Robots take 2 !

Not quite the answer you're probably hoping for but if you put "betfair bot" into youtube there's a zillion videos on there (I don't use bots myself but I think there's probably a decent look at how they operate on there)

See their bot working in the flesh , anything i could do in return, then i would be only too happy. Ummmm is this one of those show me your bot and I'll show you mine type of posts?

Joe.  Thats very good !

to be honest I think Lori's is the best answer you'll get, I doubt anyone will show someone they don't know from Adam a working, and more importantly a winning, bot and if anyone does offer to show it's likely they're hoping to sell you some crap or other. Used to be a few forums around for botters but all seem to have died. The bdp.betfair.com site is probably a good place to start but even that's usually dead, these botters are a secretive lot

Ok Joe,  thanks for your input

gosmash
Do you have a teenage son or relative.
They could probably program you up a bot in no time.

What? Because almost all teenage boys have strong programming skills???  They've obviously got a lot more sophisticated since I was at school.

bito's bot is rumoured to be open to all.

SOON the only winning bots will belong to ----BETUNFAIR

Fine as frog hair.  No, my son is not in juniors until next term !  Howewer i do know a few people that work in IT.  Rather than merely the programming, i was thinking more of actually seeing someone who uses a bot in action.  Maybe i am over complicating the matter.  Hopefully ! 
  Anyone got any recommendations ?  ideas of costs ?

No-one is going to show you how to make winning bots - but the mechanics of putting bots together are readily accessible to anyone with a bit of common sense and some time to learn, follow these steps:

Get Gruss and a book on VBA.
Read book on VBA.
Use Gruss to feed prices into excel (ideally via COM) and your new-found VBA skills to process all that lovely data and turn it into money.
Done.


Good luck

You can see my bot in action. In fact you don't need to see it, I can adequately describe it for you.

Imagine a black terminal screen.
A command is typed to invoke the bot.
The bot starts.
Nothing else appears.
That's it.

Exciting stuff. I'm thinking of putting it on youtube!

2 videos from youtube.

http://bit.ly/BotRun

For those who don't really know much about bots, the posts on this blog site give you a few hints about what it is they actually do. Pity it stops in the middle though.

http://automatingbetfair.blogspot.com/2010/02/four-trading-strategies.html

I see Fred! was the last person to post a comment on that blog.

Thanks for all your input boys. When i get it sorted i'll post an update !

Bots don't all do the same thing and in anycase the term is confusingly used on here to label any api application. 

Mine is less exciting than fred!'s as I don't even use a screen.  I could post a video of the computer with its power light on?

That would be nice cat.

Well I don't even have that catfloppo, shall I just post up a video of bill for my servers?

Seriously though fred, a blank screen? Doesn't your computer have an operating system?

There's no need to make it mysterious. Bots are programs that run on normal computers just like any other program. Generally they're not very demanding on system resources (they don't need to be) so the computers are nothing special. For speed and convenience most botters use servers in data centres, which just means that your computer is somewhere else rather than in your living room. When you need to do something with it you hook up to it and use it just like it's in front of you but most of the time it just sits there buzzing away.

lol robot, I said black terminal screen, not blank. I should just have said black command window. I use linux OS on my pc and servers - the command window is called terminal on linux.

I don't really use command windows to operate my live bots though, they're hooked up to a web page so that wherever I am I can simply use my phone's web browser to control them.

The point I was making was that bots can be very uninteresting in operation, fully autonomous bots don't need any user interaction and don't need to display anything, they just quietly get on with what they've been programmed to do. There wouldn't be anything for the OP to see in the flesh as such. It would be cool if my bots looked like a star trek console but I don't think it would improve performance, a bit like using excel I imagine