General Betting
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have bots destroyed betfair?
have bots destroyed betfair?
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Replies: 352
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The book is far away from 100% for more time than it is close.
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ok lori thats a good example, I may try to use that in my war against the machines [;)]
btw 140 is a very high level I would say. |
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If nobody else has found the market, you've made a good few quid.
The whole point is, if nobody else has found the market, you can't be matched either! |
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oh well at least daddy long legs won, even if my cheeky early price of 13 didn't get matched
 on second thoughts who needs early value prices, you just need to pick the winner [;)] |
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Hey, shut up Lori!! [;)]
The api isn't that hard to grasp, if you imagine placing a bet and writing down all the information about it: market, runner, odds, price, etc to create a 'message' then you click a button and the message gets sent to betfair and the bet gets placed. That is basically what happens when you click the button on the website too except the message generated from the settings you have selected. You can write a different message for all the different things you need to do and hey presto you can work without the website! Obviously this is a very simplistic view and you need to understand the technology to use it but conceptually it is quite simple. |
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Cheers cat, I vaguely get it I guess.
The whole point is, if nobody else has found the market, you can't be matched either! With the example I gave, the two bots will have pushed the prices out for you. |
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Anyway, Lori, to some extent I agree with you.
I have the unpopular view that when the site goes down all unmatched bets should be voided to protect those who don't have access. |
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The website is human readable the API is computer readable. They are both views on the same data. They are run on independant server(s) so when one goes down it doesnt mean the other is. unless a resource shared by both is down is down. See thread about API issues now when website is fine.
Theses questions are about the same as asking "whats a throw in" Thats the level of technical knowledge on this thread. The rest is whinging |
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The website is human readable the API is computer readable
I actually understand that part, but I have to be able to read it to tell my computer the prices... this is where I get lost. |
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you have to read what
 Your computer will read the computer readable one. You read the human one |
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This is where it goes over my head.
If I'm on Betfair normally on IE, then I see odds, i tell my computer what I want to do to those odds, and it does them. Now, If I'm on an API, I don't really understand how I can see the odds. Even if I can, and I do something to them, I now don't see how this is different to just doing whatever it is that IE does or why a bot can't just use IE. It seems to me like there is a front door and a back door and if you have the keys you get through the back door, otherwise you have to go through the hallway. |
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Are you saying I just use IE as normal but the computer reads my inputs and instead of going over the internet it goes through the API to betfair - which is what makes it faster?
That would make some kind of sense I think. |
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Can you read a barcode? does it matter, it holds same info as the labels (unless you a conspiracy guy
 )No one is bothered it makes things easier. bots can use IE its just a waste for everyone involved betfair and scrapper. Much easier to have an API for computers to consume instead of pulling down things only meant for humans and finding the data inside it. |
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Lori, my computer can see the odds, calculate the bets it wants to place and place them. Without me needing to be involved.
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Do you think the servers in betfair store and work with little images of the website? No. They'll transfer data around internally like "Team:Liverpool, Odds:2.1, Waiting Back:4125.21" etc etc. Not in that format that's just an example, but you get the idea. Then the web servers translate that into something human readable, in whatever way they want. If the same data was sent via the API to another application, lets say Gruss, as long as Gruss and the API both understand what format this data is, Gruss can in turn represent it any way it wants. It could print it out on toilet roll for you to read on the bog in Times New Roman 10 pt if you had a toilet roll printer and they wanted it to.
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You (yes you could learn very easily) would right a program to interact with the API. Now your in software world you can dream up wild model you want and run it against the API.
You try and model the sport which I guess you have down, but now you have to model how you interact with betfair. Why do you take or put certain prices up what conditions what logic etc. You put it all in the software (bot) Like making a robot lori |
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going over the internet it goes through the API to betfair - which is what makes it faster?
both website and API use same (internet) protocals there is no speed benefit to use the API. Its same data served at same time using same internet protocals, just one for humans ones for computers. |
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Cheers all,
I realise it's inconsistent with my general excel type knowledge but some of what you're saying is so obvious to me that it needn't be said and some of it sounds like another planet..... to me that means there's a link missing of something obvious from one part to another. I can understand all of cats part about letting the computer do it without ever seeing it, I understand the computer thinks in a different way to what it displays as per JCs post and yet it still all feels alien. I guess what I don't get is what's difference between API and IE.. something somewhere must convert it when I type into windows anyway, so why does it have to be something different to convert it if I type it into Excel or into Firefox etc. Gruss can in turn represent it any way it wants. The fundamental of my cluelessness lies hidden in that statement. I thought Gruss was an API. |
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Lori you can even view the computer side if you so chose.
https://api.betfair.com/global/v3/BFGlobalService.wsdl wsdl is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Services_Description_Language Its not interesting to read but computers love the stuff, there is no secret door, its all open and transparent. |
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Hadn't seen your 15:10 post. I'll go away and google.
I need to know what happens to my data when I put it into IE compared to what happens when I put it into my computer to send via API. I don't want to waste everyone's time until I've tried via google, you've all given me plenty to work with (and ive been down this road before and wasted people's time before). Thanks. |
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Gurss is written using the api, Lori. The api is a language that you can use to communicate with the betfair database. I've used it for my bot and Gruss have used it for theirs.
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You're looking at it from the wrong angle Lori, all betfair do is send data either via the website or API and the receiving program then interprets that into something you can read. The web data is in a low level programming code for browsers and obviously contains more data such as where to place the prices pictures etc, with the API you basically get price info and decide yourself how to present it on screen or not.
With the web the data is sent in a format a browser, firefox IE etc, can read and present to you in a readable format, with the API the data is in a very stripped down format that you program something yourself to see or someone like gruss, the toy etc write a program so it's in a readable format for you. |
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Lori, have you ever looked at the excel spreadsheet that you can download which demonstrates the api implemented in vba? If you know excel it might be worth taking a look at it.
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Bingo! That's what I was missing! You're either a genius or a fool
 contains more data such as where to place the prices pictures etc, In conjunction with all the other help, (I hate it when i struggle as it sounds like trolling) in the previous posts I think that makes a lot of sense suddenly. Thanks everyone. I hadn't clicked that IE needed more data sent to tell it that stuff. God I'm dumb. |
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Cheers cat.. learning vba is next on my list (seriously) and then I guess I'll move on from there.
I currently do monte carlo simulations by copy pasting 100000 lines rather than (the equivalent of) a simple for/next loop for instance, that's how out of whack my abilities are! |
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god help us if Lori gets botted up
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Even Excel itself is a reasonable example.
Get a csv file or create and save a simple excel document as .csv. Look at it in note pad or wordpad. It's just numbers separated by commas, human readable, in a means Excel knows how to work with. Open it in excel, edit it, save it again. Send it to a mate, get him to open it it in excel. Or open office, or any macintosh application that can interpreted csv files, or even one of these web sites that let you open csv files to look at . You've Data and the representation of data, and a means of changing it. If you understand THAT, you can understand how the API can send data back and forth in some form of mutally understood format and the representation and means of "editing" it. It's more complex than than, but not much. |
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Well last time I even tried I submitted my entire bank at 320 to lay instead of 3.20, so it put me off for a while. (That was 2007 or so)
That was Betfair Rapid and I concluded to avoid like the plague! (Luckily I managed to cancel) |
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Lori, you want the "VB/Excel Sample Spreadsheet" from here.
http://bdp.betfair.com/index.php?option=com_weblinks&catid=59&Itemid=116 Don't know if you have to register somewhere. You will also need to install the SOAP toolkit. Don't panic [;)], it's easy. |
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And dont forget to reboot the rubber ducky before resquirting the the dodah
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Cheers JC,
That makes a lot of sense now. I couldn't see why you'd bother because I hadn't realised that IE needed more info sent to present the page. (I've never understood browsers either, so this has kinda cleared up what I thought was two problems in one go, that is actually only one problem) I simply assumed the browser laid itself out or something, not quite sure what I thought in fact, but it all fits a lot better now. |
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Thanks cat, I'll take a look on Monday
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right click on this page and view page source. Thats what betfair sends you, your program IE makes it pretty (or maybe not) for humans
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I'd got that bit... What I'd missed is that if it sent it to/via/whatever API then it wouldn't need most of it.
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Im now starting to understand why dropping out of university and teaching myself about the world as and when I needed rather than in order may not have been the smartest thing.
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To sum up
1) Thanks everyone for the help, it was genuinely an issue I've had for years regarding API and Browsers 2) God I'm thick. |
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That's basically all the browsers doing Lori , just a separate program processing the betfair data, if you right click on a web page and select view source you can see the data betafir sends to a browser. There's actually hell of a lot data being sent and all sorts of other things like javascript used to turn the browser into a simple program that allows you to view and place bets.
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yeah your right most is junk for humans. Computers/software/bots can use both (as your IE browser demonstrates) which is why you will never ban bots as you would be banning browsers, so bit of a bad move for an internet only business
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I even understood that to a degree, I just hadn't made the jump that it wasn't needed. It's already obvious to me what's now going on but there was a block in there somewhere. Hell, at times I've even fiddled around with the source stuff to try to work out how to post pictures and things but it didn't occur to me that this stuff wasn't required if you didn't want a picture - don't know why.
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Makes a lot more sense as an argument worded that way brendan.
Right, where's my spanner.... |