'Old' TAB Live Odds Web Service has ended + VBA Issue
 

I am gutted. I only used to download the Meeting Summary xml feed from VicTab's 'old' web service to build a race list of a given day's races and it suddenly stopped working.....Couldn't for the life of me work out why until I read on their Support pages (http://nettab.custhelp.com/app/answ...dds-web-service) that it is all over.

We now have to use their proper web service suite', which doesn't look easy for Excel/VBA developers.

I tried playing around with XQuery to see if the Tatts.com xml feeds have the necessary information, but it doesn't seem to have it all for any given date (i.e. 06/11/2012)

Does anyone else know where I can get a list of the day's races from in a list format inclduing Time, Track, Race #, Race Name and Class for any given date please?

God forbid my punting days come to an end because of this.... :-)

This any good to you?

http://www.ozbet.com.au/UI/RacingUI...reDate=19122012

I agree the service is too hard to be a service. Getting past the security is my problem. And I do not see why they have it. How many people are actually accessing it? I think that they have made it too hard to use
Martin

Web services are a standard approach in the industry. I can fully understand why they did this. There are a lot of people ripping off their data with no gain to them (ie, they don't bet with the tab).

Betfair uses the exact same method (web services), it is just that there are a lot more examples of how to access the betfair services then the tab's.

It shouldn't be too hard to get the data in excel and there would be 1000's of examples of how to use a web service out there.



how many web sites do you see showing tab prices? There would be thousands and none of these sites bet. They just show the odds.

This is what they are trying to discourage.

Thanks Shaun.

I knew you would know the drum on where to get the data.

I played around with regular web queries and it grabbed the schedule nicely but I may need to include some VBA to get both the main race schedule and the Meeting Code list as well. The web query doesn't pull it in for some reason.

If I then throw in a simple vlookup formula I should be back in business...I'll post the code snippet if and when I get it working.

Thanks again

Unfortunately they have done it at the expense of their end users, most of whom do not have the programming knowledge necessary to make sense of the gobly gook that is the 'web services' approach they have decided upon.

No doubt some bright spark will cash in shortly with 'pay for' app of some sort that will allow us mugs to once again integrate the Tab site with Excel, at present it is complicated beyond belief, even their own people struggle with offering any useful advice or a logical approach to take.

This is my point, i don't mind them doing it because they need to protect there product but at least they could have knowledge of how it works and examples of how we can use it.

Indeed Shaun & why I believe much like Betfair issues API licences, the TAB will end up doing something similar as I fail to see anyone using their web services other than the small number of people with the necessary programming background.

The Tab's web services introduction has been handled appallingly, someones head really should be on the chopping block.

I do confess, and laugh about it now when i spat the dummy cos of technological data feed changes, (teletext via t.v. aerial), therefore making this "you bute" live odds program useless unless it went through major surgery for internet feed.
The programmer/s simply had enough to. It takes TIME, to test after test after test and just when ya think ya got it right, another change.

One thing does stay constant, the same live data feed is still available, by subscription, but ya get continuity and quality.

It's all in the mindset for most of us with limited programming insight. Not that we are any less, we punters are actually the grass roots architects of infrastructure when it comes to our respective racing methods. Our ideas reign superior through trial and error just to process sums quick enough before the jump.
On the other side of da coin, is the suppliers of that data feed and therein lies the catch 22, all this has a cost, energy is consumed all the way from the farmer supplying grain for the winning horse to the waitress serving the lucky ones at the hoyty-toyty 5 star rump steak diner.
Soooo, the days of scraping may be numbered, but a solution is not that big deal to explore.
There is a solution to get them live odds to excel, but....it may cost.

Or, go to the track n back to basics.

Yep there's a cost for everything, but all I would add is last time I checked the Tab withholds ~14%-20% of every dollar I bet with them, one would think that might just cover their 'expenses'...