Bet Angel Professional Part 2: Automation

In the first part of this review of Bet Angel Professional, I noted that in addition to the standard interfaces available on Betfair, the software offers improves functionality, including Make Market and Green Out buttons along with useful statistical information, such as weight of market.

I pointed out that this software can add an extra dimension to both established professionals and amateurs wishing to improve their trading though there were a couple of quirks and like all software you need to use it as a tool rather than relying on it alone to improve your trading. One of its strengths is undoubtedly its range of functions which we only briefly touched upon in the last article, so in this article I am going to look at these in more depth, focussing on the many ways you can use the software to automate your trading.

As mentioned, the functions are accessed via tabs on the top screen menu. The ladder is fairly standard addition to the display, and operates in a similar way to the Evolution Software reviewed recently.

However its slightly more flexible as its possible to more easily view the entire range of prices (no clicking to expand the view is necessary).

One example of automation is the tick size setting at the top of the main screen. For example, if you set a tick size of £1, you will have built in profits of £1 for each price movement that you correctly assess will go in your favour. You can also use automate your staking plans, which we saw in Kevin’s article on staking plans for Betting on Soccer Strategy are an important part of trading strategy.

For example, let’s suppose you decide to implement a policy of staking no more than 10 per cent of your total bank of £1,000. To implement this in Bet Angel you simply select £100 in the liability box and the system will prevent you from staking more than this amount – good if you want to remain disciplined.

Offsetting is another automated feature. This allows you to place simultaneous orders (back and lay) to ensure a profitable position, rather like the make market button. The difference is that you can offset by more than one tick. The larger the number of ticks you offset, the greater your potential profit, but also the harder it will be to get matched in the market. For example, if you offset by 5 ‘ticks’, you then place a back order at 1.95, the system will immediately try to match you with a lay at 1.90.

Remember that the tick sizes in Betfair vary according to the price. For example, at 1.01 the tick size is .01 (1.02, 1.03 etc.). Whereas, at high odds, such as 50, the tick size is as high as 5 (50, 55, etc.)

Of course, if you set it to 50 ‘ticks’, it would then try to match you with a lay bet at 1.45: great for larger profits but also a good way to potential losses! Clearly you would only want to employ this in markets where the price is shifting quickly, and you can also use the ‘weight of money’ information to check that the market is moving in the correct way (Clearly no point in making a ‘back’ offset market where the price is quickly shifting upwards! In football markets, this could be used, for example, to place a ‘back’ offset trade in on under 2.5 football since it will assist you to close your position (hopefully) well before a goal is scored.

I will be trying this feature out once I find a suitable market and let you know how it goes.

The Dutching tab, as you would expect, allows you to offset one market against another to achieve a profitable position. If you are new to Dutching I will leave a detailed explanation to another article, but for now it is enough to note that this involves placing simultaneous selections to ensure a profit no matter which selection wins.

In this sense it is like ‘multiples’ in a football market with the big (and important) difference that you win if any of your selections wins, whereas for multiples you require all of them to win (not a good deal). Dutching, needless to say, also has great potential to also make you larger losses, but if Dutching is your favoured strategy then this will make the process a lot easier. In Bet Angel you would be more likely to use this in horse racing markets. (to be fair, soccer mystic is probably the one you need and I will be looking at this in fature review).

In summary, the automation features help you maintain a disciplined approach and also speed up the process of placing your orders. If you are already perfectly disciplined in your trading then maybe you do not need this: but there may well have been times when you told yourself “I should have got out of this market faster!”. If this is you, then it’s well worth trying out these features in your trading.

This review has given you a flavour of some of the many automation features available in Bet Angel and in future articles I will be providing further examples of their use. In the next part of this review, I will be looking at some of the charting options provided in the software. As mentioned, I will also be taking a close look at Soccer Mystic in a future article.

Try out Bet Angel Professional here.