If you want to program your own betting software

[horseysauce]

Here is a horse betting software I programmed myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHxVSKU8oY

If you have any questions about how you can go about programming your own software, let me know.

[Dave Schwartz]

Well, I would certainly be interested.

Please explain.

[traynor]

Here is a horse betting software I programmed myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHxVSKU8oY

If you have any questions about how you can go about programming your own software, let me know.

Great! Is a subscription to DRF required to access the data? Does the data accessed include past performances, or just the entries? Does the application analyze the past performance data and--if so--what criteria are used to make selections?

It is clearly a very nice application for accessing the entries and making wagers, but how are the wagers selected that it makes?

Please PM with price and further details.

[cato]

looks interesting...hope this is not SON OF RACECOM....

[horseysauce]

Dave Schwartz - I wrote the program in Visual Basic 6. I use SQL Server as the database backend. The betting algorithm is something I came up with myself and is all contained in a SQL stored procedure in the database. I will PM you a couple more details, but that is about it.

[horseysauce]

traynor - Yes, the current version of this program reads in data from Daily Racing Form's "Pro Picks" .pdf files. This is a subscription service. I am not sure if DRF still calls it Pro Picks or if they shortened the name to just "Picks", but that is what the program reads.

I don't really have to much handicapping knowledge, so the "decision making" logic is pretty basic. The above "Pro Picks" files lists the last 3 Beyer speed figures for each horse. My application will read those figures, sort them, and do some basic comparison/analysis to decide if something should be bet on or not. So, it basically most of the decision making is based on the Beyer Speed figures as listed on those daily files.

When it has decided that something should be bet, it will automatically log into my betting account and place the bet for me. Later, it will check the results and update the database records.

[horseysauce]

cato - not sure who RACECOM is, so don't know what to say about that...

[podonne]

I wrote one of these as well (the reading from the web and autaomticaly placing the bet part). The problem is that it is very easy for whatever website (you are using to place the bets) to change some minor layout element and stop the software from working. Any product that was sold would have to be updated often and with a fast turnaround, that takes a decent sized team of full-time programmers, and makes it a fairly expensive subscription product. Hard to get that up and running without a serious amount of capital to invest and a large customer base, certainly not one person building a demo as a portfolio item.

No offense intended, I know how much effort it took to pull that together, but no matter how talented the programmer, those are the realities of an ongoing business.

[horseysauce]

podonne - You are right. Changes in the websites that the application is reading will necessitate updates in the application or else things will fail. But, the thing is, I never intended to sell this application anyways - it was always for my own use and the websites I chose to use luckily did not change structure often. You can PM me for more details if you would like.