Data Request Charge payers thread

I think data charges are also applied if you go over 1000 "transactions" per hour.  I believe a transaction include placing a bet or updating a bet (e.g. changing price or stake).  Cancelling bets doesn't count.

I use the API and count transactions.  When/if my bot gets to 1000 it stops until the top of the hour, and then starts again.

I've not yet studied the option of going over this limit and offsetting against commission (I think you are charged 1p for each transaction over the 1000 limit) as I would have to track the commission I'm paying as I go through the day.  At the moment it's not significant for me.  I don't hammer the API for information, just use it to place bets.

Data request charges and transaction charges are two seperate charges.

BPD will, if you ask them, email you graphs showing you time stamped information about when you exceeded the limit and weather it was because of two instances of software operating at the same time and exceeding the limit.

As aye robot says, there are settings to prevent you going over the limit so you can have as many windows open as you like. I thnk the limit is 20 a second.

Data Request charges don't affect me - most of my betting is done pre race/game.

In the past I have paid over 1k in transaction charges.  Because of this I now limit the number of markets I bet in, and don't bother supplying liquidity for smaller markets which I could easily do.  I did try to persuade Betfair to waive the transaction charge for these smaller markets to make it worth my while providing liquidity, but they would only consider it if I guaranteed a very small overround, which I wasn't prepared to do.

Of course, I was thinking of only one market. Never mind!

Rocket to the FACE Joined: 28 Oct 08
Replies: 5470 19 Aug 10 10:30 
DR charges don't distinguish between pre race/game or in-play. If you request data over the limit you'll get charged regardless. I don't bet in-play but have been charged.

I have never been charged for transaction charges. If you're providing liquidity for a 'smaller market' with a large overround are you actually going to hit the limit or anywhere near the limit?


I know DR charges don't distinguish between pre race and in play.  I meant that I don't need to to make so many data requests per second because I'm not trying to track fast moving markets.  I regularly go over the 1000 transaction limit every day because I play so many markets.  But my commission usually offsets  the transaction charges incurred.  I' m putting up reasonable prices - I'm not flooding empty markets with 1.01 lays.  It's just a pity Betfair can't distinguish between people providing genuine liquidity and those really abusing the system.

Thanks Aye Robot.

I should add that I have six monitors, loaded with six markets for a particular game on browser tab 1. On browser tab 2 I have another six markets for another game. Sometimes I have nine or ten games loaded in the browser like this, which means I have up to 60 markets open at the same time (it could be more, but I limit it to this now). Even though I'm only actually viewing six at a time, they are all auto refreshing. I know it's very inefficient, but I'm not sure what a straightforward alternative would be.

Would something like Gruss be able to handle this kind of quantity of markets?

I could also use an API solution that mimics exactly what I do on the website, but massively reduce DR by only refreshing what I'm viewing and halving the weight of DR. I think this would be expensive to have developed though.

It's not that surprising you're getting hit with data charges with that many markets running, only need a few of them to refresh in sync and you'd easily exceed the 20 requests per second even though averaged over an hour you'd be well below 20 per second. At least with an API app you could just turn off the auto refresh on markets you're not actively monitoring and also make use of any request throttling they have.

Not sure how many markets gruss can handle at one time but you can have more than one instance of gruss running which it looks like you'd need as I assume the six monitors are running from one PC. Doubt any of the API apps will what you want exactly but they should be at least able to mimic what you do now a lot more efficiently. Switching between markets in something like gruss is as simple as switching a tab just by clicking a market in the quick pick list so at least they won't be racking up requests in the background and you can have more than one market displayed in a tab i.e over 1.5,over 2.5 , etc  freeing up screens for you.

http://bit.ly/30markets

12 requests to betfair api per second.

As far as I know Gruss can handle any number of markets as long as your computer is up to it.

If you take a little time to learn about excel integration you could certainly set something up that would be much more efficient than all those browser windows- probably with a lot of extra functionality too. I'd highly recommend that you go through the learning curve, it's not particularly difficult and it will be well worth it.

If you've got 6 screens you could easily have dozens of markets for several games all displayed. You could have a screen for each game divided into match odds, correct score, o/u etc without having to tab between anything. Plus the graph can be displayed for each market.

As long as it's still only one instance of the software running and you have a call limit set you won't get charged.

I did not make this screenshot: http://bit.ly/30markets

I took the screenshot from the product page I use. I do not want to show on what markets I run my bots, but I use similar application layout showed on the screenshot having only two monitors in my trading setup is all I need.

The Investor, it seems your day on betfair is quite boring, all day clicking on tab views and watching different market prices, as you said you use just betfair web pages, I do not understand it.
This is my day on betfair.

I select from 10 to 30 markets per day and open them for monitoring at the morning each day. For some of the markets I pause the market monitoring and restart them later when I want to open my position on this markets, or just open markets during a day. I do so because of getting reasonable refresh rate for the market price monitoring.

It is just clear when you would monitor prices on 30 betfair markets concurrently with refresh rate of 1 second, your api software would make 30 calls per second, and you are allowed only 20 free calls per second to betfair servers. It is also clear that when you have got some unmatched bets on markets the api software must monitor the bets status as well, and those are additional requests to the betfair servers, the software I use requests unmatched bets status each 2 seconds.

When all markets are opened I decide on which market selections I will run what strategy. I prepared a set of strategies with different settings (Bot Executor), so I just select the strategy I want to execute on the market selection and click the start button.

I use the watched selections window too, as you can see on the screenshot, but I do not add selections there manually because after bot places its bet on the market selection it is automatically added to the watched selections window.

I simply do not care what market price conditions are developing on monitored markets, because I executed bots on those markets and bots open position only if preset criteria are met, so when bet is placed by a bot, the market selection appears in the watched selections window automatically, and here I can watch my market positions.

I do not care about selections where green numbers are displayed (a profit position) I take care only on positions in red numbers and I can spot it immediately in my watched selections window, just seeing red numbers in the chart window I can decide to leave it as it is, because bot actively manages its position on the market selection and is instructed to close my position if preset parameters for closing position are met. (Some of my bots are instructed to close profit and loss position, some just profit position, and some bots just place opening bet.)

If I decide to intervene or just to check market prices I click on the show market details button and the market is displayed in the main window. On the screenshot you can see it on the left side of the picture. I can close my position directly from the watched selection window clicking on the button close position.

In the cases where I manage my position manually (not running bots) and mainly in football markets I use the market watch list window where I can add just relevant markets for that moment, for instance from the Match Odds market I select just home selection, from Over/Under market just selections I am interested in, as well as from Correct Score or other markets. Here in the market watch list I can see all relevant markets in one window and place a bet, depending on the match situation on better price I could get from relevant markets.

I execute a lot of different strategies, I think more of you do so as well. Some of the strategies depend on time range at what is reasonable to run them so in such cases I use the tool: Execute my strategies on selections.

Basically I do the same, select markets selections and then apply for them different bot strategies. The difference is that the software automatically starts market monitoring on those markets in preset time, and if the bot is instructed, after its job is done it closes market monitoring as well. This way even if I selected 50 markets per day, the markets are monitored from preset time till bot finishes its job, so approximately 10-30 minutes per market, and concurrently are monitored up to 5 markets.

If you have got 6 monitors in your setup, then you can place different windows the software offers on each of one. You can change size and layout, so for instance place the watched selections window on two monitor's screen. The application layout is saved and restored after you restart the application, only the trader window with market selection ladders is not restored, but if I understand it correctly you are not a trader.

Well maybe the same boring day at betfair as your one, mainly when everything goes well and all is managed by bots, I just stare my watched selections window for green numbers, without any click, but on the other hand I can enjoy watching matches in TV or watching them online on the Internet.

Thanks Rocket.

pato, I wouldn't say my day is boring, I quite enjoy it, a bit like playing a computer game really.

What I can do in a browser is watch six markets for a game simultaneously, let's say correct score, total goals, match odds, over/under 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5.
I hit CTRL+TAB and after switching all tabs simultaneously, view those same markets for a different game, and so I can have 9 or 10 games open if I want, hitting for example CTRL+3 to go to a specific game. Sometimes I limit myself to four markets per game (leaving two screens blank or used for something else) and have 14-15 games displayed like this.

I get that you could use a program to display these six markets on a single screen, which is way more efficient, and then have 6 games across six screens. But what if you wanted to view more than six games, wouldn't it get messy?

Serious question, as I'm pretty clueless about this stuff.

If you want to view more than six games then re-size and drag the windows around to fit two games on the one screen.

If I pay £500 commission should be If I generate £500 commission