From Cymatic forum: Lay The Field Spreadsheet
'Laying the field' is a strategy in which you seek to lay more than one horse in-play at a low price (for example 1.6), so that you make a profit whatever the outcome. I'm not claiming that a simple 'Lay The Field' strategy is profitable, it might or might not be, but this spreadsheet is merely intended to demonstrate some of the techniques and principles involved in using Excel and Cymatic together.
Bfexplorer Solution:
After reading that post on Cymatic forum I tried to replicate this strategy by creating bfexplorer bot. In my first test I realized how different could be to implement the same strategy on two different trading platforms for betfair, so cymatic app and my bfexplorer.
Cymatic automation is done through Excel spreadsheet only, so cymatic app feeds market selections data to spreadsheet then Excel recalculates cells formulas and/or executes VBA code when there is such code used in automation code, basically triggering process is done by filling values to dedicated Excel cells, and then in preset refresh rate cymatic app updates cells data, those dedicated cells are read as well, and when set cymatic app places or cancels bets. All this inter-process communication between two apps takes some time, so all Excel based bots fail in reaction time.
Bfexplorer bot is directly executed in the market update procedure, there is no inter-process communication, as the bot code is executed internally, basically bot code is part of bfexplorer code, so speed of execution is incomparable with any Excel automation other betfair apps used.
So my first test, and the same trigger parameters used, almost immediately cancelled triggered execution of placing lay bets.
Simply said, strategy uses two types of triggers, the first one evaluates two favourites and when in allowed odds range, trigger executes lay bet placing at set odds on the favourite. When there are still two such horses in allowed range lay bet is waiting to be matched, when no favourites fulfil this criteria the unmatched lay bet is cancelled, and bot evaluates again the lay bet trigger signal.
When bet placing signal occurs again lay bet is placed, and so on, only one lay bet should be placed per selection, and of course the aim of this strategy is to place as many lay bets as possible, when at least two such bets are matched, and such bets forms dutch bet so with book bigger than 100% placed bets are winning ones, even when selection/horse on which we placed lay bet wins.
The profitability of this strategy depends on luck of identifying a race in which more horses compete two win, so favourites changes and are traded in odds allowing us to form our lay dutch bet.
Why was my bot immediately cancelling all placed lay bets, well simply because my bot was executed a lot of quicker, and so bot reacted this way. What took cymatic automation 500ms or second or more, my bot reacted on market changes in 50ms-150ms, bot saw different market prices.
Therefore I started another project, to record market data and visualize them in charts:
Price History Data Visualization
My short video shows market data for this type of in-play strategy.
And here are data from two races, you can analyze as well: