Beginner set up and first bets

Funny how our results are so different even though you take higher value.

rr

I’m probably also quitting at the end of my subscription as I don’t think my third and last bet365 acc will survive any longer.

You should post a screenshot of your reports. Curious to see which bookie/sports etc you’re betting on the most.




Here my report and settings. I think that are not so strange…I think also that is all about luck: right bet at rigth time

Idk, your settings look fine. Shame that bet365 haven’t given you good results yet. I think its better to turn off afob and try to bet on shorter time frames

With afob turned off, my losses will be bigger (and also negative)

But afob will also limit your profits. you’re essentially betting on being lucky for the first part of your bankroll where your stakes aren’t limited.

What if you lose most of the bets at the beginning with $15-20 stakes but then start to win most of the bets after you’re 40+% through your bankroll and your stakes are limited to $5-$10?
You now have to win more to break even. Just let kelly criterion handle your stake size.

There’s also no profitable member in this forum praising afob.

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Yeah, afob “assumes” you lose every open bet which I think is quite unlogical

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In you opininion, 30% Kelly and 2% max stake are good?

Yeah sounds good. If you want to decrease variance you can lower the max stake to 1.5% or 1%, but that’s up to personal preference

I am not a big fan of low max stake size. You pretty much bet flat stake on bets where the Kelly calculates that, due to odds and value, you should bet more.
I use max stake over 3% and I still need about 100 bets to put the bankroll into play.
Stopped using the AFOB a long time ago…
Funny that @AleciaBe on her blog writes "…While I’m on the subject, always, ALWAYS, keep the “Adjust for open bets” ticked. " I am of the contrary opinion due to the reasons @emilovich and @unqilo explained. There are better ways to manage the bankroll. The support article on RBs support page regarding BR management is actually very good. I employ part of those suggestions in my own BR management.
Bankroll management

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Well written and helpful post.

So is it better to have bigger max stake than 2%? Mathematically and statistically I agree but I am worried putting too much money at risk

Depends what you mean by better. If you for example have stake size of 4% a dry streak could put you to zero really fast, but you could also win alot in a really short time.
But in the long run you’re inevitably going to have streaks where you lose like 20 out of 25 bets, or even worse. The preferred stake is at 1-2% because the risk of losing all your money is very small and you can make significant profit in the long run. It’s best to think of value betting as a long process instead of trying to win alot in a short time

I personally just flat stake and prefer to have nothing less that 100 units of my bankroll open, i go with 1%. Kelly’s superior though.

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A low max stake is going to limit the effectiveness of Kelly as it’ll mean your at max stake more of the time. You could lower your bankroll in settings and increase your max stake percentage so you have a wider range of stakes without increasing your max stake.

Playing without AFOB removed the protection Kelly provides from going bust and will allow you to go on more aggressive streaks (winning and losing). If your bankroll is all the money you have to play with, keep it on. If your willing to ‘rebuy’ after a bust turn it off.

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I use flat stake as well. There are a few other advantages to using flat stakes (in my opinion)

-Account longevity. If you’re using Kelly with low stakes, you’re going to be betting weird numbers like $7 or $13, which might raise red flags for sportsbook sharp detecting software. More likely to fly under the radar if you just go in increments of $5 and raise it to $10 when your bankroll grows to $1000, and then $15 when it gets to $1500, etc.

-Convenience. It’s much easier to start each day knowing how much you’re going to wager on every single bet that day if you’re using flat stakes. For example, I know I’m going to be wagering $20 on every single bet tomorrow. That way, I can just look at the trade feed and focus on the actual bets I’m placing, rather than focusing on the bet AND the stake.

-Kelly Criterion isn’t actually optimal if you’re going to be placing multiple bets simultaneously. If you look up the origin and theory behind Kelly Criterion, one of the assumptions is that you will place one bet and one bet only, and wait for that bet to settle before placing another one (paraphrasing here). Obviously that is not compatible with value betting. I know there is the “afob” filter, but I’m not sure exactly what it does. For those of you interested, there is a method to adjust your Kelly percentage for multiple simultaneous bets placed, but it gets quite complex - it involves listing all possible combinations of outcomes for all of your open bets, and then figuring out your ending bankroll based on each of those four outcomes. This is simple when you only have two open bets, for example, where there is 4 possible outcomes - W/W, W/L, L/W, and L/L. But you can see how the number of combinations increases exponentially as you add more bets. Long story short, Kelly isn’t exactly optimal, and its arguable if it’s even better than flat staking, especially when you don’t truly know your edge (CLV is a good metric, but it’s not perfect, and likely overstated). YMMV

Finally, someone seeing this from my perspective :sweat_smile:. I’m also faster and less error prone(i once staked 400 instead of 40) when flat staking on bet 365 as i can just tick the “remember stake”, that saves a lot of time as i don’t have to input a new stake everytime. Flat stakers are also more camouflaged than kelly stakers. In the end, it’s personal preference.

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You have valid points and Kelly s not optimal but. and that is a big but, Kelly has shown superior yield both in real life and in simulations.
Usually I can immediately see on a risk-prone members results that he/she runs with low odds settings, and low max stake (which breaks the Kelly).
For the account longevity and “flying under the radar”… nah, I do not think that is an effective method. How do we even know that betting company employees are not members in the community?

I use flat stakes as well. It does save alot of time and it’s more practical

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What do you mean by low odds settings?

usually when kelly suggests 13 or 18 I bet 15 or 20