Betdaq Feedback 2024

[Betdaq2024]

Hi. I am Enda Kendrick and my role at Betdaq is Head of Strategy. I have started working at Betdaq late in 2023 and I have over 10 years betting exchange experience and around 15 years experience in the industry. I have started engaging with different user segments and I am happy the team at Gruss have allowed me to engage with all of you.

Some of our engagement in 2024 is highlighted below to show we are serious.

1 - OddsMonkey and Outplayed (Matched Bettors/Arbers) - My experience would be with this segment so this is where I started and we have built up relationships with matched bettors over the last 6 months. This has already had a positive contribution to liquidity on the site.

2 - Twitter - I engage on Twitter as @betdaqenda and all types of customers have shown an interest in using Betdaq.

3 - Trading Tool Users - This seems the next step for Betdaq. We know some of you will already use us but we want to start engaging with you and understanding what we need to do to attract volume.

I would ask that you engage with us and give us feedback about what we can do to attract more Gruss users.

[Tyrobot]

Hi Enda, you get my first post as a new member here (hello everybody). I'm guessing that many Gruss users would want Betdaq Betting Assistant to be upgraded on a par with the Betfair version but don't have any expectations at this stage, especially if they've read through your thread on the Bet Angel forum. I do have a simple tennis query though.

As a tennis trader using automation I probably wouldn't want to go without the live tennis score feeds via Betfair's API. And so I wonder, why isn't this service available from Betdaq? I see that tennis scores are displayed on the Betdaq website - are these not fed through the API because some additional pricey license would be required for that? What's the reason otherwise?

I'm curious because I'd imagine that Betdaq's own feeds would attract a fair amount of interest now that automation is commonplace (more smaller bots around that aren't using both exchanges in tandem). And it just seems like a key feature that presumably wouldn't require a great deal of commitment from a software development standpoint, so a relatively easy way to take the tennis action up a notch (pending the financial viability). Or so goes my thinking.

In any case, I do believe that Betfair's stonking premium charge (not to mention their other corporate shenanigans) continues to do more for Betdaq than any sort of strategy possibly could.

[Betdaq2024]

Hi Enda, you get my first post as a new member here (hello everybody). I'm guessing that many Gruss users would want Betdaq Betting Assistant to be upgraded on a par with the Betfair version but don't have any expectations at this stage, especially if they've read through your thread on the Bet Angel forum. I do have a simple tennis query though.

As a tennis trader using automation I probably wouldn't want to go without the live tennis score feeds via Betfair's API. And so I wonder, why isn't this service available from Betdaq? I see that tennis scores are displayed on the Betdaq website - are these not fed through the API because some additional pricey license would be required for that? What's the reason otherwise?

I'm curious because I'd imagine that Betdaq's own feeds would attract a fair amount of interest now that automation is commonplace (more smaller bots around that aren't using both exchanges in tandem). And it just seems like a key feature that presumably wouldn't require a great deal of commitment from a software development standpoint, so a relatively easy way to take the tennis action up a notch (pending the financial viability). Or so goes my thinking.

In any case, I do believe that Betfair's stonking premium charge (not to mention their other corporate shenanigans) continues to do more for Betdaq than any sort of strategy possibly could.

Well Bet Angel and Gruss are different companies. Gruss are willing to make improvements to the system to help with Betdaq. Bet Angel feels the current version is adequate so I think both threads should be treated differently.

I need to find out the answer to your Tennis query but I will be back with a response.

[Tyrobot]

That's fair enough re the Bet Angel thread - interesting stuff and best of luck with any developments.

Please take my tennis query as a piece of feedback as well. I'm currently planning to test the waters on both exchanges and as things stand I'll need to consider the faff of sticking with Betfair's score feeds if I want to go all-purple. No dealbreaker I suppose, I just thought it could be a step up for Betdaq nonetheless, hence my curiosity.

[HorseT3]

Hi Enda,

Welcome to the forum, great to have someone actively involved from betdaq.

I’ve noticed that I’m having some issues being matched at best prices and wondered if you knew why this might be:

An example, I recently placed bets on a horse at Epsom using gruss that asked for 6 or 7 £5 bets at a minimum 5.9. There was 15 showing in the box and yet I was matched at 11 for all the bets. The 15 (for £44) remained there throughout me placing the bets and for around 4 seconds afterwards, is this a glitch or does betdaq not automatically assign the best price available when a bet is made?

[Deestar]

Hi Enda

Thanks for proactively reaching out. I’ve been using Betdaq since 2016 and as a Higher Rate PC payer over on Betfair I would love to be able to put more volume through it. But instead, I find I actually use it less now than I did in the first few years. A few categories for comment:

API Limits

99.9% of everything I do goes through Gruss and the API. On Betfair I simultaneously run up to 10 market types linked to excel basically 24/7. On Betdaq I struggle to use more than one market at a time before I run into black listing issues. I raised this here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10631&p=53686&hilit=blacklisting#p53686

and with your customer service/API team (both of whom are significantly better than their Betfair counterparts BTW) but have never got a solution. I can’t put more volume through if I can’t run markets to monitor opportunities to place bets. I’ve tried multiple combinations of update speeds to no real avail or to the point where the updating becomes pointless. Can you look at your market limits or invest more in your API infrastructure to handle more requests?

Stream/Polling API and Equal playing Field

Related to the above is the way the API is managed. I understand a Betdaq stream (AAPI?) and a Light Weight Pricing approach is available but only to certain customers. These are not available through Gruss or competitor third party providers as I understand it. This clearly creates a two tier playing field. For all their sins at least at Betfair I can stream their API as fast as anyone else out there. Speed is vital in what I do (and I imagine a lot of traders/punters) getting on at the right price is a competitive business and impediments to that (or others with an advantage that I can’t access) is going to put me off trying. I don’t believe it used to be like that when I first started using your platform. What developments are in place to allow everyone to access a stream?

XSP

The introduction of the XSP was initially a gamechanger for me and the reason I starting using the exchange more. In my approach a reliable pre-race exit point allows me to trade with more confidence. However too often in the past this failed – no XSP was declared, and bets were simply cancelled. It is not perfect at Betfair either, but their failure rate is much lower in my experience and they would actively recreate a BSP if the market failed to suspend. You also have set limits on the amount available to place at XSP which restricts its usefulness and unlike BF you do not allow bets to be placed solely at XSP. Any plans to make improvements/changes to this?

Pricing Ladder

I can’t remember when the price ladder was changed but the inclusion of minor increments does you no favours in my opinion. To me it creates false volume on the ladder that is sitting and waiting to clip the ticket between Betfair ladder movements. It may help your seeded monies but does nothing to attract recreational players. Any thoughts on changing back?

I’m sure there is more but making changes to the above would certainly entice me to look again at what volume I’m willing to put through.

Thanks.

[Betdaq2024]

Hi Enda,

Welcome to the forum, great to have someone actively involved from betdaq.

I’ve noticed that I’m having some issues being matched at best prices and wondered if you knew why this might be:

An example, I recently placed bets on a horse at Epsom using gruss that asked for 6 or 7 £5 bets at a minimum 5.9. There was 15 showing in the box and yet I was matched at 11 for all the bets. The 15 (for £44) remained there throughout me placing the bets and for around 4 seconds afterwards, is this a glitch or does betdaq not automatically assign the best price available when a bet is made?

Sorry for the delay in responding as I was on leave.

We have similar issues reported on Bet Angel. Is it possible for you to DM me your username?

[Betdaq2024]

Hi Enda

Thanks for proactively reaching out. I’ve been using Betdaq since 2016 and as a Higher Rate PC payer over on Betfair I would love to be able to put more volume through it. But instead, I find I actually use it less now than I did in the first few years. A few categories for comment:

API Limits

99.9% of everything I do goes through Gruss and the API. On Betfair I simultaneously run up to 10 market types linked to excel basically 24/7. On Betdaq I struggle to use more than one market at a time before I run into black listing issues. I raised this here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10631&p=53686&hilit=blacklisting#p53686

and with your customer service/API team (both of whom are significantly better than their Betfair counterparts BTW) but have never got a solution. I can’t put more volume through if I can’t run markets to monitor opportunities to place bets. I’ve tried multiple combinations of update speeds to no real avail or to the point where the updating becomes pointless. Can you look at your market limits or invest more in your API infrastructure to handle more requests?

Stream/Polling API and Equal playing Field

Related to the above is the way the API is managed. I understand a Betdaq stream (AAPI?) and a Light Weight Pricing approach is available but only to certain customers. These are not available through Gruss or competitor third party providers as I understand it. This clearly creates a two tier playing field. For all their sins at least at Betfair I can stream their API as fast as anyone else out there. Speed is vital in what I do (and I imagine a lot of traders/punters) getting on at the right price is a competitive business and impediments to that (or others with an advantage that I can’t access) is going to put me off trying. I don’t believe it used to be like that when I first started using your platform. What developments are in place to allow everyone to access a stream?

XSP

The introduction of the XSP was initially a gamechanger for me and the reason I starting using the exchange more. In my approach a reliable pre-race exit point allows me to trade with more confidence. However too often in the past this failed – no XSP was declared, and bets were simply cancelled. It is not perfect at Betfair either, but their failure rate is much lower in my experience and they would actively recreate a BSP if the market failed to suspend. You also have set limits on the amount available to place at XSP which restricts its usefulness and unlike BF you do not allow bets to be placed solely at XSP. Any plans to make improvements/changes to this?

Pricing Ladder

I can’t remember when the price ladder was changed but the inclusion of minor increments does you no favours in my opinion. To me it creates false volume on the ladder that is sitting and waiting to clip the ticket between Betfair ladder movements. It may help your seeded monies but does nothing to attract recreational players. Any thoughts on changing back?

I’m sure there is more but making changes to the above would certainly entice me to look again at what volume I’m willing to put through.

Thanks.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response.

API Limits

This is an obvious problem I just do not have a solution yet. I am working on it to see what we might be able to do.

Streaming API

I think this is something that might be possible through Gruss. We will need to work on it with them. The streaming API is also available to anyone who applies through the website.

XSP

XSP was built in the Entain era and is not a perfect product. It is a house product which is why it operates differently to BSP. If I could start again and rebuild it like BSP I would. I will look into the failures that you discussed.

Pricing Ladder

I need to chat with a few more people about this and I will get back to you with feedback.

[Darkstar]

Would it be possible to have the race type rather than just ............ (Win Market)

I only back in Hcps so would like to be able to automate Gruss to ignore the stakes races ie

14.00 Beverley (5f Nov Stks)

Rather than the current set up

14.00 Beverley (Win Market)

At the moment I have to go through the races and manualy delete the stakes races before I run Gruss

Thanks

[TBMsupport]

I run software (The Bet Machine - TBM) that uses Gruss to place the bets on Betfair/Betdaq. I make use of the COM interface in Gruss that allows direct access to the Betdaq API. This allows users to create their own selection systems or add their own selections and place bets automatically.

Over the last few years the most common issues with Betdaq are -

1) Very occassionally (twice in the last year) for no apparant reason, API limits are reached. This is with Gruss having built in limits that can prevent this happening. I could see how the limits could be breached when multiple instances of Gruss are running but I dont believe any recent users have been running more than one instance. Most recent one was GetPrices where a user breached the 750 requests in a minute. The email sent from the API team to the end user is then quite threatening where you tell them they could be blacklisted. Can you see your end if a user is logged into Gruss ? In which case first port of call might be to email Gruss. Not the end user ?

2) Lack of data in the Betdaq API for Horse Racing. Betfair has the full race name which allows users to filter out specific races.
For instance Betfair market name - "Beverley 15th Aug - 14:00 5f Nov Stks". This allows end users to filter on course, distance and race type. When using Betdaq end users cannot do this. This must apply to all your vendors who use the API ?

3) I haven't checked for a couple of months now but in the past the amount of time before a market is settled is very often faster in Betfair than in Betdaq. This was especially true for place markets. This isn't an issue for my end users when using Horse Racing as we have access to a fast results service however this used to be an issue for Greyhound Racing. (Not checked recently).

4) In the past XSP on low liquidity markets was rarely matched. I cant speak for recent times again, so this may have already been addressed.

This biggest plus for Betdaq is the flat 2% commission fee which for the majority of recreational users is less than Betfair. For any user who has a selection system with a slight edge, 2% over 5% is massive.

[Tyrobot]

As a newcomer I hadn't realized that Betdaq betting apps weren't using a streaming API (makes sense now) so it was useful to get up to speed with the whole thing. The current call limits can also be found here:
https://api.betdaq.com/v2.0/Docs/CallsAndFees.aspx
https://betdaqpro.com/api-new/api-explained/

I'm no expert but my takeaway is that it's only a consideration if you really go in thick and fast, e.g. 2000 GetPrices calls should allow for 6 markets refreshing at 0.2s or 16 at 0.5s. Getting Betdaq BA to run with the streaming API would be awesome but clearly there's a lot involved.

Enda, from your tweet yesterday: "The exchange that listens to customers and gets on the ground to meet them." But 3 weeks ago:

I need to find out the answer to your Tennis query but I will be back with a response.

I suppose it must be a licensing hurdle that's been put on the back burner. But I can't be the only tennis trader who'd appreciate an official word?

[Deestar]

Hi Enda

Thanks for proactively reaching out. I’ve been using Betdaq since 2016 and as a Higher Rate PC payer over on Betfair I would love to be able to put more volume through it. But instead, I find I actually use it less now than I did in the first few years. A few categories for comment:

API Limits

99.9% of everything I do goes through Gruss and the API. On Betfair I simultaneously run up to 10 market types linked to excel basically 24/7. On Betdaq I struggle to use more than one market at a time before I run into black listing issues. I raised this here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10631&p=53686&hilit=blacklisting#p53686

and with your customer service/API team (both of whom are significantly better than their Betfair counterparts BTW) but have never got a solution. I can’t put more volume through if I can’t run markets to monitor opportunities to place bets. I’ve tried multiple combinations of update speeds to no real avail or to the point where the updating becomes pointless. Can you look at your market limits or invest more in your API infrastructure to handle more requests?

Stream/Polling API and Equal playing Field

Related to the above is the way the API is managed. I understand a Betdaq stream (AAPI?) and a Light Weight Pricing approach is available but only to certain customers. These are not available through Gruss or competitor third party providers as I understand it. This clearly creates a two tier playing field. For all their sins at least at Betfair I can stream their API as fast as anyone else out there. Speed is vital in what I do (and I imagine a lot of traders/punters) getting on at the right price is a competitive business and impediments to that (or others with an advantage that I can’t access) is going to put me off trying. I don’t believe it used to be like that when I first started using your platform. What developments are in place to allow everyone to access a stream?

XSP

The introduction of the XSP was initially a gamechanger for me and the reason I starting using the exchange more. In my approach a reliable pre-race exit point allows me to trade with more confidence. However too often in the past this failed – no XSP was declared, and bets were simply cancelled. It is not perfect at Betfair either, but their failure rate is much lower in my experience and they would actively recreate a BSP if the market failed to suspend. You also have set limits on the amount available to place at XSP which restricts its usefulness and unlike BF you do not allow bets to be placed solely at XSP. Any plans to make improvements/changes to this?

Pricing Ladder

I can’t remember when the price ladder was changed but the inclusion of minor increments does you no favours in my opinion. To me it creates false volume on the ladder that is sitting and waiting to clip the ticket between Betfair ladder movements. It may help your seeded monies but does nothing to attract recreational players. Any thoughts on changing back?

I’m sure there is more but making changes to the above would certainly entice me to look again at what volume I’m willing to put through.

Thanks.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response.

API Limits

This is an obvious problem I just do not have a solution yet. I am working on it to see what we might be able to do.

Streaming API

I think this is something that might be possible through Gruss. We will need to work on it with them. The streaming API is also available to anyone who applies through the website.

XSP

XSP was built in the Entain era and is not a perfect product. It is a house product which is why it operates differently to BSP. If I could start again and rebuild it like BSP I would. I will look into the failures that you discussed.

Pricing Ladder

I need to chat with a few more people about this and I will get back to you with feedback.

Thanks for the response. I thought I would have another go at trading this week at York. One issue i forgot about was the minimum bet stake restrictions. I remember getting pulled up for placing bets at less than 50p. So if want to lay a 100-1 shot for £50 to balance/green up a book for example, i cannot. Seems unnecessarily restrictive from a laying side. Could you not look at the liability of the bet as the minimum, not the sake when dealing with lay bets offered into the market.

Thanks

[Deestar]

Here we go again.

Two sheets linked only. One operating at 1 sec refresh, the other at 0.5 sec refresh. That's in the middle of the lead up to the Nunthorpe.

23082024 15:29:08:215: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:09:246: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:10:231: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:11:277: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:12:262: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:13:246: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:14:262: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:15:246: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:16:262: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:17:293: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:18:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:19:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:20:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:21:325: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:22:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:23:340: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:24:340: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades

[GaryRussell]

Here we go again.

Two sheets linked only. One operating at 1 sec refresh, the other at 0.5 sec refresh. That's in the middle of the lead up to the Nunthorpe.

23082024 15:29:08:215: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:09:246: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:10:231: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:11:277: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:12:262: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:13:246: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:14:262: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:15:246: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:16:262: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:17:293: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:18:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:19:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:20:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:21:325: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:22:309: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:23:340: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades
23082024 15:29:24:340: Blacklisted: listSelectionTrades

Can you ask Betdaq to verify how many requests you can make to listSelectionTrades per minute? As you can see in this log it is only making a call every second (60 times per minute).

[Betdaq2024]

I am working on guidelines around these blacklisting issues. If there are any specific questions please list them here.