PROVEN, PROFITABLE approach.
The BACK system has underperformed markedly and has cancelled out gains made by the TOP3, it’s just producing too many selections and not enough big returns as it did when I performed the initial analysis or even at the end of May when it had a run of big-priced winners. Ok, all it takes is one big priced 50/1 or a run of 20/1 winners but I’m looking more at stabilisation for the overall portfolio so that profits banked by more consistent and proven long-term profitable approaches are not cancelled out by systems monitored just over the last 3-6 months. Perhaps the current crop of 3lb and 5lb claimers are just not up to the previous standard of the last few years or even the last 6 months. Just as a fund manager would have to look at removing a poor performing share, the same decisions need to be made for our betting portfolio.
Dave McAuley, 28 Jul 2011.
Note the salient points: Just as a fund manager would remove a poor performing share, the same decisions need to be made for our betting portfolio. A huge error here since it opens a serious legal can of worms, there’s no doubt in my mind that Formbet is comparing itself to a financial advisory service, and is missing out on the standard disclaimers that none of the advice given should be construed as such. I’m sure the FSA would be very interested if anyone was bothered enough.
So stabilisation is now the key, and its time to get rid of the BACK system, although one month ago it was a PROVEN, PROFITABLE system. Remember that.
Fast forward to August 8th – find these instructions in the daily email.
TOP3 – FULL STAKE (+35.8%)
BACK – DISABLED (-26.9%)
VALUE – FULL STAKE (+98.3%)
FBV – 1/2 STAKE (+0.6%)
TOPFBR – DISABLED (-6.9%)
TOP3FNR – DISABLED (-12.5%)
VAL – 1/2 STAKE (-0.2%)
DVAL – DISABLED (-26.8%)
SKCB – FULL STAKE (+44.8%)
TRND – DISABLED (-53%)
TSPD – 1/2 STAKE (+6.5%)
SIRE – DISABLED (-21.3%)
MSR – FULL STAKE (+52.2%)
So essentially, everything that has performed well for 3 months, keep going, everything that has lost, get rid altogether (even if they are PROVEN, PROFITABLE SYSTEMS), and everything around b/e carry on at half stakes.
No chance variance has played a part, of course. No chance of any form of mean reversion occurring.
more from Aug 8:
All the systems (including disabled systems) that have underperformed will continue to be tracked on my test bot with new rules/filters applied, monitored and compared to the more selective bot. I will decide at the end of the season whether to re-introduce any of the disabled systems or increase stakes on the 1/2 stakes systems providing I am 100% comfortable that they are performing better. If not the disabled systems will be ditched completely if they perform as poorly as they have done over the last 6 weeks or so. I will continue to provide monthly updates on all the systems and how they are progressing.
So, an end of season update.
But just a week later on 15 Aug:
I was looking at the SIRE and BACK system results and in the last week to £10 stakes they both would have produced a near £1500 profit in the last week. That’s a tremendous return and although both systems are still undergoing testing with new filters it is a tremendous positive to take. Remember this is about future profitability and to make sure we are reducing the risk and volatility of those systems undergoing testing. If they continue their progress with their new filters they may well be re-introduced in September.
So disable the PROVEN, PROFITABLE systems because they have had a drawdown, and then surprise, surprise, they finally make back some losses? Hardly sod’s law is it? If something is decent, you give it a reasonable amount of time (like Steve’s NINE MONTH period), don’t you?
Onto the 19th Aug:
Today I will be doing my final testing on the test bot with updated code before sending out an AutoBotV5 tomorrow with the re-introduced/re-filtered systems enabled. I am happy with the performance of late of a number of the currently disabled systems although the TOPFBR and DVAL are the two that will remain disabled along with the TRND. The BACK, SIRE and TOP3FNR will be re-introduced back into the portfolio and they will all run until at least the end of the year when they will be re-assessed again. It’s important now we have a set of optimized systems to give them time to just run through good spells and bad in their current form. The TOP3FNR is looking really solid with the new rating and focusing on non-handicaps while the BACK and SIRE have produced over +180pts profit to 1pt stakes in just the last 10 days or so with the new filters so I have every confidence in the portfolio going forward through to the end of the year.
So no fear, everyone misses the recovery period of the failed systems, and then they bear re-introduction. After 11 long days of being disabled. But its ok, because the results that will be posted are not results in action, not even results that Dave himself could claim to have reproduced, but results of a backfitted and backtested system that will be tweaked again as soon as there is a losing run.
What would you rely on as “results in action”. The bets proofed on the most popular BFSP proofing site on the net (racing-index) or the “results” of systems that have been changed 3-300 times since the start of the year?
Some nice results on the site about the first 6 months of this year and backing the top rated. Here’s the last 6 months of last year backing the top rated, in handicaps:
-13.3925
13.826
-46.478
51.044
-31.894
27.92
After 5% deduction at BFSP.
A profit of around 1 point at a 0% ROI.
No results in action, because I’m not a tipster.
No moaning after a losing day, but after a winning day its “175% ROI yesterday” – wonder why people might sign up with false expectations?
Let’s see the proper autobot results, since the first autobot was released, on the website, first article, and see how well BETS ACTUALLY PLACED have really done. Won’t be holding my breath. Not on a test account. On a real money account, for 10p stakes, or whatever Dave’s real stakes are.
JLo – not having a go at SP. It is low yield, yes. Nothing wrong with that if putting through 10k+ bets a year, if not 100k+. Card counting is similarly low yield, however, and the worry is that its not outside a reasonable confidence interval at 1-2% yield to be losing after 100k bets, or indeed even 1m bets. People should appreciate that a little more I dare say. I thought about subscribing to sportpunter once because turnover is a good thing, but the release times didn’t really suit. The site is open, honest, and takes criticism on board and tries to react to it positively.
Personally since relying on punting as a serious source of income, my yield is only 1.81%. My ongoing yield is only in the 4-5% region, the costs for the “learning curve” have been pretty serious. My (lifetime) stakes are well into the 8 figures however, and that makes it a very pleasing return – but it also leads to HUGE drawdown periods (like Steve’s, which is why i love reading this blog so much), which its in no-one who is selling any form of “tips”, “ratings”, “models”, or however else you want to dress it up’s interest in highlighting. Steve’s blog does it quite well though – it shows he is one of the very few, it seems, who can handle the daily, weekly and indeed monthly swings. It also shows the extremely fine line between winning and losing.
One final word – Steve you have a great attitude and I think will be a success in this sphere – but I think you should give some serious thought to the fact that market sophistication is moving ahead at a fairly serious rate, and there will always be some kind of “diminishing returns” to the edges you are playing, especially at decent stakes.
One reason for this is that some “proper” pro punters (not meant to be offensive) are starting to bet down to lower margins, to reduce the overall amount of BF Prem charge they are paying. The situation right now is that breakeven “systems” or methodologies are actually very advantageous to a few accounts, and EXTREMELY useful to those on the 50% and 60% versions of the charge.
Before they might have left 2-3% in the price because they had had their (correct profit-maximising) fill at an average price. Now it PAYS to bet further down because the PC can be mitigated. Its a relatively complex argument but one that you need to be aware of (I think).
The other is that the sort of sources that you rely on only go one of two ways when extrapolated to the limit – they disappear because they are finally exposed as shysters, or they become over-burgeoned with subscribers to the point where there is no chance of replicating their prices/results, and very little left in it (after fees), even betting biggish sums as you do.
10 years ago this was literally a piece of cake market to get a foothold in. Going forwards, I think it will get harder. There’s a lot of good other blogs out there where people have tried to do what you do on a smaller scale, almost all of them are posting losses for the year, or giving up, changing things, dropping “underperforming systems” (just as a fund manager would do, LOLOLOL), and generally having a tough time.
I wish you all the best and I will always be reading with interest.
Wow…axe to grind much Sid ?
I’ll respond to this post from ‘Sid’ despite knowing he is just trying to discredit both myself and FormBet by selectively cherry-picking emails from the last 9 months to back up his weak argument.
He bears a grudge against me/FormBet – it’s the age old argument of not accepting personal responsibility for your own betting decisions/actions and perhaps he just doesn’t let go of grudge too well. ‘Sid’ had a personal issue with myself and didn’t respond well to my own criticism when a subscriber.
Frankly I don’t really care but I will put the record straight and either way it will be my last post on here as I have more important work to concentrate on like maintaining a current 40% ROI for my subscribers 🙂
He misses A LOT of posts in between the ones he has cherry-picked and also misses the key point that the AutoBot is there to automate ‘suggested systems’, note suggested is the key word.
I have researched these over the last 6 months to 2 years. I’m not forcing anyone to follow them, they are certainly not backfittted and they have not been changed 3-300 times, perhaps some of the systems have had their filters changed around 4-5 times but no more than that over the last 9 month which isn’t a great deal to be honest. None were in response to variance or losing runs but it’s the natural lifecycle of intelligent systems development to constantly look to improve ROI and limit volatility.
I am primarily a ratings provider for people to work out their own bets or use the systems as a guide or a supplement to their own betting. We have a loyal subscriber base which has now been capped to protect prices and to make my admin easier.
I don’t believe I know everything about gambling, far from it as we are always learning in this game…but I know about producing profitable systems and I know my own ratings inside out which is what I focus on for subscribers. I don’t use Racing Index for anything related to the ratings or systems provided to subscribers, let’s get that clear.
I also know that anything new (which the AutoBot was 4-5 months ago) takes time to get perfect. I also know that a lot of systems are ready to go straight off the bat while others will require filtering once a substantial dataset has been recorded. This is not changing rules as the base ratings and core of each system and how they are formed have been static for years.
Systems research and development is a continuous process and we are exactly where I hoped we would be by this stage of the season with previous months losses dwarfed by the improvements to a few filters put in place for ‘some’ systems the last few months.
Most system rules have been static most of the year and despite the last few months results being a mix of poor and average, this month has been our best ever and recouped any losses incurred..the law of sod kicking in for Steve and others who left before now but we all know it goes that way sometimes and I am sure the post by Steve would not even have happened had he taken an extra month off and left his ‘monkey’ to continue to run the bets.
NONE of those systems that ‘Sid’ has quoted have been dropped. They were disabled temporarily for 2-3 weeks while I investigated more profitable filters to improve their ROI not because they were ALL unprofitable…they are ALL active currently and pretty much all showing profits…the result of this since the 20th of August is in the screenshot below and that is to £10 stake on EVERY system selection up to about 5 minutes ago on my own test bot with EVERY bet recorded during that time (you can chip 5% BF commission of that if you like) -:
http://screencast.com/t/uJWbKWou4
This does include today’s double SystemBet winner Divertimenti at 42’s and yesterday’s double SystemBet winner ANGINOLA at 22’s.
Steve can confirm these if he likes, he still has access to our private forum and daily updates…he knows I don’t lie or bullshit subscribers as they would soon tell me in the forum if I did !
Everyone posts up on the forum and I provide a daily P&L update for all the system bets on an ongoing basis as well as monthly results of how they performed in a real world situation.
1) I am not a shyster 2) We have limited subscribers and still produce massive priced/value winners on a daily basis and will continue to do so as we research angles the public ignores.
I am sure ‘Sid’ will come back with a smart arse retort hiding his true identity (although I know who he is, defo not brave hiding behind the anonymity of the internet throwing around false information about a service).
Fortunately I won’t be hear to read it or respond to it as I’m done with this thread. I will always be available to answer any questions either through my site and continue to find and produce profits for my loyal and healthy subscriber base and hope Steve and others know me well enough to know that I am 100% genuine and passionate about the work I put in for my subscriber base to nail profits from this very difficult world of horse racing betting.
Cheers Steve and good luck.
‘Sid’…get a life and get over it..life really is too short 😉
40% ROI? seriously? you must be the most profitable best ever gambler on the face of the planet. you must live in a massive mansion and own 30 cars. if you are getting 40% ROI long term, then i will buy your business for $10 million. Sound like a deal?
or perhaps you arent really getting 40% ROI long term
I came across formbet last month after an article in secret betting club as i was looking for a ratings service to use with my own methods.i didnt use the bot for july but did manage to find some decent winners using the ratings.first month using the bot in sep and i have tripled my bank although my own roi is 35% this month but I think probably my timing has just been good as there have been a lot of big winners firing in.it looks for value bets so long losing runs are inevitable and so far i am impressed by the overall service but then i am also using it to confirm my own bets mainly rather than totally relying on a bot.i dont trust computers too much but i dont have any complaints and Dave has been more than helpful with advice when I fire my dumb questions at him.i think some of the criticism has been a tad unfair and for £1 a month it suits my own needs.each to their own i guess but your level of staking is damn scary Steve dont know how u do it !
Dave will always trip himself up in the end, unfortunately.
Why 20th August Dave? Let’s see the results for a proper period of time rather than a cherrypicked start date? What do you honestly think that proves (apart from very likely, the 1st – 19th of august was a sack of shit, and so were the few months before that?)
Should be a politician. Never answer any of the questions, just make your own ones up to suit yourself.
Pointless arguing – those who know would never be taken in anyway. Those who don’t, I feel sorry for them, but there you go.
The bonus of having 48324798 ways of looking at a horse race is that one of your top rated on something is usually the winner, of course. Very handy.
“None were in response to variance or losing runs but it’s the natural lifecycle of intelligent systems development to constantly look to improve ROI and limit volatility.”
my favourite part. just so happens that the result of this:
TOP3 – FULL STAKE (+35.8%)
BACK – DISABLED (-26.9%)
VALUE – FULL STAKE (+98.3%)
FBV – 1/2 STAKE (+0.6%)
TOPFBR – DISABLED (-6.9%)
TOP3FNR – DISABLED (-12.5%)
VAL – 1/2 STAKE (-0.2%)
DVAL – DISABLED (-26.8%)
SKCB – FULL STAKE (+44.8%)
TRND – DISABLED (-53%)
TSPD – 1/2 STAKE (+6.5%)
SIRE – DISABLED (-21.3%)
MSR – FULL STAKE (+52.2%)
was to disable everything that was losing, halve stakes on the poor performers, and continue full steam ahead on the others. Nothing to do with variance or losing runs, my rosy red ass.
Losses for Steve over 9 months to the tune of $25k. He missed one winning day, and that was why he didn’t achieve 40% ROI? He’d have been chuffed to bits with 4% ROI, but never got anywhere near that FFS. Don’t you realise what a scam artist you look like Dave posting figures like that that could NEVER be achieved in the long run, and never will be by an ACTIVE system.
Come back in 12 months and let’s see the results in action, rather than a cherrypicked few weeks. Pop the rest of the autobot results since it was released in, Dave. Why didn’t you do that anyway? Nothing to hide.
Only Dave could make a claim like my post above is a load of rubbish, when all its doing is quoting him. Totally laughable. Of course the old “I’ll give up on this, I won’t waste my time” saves a bit of face, read “I have no answer to the questions raised, but will just dodge the issues because this is a battle I can’t win”.
I’ve got a million quid that says you WILL read this reply Dave. Evens? I’d be surprised if you’ve ever won 1% of that sum from gambling, you might get there one day by “liberating” it from your “faithful and loyal” subscribers (funny how when you cancel your subscription, you receive numerous begging letters asking you to continue, given the money you would be making day in day out at 40% ROI).
Dave – I’ve got a better life than you will ever have, and I sleep easily at night knowing I’ve taken the money fair and square off the bookies, not from other people who are scraping together to buy into a pipedream of 40% long term ROI on constantly edited and backfitted figures and “systems”.
Great Read – discovered your blog quite by accident a few months ago but has been a very interesting read. Am glad to see you back and hopefully the good run continues for you!
I found formbet last month through the secret betting club who gave it a positive review as I was looking for a low cost ratings service after the massey site stopped.i have been impressed with the level and quality of information supplied just from a pure ratings perspective nothing more but also from Dave’s workrate.I am not sure why people are running the service down as Dave states in his welcome email that the bot and systems are only his suggestions.at the end of the day it is up to us as individuals how and what we choose to bet on.i have had some good success using my own method but i have used the bot for small stakes for the first time this month and can confirm that it is showing a 30% roi on investment although i missed 5 days on holiday.i cant comment on what has gone on before as I am new although some of the comments and attacks at the service from the previous poster and Dave himself seem unwarranted,unfair and petty. I have always found Dave very helpful when I have had any questions and for me it represents a value ratings service anything after that is up to the individual what they do with it but overall i am a happy customer for what it provides me.
i dont know how you coped with staking so much steve i have trouble enough when i put a fiver on !
sorry for double post i am useless with computers !
I have been with Dave for months and cant fault him, any little problem and he is prepared to look it at, I have not had 1 losing month since I have been using his “BOT”. September has been a very good, even though looking at the results I have been unable to run it on some of the most profitable days. Yesterday was a classic example, it flagged up a 33/1 winner, but for some reason didnt place the bet on it, Dave spent most of the afternoon looking into why and has now identified the reason
I too come to this in Dave’s defence. Have been with Formbet for 2 months. My stakes are small compared to some but suit my situation at the minute and I am looking very long term.
I’m well up from using the Bot and my judgement in selecting from the top rated selections including landing numerous placepots in this period, the highlight being a 40% share of a dividend of over £700 at York in August.
This profit despite missing a 20/1 winner last Saturday ( my fault in interpreting the rules ) and a well documented 33/1 shot yesterday due to a rare event causing a bet not to be fired in, which Dave is working on a fix.
I have been involved with many systems, ratings, tipsters etc over the years and you can only speak as you find. I have always found Dave to be helpful, quick at answering queries ( there is a lot to take in at first ) and a genuine man who is simply trying to find a successful edge.
At the end of the day, we all stand and fall by our own decisions and I guess timing has a part to play too.
Maybe the ratings are heading for a poor period, maybe another cracking one. No one knows and the standard deviation in the set of results will ensure many ups and downs in the short term.
The main difference I feel now as a punter is that with the knowledge that only a small percentage of any bets struck will actually win, when they do, I have an edge on the market, and sometimes a big edge.
I like that.
Good luck to everyone in their punting.
sounds like dave has got some people to back. Good work. The only thing that I question dave is the fact that he believes that he can make long term 40% ROI.
This is impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. and it maes his reputation questionable.
without know dave, I believe he is an honest person who isnt trrying to decieve, but rather perhaps doesn’t understand the statistics and backtesting and the bias that this puts on the overall profit as much as he should.
I wish him all the best, but try not to claim that you make 40% ROI, because I’m sure, despite all your statistics to show that you can make it, and the end of the day, has your actuall betting account made 40% ROI long term? Undeniably no. but good luck with formbet dave.
No one is attacking Dave as a person, everyone here knows he is a nice guy and seems honest. The issue is if he has a profitable system. That is still to be decided.
But Dave, I’m with Jonno on this, if I had ever read before joining that you claim a 40% ROI then I would never have joined, knowing full well that that figure is unachievable for anyone. As I have said, I strive for a 5% ROI and I’m nowhere near that at the moment.
I’m on no one’s side here, tbh I had no idea my simple comment that I had dropped your service would cause so much hassle. I dropped it cause I was losing too much.
But I want this site to be as fair as possible about every service I use. If your happy to put your bot up to public scrutiny and are willing for me to post results on my blog, I will run the bot with minimum stakes over 6 months and report on the results. This will take up some of my time, but I think it’s fair to everyone.
Let me know Dave, and we can sort something out.
I really didn’t want to cause your service any hassle and I guess this is a way for you to show people that you have a great service.