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Betfair Explained

This is a sticky consisting of two parts.
-The first part is aimed at people who have not used betfair before, and want to learn.
-The Second Part is aimed at experienced betfair users, who want to get more of an edge when gambling.

From the outset, In case anyone thinks I am advertising betfair here - I am not.
I am not on commission, (but I wish I was

) and the only reason I am posting this is an attempt to help users/potential users avoid the mistakes - mistakes which cost you hard earned cash. I was talking to FTB, and we agreed that a sticky about betfair would be helpful, as there have been an increasing number of betfair questions recently. FTB knew that I am quite familiar with betfair, so asked me to write down some q&a's, which can be referred to.
What I hope to do here, is gradually add topics, consisting of frequently asked questions, and keep a sort of index in this post as to where you can find answers. I also want people to feel free to ask questions, and I will reply as best I can. I am no expert, but between backs & lays, I have a couple of thousand bets under my belt, so I have a good knowledge of how it works, and want to share it - hopefully helping people to profit or at least get more value from their gambling. As I say, I don’t know every single thing about the site, but will do my best to answer your questions, based on what I have learned. As I said, All of this is based on MY experience of a couple of thousand bets, you maydisagree with some of it, and feel free to say so if you do. This is an open thread. Feel free to ask any questions here

Part One: Beginning betfair - What you need to know.
This is for anyone who wants to open a betfair account and understand how it all works:

What is a betting exchange - See post 2
Bookie Vs Betfair (advantages/disadvantages) - See post 2
Opening an account - See post 3
Working out the odds - See post 4
Placing a bet - See post 5
Leaving Orders - See post 5
Laying - See post 6
Betting/Laying in the place market - See post 7
Getting around the €4 minimum bet - See post 8
Betting with 'play' money - See post 14

Part Two - For experienced users
These topics are for the experienced user and should not be attempted by any betfair novice as there will be plenty of people only waiting on you exploit your mistakes, and it will be a sure way to the poor house.

Betting In-Running & In-Play - See post 18
Bots - See post 19
Trading - See post 20
Arbing - See post 21
Exploiting a less than 100% book - See post 23
Dutching Calculator - See post 26
Hedging Calculator - See post 42
Betfair historica data - See post 80
Auto Betfair - See post 81

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Philbert

wbailey wrote:

Trading with a bot.

If you want to take trading more seriously, you need a bot. I must state here that I am only doing this a few weeks, so I am still learning. The best time to trade is 10 minutes before the off, because of the amount of money going in and out. The advantages of using a bot are the 1 click bets and the 1 second refresh rate. You could back a horse, then the price may lower for only a second or two (this change would not be seen on the normal screen), but if you are fast enough - Bang! You fire the bet in and move on……..
Also, there is an option to ‘green up’. This means instead of taking a free bet like in the example above, it will spread the free bet money on all the other horses ensuring a profit no matter what horse wins. Believe me - This is a fantastic feeling.
But, sometimes, things wont go your way, and you MUST bail out taking the loss if the price keeps rising. Depending on your stakes, you may be only making a few cent on a race, so to lose a few euro could take dozens of trades to make up. I currently use €20 as my stake, and usually make anything between 5 cent and 1 euro on a race if things go right. So as you can see, it is a lot of effort for a small amount, but not too risky if you know what you are doing. I wont go into any more detail at this point, as there are videos available on the bet angel website explaining the whole process, also, I am only learning myself. But if anyone wants to discuss it further, feel free to ask.

On a personal level, a great feeling for me when trading is 'greening up' - and you sit back and watch a race knowing you will profit no matter what wins. That said, I don't get the same sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from trading as I do from picking a winner from form reading. When trading, you must change your mindset, and not let your feelings get in the way. I try to become emotionless when trading, and just deal with figures, and that takes some of the joy of the sport away from it. But money is money after all.

Hi,

Thanks for all the helpful information so far. I have one question regarding trading. Is there any trend to the way the prices move (in general) through out the day and up to the last few seconds before the race? ie: Do prices tend to start higher and eventually settle slightly lower (on average), or the other way around? Or not at all..

Tia

Kent Brockman wrote:

Thanks for the info. Just downloaded that free BOT and tried to use it but it asked for my betfair login details. Wasn't too confident about doing this so i was just wondering if this is normal practice before I put in my betfair password?

Yes.
Because the bot needs to interact with your betair account, it needs your log-in details. Once you log-in, you will be faced with a screen similar to betfair. I can give you my word that it is entirely safe, and regulary used by many people including me.
Once you select the market you wish to gamble on, make sure you change the refrest screen to every 1 second, instead of five. I would also reccommend turning off the 'confirmaiton' of bets. once you do this, you can enjoy one click betting, but just be careful not to click on the wrong button, as the bet is fired in on one click, and there is no going back.

Kent Brockman

wbailey wrote:

Bots:

A Bot is basically short for robot - something that automates certain tasks, such as placing bets and updating odds. There are a few free ones and a few pay ones available that are compatible with betfair. If you are to consider in-running or trading (trading will be discussed later) it is essential that you have a bot. I use betangel basic, which is free to download, There is a more advanced version that you have to pay for, but the free one covers my needs for the moment. I don’t use any other bots, so I will only be refering to betangel while talking about bots.
There are a few advantages that a bot offers which can give you a slight edge above other non bot betfair users. (Although bots are becoming more and more popular by the month). When you log in, you will be faced with a screen similar in layout to your normal betfair screen.
With a good broadband connection, the prices are automatically updated every second. These updates are only a small edge, but you need every edge you can get in this game.
There is no time delay/confirmation screen when placing a bet. Once you enter the stakes you want to use, they will stay there, even carrying over into the in-running market. Then when you see the price you want, you only have to click once, and the bet is fired in immediately. When a price is coming in, or going out, the normal betfair is only refreshed every few seconds, so you may miss out on a price if you don’t have a bot. When you are trading (I will discuss this later) it is essential to have a bot to catch these in-between prices

Thanks for the info. Just downloaded that free BOT and tried to use it but it asked for my betfair login details. Wasn't too confident about doing this so i was just wondering if this is normal practice before I put in my betfair password?

masterK wrote:

This may be of interest for those new to Betfair

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470028564/202-4275714-9075028

Looks good masterk. While we are at it, can I reccommend this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1905153023/qid=1146823469/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_1_3/026-0182848-5693258

It was by far the best gambling book that I have read. I did a review of it somewhere else, Ill have a look later to see if I can root it out.

masterK

This may be of interest for those new to Betfair

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470028564/202-4275714-9075028

finnpark

A bit off topic here but I backed Amadeus Wolfe at 12/1 on Europe Boy's advice, see its down to 6/1 now. Nice one:)

While it looks like you have a good deal, if you want to make sure you dont lose any money at all, you can

- Take a free bet.

To get yourself a free bet:

1) Lay the win (current price 9.2) using €37.50
2) Lay the place (current price 3.3) using €37.50

The outcome?

A) The horse wins:
You would win €785 with the bookie for the win, and €141 for the place, but you would owe out €393.75 on betfair. So if the horse came first you gain €532.25

The horse does not come first, but is placed:
You would win €141 with the bookie for the place part of the bet but lose €37.50 for the win part. You would win €37.50 for laying the win on betfair, but you would owe out €86.25 for laying the horse in the place market. So if the horse does not come first, but is placed, you gain €54.75

c) The horse does not win or place:
You lose the full bet with the bookies (€75.00) but you gain €37.50 for laying the win, and €37.50 for laying the place on betfair. So if the horse does not win or place, you gain €0.00, but you lose €0.00

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, you are in a good position, and good luck with it

wolfe

wbailey wrote:

Are you completely sure you want to lay this off? Looks like you may have gotten a great deal there.

Thanks for the detailed info on this. It appears i still have a lot to learn about betfair. I think i might just hold off and keep my fingers crossed for saturday!

First things first, if you need to learn how to convert odds to betfair prices, see post 4 of this thread.

Are you completely sure you want to lay this off? Looks like you may have gotten a great deal there.

Anyway - Please check the figures, but the way I work it out is as follows:

Because there is no each-way betting on betfair, your bookie bets need to be split separately into win & place bets.

Regarding the win, you have staked €37.50 , and if it comes first, you will earn €785. This gives you an average price of 20.95/1 - but we will need to round this down to 20/1 as betfair does not have such small divisions in price. Now, to change your 20/1 into betfair prices, you add one.
So you have the betfair equivalent of €37.50 staked on the betfair price of 21

The current lay price on betfair is 9.4. If you lay this horse on betfair using an €84.22 backers stake, you can lock in an automatic profit of €42.15 no matter what happens after 5% commission. You will need to have €707.49 in the account in case the horse loses.

Now, to the place part of the bet:

This profit here is much shorter. You have a total of €37.50 staked with the bookie to win €141 if the horse is placed. This gives you an average price of 3.76/1. Converted to betfair prices, we have to round down very slightly, and assume you have 3.7/1 this is expressed as 4.7 on betfair.
So you have €37.50 on the horse to be placed at 4.7. The current lay price for the horse to be placed on betfair is 3.3. If you lay this horse to be placed at 3.3 using a €54.23 backers stake, you will lock in an automatic profit of €14.02, but you will need €86.25 in the account to cover the bet.

So to re-cap:

Lay the horse in the win market using €84.22
Lay the horse in the place market using €54.23

You will need to have a total of €793.73 in the account to cover both bets.

You will gain €56.17 no matter what happens.

Some things to consider:

1.)Don’t forget that this is assuming that you are using the prices at the time of writing.
2.) If the horse wins, will you be happy with gaining €56.17 when you could have gotten nearly a grand?

3) You don’t have to lay-off the whole bet, play around with the figures, and decide whether you want to guarantee a free bet, lay the lot off to lock in a profit, or lay some of it off etc. here is a hedging calculator to help you work it out:

http://www.oddschecker.com/powertools/hedging_calculator.html

The above calculator uses betfair odds.

If you do decide to lay it off, and you need help placing the lay, just ask

wolfe

the clue to the horse is in my username!!!!!

Got it at 50'S for the guineas back in Sept before its last run.Been waiting a long time for this race!

wolfe

you guessed the clue to the horse is in my username!!!!!!!!!!!

Probably.

I presume it is for the 2000 guineas, and the only ones around that price at the moment are Amadeus Wolf, and Horatio Nelson, but I can find either being 50/1 at any stage. If he got this right, it looks like he can get one hell of a lay-off, or a free bet if he wants.

finnpark

wbailey wrote:

He said it was 9's on betfair, but that was earlier today. I had not got enough details about his bookie bets to work it out at that stage. I need to check the current price if he wants to do an accurate lay off. As you should know, the price has more than likely changed since earlier on, that is why I dont want to assume that the price is still 9's
I could go ahead and use 9, but that may cost him money and we dont like doing that to people now do we?

Well I want to know which horse he has backed from 50/1 into 8/1, sounds crazy to me. Amadeus Wolfe by any chance?

finnpark wrote:

He said it was 9's on betfair, but that was earlier today. I had not got enough details about his bookie bets to work it out at that stage. I need to check the current price if he wants to do an accurate lay off. As you should know, the price has more than likely changed since earlier on, that is why I dont want to assume that the price is still 9's
I could go ahead and use 9, but that may cost him money and we dont like doing that to people now do we?

finnpark

wbailey wrote:

What is the name of the horse wolfe?

What is the name of the horse wolfe? I need to check the current price..

wolfe wrote:

Here goes. Backed it from 50's.

6.50 EW 50 TO 1
5.00 EW 20 TO 1
5.00 EW 16 TO 1
17.50 EW 14 TO 1
3.50 win 10 TO 1

Ok wolfe. I'm just working on a few things at the moment. I'll get back to you on this before the day is out

wolfe

Here goes. Backed it from 50's.

6.50 EW 50 TO 1
5.00 EW 20 TO 1
5.00 EW 16 TO 1
17.50 EW 14 TO 1
3.50 win 10 TO 1

In short, to work this out, I would need the EXACT details of EACH bet.

How much, what price etc.

If you got 33/1 etc, and it is now 8/1, you will easily be able to lay it off.

BUT -

There is no such thing as each way betting on betfair, so you will need to seperate your bet into win and place bets, and lay it off in the win market, and the place market.

How much do you stand to gain in total if the horse wins?
How much do you stand to gain if the horse is does not win, but is placed?

How much have you spent so far on the bets?

wolfe

Sorry, I backed it a good few times online at various prices on Paddypower, Boylesports, ladbrokes etc.

Backed it each way (small bets) from 33/1, 20/1, 16/1 downwards.

The horse is currently trading at about 8/1 (best price) or thereabouts with the traditional bookies. Will probably go off at around 6/1 or so.

wolfe wrote:

Can someone please advise me on a prediciment i have!

I have put around €70 on a horse (at antepost prices) to win a race on saturday. If the horse wins i stand to win around €1000 or if its placed about €220.

I am thinking of laying the horse now to ensure i win something. I think it is abot 9.0 on betfair for this.

I have never used betfair before.

1. What amount should i lay to ensure i clear about €500 win or lose?
2. There are 3 columns in the lay side, one pink and 2 white, what is the difference.
3. Do i need to have €500 in my account in case it wins?

Hi wolfe, Can you give me some more details...

1) Did you do the bet each-way or to win?
2) Did you do it in the bookies?
3) How much did you put on it, and what price did you take on it?

wolfe

Can someone please advise me on a prediciment i have!

I have put around €70 on a horse (at antepost prices) to win a race on saturday. If the horse wins i stand to win around €1000 or if its placed about €220.

I am thinking of laying the horse now to ensure i win something. I think it is abot 9.0 on betfair for this.

I have never used betfair before.

1. What amount should i lay to ensure i clear about €500 win or lose?
2. There are 3 columns in the lay side, one pink and 2 white, what is the difference.
3. Do i need to have €500 in my account in case it wins?

bohsman

Cheers, had been wondering what Dutching was.

Better Still

This will work it out for you:

Just enter the odds of each here, and it will tell you what stakes to use.

http://www.oddschecker.com/powertools/dutching.html

You got me thinking about this bohsman, so I looked into it more to see what I could come up with

There is a way to work it out. You need to convert the betfair prices to percentages:

To keep things simple, lets say that the prices for a match were:

Draw - 2.0
Team A to win - 4.0
Team B to win - 5.0

This would represent a 95% book.

To get the percentage for each bet, you divide 100 by the betfair price, so:

Draw = 100/2 = 50%
Team A to win = 100/4 = 25%
Team B to win = 100/5 = 20%

Add up the above percentages and you will see how it represents a 95% book. (50 + 25 + 20)

To work out how to exploit the market, you simply stake the % figure you got earlier - in money.

Place

€50 on the draw @ 2.0
€25 on Team A to win @ 4.0
€20 of Team B to win @ 5.0

This would cost a total of €95, but your return would be €100 whatever the result.

Although you would still profit after the above example, commission must be considered. Also, as mentioned before, if the prices changed while you were doing it, you would be screwed. You would at least need to have one click betting (betangel basic is free and can do this). If it was something you wanted to do using large stakes, you would need BET IE which works out the stakes for you, and places the three bets together with one click.

Hope this helps

bohsman wrote:

Is there any easy formula for working out how to take advantage of a market- the Birmingham - Newcastle market hit 98% in running, Im guessing I multiply by the amount of possible outcomes, in this case 3 win, draw, lose?

Cheers.

I'm don't know of any quick forumulas where you can work it out bohsman - To be honest, I reckon you would need a bot. By the time you work it out manually, the market usually has changed. I'm not aware of any free ones that will do it, but BET IE can be used for dutching, hedging & trading.
I don't use it myself, but I know a number of people who rate it highly. It costs about £97 stg. and would probably be only worth it if you were going to be in front of the betfair screen all day.

This explains it more:

http://www.racing-index.com/betting-exchanges/bet-ie.html

bohsman

Is there any easy formula for working out how to take advantage of a market- the Birmingham - Newcastle market hit 98% in running, Im guessing I multiply by the amount of possible outcomes, in this case 3 win, draw, lose?

Cheers.

I have added some new sections to this thread. The first part of the thread was aimed at people who are new to betfair, but the second part is aimed at people who are experienced using it, but want to get a better edge when gambling.

Please see post number one, which contains an index of topics.

Regards,

Wayne

Arbs.

Arbing is basically buying money risk free. This can be done when, on the rare occasion, a bookie is offering a better price than betfair. To do this, you will need several bookie accounts, along with a betfair account. Here is an example, using €100 stakes:

1. You Check the prices on betfair for a race, and Horse X is available to lay at 4

2. You then go to odds checker, and look up the race, and notice that a certain bookie has Horse X available to back at 5
3. Next, you back the horse with the bookie who is offering 5, and lay it on betfair at 4

The outcome?

If the horse wins, with €100 stakes, your bookie will pay you €400, but because you laid it on betfair at 4, you will have to pay-out €300. Therefore the total profit is €100. To do this properly, you need numerous betting accounts to take advantage of whoever is offering the best price. You will need to keep a ‘floating’ bank account, which allows you to deposit and withdraw to all your bookie accounts and also to your betfair account in order to transfer the funds from one account to the other to keep all the banks functional and topped up.
Again this is a simple example, and the price difference in reality would rarely be that big. Also, in the real world, it may not always go your way. By the time you back it with the bookie, the price may have changed on betfair for example.
There are bots available (such as 'value horse finder' which scan the markets for you and beep which alerts you to when and where an arb is possible, but they cost about £100 sterling.