Betting Assistant/Betfair Trader

[Davwlk]

Could someone please explain to me (preferably in words of one syllable) the difference between:-
Betting Assistant (pre release version 99s) and,
Betfair Trader (pre-release version 99g).
Which one should I be using or doesn't it matter?
Dave

[Warwick Hunt]

both more or less the same.

[GaryRussell]

There is some data available on the api not available through scraping the website (eg. last price matched) which could be useful for certain strategies though I could not give any examples. The major advantage is the API version is not affected by changes to the website. The silks are currently missing from the API version, but this is because this data is not available through the API and they have to be scraped from the website.

[Castillo]

There is some data available on the api not available through scraping the website (eg. last price matched) which could be useful for certain strategies though I could not give any examples.

Gary,

You are quite right, the extra data can prove to be very useful especially when used in excel to trigger bets. I have a trading spreadsheet that monitors prices (F5) against Total Amount Matched (P5). In horse racing the Amount of Money Matched for the larger priced selections is extremely beneficial in picking the occasional BIG priced winner . A typical example below

Selection / Odds / Amount of Money Matched

No1 1.98 £723,321
No2 3.00 £456,421
No3 6.00 £183,011
No4 8.00 £32,000
No5 12.00 £54,022
No6 18.00 £12,000

There will be usually large amounts of money matched on the best 3 priced selections, but what the spreadsheet will pick up is the amount of money matched on selection No5 is not proportionate to the odds of 12/1, as selection No4 is at 8/1 with roughly £22,000 less staked on it. So the extra money for selection No5 has come from somewhere, maybe someone in the know So I would consider a small bet on No5 and keep my fingers crossed, and if your lucky the odds might start to tumble and you could LAY the bet to Level Profit before the market turns IN PLAY.

Just one example of how the extra data could be used in the API version using excel, anyone else wish to contribute trading strategies

Cheers
Castillo

[PeteB]

So just to clear up which is which:

Betfair Trader was the old program (now up to 0.99v) which used screen-scraping (the program pretends to be a web browser) to get data from betfair and send bets. This approach isn't sanctioned by Betfair, and if Betfair change the way the website looks in the browser, then the program needs changing.

Betting Assistant is the new program (now up to 0.99g) which uses the Betfair API - this is a programming interface Betfair have designed for trading programs to use, and they undertake to keep the interface the same, so that trading programs don't need changing too often - the last change was for the aussie wallet.
The API has some additional data, e.g. total matched per selection, and it is easier to get data like the available depth and traded volume per price. It doesn't have some of the stuff from the website like the silks, so Gary still scrapes these from the website.

So you should really use the new Betting Assistant API version. Some users rely on functionality which is only in the old Betfair Trader program (as it's not easy to get the data via the API), and so Gary continues to make this available, and has (under pressure) done a fix for the last changes to the Betfair website. But if you use this you run the risk that Betfair make another change and break the program, and it needs fixing again.

[Davwlk]

Thank you all for your answers.
Dave

[tyhsports]

i would really like to try out the version with the ladder interface. can someone give a link to a download location so i may use that version. is this the betfair trader you talk of?