Creating strategy in V3 takes only few minutes, but fine tuning it to work exactly like you want it to can take some time. We created video tutorial that explains step by step how to create strategy and basic process of creating strategy. If you are new to V3 and this is your first time creating a strategy in V3 then please make sure you watch that video too.
When you click "Add new" button then new form will open where you will enter strategy name and description. At this time you should not use or change any other settings at this "Edit" form. After that you click Save button and strategy gets added to the list of available strategies. Default rules will be added automatically to your strategy when you create it. In most cases you should never remove those rules as they ensure that strategy places bets only when prices are valid.
Your strategy can place bets only if it has at least following information:
- market at which it will bet (Market conditions)
- selection/runner to bet on (Selection conditions)
- bet type (Back or Lay) (Selection conditions)
- price at which bet will be placed (Price settings)
- stake (Staking)
When creating strategy you must add conditions/rules that will give this information to your strategy. Strategy will apply those conditions/rules to downloaded market prices and it will get only few selections for which bet type, price and stake is set. Only at such runners that have all the details set and satisfy all your conditions/rules bets can be placed.
It is important to understand that all rules execute from top to bottom at each rules tab. You can use up/down arrows to change the order of rules. When prices are downloaded strategy will check rules at those tabs in following order:
- Safety rules - those rules will prevent strategy from placing further bets if one of safety rules is not satisfied e.g. max profit/loss exceeded, auto restart required etc.
- After bet rules - those rules execute after initial bet is placed and they are usually used to hedge or trade out your position
- Market conditions - filter markets to bet on
- Selection conditions - filter selections to bet on
- Price settings - set price at which bets should be placed
- Staking - set stake and place initial bet
At Market conditions tab you need to add rules that will tell strategy at which markets to try to bet on. There are many market conditions that you can add here, but most common ones are rules that filter markets by event type (horses/greyhounds/football etc.), market type (win, place, match odds etc.), country (UK, Ireland, Germany etc.), venue (used by racing events mostly e.g. Lingfield, Newcastle, Southwell etc.) and competition (used by football events e.g. English Premier league, Bundesliga, Primera etc.). Those rules will prevent or allow betting on market as a whole, so if one of the rules is not satisfied then market will be skipped.
Selection conditions allow you to filter selections/runners individually and to set bet type (Back or Lay). This is very important, if you set bet type or check price range for wrong selection then strategy will place bets on wrong selections and you could lose your money. Bet type needs to be set ONLY for selection at which you want your strategy to bet on. For example, if you wish to bet on 1st favorite then use "Bet type by favorite" rule and do not use any other bet type rule in this strategy. Common mistake is adding more than one bet type rule, so make sure you do not add more than one bet type rule.
Another important rule is "Min/max selection price" that is checking selection price for min/max price range that you set. Make sure you set this to check same selection for price range for which you have set bet type rule. If you are setting bet type for 1st favorite then set price range rule to check price of 1st favorite for price range.
By default strategy is set to bet at currently available price (Back price for Back bets, Lay price for Lay bets) and this is done by Price settings tab by Price rules rule. This rule is setting price at which bets will be placed and it is best that you do not change it. If you change this rule then it might set different price to bet at than the price that you checked for price range, which could be very dangerous. For example, if you check Back price for price range but set to bet at Lay price, then strategy could be placing bets outside your price range and at very high or very low prices.
Last setting that will finally allow your strategy to place bets is the one that will set bet size. This is done at Staking tab, here you can use level stake or set to use more complex staking, dutching or loss recovery rules. It is always best to use "Level/initial stake" to test your strategy settings and make sure it is picking right selections to bet on. Then once that part is working you can add other staking rules.
By following those above instructions you will be able to create your first strategy to bet on favorite. After that all you need to do is load markets and test this strategy in simulation mode.
Once you understand those basic principals on how strategy works you will be able to add other rules and make it more complex until it works exactly like your desired betting strategy.
