Getting Started Market Position Bet Trigger

[No3wests]

I currently use a commercially available software to trigger bets on the exchange. I invest some time each night putting my bets into an excel and then upload this into the software.

I am looking to distribute these bets to friends and I am looking for advice on how to do this.

Essentially the software I use triggers bets based on number of runners and the market position of a horse at a specific time. Would this be easily replicated in a code that I could put on a website to send emails to friends or to link to commercially available software packages?

What i am looking to do is:

1. Upload my excel into a software or website
2. Software or website interfaces with the exchange
3. Bets are sent in email form or to commercially available software (like betsender)

Note: The only criteria I would like to be met to trigger bets is the number of runners and the market rank of a horse.

I have no real idea how to go about this and all advice is greatly appreciated.

[jabe]

I currently use a commercially available software to trigger bets on the exchange. I invest some time each night putting my bets into an excel and then upload this into the software.

I am looking to distribute these bets to friends and I am looking for advice on how to do this.

Essentially the software I use triggers bets based on number of runners and the market position of a horse at a specific time. Would this be easily replicated in a code that I could put on a website to send emails to friends or to link to commercially available software packages?

What i am looking to do is:

1. Upload my excel into a software or website
2. Software or website interfaces with the exchange
3. Bets are sent in email form or to commercially available software (like betsender)

Note: The only criteria I would like to be met to trigger bets is the number of runners and the market rank of a horse.

I have no real idea how to go about this and all advice is greatly appreciated.

Are you considering a commercial licence?

[No3wests]

Jabe,

Sorry I am not sure what you mean, totally new to all of this but I have done the following.

I have made a request to Betfair to develop an ''interface'' with their software and I have sent enquires to other software tools to do the same.

Is my response useful?

Any other questions/advice please shout up.

[bnl]

Hmm the spec is kind of vauge...

1 - what is the information in the excel-sheet ?
- marketid ?
- spec of algorithm , eg more that 9 runners and back price between 2 and 4

2 - what are the mails supposed to contain?
- info about good candidates for a bet?
- report that a bet is placed ?


My bots have preset algorithms (like the example above) and watches the start of the race, follows the race until end (UK/IRE races only) and places bets if the
right conditions apply.
Is that what you are after ?

/Björn

[No3wests]

Björn

1 - what is the information in the excel-sheet ? - The information is the horse name, race date and race time
- marketid ?
- spec of algorithm , eg more that 9 runners and back price between 2 and 4

2 - what are the mails supposed to contain? If possible the email would contain the horse name, race time and track and the current Betfair odds or just that the horse is a selection
- info about good candidates for a bet?
- report that a bet is placed ?


My bots have preset algorithms (like the example above) and watches the start of the race, follows the race until end (UK/IRE races only) and places bets if the
right conditions apply.
Is that what you are after ? - Inprinciple yes but all bets before the off no inplay bets required.


To expand on my spec.

I look at races the night before where the favourite may win. I upload all horses I feel could win the race, if they go off as the fav, into an excel. This means I want bets to be placed on the horse ranked 1 in the exchange market at a predefined time before the race off (if it is a selection on the excel). If no horses on the excel are market rank 1 at the predefined time no bets are to be placed. My only other criteria is that the number or runners in the race has a low and high limit.

I would like to expand this out so that when the condition is met 'a signal' is sent to interface with other software packages to trigger the bet for other people also and send an email confirming the selection.

I would like to expand this idea of autonomous betting out to other 'systems' I am looking at which use the same idea - excel selections, min and max number of runners in a race, market rank 'x' of selection specifying an odds range of the the selection also.

Does that make sense?

Chris

[bnl]

So basically you'd want

1 server to upload excel files to. (I'd go for Amazon)
On that server - software to

1 - poll for new files
2 - parse the new files
3 - check if it time to query betfair and if so
query betfair for races between some times found i sheet
(say time in sheet - 1 minute to time in sheet + 1 minute)
using listMarketCatalogue

4 - parse the result, looking for specific runner names.
5 - if found query betfair for prices on market containing runner name,
using listMarketBook
6 - mail the result to a mailinglist - or some address(es) found in sheet
7 - place bet if some condition apply with placeOrders
8 - delete/move the file that triggered the action - if all info is used


I see complications with
2 - Parse the files. Excel is perhaps not the best file-format.
Consider save the files in .csv or som other format easier to parse.

6 - Usually sending mail from programs is prohibited. It's way too easy for spammers.
However I do use Amazon, and mail daily result to myself. But I had to go
through some procedures, and limit the number of mails per day and the number of
recipients.

8 - When is a file of no use anymore? I guess when all times + offset
in the file is in the past?

You also need a betfair api-account : that is 299 pounds. per user.
So - not very difficult - but as with all software development -
you need to specify - in detail - what you want.

/Björn

[bnl]

Thinking a bit more of it I'd upload via Excel itself.
Then you won't have to deal with parsing the files.
I'd create a button and have it call a macro with something like

  URL = "http://url/to/a/webserver/that/can/save/data/to/files-or-db"
  Set WebReq = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
  ' call synchronic
  WebReq.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"
  WebReq.setRequestHeader "Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
  WebReq
  WebReq.Open "POST", URL, False
  WebReq.Send ("var1=value1&var2=value2&var3=value3")
  
  If WebReq.Status <> 200 Then
    Debug.Print "code " & WebReq.Status
    Debug.Print "text " & WebReq.statusText
    Exit Sub
  End If

/Björn

[betdynamics]

If all you are looking to do is distribute some selections, then all you need to do is to create a CSV file (you can do this via Excel or Notebook) and then upload the file to a webserver.

Many commercial Betfair bots can download CSV files from a web server and treat the entries as potential selections.

The bot itself would need to be capable of checking the no. of runners and the current market position of the selection. For most bots, this should be standard functionality.

Creating a CSV file is as simple as opening Notebook, entering something like:

27/07/17,15:30,Worcester,Mr Caffrey
27/07/17,16:10,Sandown,Many Waters

and saving the file as "selections.csv".

You could then upload the CSV file to the web server using standard tools (like FTP) or using the web host's file upload tools.

Please note:
This assumes that both the range for the number of runners and the market position of the selection are fixed (for example, place a bet if the no. of runners is between 7 and 11 and the selection is the 3rd fav).

If the no. of runners or market position changes on a selection by selection basis, then this information would also need to be in the CSV file. However, this would rule out the use of most standard commercial bots.