Anyone tried the Betfair API?

mick mcmahon

Hi,

I've been a member now for almost a month. Made a whopping £8 profit so far

I've worked my way through the training guides and trying to decide if trading is for me.
Before I joined i'd done some match betting and a bit of trading over 2.5 goals (auto cash out-ing)
But I struggle with spare time especially evening when football is generally it on or Saturdays!!

So I'm looking for a almost fire and forget system (I know!) But the cost of being a member here and then a subscription to fairbot/bfbot too gives you a monthly £45 -60 deficit before you start. Which would be probably fine in a year or so when my bank is built and i (hopefully) know what i'm doing and trading with more than £2 stakes.

Anyway - TL;DR
I've had a little play with the API and the example code and managed to place a back and a lay bet on a horse. So was thinking about writing some code for the Daily Betting Angles systems. In theory, it'd be quite easy to check the inplay time and the current score etc - just a bit of work to get the surrounding framework in place to make it useable.

I was wondering if anyone had attempted this before and needed any help (or attempted and decided against it) before I make a start proper on it.

mick mcmahon

@adam You might regret that offer

Adam

And of course feel free to ask questions here as well!

mick mcmahon

@adam Thanks - Very much appreciated

Adam

@mick-mcmahon The Betfair developers' forum is a good place to start: https://forum.developer.betfair.com/

There's a few regular contributors who seem helpful. Neil, who heads up the BF development team, is also helpful.

The API docs aren't too bad either: https://docs.developer.betfair.com/

If you log a ticket with their support, they're actually very helpful and quick to respond through that channel too.

I can't think of much else really; I think when I started, I copied an example I found online in VB .NET at the time, but that is probably long gone now!

mick mcmahon

Thanks @Martin

@Adam Not really poked around all that much, but couldn't see a "current score" field so i'd though keeping an eye on the correct score markets to figure out the current score. But we'll see.

I don't suppose you have any resources bookmaked (aside from the official site)

Adam

All of my trading is currently automated via their API. I've been using it since 2009!

Their latest incarnation, the streaming API, is the nuts to be fair, but it has made things very competitive because of how quickly the prices refresh.

One gotcha for football is that you can't actually get the current score from the API, so if you want to detect when a goal is scored, you need to either use a 3rd party service or write a little "goal detection" algorithm based on the BF API activity (e.g. Market suspended -> wait x seconds for prices to settle -> Check prices of each Correct Score market selection and find lowest scoreline with valid odds).

Martin

@mick-mcmahon @Adam will be a good one to ask on this, I'll tag him