User Comments

Yes, it is possible. When you start your strategy in bot executor you have got option: Restart the automation at time, and you can define that time by parameter: Restart time 12:00, for instance.

This option is available only when you execute your strategy on your favourite event (added to My Favourites Events). If you bet/trade on horse racing markets I believe you already added such favourite event to your list.

So not when you select just couple markets, it means as well that your strategy must make/ by set rules/criteria on which markets it will run and on which not, or your strategy is selection based.

Please have a look at on attached video, go to 1:27 minute, where I show what is described here. If you do not have such feature in your bfexplorer app, then just install the latest version of bfexplorer app.

Today's test:

I already tried to implement saving and loading of grid conditional formatting but failed to did so, back in 2015. Please read the following post:

http://bfexplorer.net/Community/ArticleContent/82

My reply in the comment: Saving a ladder status is not yet implemented. I am still working on it and it is not so easy because grid control does not support loading and saving custom formatting in the use case I have got in my ladder implementation.

Be aware of the fact that bfexplorer by default creates some conditional formatting, so if you clear some of this rules you will lost settings for instance for to back/to lay data bar, as those two rules are set to share maximal offered volume to show realistic WOM.

I can try to do so again.

You can save different application layouts only, have a look at here:

http://bfexplorer.net/Articles/Content/213

May I see your conditional formatting of grids?

What I can suggest you is not to exit bfexplorer app, and hibernate your computer not shutting it down, then when you start your computer again bfexplorer app will be running, to force re-login, when bfexplorer had lost login session to betfair server, just click on Reload button (located bottom right in the application status bar).

My reply to betfair BDP team:

Yes, understanding of UX can be very difficult, but in bfexplorer actually all necessary steps required to run automation strategy are very simple, half of steps you do when you open bet event market for manual betting or trading.

When you open bfexplorer for the first time, there are no My Favorite Events added, so you open a bet even clicking on one of items in the Events list.

In the Event Browser are displayed all events you click on, so for instance if you clicked on Upcoming in-play events, then in Event Browser are all active bet events on betfair which are open at in-play as well.

Now big plus icon is in Event Browser toolbar, when you click on in, and as you are in the context in events, what else you can add to events, well yes only My Favourite Event. You bet on greyhounds so I believe you added there Greyhounds Racing, right? Or you did not mange to do anything.

 I would like to hear with what you have got main problems when dealing with bfexplorer user experience (UX).

Now when you just read the screen, you can see such plus icons, or similar looking icons like reload, start, and stop, and so on.

Why are the same icons on many places in bfexplorer app, and why are they the same, well because they represent the same action, like add, start, stop…

In My Strategy to Execute, is small plus icon, and I think  I do not have to repeat again what was said about plus icon, in this context when clicking on the toolbar button, a new strategy is added.

And it is similar to execute automated strategy, so similarly like when you open bet even market, you can execute strategy in the same Event Browser view, just by clicking on Execute in Strategy Executor.

So all steps:

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/Feature/15

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/Feature/23

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/Feature/24

I thought you watch my video and will try to repeat what you see in that tutorial:

http://bfexplorer.net/Community/BlogContent/434

Then you would ask, I cannot find “Greyhound Racing Betfair ML Ratings Trigger” from your video, and then I would reply, this strategy is available only for subscribers who paid for development of the strategy, but as in this case the strategy is from public domain I added it to “Community Bots” so with the latest release of bfexplorer app, you could find it there. This happened next day after I posted the above article.

So from UX point of view, user acts in context of actions displayed on user interface, in this case in different views.

So creating a strategy is just click on add button, then filling in parameters that are described in description view, and actually all bot strategies have default parameters so just by click on Save button user adds new strategy which can be executed, and in practice mode user can watch how the bot behaves so from that user can understand what actually strategy does, for instance:

“Place Bet and Close Selection Bet Position”

What such named strategy can do?

Well yes, place bet, and then close bet position.

Naming convention is general, I hope it is understandable; ok others could call it green up, or tick offset and so on, but the point here is that using different parameter settings influence strategy/bot behavior, and this way are built all bfexplorer bots.

Your bot:

“Greyhound Racing Betfair ML Ratings Trigger”

What Mr. Smith could understand from such name, well maybe a word trigger, so bot/strategy triggers something?

As bfexplorer app is extendable, anyone familiar with any .net programming language can build its own strategy, and such strategy is added to the application when app is starting up.

Therefore I thought that someone from your team will take some time and try to implement your ML strategy using

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/BfexplorerBotSDK

I can create simplified version or share my code.

It is like you do when you code VBA in Excel, but in this case strategy is directly integrated to bfexplorer app, and so it can be really executed autonomously in 24/7 mode, none from your third party tutorials can do that:

https://betfair-datascientists.github.io/#using-third-party-tools-for-automation

But bfexplorer can do so.

I thought that your tutorials are aimed to community of data scientists, who are familiar in different programming languages like R or Python, or just use ML tools without programming as Microsoft Azure Machine learning tools, and so.

If you think Excel automation is the way to go, then go through betfair app vendors forums, where people have big problems to automate their betfair strategies using Excel formulas and/or VBA, so it is quite impossible for common people to do anything reasonable without assistance.

So what option have data scientist build his ML/AI model for couple months?

Learn some third party tool, and make automation which is actually not so good automation, and he must reload markets manually or copy selections to Excel sheet.     

Learn betfair api and spend another 2 months building his betfair bot app. Or of course he can hire someone on freelancer web sites. Or he can use my Bfexplorer BOT SDK and and program just trigger bot, as the rest will be done by bfexplorer app.

What is actually tick offset?

You place a bet and when bet is fully matched the opposite bet is automatically placed to hedge your bet position in profit. Alternatively it can be set to place your hedge bet when market goes against your bet, so you close your bet position in loss.

Any automation, so any bots can be found in view My Bots to Execute, of course if you did not add there any bot, there is empty list there.

To add your bot, click on toolbar button in the “My Bots to Execute” view “Add a new bot.”

As mentioned above the tick offset automation can be named the other way like: “Place bet and close selection bet position”, I use such naming convention for bots because it explains the bot activity as well.

As you can see in my short video I have got quite a lot of different bot settings added in “My Bots to Execute” view. I hope you understand that one bot can be preconfigured/setup by its parameters, to behave differently. Therefore I would suggest using your own naming rules to keep your list of bot settings understandable.

If you want to replicated/clone other bot settings, just select you bot, and click on the toolbar popup menu item of “Add bot” toolbar named Clone.

Bots are usually used in fully automated strategies using Bot Executor tool, in this case you will manually start your bot by clicking on ladder, and therefore you need to activate “Use Ladder” option in the “My Bots to Execute” toolbar, in this context it means: Use a ladder click to execute your bot.

What makes the trading bot “Place Bet and Close Selection Bet Position” act like tick offset? In the bot parameters it is OfferMyBet set to True (checked), and the parameter PlaceBetInAllowedOddsRange set to False (unchecked).

If you forget to set those parameters and you would use it with Use Ladder activation mode, the bot will be started but depending on what odds you clicked on ladder the Minimum/MaximumOdds parameters will be adjusted, so bot will wait till allowed odds range is traded and only then starts placing opening bet.

Keep in mind as well that in “Use Ladder” mode, the Stake and BetType parameter of your bot is adjusted from current settings in the main toolbar, therefore it is really good practice to use right naming convention of your bot settings. For instance for fully automated trading you would create settings of “Place bet and close selection bet position” bot, and name it:

Back for 2 ticks profit

Lay for 1 ticks profit or 3 ticks loss

But for general use it is better to use naming like in this case “Tick Offset” (but of course with appropriate bot settings set), or Trade 2 ticks profit, so from the bot setting name it is clear that bot will be used in “Use Ladder” mode.

Here is list of similar posts about Tick Offset

http://bfexplorer.net/Articles/Search?text=offset

Click on the menu item:

View / Workspaces / Add

And add your workspace. You can create as many of workspaces you want to, for instance I have got three workspaces: Bot, Trading, and Tennis Trading.

You can switch off not used views and rearrange them, resize them and so on. For trading you can set ladders as the main user interface for Bet Event view, for Bot (or whatever you name it yourself) just market grid view, and so on.

Having more than one workspace you can switch between them, it is automatically added in My Workspaces menu, where you can choose which workspace bfexplorer will use by default.

Once a workspace is created you can Save it, I mean in already added workspace if you make some changes, you need to save it, it is not done automatically during bfexplorer app closing.   

Of course, selected workspace is automatically loaded during bfexplorer app starting.

For more details please read this article and watch video:

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/Feature/12

You ask this after how many years of using bfexplorer app? Well that is really sad, as it seems you never clicked on any menu item, and as any application have a menu, the bfexploer have the one as well, the five menu groups offering all application actions/operations, so:

Application, Market, View, Tools, Help

Wait for couple matches, and if I am right and problems are just seldom json data type mismatch on some matches then the chance is that you will be able to use old version again.

If not and betfair actually fixed that problem and json data are in new format for all matches, then you will have to update to the latest version of bfexplorer, as I had to change code of football data provider to make it work.

What so difficult to understand?

Watch this video, as I said with the latest version of bfexplorer all works fine.

I do not remember exact date but month or two ago during one of my live session on trading football markets I noticed that some matches were not updated further investigation showed that some of json data were not the same type as football live score provider required, so update of match data failed. I fixed that and released.

You are saying that what worked yesterday does not work today, so the mismatch of data in json is just temporally, not occurring on all matches. I did not trade football those days so I hardly to say, but my version of bfexplorer works without problems.

Backup your old version as mentioned, or just use the latest version, the chance is that problem is really only in those mismatch of json data, so your old version can start working later, if you do not want to update to the latest version.

I would really suggest using common sense, as when program works for days, and then suddenly stops working, it is not because something worn out, so the problem must be out of program, in data the program uses.

Football Bot needs valid feed of match score data, and I have just checked that on one football match at in-play just executing the football bot, bot must report the match time and score. Does your bot report the match data?

I always work with latest version of bfexplrer only, so if your bot setting is compatible with this version of Football Bot, then just save bot settings end send the file by email.

Gentlemen, but this tutorial was not actually meant to anyone of you, so if your bots were working correctly then why you updated bfexplorer app to the latest version, if all was working with your bots using the version of bfexplorer you installed initially?

Of course I am very sorry for any trouble or problems, or even lost in money you mentioned, but again I ask when all worked with previous version of bfexplorer for both of you why you did updated to the latest version? Did I force you to update?

If not then it is really just your responsibility first to check if the latest version of bfexplorer works with your preset bots. Tony you reported you have got setup 800 bots, well that is really quite a lot, I myself never exceeded more than 50 bots or so.

If you setup so many bots, then there is really question?

Do you really need 800 bots with different settings? You maybe use just one or two types of bots, I mean for instance Place Bet bot and trading bot called: Place Bet and Close Selection Bet position. If that is your case then your strategy can be automated the other way, you actually creates just different parameters or model for those two bots, so there is need to rethink your strategy and create your custom bot which works just with preset data, to automatically configure your two bots.

The other question is, when you really spent a lot of time with setting up so many bots why you did not ask me what to do to prevent recreating of all your bots when you update bfexplorer version, because updates to any software are inevitable, they simply happen, it is the way how software industry works, as any technology evolves in time, so updates are necessary!

It is not because some problems in my app, but as they happened sometimes, but it is because of changes in betfair api from time to time, and mainly from the fact that bfexplorer app involves as well, as I myself use it daily.

Just simply hint for all making a lot of bot settings.

Bfexplorer app is installed in folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\BeloSoft\Bfexplorer

So when you are uncertain whether update to the latest version will introduce problems to your current running app version and bots, rename this folder to:

C:\Program Files (x86)\BeloSoft\Bfexplorer.bak

So this way old installation of bfexplorer remains in this folder, the latest version will be installed to the folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\BeloSoft\Bfexplorer

That is not all, bfexplorer also uses different app settings. These settings are saved in the folder:

C:\Users\stefan\AppData\Roaming\BeloSoft\Bfexplorer

Stefan is my username on windows installation, so of course you must replace that with your username, so:

C:\Users\your user name here\AppData\Roaming\BeloSoft\Bfexplorer

Again you can copy that folder and so backup your all settings, or just in case of bot settings you can copy the file:

MyBots.parameters

to your backup folder.

Now you can run the latest version of bfexplorer and first check if all your bots works, you should test it in the practice mode so not risking real money in your test.

You both mentioned Football Bot, yes I updated this bot after one user requested

Bfexplorer Latest Release

to add Start/StopCriteria criteria, as number of different parameters had changed, it was better to implement that this way, and I reported that to release log:

Version 2.0.6957

Adding Goals parameter to Start/StopCriteria for Football bot.

So if I understand it correctly you updated to latest version, just because a new set of parameters was added to Football Bot, right?

But then you either knew that it could cause some problems with previous bot settings, so you were able to rebuild your bots again, or you should simply ask me about that. I really do not remember anyone of you ask about those possible compatibility issues when using new Football Bot. Nor I read about problems with Be the First in Queue bot.

I am betfair software vendor, so vendor providing trading app for betfair. For some of bfexplorer users I am partner as well, mainly for whom I build bespoke bots or apps, and they ask me. So for such users I can advise, in my best knowledge, about solving problem or strategy.

I hope you understand difference between words vendor and partner. In what role you are that do not depend on me but on you.

When you download Setup.exe file and the file is blocked by your operating system, so you cannot install bfexplorer app. Please read this article describing how to unblock such file:

https://www.isumsoft.com/windows-10/3-ways-to-unblock-app-or-file.html

You open a market for monitoring so it is open market, right? All the rest of millions market on betfair are not opened by you, so are not monitored by your bfexplorer app. This is just linguistic term, I had to name some way the view with open(ed) markets.

Any grid view has columns, so you can filter, sort, group data by those columns. Filter your markets by Status, or group them. Now select all closed markets, and click on Close toolbar button, and so all your closed markets will be removed from Open(ed) Markets.

When football match is over, it means that betfair sets the market status to closed. Bfexplorer does not monitor closed markets.

If you run your strategy automatically by Bot Executor tool, whenever your bot finishes its execution, the Bot Executor removes the market from monitoring, so no data are loaded by bfexplorer for such market.

Any action bot, bfexplorer offers, has parameter named:  StopMarketMonitoring. This parameter when set to True (checked in bot parameter’s settings) will set the market status to "inactive", when there is no other running bot on the market, so this way the open market is removed from monitoring. This parameter is useful when you run you bots manually on open markets in bfexplorer so not in automatic mode using Bot Executor tools.

You can use either dark or white app theme:

http://bfexplorer.net/Community/BlogContent/407

And when you go through my post you can really see different app layouts.

Betfair Tennis Trading and Tools

http://bfexplorer.net/Articles/Content/351

Portrait Layout

http://bfexplorer.net/Articles/Content/213

On Bfexplorer Product web page:

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/Bfexplorer

There is icon (like windows) in the main header, and when you move your mouse to this icon the tooltip window appears saying: “Bfexplorer Product Features”, click on to open web page:

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/ProductFeatures

Here in User Interface tab click on: Application layout and workspaces

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/Feature/12

There you can watch video showing how to change app layout.

The base points are: App uses two different user interfaces to present active market: the grid one and ladder one, you can switch between them by clicking on Use Bet Event Trader toolbar button in the main app bar.

So ladders UI is named in my app context like: “Bet Event Trader”, and grid user control (grid view), is named “Bet Event”.

When switching to one or the other mode you can change layout of other views as well, just by resizing or views and/or hiding not used ones.

If you repeatedly use different application layouts, then you can add them to your workspaces, clicking on View/Workspaces/Add.

Then you can simply switch between them using View/Workspaces/My Workspaces/<Your workspace name here>.

When you made changes to already named workspace just click on Save menu item in View/Workspaces/Save.

Bfexplorer remember lastly used workspace and reloads it again when you open bfexplorer again after Exit.

In Application/Settings/Trading Ladder you can set number of trading selections shown in “ladders”, by default it is set to 3, UI of my app is optimized to resolution of 1920x1200. If you have bigger screen with better resolution or more monitors then you can float views to another monitor, on so on.

The concept of moving/resizing/docking windows in base on Window operation system, so it is not just something I implemented in my application: bfexplorer.

Have a look at for instance on Tabs in Chrome/Edge/Internet Explorer, actually in any web browser. You can drag&drop a tab and move it to another monitor, or docked it to another Chrome app, and so.

The same concept works in bfexplorer app, it is called dockable views/windows.

First you need to define what you mean by term “scalping”?

Basically, the word describers manually trading on betfair, so the activity when man using its knowledge on how prices/odds will move, or how the market (so rest of people and bots on betfair) will react on market price changes, and using this knowledge to place back or lay bets, either by offering bets, and or taking what is offered.

The aim of this strategy is to create very short position on betfair market taking just couple ticks profit when market moves in favor or just accept loses, again in couple ticks. Trade is made by placing opposite bet type then opening one, so lay when back first and wise versa.

A tick is price/odds difference between back/lay odds, as betfair odds on non  handicap markets is defined in price groups, so for instance in odds/price range 2-3, it is 0.02, but in odds 3-4 it is 0.05 and so on, then between 2.12-2.14 we have got 1 tick difference as well as between 10-10.5.

That is the basic of trading on betfair.

When man trades on betfair a different techniques are used, you even place fake bets to force market react in your favor, in such cases you need to know what you are doing, as what you offer in such fake/trap bets, can be value for others.

To automate this process we are using betfair bots, so small programs which could automate manual part of your daily routine on befair markets, it is clear that such bots do not think, and are limited only by preprogrammed parameters.

In bfexplorer app you can find following bots which can be used for scalping:

Place Bet

Be the First in Queue

Fill or Kill

Close Selection Bet Position

Close Selection Bet Position at Odds

Place Bet and Close Selection Bet Position

Tick Offset

Scratch Trading

Trailing Stop Loss

Close Market Bet Position

Today's results running the bot fully automatically using Bot Executor tool:

I have just added new bot to bfexplorer called: “Show Market Selection and Alert”. If you want to use it install the latest version of bfexplorer:

http://bfexplorer.net/Products/Bfexplorer

I have created new bot script TennisGameScoreAlertBot.fsx, you can add GameScore parameter adding values like this: GameScores:5 - 4|6 - 5

Scores are separated by | and are written from position of serving player, have a look at the bot script on lines 49 – 63.

TennisGameScoreAlertBot.fsx

I do simple bot script development for my subscribers for free (that requires up to 1 working hour). I checked the script execution on my server, and no error message was reported, therefore I think you just tried to change the bot code and your changes produced error message you reported.

Bfexplorer offers standard bots that require no programming skills. You just set the bot parameters and execute such bot. One of such bots is “Tennis Bot” so basically you can set your trigger parameters, and setup an action by BotName parameter that will be executed when trigger criteria are met.

“Tennis Bot” stops its execution automatically when the action bot is triggered, so repeating bot action again can be made by recursion, what can be done by "Sequence Execution" bot, referring last bot name to execute in sequence to be the name of your sequence bot.

The last think for your custom bot is “Notification Bot”, so bot that will alert you (speak some text), so similar like in TennisBreakPointAlertBot script.

I will add such bot to standard bfexplorer bots adding one useful feature which you could see in the “Watch Favourite” bot. This bot displays market selection in Bet Event view automatically, so when monitoring for instance 50 tennis markets, the bot will automatically show in Bet Event view the market and selection on which the bot was executed.

I will add updated script as well, but my idea was that users willing to share programming bot scripts will do so, therefor I posted tutorial bot scripts for learners of betfair bot programming on my github web page:

https://gist.github.com/StefanBelo

You have got MSCORLIB.DLL assembly on your computer, because when you installed bfexplorer, the .net libraries already must be installed on your computer.

Bfexplorer app is developed in C# and F# programming languages, the script you want to run is written in F# as well.

All you need to do is installed F# language extension to Visual Studio, or any other IDE you use, please read/watch following:

Betfair Bot Programming for Non-Developers