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Excel Triggered Betting

Betting Assistant includes an interface to Microsoft Excel to enable you to analyse prices and place bets using triggers from an Excel spreadsheet.

We will only explain how to set up the link and which triggers are available and what they do, but we cannot teach you how to use Excel therefore you will need to learn how to use Excel first before attempting to use this feature.

So to use this feature you will need Microsoft Excel installed on your computer.
The feature supports Excel 2003 upwards. If you have Excel 2010 "Click to run" version, please read 1. in the Knowledgebase.

First open a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which can be a brand new workbook or one that you have previously worked on and then click 'Log Current Prices' from the Excel menu on the Menu Bar.

The following popup will then display:-

Select the required workbook and worksheet name using the drop down lists.

Select the "Top left hand cell" to log the data from, e.g. if you select A1 then columns A through to X will be used to display the Betfair data assuming that you haven't chosen to append any of the optional data columns.
If you have chosen any of the additional columns then these will appear in column Y onwards. Please note that to use the additional columns "Enable triggered betting" must be ticked.
The first 4 rows are used for header data followed by the market selections.
Assuming A1 has been selected as "Top left hand cell" then Betting Assistant will populate the following cells as follows:-

Cell        Description Notes

A1
Market Name

F1
Full Market Path

I1
Flag to indicate if Betfair SP is accepted Y=Yes, N=No

B2
Date Betting Assistant last updated the spreadsheet Cell may need formatting as a date

C2
Time Betting Assistant last updated the spreadsheet Cell may need formatting as a time

D2
Time until official start of the market Cell may need formatting as a time

E2
Market status "In Play" or "Not In Play"

I2
Account balance Optional

J2
Updates account balance and exposure See Special Trigger Cells

L2
Exposure Optional

N2
Number of transactions in the hour See Transaction Charges for more details

Q2
Controls Refresh Rate, Quick Pick Loading, Bet Results sheet See Special Trigger Cells

B3
Total amount matched

E3
Number of winners paid out on

G3
Number of non runners Applies to horse racing and greyhound racing

I3
Flag to indicate if market allows 'In Play' betting Y=Yes, N=No

J3
Quick Pick List position indicator F= First, L=Last, number=remaining number of markets in the list

L3
Betfair imposed delay for "In play" markets (in seconds) 0 when not in play, between 1 and 9 for "In Play" markets

N3
Betfair Market ID

P3
Your Commission rate

And from row 5 the following columns will be populated per selection as follows:-

Column Description Notes

A Selction name Column may need formatting as text

B Best back odds 3

C Amount available at back odds 3

D Best back odds 2

E Amount available at back odds 2

F Best back odds 1

G Amount available at back odds 1

H Best lay odds 1

I Amount available at lay odds 1

J Best lay odds 2

K Amount available at lay odds 2

L Best lay odds 3

M Amount available at lay odds 3

N Reduction factor Applicable to horse racing only

O Last price matched

P Total amount matched for the selction

Q Trigger See Triggers

R Bet Odds Must be populated before trigger

S Bet Stake Must be populated before trigger

T Bet Reference As returned by Betfair

U Time Bet was accepted by Betfair

V Average matched odds

W Matched stake

X Profit / loss for selection

If your workbook does not appear in the dropdown box the try clicking on the 'Kill all Excel porocesses' button but please be aware that this will close all instances of Excel.
After using this option click the 'Cancel' button and try again.

Tick 'Enable triggered betting' if you wish to place bets from Excel and/or you want to use any of the additional columns.

Tick 'Show balance' if you want your account balance and exposure to be displayed in Excel.

Tick 'Log bet results' to record your bet results in a separate worksheet (see Logging Bet Results).

Tick 'Log current bets' to record bets triggered from Excel to a separate worksheet (see Logging Current Bets).

Set your triggered betting options which are as follows:-
You can choose to have the CLEAR trigger clear the matched odds.
You can choose to have your bet refs cleared when markets are auto selected.
You can choose to have your bet refs cleared when markets are manually selected.
If you use the UPDATE trigger there also on option to append N to the the new bet ref.

There are optional additional columns of data that you can have included in your worksheet and these will occupy columns starting from column Y if you chose column A as your first column to log the data to.
A number of these additional data columns relate to horse racing so if you are logging a different sport then the columns will be blank apart from the header cell.

Click OK to start logging.

Once the logging has started the link to Betfair is as follows:-

The Excel spreadsheet is updated with the Betfair data in real time at the same refresh rate that you have set in Betting Assistant.

On each refresh the Betfair data is updated in the spreadsheet and the trigger column and special trigger cells are read which Betting Assistant then interprets and takes the appropriate action.

It is important to note that the spreadsheet cannot be read or updated if a cell is being edited or if any VBA code is running in which case Betting Assistant has to wait until the spreadsheet is available again.

To stop logging to Excel click on 'Log Current Prices' again.