I thought I would give an outline of my method so others may gleam some insight into what I am doing. I won't give away the exact details but enough so that you can see what I am trying to do and whether or not it might work longer term.

1. I gather price information for each race at specified intervals from a variety of sources (betfair, bookmakers, totes).
2. I use the above information and information gleeamed from the prices to determine the correct price for each selection. When I say correct I mean the price I think the market thinks the horse should be.
3. I then set a back and lay price for each horse and check the price with 5 secs to jump.
4. I have a few filters on which horses to select for lay and which to select for backing based on the price information.
5. If the horse is below my lay price I lay it. If the horse is above my back price I back it.

I currently have 1 lay signal and 2 back signals. This seems to be working and I do not really want to tinker with the process.

I started with $100 and my account is now at $117.51. The inital bet size was 19c . The current bet size is now 22c. I know this is crazy small but I am cautious. I would prefer to make small amounts and never have to fund my account again and just use my inital $100.

I'll record my results for previous day (to allow for overseas results to update) each day.

For 29th September I got the following :
Betfair Aus Wallet : 6 Races for 0.18 Profit
Betfair Main Wallet : 11 Races for 0.25 Profit
Profit for Day : 0.43

For 30th September I got the following :
Betfair Aus Wallet : 37 Races for 0.96 Profit
Betfair Main Wallet : 16 Races for 1.29 Profit
Profit for Day : 2.25

Just be careful as BF WILL close your account for using stakes below the $5 minimum for Aussie bettors.

thanks Ocho. I have heard similar stories but from what I have heard it is people who

1) lay/bet betlow the level where commission would be paid.
2) delete the original bet.
3) Flood the market with bets and updates to the bets every few seconds.

I also hear they give you a warning which I am yet to recieve and I have been doing this for a while now.

I think they are more concerned with people trying to avoid the commission or overwhelming their infrastructure with too many small bets.

Also I think if you leave the inital bet at $1.01 or $1000 you are technically not betting less then the $5 minimum. You just didn't get it all matched.

If I get a warning I will up my bets to the minimum limit.

UselessBettor, I got a warning from Betfair about betting below the minimum allowable.

However, unfortunately I was deleting the original bet, as you mention in point 2.

Since the warning I have not bet below the minimum, too worried they will ban me especially now that I am doing very well by laying the field.

In my case I was using a bot to only bet a few cents at a time in every race so, as you say UselessBettor, the initial bet was getting cancelled and the small bet was being placed.

This was not to avoid commission, but to test various systems with my bot. Avoiding commish was not the intention.

I then was testing systems in simulation mode and got warned again that I was using the data without betting and that I could use their results service, etc, to try my system out. Unfortunately, that data does not list which was the 1st, 2nd, 3rd fav etc, so going through that data with a fine tooth comb was not what I wanted to do.

What really peeves me off is that us people in Oz have to bet $5 minimum (back or lay) or $30 liability at SP rather than 50c like on the TAB. It's a pain in the you know what, but we don't have any other option if we want to lay bet or if we want to automate our back bets.

UselessBettor, Do you use a program to run this type of betting?

I have used Gruss for a number of years and find with the excel interface that it is the best software out there.

The Ocho, there are 2 main reasons why simulation mode is a waste of time, the first you have seen as betfair don't like the data consumption with out bets being placed.

The second is that the results can be misleading as the software can show results even when a bet was not able to be matched, this can be the same as if a person was back checking how the fav performed in particular races using the TAB because you need time to place the bet and the fav can often change in the last 30 seconds.

Yes, I think you may be right there - when I was laying the field, I put in $5 @ $1.01 on all runners and then laid to price ($100 for example) any bet under the minimum then amends the the size and price - the initial bet just remains there (I have yet to receive the dreaded warning).

Not all of my bets are under the minimum, so this could also be a factor.

Shaun,

I took the example programs off the bdp.betfair.com site and then amended it to do what I wanted. I just added some database support and wrote a few extra classes. But I think 90% of the code is as per the examples. I think my major change was to read the market information often and run in a loop so it never ends.

I am yet to recieve a warning but if I do I will up the bet to minimum stakes as I think I am onto a winning idea as it is up around 83 units at this stage.

Just a followup to this as I have recieved a few more reasons people lost their accounts. The full list of reasons I can guarantee you will get a warning/ account closure are :

1) lay/bet betlow the level where commission would be paid.
2) delete the original bet.
3) Flood the market with bets and updates to the bets every few seconds.
4) Place any bets at 0.01 or 0.02 size. This is the same as reason 1 but even 1 bet at these stakes will get you a warning email.
5) Place multiple bets under the minimum bet size on the same selection. For example It seems ok to place a $5 bet at $1.01 and a $0.20 bet at $100 but is not ok to then also set another bet at $0.20 at $50. If 2 or more bets under minimum bet size are placed on the same horse you are likely to get a warning notice.

I am yet to meet anyone, who places a $1.01 bet and then updates it without cancelling the first bet (who has not violated one of the above reasons) , who has recieved a warning notice. It doesn't mean that betfair will not soon extend their warnings but for the moment if you don't violate any of the above rules you should be ok (unless you already had a warning as this is most likely monitored by a different trigger).

Just went back through some old e-mails and I recieved the minimum bet warning in July 2009. From memory I was system testing with small bets into the UK markets using a commercial bot.

Who's had an e-mail from Betfair Investigations though??

__________________
Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash