BetGrail - Sports betting software for Betfair

Today we would like to show you how to schedule Betfair market recording.

You know how to record market prices from our previous Tutorial 6: First steps to record Betfair prices. Now it would be great to schedule this procedure. For instance, you may want to setup schedule and go out to do your day work or anything else.

To schedule the scanning first of all you need to load markets you would like to record into the BetMarket Scanner. You can setup all the market scanning options as you did before. There are two main controls for recording schedule. It is ‘Log Schedule’ checkbox and the field with date and time right to the checkbox. First, choose the date and time when you want to start market recording. Then check ‘Log Schedule’ checkbox to let BetMarket Scanner know that you want to enable schedule.

That’s all. Now at scheduled time the software will automatically start recording. The recording will be stopped when market is closed.

There are also advanced options on the Preference dialog for scheduling. You can choose default schedule time which will be automatically assigned to the newly opened market. For example, you can choose ‘N seconds after In-Play’ and -300 as ‘N seconds’. This means that all opened markets will have schedule time as 5 minutes before In-Play.

Please, feel free to contact us for any clarification, if you feel confused with schedule of Betfair market recording.

You can find BetMarket Scanner and our other software for Betfair here.

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.

Hi,

We have questions from our users about the format of the saved Excel spreadsheet. Today we would like to clarify this issue and give more detailed descriptions for all Betfair data fields which you can record using BetMarket Scanner. 

Below you can see a small screenshot which illustrates the data from the saved Excel spreadsheet. It’s just a piece of all information, but it gives a view of the format.

First row is the header of each column. All other rows below are showing selections in different moments of time. If you have 10 selections, they will be repeating - each time 10 rows for some particular moment. The exact time of this moment you can find in the first column called Date/Time. 

Here are descriptions for all columns:

1) Date/Time
The date and time when this row was recorded.

2) Market Id
The internal unique indemnificatory of the Betfair market (event) which can be used to reference a market. 

3) Market Name
The textual name of the market.

4) Matched Amount
The amount of money of all matched bets in the market. 

5) Currency
GBP, USD, EUR, etc

6) Back Book Percentage & Lay Book Percentage
Values which you can see at top in the Betfair market interface. They are calculated from formula:
Percentage = 100 / Runner1Price + 100 / Runner2Price + 100 / Runner3Price 

7) Is In-Play
Whether this market In-Play now or not

8) Selection Name
The name of the selection (ruunner) 

9) Selection Id
The internal unique Betfair identificator for a selection. Can be used to reference selections.

10) Back Price 1, Back Price 2, Back Price 3
'Back' prices (the best price is Back Price 3)

11) Lay Price 1, Lay Price 2, Lay Price 3
'Lay' prices (the best price is Lay Price 1) 

12) Back Amount and Lay Amount
Amounts offered to bet at respective prices

13) SP
'Spread' - the difference in ticks between back and lay prices. The size of the tick is different for particular price range. Say, for range of 1.01 - 1.99 the tick is 0.01, for 2.00 - 5.00 is 0.02, etc.

14) WoM Ratio
Weight of money ratio = (BackAmount1 + BackAmount2 + BackAmount3) / (LayAmount1 + LayAmount2 + LayAmount3)

15) WoM Difference
Weight of money difference = (BackAmount1 + BackAmount2 + BackAmount3) - LayAmount1 + LayAmount2 + LayAmount3)

16) Matched
The amount of money of matched bets for a given selection

17) %Matched
The percentage of matched money for a given selection comparing with matched amount for whole market.

18) New Traded
The amount of money were matched for a given selection since the last refresh

19) Trade Ratio
Trade Ratio = Sum of all matched 'Back' bets divided to Sum of all matched 'Lay' bets

20) Back Trade EMA, Lay Trade EMA
The exponential moving average of the amount of matched bets over the last 19 refreshes (for Back and Lay bets respectively).

21) Last Price Matched
The price at which last taken bet was matched for a given selection.

22) Reduction Factor
Quoted from Betfair:
For our horseracing markets we guard against possible non-runners with a system of Reduction Factors (similar to Rule 4 with traditional bookmakers). Each horse is allocated a Reduction Factor, based on its likely chance of winning the race. Should a horse be declared a non-runner, the Reduction Factor will be applied to the prices of all matched bets, for both backers and layers. This is to ensure that layers are not unfairly treated and exposed to large liabilities when the chances of other horses winning have improved. The Reduction Factors are designed to be fair to both backers and layers.

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.

Hi, 

Today we would like to share some basic steps how you can record Betfair prices using BetMarket Scanner.

First you need to download and install this software (BetMarket Scanner). It looks like on the next image.

After you have this software, run it – you will see the main window. To open a market, click Market button. It will open the market tree dialog. To open more than one market, use New Tab and Close Tab buttons. They will create new tabs where you can open different markets.

Now you can see the market and how prices are updating. In the Log File field the application displays the log filename where all market data will be saved. You can use either market id or market name as a log filename. Also you can change it to any different using Select button.

To start the record click Record button. It will turn to Red color which means you are recording the market.

To stop the recording simply click Stop button. The recording will be automatically finished if the market is closed.
Now you can open your recorded spreadsheet in Excel. You will see something similar to the next image.

It is just a small piece of the all information available. Here is a complete list of the columns: Date and Time, Market Id, Market Name, Matched Amount, Currency, Back and Lay Book Percentage, In-Play indicator, Selection Id, Selection Name, Selection Prices and Amounts, Spread, WoM Ratio and Difference, Selection Matched Amount and Percentage, New Trade, Trade Ratio, EMA for Back and Lay Trades, Last Price Matched, Reduction Factor.

Next time we will describe how you can schedule the market recording.

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.

How to predict price movements? When back and when lay? All these are critical questions for successful trader. To trade on Betfair you need some more information than offers ordinary betting book. In actuality you need to know more than other traders to be one step forward. In the BetMarket Trader we decided to add unique market indicators which can help you to predict market trends. These market indicators are also included in our Betfair statistics collecting software.

“WoM” is a wide known but still useful indicator. It shows a ratio and difference in offered amounts to back and to lay. When this difference is negative, i.e. there are more on the lay side than on the back side, it means that prices more likely will be shortening. And otherwise if WoM is positive they will be getting longer. To help you to choose the bet type WoM changes its color either to blue (Back) or pink (Lay).

“Matched” is an amount of money which was matched for a given selection. Bellow you can see also a matched percentage comparing to whole matched amount for the event. It can help you to find the most popular trading selection.

“New” displays the amount of the last matched bet on the market. You can see a type of this bet as well. If it was Back the top side of New will be blue, otherwise pink. This indicator is good to see when market players do frequent big stakes which can mean a change in the price movement direction. Bottom part of this indicator shows the ration in back and lay matched bets for the time you are watching this market.

“EMA” shows an exponential moving average for Lay and Back bets on the market. The top part shows an average back stake and bottom shows an average lay liability. You can control the EMA period on the Settings page (by default it is 19).

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.

Today we will show how to use BetMarket Trader when the event In-Play.

Resubmit feature makes it possible to resubmit all unmatched bets which were canceled when the event was suspended. The application remembers all your unmatched bets and automatically offers them once the event goes In-Play. It is good if you don’t want to manually resubmit your bets which were unmatched. Also some traders have they own betting strategies which are based on the fast In-Play bets submission. One more remarkable feature is that you are able to place and cancel your bets even in ‘Suspended’ period. So you have an extra time to manage your bets.

Please, note that the application resubmits only the bets from the currently opened market! If you want to resubmit bets for multiple markets you need to run multiple instances of the application, one per market.

Another helpful feature is so called ‘Preset Prices’. You can setup your own back and lay price (one price for back and one for lay). They are seen as fourth columns with prices in your book. Say, you want to be sure that your Back bets will always be matched. You can set the Back preset price to 1.01 and use it when the prices move very fast. Your bets will always be matched at the best odds available. The same is right for Lay bets if you are using Lay preset price with high odds, for instance, 20. To setup your preset price, right click on the fourth price column and you will see an input box. Fill it with your price and it is ready to use.

The last feature we will tell you today is Lay All button. This button lays all the selections at the selected price. However you should be careful with it because it will offers all bets immediately, regardless from such settings as Confirm Bets.

The next tutorial will be about the market indicators.

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.

Today we will explain what is ‘Smart Bets’ and ‘Betting on the edge’ and how you can use these features to successfully trade with BetMarket Trader.

 

Smart Bets is an option which gives you an ability to automatically compute the stake amount for the trading bet. Using Smart Bets feature you can create a Win/Win trading situation where you are making a profit regardless from the event result. How it is possible? When you are in Trading Mode (to learn more about this read our Trading Tutorial) the application places a trading bet for you after your first bet. Enabling Smart Bets option you force the application to analyse the difference in prices between two bets and automatically calculate a stake for the trading bet. By default the application spreads your profit between lose and win in equal parts. However you can setup it to get profit of, say, 70% if the selection won and 30% if it lost. You can control this parameter (win percentage) in the Settings dialog which you can see bellow. Take a look at Win Percentage input box.

What percentage you should use? Well, it is up to you and depends from your trading style. Some traders prefer to create a maximum profit if the traded horse won and others like to be sure that they will be in profit no matter which selection won.

Now lets talk about another useful feature, Swap function. When it is enabled the application will place a Lay bet if you’ve clicked at Back cell of the book and vise versa. This gives you an ability to use prices of the different bet types and bet faster. Let suppose we have a situation when Back price is 1.65 and Lay price is 1.66. You want to place a Back bet at 1.66. Without Swap feature you would need to enable Confirm Bets function, then click on 1.65 Back cell, adjust your price to 1.66 and click Confirm button. All this is time consuming. However you can simply enable Swap function and click and 1.66. And that is all, your bet will be offered to the market. This feature also makes it possible to use so called ‘Betting on the edge’ trading technique when you are placing Back bets at lay prices and Lay bets at back prices.

In the next tutorial we will show you how to use BetMarket Trader for In-Play betting.

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.

Today we would like to explain some elements of the BetMarket Trader interface and how you can adapt them for trading. We will try to describe in details all steps and show you how to make the software work most effectively.

To start, run BetMarket Trader. Bellow you can see the screenshot of the main window.

Lets start from the top-left corner. You can see two fields there: Back Stake and Lay Stake. They are drop-down lists with preset back and lay amounts. The software will use the selected amount as a stake for bets when you click on one of the table's cells. Take a look at 'As Stake' button. When it is enabled (has a green color) it means that the amount in the Lay Stake field will be used as an actual amount of the stake. However if it is disabled, it forces the software to use an amount in the Lay Stake as a stake liability. In other words, before placing a bet, application will automatically calculate a stake from the liability using formula stake = liability / (price - 1). This gives you an option to choose an amount which you are willing to risk laying a selection.

The next input field is Offset. To the right from Offset you can see OFF button. These two elements are related to so called 'Trading mode' of the application. OFF means that trading mode is disabled. To enable it on, simply click that button. When the application is in the Trading mode, it automatically offers a trading bet (also called arbitraging bet) which is opposite to the one you have offered last time. 'Opposite' means a Lay bet if the first bet was Back and Back bet if the first was Lay. Offering a trading bet the application uses a figure in the Offset field to calculate a bet price. The Offset specifies the difference between prices of the first bet and trading bet in ticks. To make it all clearer lets look at the next example. Say, you have Trading mode enabled, Offset is 3 and you want to trade on some selection. You are backing it at 1.80 clicking on the respective cell of the book. Now the application takes its part. Once your bet at 1.80 is matched, the application automatically offers a trading Lay bet for you at 1.80 - 3 ticks, i.e. at 1.77. You are making profit from the difference in prices (of course if both bets are matched). The more difference, the more you are making.

There are two options for trading bets. The trading bet can be offered either after the first bet was matched or immediately after you've placed the first bet. You can control this option using 'Consequent' button. When it is enabled the application waits until the first bet is fully matched before offering the trading bet. Which option you should use? Well, in most cases you will want to leave 'Consequent' button enabled. We would recommend having it enabled for beginners. However if you want to trade regardless from which bet (Back or Lay) is matched first, you can disable 'Consequent' button.

The last thing we would like to tell you today is the bets confirmation option. You can control it by 'Confirm Bets' button. By default it is enabled and we recommend leaving it enabled until you will feel yourself familiar with BetMarket Trader. Every time you are making a bet you will see the bets confirmation dialog which is illustrated bellow. It displays all bet details including a stake amount, price, profit and liability. You are able to adjust your stake and price before confirming the bet. Also you can cancel the bet simply clicking 'Cancel' button.

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.

We are starting the series of tutorials to make it easier to start with our products for beginners. Today we would like to tell the basic steps which you need to know to successfully use our software.

1. Once you have opened BetMarket Trader, you need to configure your Betfair account to get started. To do that, open Settings dialog, selecting 'Settings' from the main menu.

2. You will see Settings dialog where you need to input your Betfair account details. If you are using a proxy for your connection, don�t forget to setup it at the same page. Click OK button and close the dialog.

3. Now you are ready to view markets. Select 'Market' item from the main menu. You will see Select Market dialog which is shown bellow. Navigate through the market tree to find an event. Select it and press OK.

4. Now you can see the market prices and other details.

You can download all our software for free here: http://www.betgrail.com/download.htm. Happy betting!

Betfair betting software - Software tools for Betfair trading, arbitraging and statistics.