New in 2024, Bet Selector supports sending bets directly to Betfair. This support page provides detailed instructions on how to use Bet Selector to collect Betfair data and send bets to Betfair.
Here is a brief summary on how to do this in Race Day Live (see end of page for how to bet from System Selector):
Note: If you were prompted to download form then you must do so and after completion you must manually close the form download dialogue and click the "Get All Races" button again. Also to avoid unexpected errors you should place the Bet Selector folder path and exe path/name in the relevant exception lists of your security/anti-virus software.
In the final step above, the Betfair "Back/Lay" button opens a window that allows you to bet all runners in a race (or a subset if selected on the main screen) but you can also mouse click any horse on the Betfair "Back/Lay" to bet a single runner. More detailed instructions can be found on the remainder of this page.
The power of being able to send bets directly to Betfair at exchange prices or BSP has been seen as a major breakthrough by a number of Bet Selector clients who used it in a pre-release version in December 2023.
Brian says "Well done on one of the best additions for Bet Selector in over 30yrs!!"
Neil has a large number of system selections to bet and says "Your interface with Betfair has made my Saturday mornings ever so much easier. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is simply brilliant!"
Dave likes Dutch betting multiple horses in Race Day Live and says "I've trialed a lot of applications but this is by far the best."
Marcus says "Being able to kick the Tab's and corporates and deal with Betfair with a couple of clicks is an amazing achievement."
If you are new to Bet Selector please note it is not a Betfair trading bot and it does not continuously poll data from Betfair. It is a form analysis program to which we have added Betfair betting functionality. The form analysis part of the program dates back to the late 1980s when it was first released under the name Price Predictor. As a result it may appear old school but you can be assured its ratings are state of the art and its form analysis and system building features in System Selector are some of the most powerful and affordable around.
The ability for clients to send bets to Betfair has been added to the Race Day Live module where you can bet individual runners and/or “Dutch” bet multiple runners. Race Day Live is also the module in which data is collected which is why it opens automatically each time you start Bet Selector. Bets can also be sent from System Selector (off the pull down RUN menu) where you can click a button to bet your strategy/system selections (more on this in the final section on this page).
The monthly fee for Bet Selector automatically gives you access to form downloads for upcoming Australian and New Zealand gallops races. Form downloads include full career to date stats plus form line details for every horses past 10 starts. To view detailed form for a race you should go to Price Predictor off the pull down RUN menu and use the "VIEW EXTRA FORM" button.
Please note Australian and New Zealand racing authorities have full copyright ownership of field and form data which is why we require you to agree that the data is for your personal use only and that any unauthorised reproduction, adaptation or communication is not allowed.
If you are already familiar with Bet Selector you should be aware that the Betfair data collection option will update scratchings into your race files just like the other data collection options. Note there are a few cosmetic changes in Race Day Live like jump time updates now being automatic (so no checkbox needed), races refreshing automatically when selected (so no refresh button needed) and report buttons being condensed into a single Report button with a drop down list to select which report you want. Also Race Day Live is designed to be left open all day but at the end of the day you can (and should) double click the data source radio button and then click "Get All Races" to force a full set of price and result updates.
Race Day Live is the main module that opens when you start Bet Selector. This is the module that supports collecting Betfair data and creating bets suitable for sending to Betfair.
Note: If the program asks you to enter a password then you have not completed the installation process and must email us the code that appears on the password request dialogue. Please go back to the installation instructions or email us if you need more help on this.
Race Day Live supports multiple data sources so if the radio button for Betfair is not selected, you should select it now. To get the program to remember the Betfair radio button as the default selection just click the Setup button on the top right of the window and then enter the number 3 in the "Data Source" box and click the "Save Setup File" button.
If Bet Selector is not logged into Betfair when you commence data collection (as per following section), you will be presented with a Login dialogue that asks for your Betfair username and password. To login, simply enter your Betfair Username/Email and Betfair Password, tick the checkbox to accept the conditions and click the "Login" button.
Important: Please note your Betfair username and Betfair password are not saved in anyway (either to memory or disk) so if you close the program you will have to login to Betfair again next time you open the program and wish to connect to Betfair. If you keep the program running then your Betfair session will expire after 12 hours from your last successful login attempt. If you wish to logout but keep the program running then there is a "Logout" button to the immediate right of the Betfair radio button on the main Race Day Live window. A Betfair Logout will also be called immediately before you close the program so for your convenience it is best to leave the program open all day rather than continually opening and closing it.
Note there are also buttons on the Betfair Login dialogue to view Betfair Charges and to Join Betfair (note you can also join Betfair via the banner at the top of this webpage).
Password Issues: You must have at least one special character in your Betfair password but some special characters like % may cause login errors - Betfair suggest you use special characters from this list !?()*+,:;=@_./-[]{}. Also, if you use Two Factor Authentication (2FA), you need to append a backup code to your password (or temporarily disable 2FA) as per the Betfair Security notes.
Non-Australian Accounts: If your country of residence for your Betfair account is outside Australia please contact us for additional login instructions.
Once you have selected the Betfair radio button, you need to select the desired date from the date drop down list near the top left of the window. This defaults to todays date but you may need to change it to tomorrows date if your computer's clock is set to a non Australasian time zone.
The next step is to click the "Get All Races" button. This initiates the collection of data from Betfair's Market Catalogue for all upcoming Australian and New Zealand gallops races for the selected date. If you are doing this for the first time after opening the program (or if your session has expired), you will be asked to login to Betfair (see previous section for support on how to login to Betfair from the program).
Note: The program will also check to see if you have downloaded meeting form for the day and if not it will give you the opportunity to do so. Form must be downloaded to continue so if given this option click "Yes" - this takes you to a form download dialogue where you can click "Check Meetings" and "Download" buttons to download form files (the default is to download all days from the last 10 days for which new data is available).
There will be a slight delay the first time you collect Betfair data for any given day with data for larger race days like Saturdays taking around a minute. Progress will be indicated by a progress bar and status text showing which meeting it is up to. Once complete, all races for the day are displayed in the left hand list box and the "Get All Races" button changes to "Refresh Race List".
Once the "Refresh Race List" button is displayed you can use it to update all races but note this only updates the status of the races in the race list and does not update prices for individual races. Data for individual races however is fully updated when you click on the race in the left hand race list.
If you want to update prices for all races in one go you need to get back to the "Get All Races" button and this can be done by either clicking on the Betfair radio button again or by closing and reopening Race Day Live (note closing and reopening Race Day Live will not log you out although closing the whole program will). This is handy at the end of the day or the next day when you want to make sure you have collected all the results and BSP prices for all races on the day.
Note: The above procedures won't update for any new races that may have been added but a full refresh from the Betfair Market Catalogue will occur if you close down Bet Selector and open it again. Such action should only be necessary if you think meetings might be missing from your race lists - this could be the case if you initially collected Betfair meeting data more than 4 or 5 hours before the first race of the day (or in the rare event that a meeting is moved to a different track in the hours before it is to be held).
Once you select a desired race in the left hand list box you can then proceed to the Betfair betting dialogue which is accessed by clicking the "Back/Lay" button in the lower right corner of the window. By default this window displays back and lay prices and volumes for all runners in the race. While this window is open, Betfair data is automatically refreshed for you (from once every 60 seconds down to once every second depending on how long until the race jumps and how well formed the market is). If the selected race has already run then back and lay prices won't be shown but BSP prices and results may. If you scroll the large middle list box to the right you may see BSP prices and BSP prices net of commissions with comparisons to Best Tote prices.
The "Back/Lay" Betfair betting window supports two ways to bet. First, there is the "Send Bets" button on the right hand side of the window that will send bets for all runners in the window. This supports "Dutch" betting (see below) but if you only want to view and possibly bet a subset of runners in the race then before opening the "Back/Lay" window you should tick the checkboxes for your desired runners in the first column of checkboxes on the right hand side of the main Race Day Live window (under the "1" button).
Note: Once in the "Back/Lay" window you can also add or delete selections using the "Change Selections" button down the bottom right of the window. Plus you can change to the previous or next race in the main window race list using the "Prev Race" and "Next race" buttons.
The second way we support betting to Betfair allows you to bet just one runner from the list. You can do this via a popup that appears when you click on an individual runner - it has controls for altering bet sizes and limit prices and has its own "Send Bet" button.
Regardless of which approach you use, you will see controls for changing from Back to Lay and from Matched to BSP (Betfair Staring Price). More complicated controls for setting limit prices and bet sizes are discussed in the following "Dutch Betting" section.
Note: You can use the "Back/Lay" button to access Betfair betting even if Race Day Live is set to Ladbrokes (but you must have previously used the Betfair radio button at least once in the day to get the market and selection ids).
Our Betfair Dutch Betting functionality supports Dutch betting runners to Betfair either as matched Betfair exchange bets or as Betfair starting Price (BSP) bets.
Dutch betting refers to the process of betting multiple runners with varying bet sizes. Typically the varying bet sizes are framed in such a way that each bet returns the same amount. To return $100 for example, you set the bet size to 100 divided by the available Betfair betting price. This would mean placing a bet of $50 on a $2 chance, a bet of $10 on a $10 chance and a bet of $1 on a $100 chance.
An alternate approach is to set the bet size to 100 divided by a rated price which results in returns above $100 when the available Betfair price is greater than the rated price (and less when the available price is less than the rated price).
There are a number of controls on the "Back/Lay" window to support the Dutch betting process. First up, there are radio buttons where you can quickly select 10, 25, 50 or 100 divided by the price. Plus there is a level stakes radio button which sets all bet sizes as equal.
Next there are "Bet Booster" radio buttons which allow you to multiply the bet sizes by 2, 5, 10 or 30. These work in concert with the above controls so if you have already set bets to be say 100 divided by the price then multiplying by 2 effectively means you are betting to 200 divided by the price. Note the bet sizes for each runner automatically change in the "Size" column as you click the various radio buttons.
Finally there is a "Bet Calc Prices" drop down list at the bottom of the "Back/Lay" window where you can set which prices you wish to use for the betting to price calculations. Examples include back or lay prices, near prices and a variety of rated prices. The full list of supported options is as follows:
Note that after using any of the above features to set bet sizes, there are two ways you can manually make final adjustments to bet sizes. First, you can left mouse click a runner and use the popup dialog to change a runners bet size. Second, you can right mouse click a runner to make it a saver bet (you will then see the letter S in the Svr column). Note the program won’t let you have more than 3 savers in a race and you can right mouse click savers to remove them.
At the bottom of the window alongside the "Bet Calc Prices" drop down is a "Limit Prices" drop down which can be used to set limit prices. All the rated price option and betting price options from the last section are available but also included are the numeric values 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 and 4.
The purpose of a limit price is to tell Betfair you only want a bet placed if the available price is equal to or greater than the limit price (equal to or less than for lays). This can be applied to both exchange bets and Betfair starting price (BSP) bets with the big advantage being you do not have to monitor the prices all day long to see if your price becomes available - Betfair just records the bet and does the rest for you.
The simplest use would be setting a fixed limit for all bets - for example a limit of 2 would ensure you never end up accepting odds on prices. A more advanced use is when you have different limit prices for different runners - for example if you use a rated price then bets would only be accepted if the price available is greater than or equal to the rated price.
Limit prices can be fine tuned using the edit box and "Apply Adj" button under the "Limit Prices" drop down. For example you could enter +1 in the edit box and this would add 1 to each limit price once you click the "Apply Adj" button. You could also enter -1 to subtract 1. The other option is to multiply where *1.5 would multiply all limit prices by 1.5 - this is handy for targeting 1.5 times overlays. Note there is no divide operator but *0.5 would divide by 2 - it is unlikely you'd go that low but a better example would be using *0.9 which would allow you to target overlays and underlays up to 10% below the rated price.
Limit prices can also be adjusted for an individual runner on the pop up dialogue that appears when you mouse click a single runner. For example you can type in any number you like or you can take the displayed number and increase or decrease it by clicking the "+1 Tick" or "-1 Tick" buttons. This is handy if you want to quickly send a single bet and make last minute adjustments to the limit price.
You can also send bets to Betfair for your strategy/system selections from the System Selector module off the pull down RUN menu. It has a "Bet Slip" button which brings up a window very similar to the "Back/Lay" window descried earlier. The main difference is that it can contain selections from multiple races and multiple meetings on a day - it contains selections from your last system test for the selected folder and can include selections from multiple systems if you used the option to test more than one system at a time.
While the window has similar controls for setting bet types, bet sizes, limit prices etc to those on the Race Day Live Back/Lay window, you can also force certain settings using the following codes in your system names:
Note that limit prices default to the rated price but can be changed via the Limit Price drop down to a fixed price for all bets (eg 2, 2.5, 3 etc), the last collected back price or the rated price (System Default).
Prior to supporting betting to Betfair directly form System Selector we supported sending bets to a number of Betfair bots - still an option and you can find the relevant bets files in the Price folder subfolders (BFBM for BFBotmanager, BBPRO for BetBotPro and BSEND for BetSender).
Note: The ability to bet system selections to Betfair will only work if Betfair data has already been collected for the day in Race Day Live.
For more information on testing system strategies see our System Selector support page and for more info on analysing system data see our System Analyser support page. Note in Expert Mode systems and reports you can use the variable BSP for the BSP price and BSPRANK for the BSP price rank (on race day you can also use BF1 and BF2 for opening and latest exchange price but note these only work before the race jumps). For full Bet Selector support, go to our main Support page.
Inplay: When a race jumps, any existing bets placed via Bet Selector will not go inplay (in Betfair jargon the persistence type is set to LAPSE). However if you place a bet while the race is inplay, the bet will be sent to Betfair.
Liabilities: Liabilities for back bets are simply the same as your bet sizes. For lay bets, Bet Selector sets the liability to the "backers profit" (in Betfair jargon the bet target type is set to BACKERS_PROFIT) - this minimises your exposure compared to the alternative where you would potentially have to pay the backers bet size times the price (bet target type PAYOUT).
Limits: If you do not set limit prices (or set them to NONE) then they will default to 1.01 for back bets and 1000 for lay bets which in theory means any price could be accepted. Because of this risk, it is best to set limit prices although Betfair's "best available" model of operation means you may still get the best price without using limits (only if your bet sizes are relatively small compared to the volumes available). Note this is not an issue with Betfair starting price (BSP) bets but of course using limits with BSP is still a very useful approach because you can put your bets on early in the day with the assurance you will get set at BSP but only when greater than or equal to your limit price (less than or equal to for lays).