Betfair Account Data Delayed - Profiled as a Business User

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Wolf1877
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2017 10:59 am

Hi I'm a new-ish Bet Angel / Betfair user and I seem to have fallen foul of the data usage and I have been incorrectly profiled as a "business user" by Betfair and my dat a has been delayed.

have been using multiple instances of BA/Guardian (say 1 per UK/Ireland race meeting) and linking this through to Excel to capture some market data while I have been learning the ropes in Practice mode over the last few weeks so not actively trading. I work in IT so I signed up to the Betfair Developer program but otherwise I am a complete newbie to both Betfair and Bet Angel, exchange betting etc.

I have actually been making very good progress and I was just about ready to start actively trading this weekend. I had left my PC unattended for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon and then at 16:50 I received an email from [email protected] advising that my account usage had been profiled as a business user and that data had been delayed. The first thing that I noticed was that BA was behaving very erratically causing me to close BA, reboot and log in etc. Then on checking my emails I noticed the email from Betfair Developer Program.

I tried betfair chat support and they referred me to https://developer.betfair.com/support to raise a support ticket on the Betfair Developer support which is only available Monday to Friday 9 to 5 so an email at 16:50 on Friday is not very nice!

I appreciate that I may not be a typical new Bet Angel or Betfair user in combining high data usage with virtually no actual trading yet but I'm pretty gutted to have fallen foul of this and just hope I can sort it out with the Betfair Developer Support Team on Monday. At this stage I'm not sure if my mistake was in signing up for the Developer Program while using multiple instances use of Bet Angel while not actually actively trading while I perfected my technique in Practice Mode.

Anybody else fallen foul of this kind of issue?
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Dallas
Posts: 22671
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:57 pm
Location: Working From Home

Excessive use of practice mode is what's caused your restriction

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14417
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14247
Wolf1877
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2017 10:59 am

Thanks for the pointers Dallas.

I would have thought that standard Betfair support would have been able to help me out but my signing up for the Betfair Developer program (even though I currently plan to exclusively use Bet Angel) seems to have thrown an additional spanner in the works for me.

I'd strongly recommend that BA users dont sign up for the Betfair Developer Program until they are actually trading and then only when they are very serious about developing their own app. I signed up for BDP only out of mild interest for potential use further down the line.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

It's nothing to do with you signing up to the BDP , it's all down to your 'excessive' useage without generating commission for them.Customer services won't have access to remove any restrictions so it's down to the BDP team if they lift it or not. Good luck as I know they're getting quite strict about it these days especially since they started charging for personal API keys.
Wolf1877
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2017 10:59 am

Thanks spreadbetting. Hopefully they will be lenient with me as I only opened an account just over a month ago and I hope to be generating plenty of commission for them going forward. I literally was on the verge of starting to actively trade when they pulled the plug on me.
Wolf1877
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2017 10:59 am

As an update I managed to plead my case successfully on this occasion thankfully. I received the following message from BDP Support which I am posting to serve as a warning to others and for review by Bet Angel HQ.

"The market data delay has now been removed from your account. Please be aware however that live market data is for betting purposes only. The Historical Data Service https://historicdata.betfair.com/#/home is available for analysis purposes. Continued extensive viewing of live market data without requisite betting activity will result in further restrictions.

The use of practice mode for an extended period would have led to this restriction being triggered. To avoid the restriction in future I would recommend avoiding being logged in if not planning on betting. "

I do realise in hindsight that I was pushing the boundaries too far. Going forward I will be treading on eggshells until I have established a proven record with Betfair. I dont want my trading career stalling before it has even got off the ground when I know that I have both the mindset and technical ability to be successful in trading.
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LeTiss
Posts: 5386
Joined: Fri May 08, 2009 6:04 pm

I think Peter and his team need to face facts. Betfair's stance on this subject, makes Bet Angel's practice mode totally obsolete. It's of no use to users whatsoever, if they are using that aspect of the software with genuine well-meaning, but are then getting banned, or charged £300 as a business user
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Bet Angel
Posts: 3999
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:47 pm

Practice mode exists so that users can try out a new feature or test a Automation Rule without risking real money if something unexpected happens. We have not seen betfair restrict any account when using Practice Mode for a few hours or even days, but understandably they not want people hammering their servers with no chance of commission generation. Betfair tend to clamp down quicker on accounts that are active for days without depositing any funds..... as to them it just looks like data harvesting and it's much easier for someone to create a fake account with betfair if they haven't had to go through a secure money deposit process.

For customers that often place bets, Practice mode is a valuable part of the toolkit. Why risk real money when creating a new Automation Rule? Design it in Practice Mode, Test it on a few races and then switch to Live mode with small stakes to see how it performs in the real market.
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Dallas
Posts: 22671
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:57 pm
Location: Working From Home

The purpose of it is so that users can find their way around the software and maybe when first setting up or modifying an automation file, the problem arises when they instead spend all day every day using it to test their strategies as if its going to give them an indication of its long term profitability - often while having no money in their account showing they have no intentions of placing real bets for BF to earn a revenue off anytime soon.

I guess the easiest thing would be for Betfair to just stop the use of it by all vendors just like Betdaq do, but until then any vendor that stops offering it is going to find themselves at a disadvantage to those that are.
Wolf1877
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2017 10:59 am

I wouldnt say practice mode is no use LeTiss. I think I did push the market tracking too far using Guardian and Excel. Probably the majority of Bet Angel users would be OK and it has taken a month for me to cause problems for myself. Use of practice mode for much more than 2 or 3 weeks and/or tracking lots of markets in Guardian WHILE not actively trading is to be avoided though.

I also think that Bet Angel should default to streaming mode for new users to ease the load on Betfair servers. I left Bet Angel on the default polling setting as it was doing everything I needed whilst I was oblivious to the possibility of causing myself a problem with Betfair. Even with Streaming though I will now avoid accessing markets without actively trading until I have established a proper track record.

Just as addition information to Bet Angel I had deposited funds and even managed to lose a few pounds in my initial trading effort. They had therefore established identity but this seems to have been triggered pretty much after a month of practicing and tracking markets in Guardian too heavily. More than I would expect most users would do.
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Bet Angel
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Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:47 pm

We did consider defaulting to streaming on, but there is still a small percentage of users that for one reason or another don't get on with it. Normally down to dodgy WiFi, broadband, PC, internet security software etc, but it's much safer to just default to polling. It just works and they can migrate up to streaming once they are more confident with the software.
alchemist87
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:17 am

Wolf1877 wrote:
Mon Oct 09, 2017 12:36 pm
As an update I managed to plead my case successfully on this occasion thankfully. I received the following message from BDP Support which I am posting to serve as a warning to others and for review by Bet Angel HQ.

"The market data delay has now been removed from your account. Please be aware however that live market data is for betting purposes only. The Historical Data Service https://historicdata.betfair.com/#/home is available for analysis purposes. Continued extensive viewing of live market data without requisite betting activity will result in further restrictions.

The use of practice mode for an extended period would have led to this restriction being triggered. To avoid the restriction in future I would recommend avoiding being logged in if not planning on betting. "

I do realise in hindsight that I was pushing the boundaries too far. Going forward I will be treading on eggshells until I have established a proven record with Betfair. I dont want my trading career stalling before it has even got off the ground when I know that I have both the mindset and technical ability to be successful in trading.
How did you manage to get the restriction lifted? I answered to those 6 questions too, that they ask when people contact BDP about the restriction, but they didn't lift the restriction for me. What did you say/do, to achieve that? Did they lift the restriction for you, without you placing bets after the restriction? Did you place bets before the restriction?
Also, you signed up for the BDP for £299, before the restriction was triggered, right? Then it's useless to sign up for the BDP to get rid of the restriction, as others suggest.
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