RacingTraders
BetTrader
Trading
Frequently Asked Questions
Free Download!
BetTrader 4.4 is free to download and it's Grid Interface is free to use. All you need is a Betfair account.
Is it correct that I can use BetTrader's Grid Interface completely free of charge for as long as I want? This isn't just a free trial offer?
Yes, anyone with a Betfair account can log into BetTrader and place their bets through the Grid Interface completely free of charge. This is not a free trial period, you can use BetTrader for as long as you want without ever having to pay us a penny.
See for yourself what live updating Betfair prices and faster bet submission do for your Betfair profits.
Do I have to pay tax on my Betfair profits if I trade on Betfair for a living or if I make a worthwhile secondary income from trading on Betfair?
In the UK, all profits from gambling, including profits from trading and betting on Betfair, are completely tax free. This is the case even if trading on Betfair is your full time occupation and is your only source of income.
Someone who makes an average of £100 per day on Betfair for 5 days a week makes the equivalent of £35,000 per annum before taxes in any other job or business. Combined with no commuting costs and the ability to work from home and be your own boss, trading on Betfair for a living can be a viable option even if you're only making small, albeit consistent, profits.
Is there a limited number of people that can trade on Betfair before it becomes impossible to make money from trading? Is the pie being sliced too thin?
The more traders, gamblers, bots, arbers, and anything else you can think of, the better. More traders add more liquidity to the markets, making them more tradeable.
There will always be short term patterns that a competent trader can exploit, and the more people there are playing then the bigger size bets you can get matched. I wrote a short article about this in the July issue of the Scalper
How do I get the best performance out of BetTrader?
Three main factors affect the performance of BetTrader. Your computers CPU power and RAM and the speed and reliability of your Broadband. If you can maximize these factors, you will get the best out of BetTrader.
It is always good to check your PC efficiency. You can do this, aswell as checking the speed of your internet connection, by going to:
http://www.pcpitstop.com
You can also check out the fastest ISP by going to:
http://www.chooseisp.co.uk
On the Ladder Interface, why can I only see the best three prices and not the full market depth?
BetTrader displays live Betfair markets and price information by linking to Betfair through their Application Programming Interface, API. BetTrader can only display what the API provides, and Betfair's API only gives the best 3 available to Lay and Back prices for each horse/team as a completely live price.
All the other outside prices are available but they aren't live and can be delayed by as much as 14 seconds. Any Betfair trading application that shows anything more than the best 3 available to lay and Back prices is giving you old information.
We decided it's best to show nothing than to show incorrect information so we only display the best 3 available to Lay and Back prices.
Why are the Back and Lay colours the other way around on the Ladder interface than they are on the Betfair/Grid Interface?
At first glance it appears that the Back and Lay colours on the Grid are the opposite way around from the Ladder. However, if you want to place a Lay bet on either interface then you click in the pink boxes and if you want to Back on either interface then you click in the blue boxes.
The Grid and Ladder have a different bet submission process from each other but the Lay and Back areas are the same colour on both interfaces.
If you want to swap the colours around on the Ladder interface you can do this in the Settings tab.
Does BetTrader connect to any other betting exchanges other than Betfair?
No we don't, BetTrader only connects to Betfair.
Betfair is without doubt the big dog, pit bull, kingpin of the betting exchange world and there is no good reason to even think about using any of the others. Betfair has superior technology and, more importantly, massive liquidity that no other betting exchange can even come close to.
Successful trading is totally reliant on liquid markets that you can get in and out of easily, and Betfair has 95% of all betting exchange volumes.
The prices in the Ladder's central column are difficult to see against the dark blue colour, how do I change this?
The central price columns on the Ladder Interface on BetTrader 4.0 are light grey, if they are dark blue then you need to go to File> Settings> Colours> Restore Defaults. This will make the prices easier to see.
Dark blue central price columns happen when you have upgraded from version 3.5 to version 4.0 because of the preferences file already on your computer. If you are downloading BetTrader for the first time you shouldn't have this problem.
Copyright © 2008 RacingTraders.com Ltd. All rights reserved.