FAQ's

Will a bot make me lots of money?

This is probably the most important question for the punter. It all depends on your starting bank, and your knowledge of the exchanges.

If you have a starting bank of £50, then obviously progress will seem slow for the first few months, but then the good point is, mistakes will cost very little. If you start with something like £200 as novice, stick to £2 stakes, whether you are dutching, trading, etc. I would not recommend a beginner to start on any more than that.

Something like Bet-IE dutching will make money over a long period of time with little for the punter to think about as long as they stick to the letter of the supplied instructions. Your first year is really an education, your second is building the banks up, and your third is when you can really get going.

The majority of bots will only make you money if you put the work into them yourself. For something like hedging and trading you need to be in front of the PC during racing, or whatever event you are trading on.

Although some may make it sound like it on there sites, I have used all the bots available, and allow you to push 'start', go out the pub, then a few hours latter you come back and count the profits.

That is not to say such a thing is not possible, and if you can use Excel, you can get pretty close to it using Betangel, but a good knowledge of the software, and how the exchanges work is required.


What is the Betfair API?

The Betfair Application Programming Interface (API) is the tool on which participants in the Developers Program are able to build customised tools and interfaces. Normally users will read market information, place bets, and check current bet details and account statements via the Betfair web interface. With the Betfair API, you can communicate directly with the Betfair database in XML format via a SOAP interface. By using the API, your application can provide a custom interface, functionality and specialized operations not otherwise afforded by the interface.

Although you are unlikely to use the API directly yourself, as it costs £200 a month, you will find a number of bots use it. This allows bets to be fired in much quicker than the normal interface, and updated information, cancelled bets, can all happen 10X a second, compare with 1X a second, on the normal interface if you are lucky.


Can I use more than one Betfair account?

This depends on the software. If it uses the Betfair API then you can only have one account active, unless you buy another license. Betting bots such as Bet-IE allows you to use any account.

I hear people can make £1000's by using bots?

This is of course possible, but you must realise that potentail profits are always linked to the amount of money in your bank. For example.

You may start with a trading bank of £100, setting each trading stake as £10. You may make 10p on a successful trade with that. So if you planned on making £10 a trade, your stake would have to be £1000, your starting bank £10,000.