Betfair Troubles

[mauqqq]

Hi all!

I have developed several very profitable strategies for various markets on betfair. Because of the transaction charges I can't run them on just my account. So I used other peoples accounts and charged them a commission.

Betfair eventually noticed that I was operating a number of accounts from my IP address. Not that I was trying to hide anything, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. They closed all the accounts involved and charged me a premium charge as if they were 1 account. Their argument was that it was 1 system, as no account was betting on the same market.

Now that is true, but is that really against their terms and conditions? I could have coded it so that the accounts bet on the same market, but shared the information (1 account placed bets on horses 1-5, another account bet on horses 6-10, then use the combined profit/loss to determine my profit) then I would say that is definately breaking their terms and conditions as its distributing the number of bets between accounts. The way I had it, I distributed the markets between accounts, there was no sharing of information between them.

In any case, as I had all the different strategies running on the different accounts, by this I mean 1 account could be betting on a horse race and a football match (2 different strategies) and lots more.... I decided to change it so that each strategy would use only 1 account. So 1 account could be betting on english horses, 1 account could be betting on football matches, another on american horses etc. These accounts won't be betting on the same markets, theyre different strategies. I even got people to host the software themselves - so basically I'm licensing out my software now.

I thought this would satisfy them, but it appears not as my account's been suspended yet again along with the other accounts involved. I can only presume they were looking out for my program's presence on peoples accounts, because there's no other way of linking my account with theirs.

I can't see what I'm doing wrong here, why they keep suspending the accounts my programs are run on. They haven't yet give me a reason why my account has been suspended this time, nor to the other people involved.

Can anyone see where I'm going wrong. These systems are making quite alot of money, so I'm not just gonna give them up. If they don't like me running them on my own account then theres nothing stopping other people running them surely?


What do people think?

[doris_day]

I feel for you but there is a simple way round. Use each account from a separate IP address. Rent a few dedicated servers. If you're making good money then the small price for each server shouldn't affect your overall profitability.
Use RDC to connect to the servers and they'll never connect the accounts. Simples.

[doris_day]

Simples ?

Well now that I read it more carefully, not so simples !!

Convert your software to a non-API version so they wont be able to trace it. Or do you need the data only the API can give you ?

[doris_day]

Also, it does depend on the strategy you're employing. If you're one of those mutherFG%%4££3s that lay at 1.49 for 0.01p then Betfair are quite right in what they're doing but if you have a legimate strategy thats not taking advantage in some underhand way, then I'm sure we can find a way round the mutherf%%$$ing PC.

[milfor]

I am not fond of the premium charge but I think that the transaction charge is justified. Your strategy seems to be very transaction consuming so you have distributed it to different accounts and IP addresses to use more than 1000 transactions per hour. I can understand that they don't like that because it outsmarts the transaction charge and nullifies its goal that not one single strategy should use an exaggerated part of their resources.

Find out in which hour which 1000 transactions bring the most profit and leave out the other ones. Otherwise they will ban your accounts/IPs/strategy completely forever (if that hasn't happened already).

[Captain Sensible]

Can anyone see where I'm going wrong. These systems are making quite alot of money, so I'm not just gonna give them up. If they don't like me running them on my own account then theres nothing stopping other people running them surely?


What do people think?

Not really given us too much to go on. Although as you've said you're "licensing out your software" I'm assuming you're not using gruss and probably some own coded software. I'd guess that's how they've linked accounts if the same vendor ID is being used in a small block of accounts.

The PC charges aren't really avoidable and if your strategies are as profitable as you state I wouldn't worry too much about paying an extra 16% or so just treat it as another cost.

As for the transaction charges that's the tricky one as it all depends on how much you're hammering the site as to whether that will make things harder to get around.

Depending on how profitable your systems are you'll find that the transaction charges can be offset against comms paid so I'd look at that side first. Unless you're really hammering the site you'll probably find you can happily run all systems from one account without any hassle from betfair.

Just have a look at recoding the transaction side as they'll always be times you can take your foot off the pedal. I'd certainly look at all options before going down dedicated servers routes as the PC avoidance team are likely to be keeping an eye out for you now anyway

[mauqqq]

Also, it does depend on the strategy you're employing. If you're one of those mutherFG%%4££3s that lay at 1.49 for 0.01p then Betfair are quite right in what they're doing but if you have a legimate strategy thats not taking advantage in some underhand way, then I'm sure we can find a way round the mutherf%%$$ing PC.

lol. no but i might be betting pennies when i green up

[mauqqq]

I am not fond of the premium charge but I think that the transaction charge is justified. Your strategy seems to be very transaction consuming so you have distributed it to different accounts and IP addresses to use more than 1000 transactions per hour. I can understand that they don't like that because it outsmarts the transaction charge and nullifies its goal that not one single strategy should use an exaggerated part of their resources.

Find out in which hour which 1000 transactions bring the most profit and leave out the other ones. Otherwise they will ban your accounts/IPs/strategy completely forever (if that hasn't happened already).

but thats my point, theyre not the same strategies. whilst 1 market strategy could bet 2000 bets per hour, so splitting that over 2 accounts would seem wrong. most strategies dont go over the 1000 transactions, so seperately these strategies should be fine?

[mauqqq]

Can anyone see where I'm going wrong. These systems are making quite alot of money, so I'm not just gonna give them up. If they don't like me running them on my own account then theres nothing stopping other people running them surely?


What do people think?

Not really given us too much to go on. Although as you've said you're "licensing out your software" I'm assuming you're not using gruss and probably some own coded software. I'd guess that's how they've linked accounts if the same vendor ID is being used in a small block of accounts.

The PC charges aren't really avoidable and if your strategies are as profitable as you state I wouldn't worry too much about paying an extra 16% or so just treat it as another cost.

As for the transaction charges that's the tricky one as it all depends on how much you're hammering the site as to whether that will make things harder to get around.

Depending on how profitable your systems are you'll find that the transaction charges can be offset against comms paid so I'd look at that side first. Unless you're really hammering the site you'll probably find you can happily run all systems from one account without any hassle from betfair.

Just have a look at recoding the transaction side as they'll always be times you can take your foot off the pedal. I'd certainly look at all options before going down dedicated servers routes as the PC avoidance team are likely to be keeping an eye out for you now anyway

well im not using a vendor id yet... im not sure if its applicable to me.

ive never had a problem with the PC, its an automated system, so as long as its profitable it doesnt matter. much ;(
I had been looking into making my code more transaction efficient, but as theyve suspended my account again i can't test anything.

[milfor]

You made this split to avoid transaction charges. Betfair found out and stopped it. Transaction charge would be totally useless if Betfair would allow everyone to run his strategies on 1 account for the markets A-M and on another account for the markets N-Z. With that 'system' nobody would pay transaction charges at all and could pump an unlimited number of transactions into the system.

[mauqqq]

You made this split to avoid transaction charges. Betfair found out and stopped it. Transaction charge would be totally useless if Betfair would allow everyone to run his strategies on 1 account for the markets A-M and on another account for the markets N-Z. With that 'system' nobody would pay transaction charges at all and could pump an unlimited number of transactions into the system.

I think that argument only works for the case I mentioned where a certain strategy would want to do 2000 transactions an hour. And I agree, but surely theres nothing stopping me developing totally new strategies on different types of markets.

[Captain Sensible]

well im not using a vendor id yet... im not sure if its applicable to me.

ive never had a problem with the PC, its an automated system, so as long as its profitable it doesnt matter. much ;(
I had been looking into making my code more transaction efficient, but as theyve suspended my account again i can't test anything.

Are you using the free API or gruss ? Only asking cos of data charges.

If it's the free API then I guess data charges won't come into it and it'll only be the transaction charge that's the problem. So then that would only become a problem if your commission isn't enough to offset those and you'd need to split the strategies over separate accounts.

That's all supposing your strategy isn't employing any underhand means like hidden bets etc which betfair rightly frown upon.

[mauqqq]

well im not using a vendor id yet... im not sure if its applicable to me.

ive never had a problem with the PC, its an automated system, so as long as its profitable it doesnt matter. much ;(
I had been looking into making my code more transaction efficient, but as theyve suspended my account again i can't test anything.

Are you using the free API or gruss ? Only asking cos of data charges.

If it's the free API then I guess data charges won't come into it and it'll only be the transaction charge that's the problem. So then that would only become a problem if your commission isn't enough to offset those and you'd need to split the strategies over separate accounts.

That's all supposing your strategy isn't employing any underhand means like hidden bets etc which betfair rightly frown upon.

I'm using the free API, sorry I didnt realise what sort of forum this was for, just did a quick google search and this popped up. Tried to delete my post after I found out

[Captain Sensible]

I'm sure gary won't mind, just makes it clearer if we know if it's automated through gruss which is the full api and can fire off bets a lot quicker than the free api.

[Spike]

It seems likely that you're not mentioning something important here.

If you're having to split your activity over a number of different accounts to hide what you're doing then it's because you're doing something that you know betfair don't want you to. Access to Betfair is not a human right, if you want to play then you have to play by the rules, if you won't do that then they're right to ban you.

If you're generating large transaction counts without generating comission to offset them against then you're obviously just wasting everybody's time and clogging up the API- which is struggling anyway.

The truth is betfair are pretty tollerant of almost anything provided you're getting stuck in and matching decent bets. I'm a fairly heavy API user but I've never had a peep of complaint from them. I use two servers and a home computer, each running several strategies simultaneously, refreshing very quickly and betting very often. No problem.

You must be doing something that really annoys them- I'm sure they will have warned you off before banning you but instead of recognising who butters your bread and sorting out your strategies you just tried to cheat your way round the warnings.

No sympathy here.