Lay the Fav or Back the Field
 

I have a question for those more Betfair savvy among us, assuming I have a method whereby I can identify opportunities where the favourite is vulnerable, is it more profitable to lay the fav or dutch back the rest of the field? I will be looking at setting up bets to happen as close to start time as possible where the markets are very close to 100%.

Due to the turnover tax laying is better. Just google betfair turnover tax and you will see why.

Betfair love layers in Oz.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

The other question I have is can I run more than one bot on the same account or will that attract excess data fees?

I think it may depend on how many calls (or whatever the term is) the bot makes to the free betfair api. If you set your bots up so that they don't make too many calls then it may be okay however that means the bet placement could be delayed and you miss out on your price. It could also depend if you will be betting under their minimum as then it is making heaps of calls just to place that one bet. (Also BF could ban you for this).

With the bot I use they won't let you have two running at the same time on the one account as I believe that may cause the bots to play up.

I got around this by my wife opening an account.

Also with backing instead of laying you have to pay the turnover charge, on the markets that still have that, for each and every back bet.

There are many charges with betfair and you have to understand them all to understand if you will need to pay more. Basically :

1. Turnover charges may apply if your backing
2. Premium charges will apply if your winning consistently
3. Data Charges will apply if you make too many calls per second (20 calls).
4. Commission is charged on all winning bets
5. Inactive Charges - If you set up an account then don't use it
6. Deposit/Withdrawal charges depending on how you do it.
7. Higher Premium Charges (different to premium charges) for those who are really good at profiting.

Overall If you have a bot you should be able to code it to do more then 1 system. Mine runs heaps and uses the same data to apply to all systems and makes bets on that.

You can get your account banned for the following:
1. Betting under minimum stakes
2. Not betting but running a bot( regarded as price collection which is against their terms and conditions)
3. Money Laundering :)
4. Trying to avoid premium charges.

Overall its easy enough as long as your not trying to game the system and you abide by their rules.

I have had no problem running 2 occurrences of my bot. I set the api calls to 15 on each.