Back in the day I started with dabbling in BA Excel automation, but soon moved into writing my own programs to access the Betfair API directly. This gives the ultimate flexibility, but also is more work. I mainly trade horses and football. Most of my time is spent researching, collecting data, backtesting, optimising and writing new strategies. Of course the benefit with automation is that I can be very flexible with my time.
Anyway, I don't want to send you off on another tangent. You should choose whatever area you think you'll be best at, then focus on that for quite some time before anything else.
Premium Charges
Very clever cookie by the sounds of it! Unfortunately i am a spanner basher turned project engineer getting to terms with trading the sports i love so will never reach that level but i am succeeding at my level! Hopefully once mastered i can turn my hand to automation and experimenting!xitian wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 3:20 pmBack in the day I started with dabbling in BA Excel automation, but soon moved into writing my own programs to access the Betfair API directly. This gives the ultimate flexibility, but also is more work. I mainly trade horses and football. Most of my time is spent researching, collecting data, backtesting, optimising and writing new strategies. Of course the benefit with automation is that I can be very flexible with my time.
Anyway, I don't want to send you off on another tangent. You should choose whatever area you think you'll be best at, then focus on that for quite some time before anything else.
Cheers Xitian
I think succeeding at any level at this game is already a pretty big accomplishment. A good sprinkle of luck in making the right choices (as I have had) goes a long way too. As does a good helping of objective thinking and determination.
Good luck and keep going!
Good luck and keep going!
Hi guys. I'm looking at getting into this as my matched betting days are pretty much over with so many gubbed accounts. I am intending on taking trading seriously and have booked myself on one of the horse racing seminars in Hook. I would like to eventually make a living out of it and leave my job. However I have been reading about these premium charges on betfair which is very off putting and is a bit of a dream killer. However, Betfair isn't the only betting exchange so isn't the simple solution to this just to use another betting exchange to trade on? Approximately 85% of my lay bets I do on matchbook as they charge much less commission. My understanding of the bet angel software is that it links to your betfair account. Is it not possible to get it to link to the other exchanges instead? This way we could trade on smarkets/matchbook without having to worry about premium charges.
Matchbook commission model is different to Betfair's. Matchbook charge 1.5% on every bet you make (although it may vary if you win/lose, or take/offer, but you're paying something on your turnover). Betfair charge a base rate of 5% on your NET winnings on a market. So if you trade by doing 10 backs and 10 lays of £100, and end up with £1 profit, you only pay 5 pence in commission to Betfair. On Matchbook, you've just turned over £2,000 so might owe them around £30 having only made a profit of £1.
Betfair's model is far superior for trading, but Matchbook is superior for straight bets or matched betting / arbitrage.
As I mentioned in a post above, Betfair is probably still the best place to make a sizable living compared to the other exchanges (your ceiling will be higher even after PC). They obviously wouldn't be charging their PC if they didn't think they could get away with it. I seem to remember hearing Betdaq increasing base commission for some clients who are very consistent, and Smarkets don't have a great reputation for treating their customers well either. Betfair is still the one with the biggest volume and maturity of platform and software. None of this is to say that there aren't opportunities elsewhere that are worth investigating, but that's just the current state of things. Betdaq is probably second choice for traders at the moment.
Should you worry about PC? Probably not right now, but you need to make a decision as to whether you want to start at all. At least you have the opportunity to decide whether you'd going to accept it before you've started down a very long path, as opposed to the people who had it lumped on them in the middle of their career. But if you can say now that you're happy to go down this path and are prepared to accept that there is this charge later, then you should go for it. It's a shame that Betfair are potentially putting off people like you, but they've obviously decided they make more money from the PC than they lose from new customers like you.
Betfair's model is far superior for trading, but Matchbook is superior for straight bets or matched betting / arbitrage.
As I mentioned in a post above, Betfair is probably still the best place to make a sizable living compared to the other exchanges (your ceiling will be higher even after PC). They obviously wouldn't be charging their PC if they didn't think they could get away with it. I seem to remember hearing Betdaq increasing base commission for some clients who are very consistent, and Smarkets don't have a great reputation for treating their customers well either. Betfair is still the one with the biggest volume and maturity of platform and software. None of this is to say that there aren't opportunities elsewhere that are worth investigating, but that's just the current state of things. Betdaq is probably second choice for traders at the moment.
Should you worry about PC? Probably not right now, but you need to make a decision as to whether you want to start at all. At least you have the opportunity to decide whether you'd going to accept it before you've started down a very long path, as opposed to the people who had it lumped on them in the middle of their career. But if you can say now that you're happy to go down this path and are prepared to accept that there is this charge later, then you should go for it. It's a shame that Betfair are potentially putting off people like you, but they've obviously decided they make more money from the PC than they lose from new customers like you.
Ouch. I started looking at BF charges to figure out exactly how BF transaction charges work as I figured that automation could easily trigger the 1000 per hour limit and then I happened to notice the section on Betfair's "premium charges". I saw the bit that goes on about 20% charges and thought wow thats a lot! Then I start seeing other figures bandied around like 40% and 60%. While at this stage it's just a far off "nice problem to have" it's still very offputting to know that if I succeed as I would like that this lies further down the line. I also need to think very carefully about only using Betfair where it provides significant advantage over other exchanges. Interesting how this fits in with arbing as one might rack up a profit at Betfair but lose elsewhere and then getting "taxed" on your profit element.
I wouldn't worry about it too much until you get close to it, or know that you will eventually hit it. You also shouldn't ever have to pay more than 40% because you can find ways to generate commission so you drop down to that category (and any extra commission you might have paid while in the 50 or 60% category is rebatable once you switch to 40% at a later date).
As you suggest, Betfair have essentially handicapped their growth by penalising the thought of success. Like you say, you should just weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of doing business with Betfair vs elsewhere. There's murmurings that the rates of PC may change in future (or the way it's calculated) so until you get close to £250k, who knows what the landscape will be like when you get there, so you need to factor that in to your decision too.
And with regards to transaction charges, they don't apply once you get to the high levels of PC. I'm surprised some of the other more experienced forum members haven't mentioned this. Either they don't know, or they're not paying the high levels. For me, losing the transaction limit has allowed me to increase my profits by multiples, which more than makes up for paying an extra 20% fee. So actually, reaching the high level of PC raises the ceiling of what you can earn.
As you suggest, Betfair have essentially handicapped their growth by penalising the thought of success. Like you say, you should just weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of doing business with Betfair vs elsewhere. There's murmurings that the rates of PC may change in future (or the way it's calculated) so until you get close to £250k, who knows what the landscape will be like when you get there, so you need to factor that in to your decision too.
And with regards to transaction charges, they don't apply once you get to the high levels of PC. I'm surprised some of the other more experienced forum members haven't mentioned this. Either they don't know, or they're not paying the high levels. For me, losing the transaction limit has allowed me to increase my profits by multiples, which more than makes up for paying an extra 20% fee. So actually, reaching the high level of PC raises the ceiling of what you can earn.
You're absolutely right of course Xitian. I'll worry about it when I am faced with it and by the time I get there I wont have any choice but to carry on as 60%(... or perhaps less) of something is still better than 100% of nothing! I'm coming at it from a very similar angle to yourself with an IT background so hopefully I can follow in your wake! (Excel then self developed API code, data capture, analysis, testing etc). Just out of interest did you pick up your initial basic API connection code from github and then extend it for your own requirements or completely self develop from scratch? I'm looking at doing this in C#.