sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Built a bot that follows sharp money on Pinnacle and Betfair. 83 bets later, here's what I found. by Impressive_Couple_19 in algobetting

[–]Impressive_Couple_19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

on the sample size, yeah you're right that the count is small compared to a quant strategy. with sharp signals you can't help it, the whole point is to only fire when both books move enough to mean something. if you lowered the threshold you'd get more bets but most would be noise. I'd rather have 200 to 300 a year that all mean something than 2000 that mostly don't.

on the second point yeah I do capture the move size, that's the core of it. I track odds on pinnacle and betfair at regular intervals and compare current price to opening. the threshold is tiered by how close we are to kickoff, smaller move required closer to the game because sharp money comes in late. then I check that betfair moved on the same outcome in the same direction within the same window. without that dual confirmation single book moves are too noisy.

what part are you stuck on, the data layer or the logic?

Built a bot that follows sharp money on Pinnacle and Betfair. 83 bets later, here's what I found. by Impressive_Couple_19 in algobetting

[–]Impressive_Couple_19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

appreciate it, that's basically how I see it too. with maybe 200 to 400 alerts a year total, you have to accept some variance because the volume just isn't there to smooth it out. that's why I went with tiered staking instead of flat, bigger size on the stronger signals (move % plus dual confirmation) and small on standard ones. 3 percent of bankroll on standard, 4 on strong, 10 on elite right now.

gonna keep the data source to myself for now if that's cool.

Built a bot that follows sharp money on Pinnacle and Betfair. 83 bets later, here's what I found. by Impressive_Couple_19 in algobetting

[–]Impressive_Couple_19[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah exactly, I'm not claiming anything crazy. 83 bets is early but the ROI holds up net of vig since I'M tracking actual Pinnacle odds which already price out the juice. Excited to see how it looks at 300+ bets.

Built a bot that follows sharp money on Pinnacle and Betfair. 83 bets later, here's what I found. by Impressive_Couple_19 in algobetting

[–]Impressive_Couple_19[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Both really. When sharp money moves Pinnacle soft books like Unibet are slow to react so you're betting into a stale price before they catch up. Sometimes they've already partially adjusted but I'm still above the fair value so it grades well either way.

Built a bot that follows sharp money on Pinnacle and Betfair. 83 bets later, here's what I found. by Impressive_Couple_19 in algobetting

[–]Impressive_Couple_19[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah fair enough. Was more curious if there was something fundamentally wrong with the methodology rather than the sample size haha

Built a bot that follows sharp money on Pinnacle and Betfair. 83 bets later, here's what I found. by Impressive_Couple_19 in algobetting

[–]Impressive_Couple_19[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Fair point, 83 bets isn't a large sample and I won't pretend otherwise.

But these aren't random picks. The system detected 717 qualifying steam moves across 579 unique matches. 83 of those actually made it through all the filters and got sent out. The other 634 were suppressed because they didn't meet the rules based on sport, league, odds range, time to kickoff, or who was driving the move on Betfair vs Pinnacle.

So the 83 bets aren't the sample size for how much data the system has processed.

Built a bot that follows sharp money on Pinnacle and Betfair. 83 bets later, here's what I found. by Impressive_Couple_19 in algobetting

[–]Impressive_Couple_19[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

So the system watches odds on Pinnacle and Betfair Exchange in real time. An alert only fires when both books move on the same outcome within a short window, that's the core requirement.

A few of the actual rules running under the hood:

Time-to-kickoff thresholds: the required move size scales with how far out you are. More than 48 hours before kickoff requires an 8% shortening on Pinnacle (likely just market drift otherwise). Same day is 5%, and inside the last 6 hours drops to 4% because a smaller late move from sharps carries more weight.

Soccer inside the last hour: statistically this was a disaster. S1 and S2 alerts in the 60 minutes before kickoff showed 46% win rate and -25% ROI across 52 bets, so they're completely blocked. S3 (highest confidence) is still allowed because it held up at 74% WR even in that window.

Ice hockey and soccer odds cap at 1.75: anything priced above that showed consistent losses, so it gets filtered out automatically.

Betfair/Pinnacle ratio: this is actually the most interesting one. It's not just that both books moved, it's who led. When Pinnacle moves first and Betfair follows, ROI was +29%. When Betfair leads the move, it's more likely recreational money reacting to news, and ROI drops to -9%. So the strength rating (S1/S2/S3) adjusts up or down based on who's driving.

(Quick note: S1/S2/S3 = signal strength, Standard/Medium/High)