Help a Newbie - Set and Leave Multiple Markets

[nick30uk]

Hi all,

Hoping someone can help a newbie currently on a trial of the software achieve what I am trying to do.

In summary, on any days horse racing, I select specific races (anything between 3 and 15 races on a particular day) and have 3 selections, with a 4th to replace any non-runners or a low price from the original 3.

What I am trying to achieve is a way that I can load up my specific races I have chosen, preferably on the night before or early morning on the day. I would then like to be able to link these specific races to an Excel sheet listing all the runners and use triggered betting on my selections if the horses meet a price criteria at 1 minute before the off. I would like to be able to do this in a 'set and forget' way so I can leave it running for the day whilst at work.

I think I have my formulas sorted, but in short, I am trying to do the following:

1. Select my target races in GBA and link to Excel well in advance of the start of racing
2. Select my 3 selections and 4th by listing 1-4 on the respective column and row the horse is on in Excel
3. Formulas to check price, any non-runner and place bets if odds are >= 6.00
4. Any horse not meeting that criteria, a bet gets placed on 4th selection assuming odds are >= 6.00
5. All done 1 min before the off


As a newbie, I am struggling to identify the best way to set up the spreadsheet and link to GBA in a way that is well structured that will enable me to place the bets quickly on a daily basis and will not impact data count / charges if I have say 15 markets loaded in a sheet.

Any pointers, suggestions, ideas etc on the best way I could do this would be massively appreciated.

Many thanks,
Nick

[crocogotter]

There are numerous ways you could go about this, some probably way more efficient than others, but I used to do something similar without using VBA (which I haven't figured out yet), just simple Excel formulas.

You can easily select the races you want using BA, and get them to load at 1 minute to the off using "Market > Auto Select Markets > At Specific Time before Off" and setting it at 1.

For your actual selections, I would create a list of all selections for the day, then use something like COUNTIF to check if a runner in any particular race is one of your selections. Thus, in a qualifying race, your 3 possible selections could be highlighted, with a reserve highlighted off a separate list. Then simply use "If" functions to see if your selections meet your criteria, bringing in your reserve if you don't end up with 3 acceptable qualifying horses. All this can be done simply with a bit of logic and playing around with a spreadsheet even if you've little previous experience. You can create quite complex just with the "If" function and simple things like > , < , = etc.

[crocogotter]

Given I don't know how familiar you are with Excel, perhaps I should explain my previous post a little.

When you link a spreadsheet to BA, BA will copy various details onto your spreadsheet automatically when the market loads (at 1 minute to the off, as set up as I explained above). In column A, from A5 downwards, will be the list of runners for the race. If you work on the basis of a maximum of 30 runners in a race (you can set it up for more if you like, but assume it's 30 from this point on), then you potentially could have a runner or a blank cell in cells A5 down to A34.

You can then move to the right of the spreadsheet, beyond the cells that BA loads information into, and do your stuff. Create a list of your first choice selections in (for instance) column AE, from AE5 down as far as you need to, and likewise a list of your reserves in column AF. You can then use IF and COUNTIF to give you a column with a 1 if your selection is running in this race, or a 0 if it isn't. So, you should end up with a column with 3 1s and 27 0s for your main selections (assuming no non-runners) and a column with a single 1 and 29 0s for your reserve runner. You can then create another column with an IF function to return a 1 if the odds are greater than 5.99 (returning 0 if the odds are lower), and so you can then multiply the 2 columns together to provide a 1 if the selected horse has odds greater than 5.99 setting up a trigger to back the horse if the value is 1. By using SUM to add up the contents of this column (again, with up to 30 horses, it will be 30 numbers, most of which will be 0, with up to 3 1s). If this sum is less than 3, you can then set up a trigger for your reserve runner.

This is a very simple and probably inelegant way of producing the result you want, but I managed to get it to work based only on a bit of logic and a bit of searching on the internet for appropriate functions (such as COUNTIF) to produce the outcome I wanted.

Hope this helps, half the fun, imo, of BA is messing around with spreadsheets to get them to do what you want.

[nick30uk]

Thanks for this Crocogotter - I've spend the last few days playing around with it all and think I am pretty much where I want it to be.

I used the Place Bets Excel template that is shared on here and modified that quite a bit. So now, I just paste all of my horses in the Selections tab and the main sheet picks them up when a match.

I then used your suggestion of 1s and 0s to mark 1-3 and 4th selections to then link to a trigger to fire off the bets.

Thanks again
Nick