£299 for a live AppKey?

[JayBee]

Someone is trying to tell me that because he is new to Betfair that he has to pay £299 for a live AppKey.

I said he is incorrect and the £299 fee is only for commerical use.

Which one of us is correct?

[betdynamics]

I guess we will have to wait for BDP to give the official answer, but the documentation at https://developer.betfair.com/get-started/ suggests that you now need to pay £299 for a live appkey, regardless of whether you are doing this for personal betting or offering a commercial product.

[JayBee]

You think it might mean a retrospective charge for those of us who had accounts prior to this announcement?

I think such a thing will force many of us back into the arms of the third-party providers, which is something that I am not keen on.

[betdynamics]

I would hope not.

[geoffw123]

Quoting from this page https://developer.betfair.com/exchan...unts-api-demo/

To apply for a Live Application key please click here and select Exchange API > For My Personal Betting and complete the application form at the bottom of the page. A one-off activation fee of £299 applies; this is debited directly from your Betfair account once access is approved

That seems pretty unambiguous to me, they are now charging everyone £299 for the "privilege" of just getting a key.

Where was the announcement of this charge/policy change on the Announcements forum ? If I am reading this correctly I think its pretty outrageous they expect a single developer writing something for their own use to stump up 300 quid for a key.

I mean its not like they don't make enough money out of us in the first place.

To say I am disappointed by this discovery is an understatement! I guess I was being naïve and not expecting Betfair to be that greedy. If this is true then it will largely kill off lone developers experimenting with simple Apps for their own personal use.

I had meant to go and read up on the Betdaq's API, just hadn't got around to it. This post has now motivated me to go and do that right away.

P.S
It would be very useful if we get some sort of official response from Betfair on this thread please. The more people read this thread I think you will be getting quite a few hacked off Developers responding here ! Personally speaking I have already got a key, but that's not the point, its the principle of it that is very disappointing.

Geoff

[doctormike]

App Key fee

This is a significant issue - Betfair, can we have clarification on this: Is it retrospective? For commercial users only? When to be implemented?
Regards, Mike

[BetfairDeveloperProgram]

Hi All,

We have recently introduced an application process for new customers who'd like to use the Betfair API for betting. This is to prevent unlicensed commercial use of the API.

The application process does not affect active customers who are currently using the API (personal customers or Vendors), nor will there be any retrospective charge applied to active customers.

New customers who create a new Application Key are able to use the API with a Delayed Key (which by default now allows betting operations for new API customers) but need to apply and be approved for Live App Key API access before paying the £299 one off fee.

The Delayed App Key has always been intended for use by customers for development purposes and functional testing.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Neil

[geoffw123]

Hello Neil

Thanks for the prompt response, I appreciate you are probably in an awkward position replying to this thread, you have to spout the official company policy here.

We have recently introduced an application process for new customers who'd like to use the Betfair API for betting. This is to prevent unlicensed commercial use of the API.

You can already shut down unlicensed commercial use of the API by blacklisting any App. keys that you discover are contravening your terms of use. Problem solved in 5 seconds. Introducing a charge of £299 for an App. Key is clearly not for technical reasons, but for commercial reasons.

The application process does not affect active customers who are currently using the API (personal customers or Vendors), nor will there be any retrospective charge applied to active customers.

Yes, I had realised at least you can't apply this retrospectively, I am not a legal expert but under English law that would almost certainly be illegal.

This is a really bad move by Betfair, the big players BetAngel, Geeks Toy etc, etc must think it is a terrific move however.In a stroke it will remove all us little guys from the market. No one is going to pay 300 quid up front to allow them to make some simple App for their own personal use.

I hope you get tons of feedback of similar nature to mine, maybe Betfair management will reconsider their decision if you get sufficient complaints from similarly hacked off Developers.

Geoff

[JayBee]

Good reply and more eloquent than I could have said.

Essentially, we are the lucky few. A few that will dwindle in size as people find other things to do, decide that sports trading is not for us or just plain pass-away.

I would never have paid £299 and I can assume that most casual users wouldn't either. There must be many among us, who are programmers and thought it would make an interesting project. For some it has become more.

In effect this act kills API-NG for amateurs and leaves the playing field clear for the third-party commercial developers.

As you say, it is a simple task to identify rogue AppKeys and deny access.

Hello Neil

Thanks for the prompt response, I appreciate you are probably in an awkward position replying to this thread, you have to spout the official company policy here.



You can already shut down unlicensed commercial use of the API by blacklisting any App. keys that you discover are contravening your terms of use. Problem solved in 5 seconds. Introducing a charge of £299 for an App. Key is clearly not for technical reasons, but for commercial reasons.


Yes, I had realised at least you can't apply this retrospectively, I am not a legal expert but under English law that would almost certainly be illegal.

This is a really bad move by Betfair, the big players BetAngel, Geeks Toy etc, etc must think it is a terrific move however.In a stroke it will remove all us little guys from the market. No one is going to pay 300 quid up front to allow them to make some simple App for their own personal use.

I hope you get tons of feedback of similar nature to mine, maybe Betfair management will reconsider their decision if you get sufficient complaints from similarly hacked off Developers.

Geoff

[AlgoTrader]

I think £299 payment is not a big deal for UK but it is quite a lot for not so rich countries. I think, the price should not be so high. There are lots of amateurs, why to wipe them out?

PS I am in lucky veterans league who got key before this change

[JayBee]

I don't think an amateur would play a game knowing they were £299 down from the very beginning.

I think £299 payment is not a big deal for UK but it is quite a lot for not so rich countries. I think, the price should not be so high. There are lots of amateurs, why to wipe them out?

PS I am in lucky veterans league who got key before this change

[LiamP]

What an idiotic decision.

[Nick JD]

Seems counterproductive on first thought, but it often occurs to me when I hear corporate decisions that initially appear irrational that it's my ignorance of the entire situation that prevents me from understanding the reasons for the change.

Who knows why. Maybe it's a disincentive for users who come from less-wealthy places who consume a lot of BF's bandwidth while providing very little commission or turnover.

BF would make a tiny fraction of its profits from selling app keys compared to commission, so it might well be a disincentive program. Or, they might have looked at their books and discovered that 99 out of 100 people who give BF bot writing a go don't stay, or generate much commission. Doesn't say much about developers' chances of generating a net profit though, if this is the case...

As with the commission charge changes a few years ago, it's quite amazing how roughly you can treat a customer when you have a monopoly and the customer has $ signs in their eyes .

Let's face it though, if you have a system or three running long-term positive, 299 quid is chicken feed. However, I fear this is a very small minority of BF customers; most people probably generate thousands and thousands in commission while leaving with $0 -- the perfect customer!

[jabe]

............

[DivideByZeroError]

Very interesting to see this appear after a statement a while ago about not charging for API use in the foreseeable future. I appreciate that technically charging for an API key is very different from charging an annual/monthly access fee but it's still a financial barrier to entry. And as already pointed out it tends to impact the small players (hobbyist?) developers most significantly.

Overall, the new API is much easier to use, so if you priced in the time to get up and running it probably doesn't look so bad. Plus, the previous API had a two-tier system with a fairly hefty annual fee for full access (£2k if I remember correctly) so again, the situation is much better than it was previously.

So I think there has been a bit of a failure to communicate very well. Finding out about the charge tucked away in small print and from friends is bad form. BDP could have easily made a more public announcement, and given advance notice of the charge being introduced so that people who were thinking about diving in could get in before the charge. They could also make it a charge that is refunded if you hit a threshold level of commission paid, so that people who are seriously thinking about trading for a year or so know that they will recover it eventually.

The reason of using it to prevent unlicensed software seems a bit of a blunt tool. If there are unlicensed vendors selling their app as SaaS then Betfair could probably spot them pretty easily by seeing multiple accounts accessing from the same IP address. If however, an unlicensed vendor is selling their app for people to install/run locally then it's pretty difficult for Betfair to intervene and I'm guessing that these are the guys that Betfair are after. I'm also going to guess that it has only become an issue because of strange trading patterns or customer complaints.

Could this be related to the recent resurgence of people laying 1p at odds of less than 1.50 and stealing pennies due to rounding? I hope so, as it would be great to tackle that.