New from Australia - Looking for AvB uk horse racing data from Betfair

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dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

I have downloaded the data.tar file for July 8 to August 8.

Opened it to access the JSON files.

I have no idea where to find the AvB results.

I have already accessed csv files for several countries from the Directory Listing of Betfair price files.

http://www.betfairpromo.com/betfairsp/prices/

I received this from Betfair support...

Thanks for the email. I actually received a link to a resource from a customer yesterday that might be useful to you.

Azure Machine Learning (desktop app) https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/overv ... -learning/ can read the BF JSON files and flatten them and can also write out the flattened data to CSV or Python readable files


I have an account with microsoft to login and access azure but I am totally lost getting the JSON files into readable excel files.

For anyone who can help I have a spreadsheet made with some macros to sort the csv files from the Directory Listing of Betfair price files

and will share my strategy for using the AvB results.

Cheers doug
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

It looks like you need help to read JSON files you got from the Betfair Historical website. There isn't a simple answer and you will definitely need someone with software development skills to parse that JSON data into CSV.

First of all, did you download the free JSON data or the paid one which includes volume data?

Secondly, what kind of information do you need to extract for each selection?
dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

It looks like you need help to read JSON files you got from the Betfair Historical website. There isn't a simple answer and you will definitely need someone with software development skills to parse that JSON data into CSV.

I have someone doing that but the results were not too good. Could not make any sense out of it, See attachments.

First of all, did you download the free JSON data or the paid one which includes volume data?

Free to start - July 8 to August 8.

Secondly, what kind of information do you need to extract for each selection?

Just like to look at the results of A v B for UK horse racing.

Thanks for replying.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

If you simply like to look at the result of A v B markets, arguably you don’t need the data from the JSON files.

You can simply stick to the Betfair free CSV files from betfairpromo.com.

Import CSV file into Excel, filter the EVENT_NAME column with Contains “ v “.

Then look at the WIN_LOSE column to see which of the two horses won each market and the BSP column that give you an indication of the final odds before the race started.
dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

Thanks Northbound again.

I have those csv files but they dont tell you which are the A and B horses in a race and I am looking to backtest with a selection method for quite a few months back.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

Surely if they're A vs B, the WIN_LOSE will be 1 if A wins and 0 if A loses? Should be easy enough to strip out the runners names between the " v " and result with a little vba
dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

A horse doesn't have to win a race to win the AvB bet.

I don't know which horses Betfair have selected in the past to be part of the AvB bet.

Or maybe I am not on the same page as you.

Have you got a sample of the AvB results?

Then I will know what I am looking for.
dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

If I sort EVENT_NAME it only sorts the type of race it is...

EVENT_NAME
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m1f Hcap
1m2f Grp 1
1m2f Grp 1
1m2f Grp 1
1m2f Grp 1
1m2f Grp 1
1m2f Grp 1
1m2f Grp 1
1m2f Grp 1
1m4f Grp 2
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

My apologies, I've now done a bit of research into my archive.

It looks like until March 2018, Betfair included AvB markets in the free CSV files. Now they don't anymore, so you have no choice but to go through the JSON files. You definitely need a decent software developer to do that.

Alternatively, if all you need is a bit of historical analysis, you could simply download the free CSV files for the whole of 2017, then in Excel filter the EVENT_NAME columns by including only rows that Contains " v ".
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

dougkpga wrote:
Thu Aug 23, 2018 3:48 pm
A horse doesn't have to win a race to win the AvB bet.

I don't know which horses Betfair have selected in the past to be part of the AvB bet.

Or maybe I am not on the same page as you.

Have you got a sample of the AvB results?

Then I will know what I am looking for.
The win lose field would just give you the winner of that market not the winner of the race, but like northbound says they stopped that data format in March 2018 so you'd need to use the new historic data files for recent results

The new format gives you the result of the match race in the status field like below and contains all the other data you need ltp (last traded price) etc, plus the new format lets you filter to download just the match bet markets only

Code: Select all

[{"status":"LOSER","sortPriority":1,"id":9977366,"name":"Arcanada"},{"status":"WINNER","sortPriority":2,"id":11279191,"name":"Starlight Romance"}]

"venue":"York",
"countryCode":"GB",
"discountAllowed":true,
"timezone":"Europe/London",
"openDate":"2018-07-28T13:05:00.000Z",
"version":2312500458,
"name":"Arcanada v Starlight Romance",
"eventName":"York 28th Jul"
dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

Hi Northbound,

Thats valuable info because all I need is csv files before March 2018.

I'll check that out.

I will post the results of my research here.

Hey Spreadbetting,

That is also valuable info. I might not have to go down that road as I could use the older csv files.

But if I make money from this as I intend to I will be able to pay my excel guy.

As I said I will share soon and see if this works.

Cheers and thanks to both of you.

Doug
dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

Hi Northbound,

Great mate.

I went back to found the first one of the many sheets.

I might get my guy to do a macro and I'll be back.

Thanks for not giving up on my question.

Cheers Doug
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

No problem , nigel stuck up a data grabber to automate the downloading of the data files should save you time if you haven't already got them

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=14395
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northbound
Posts: 737
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm

No worries, happy to help
dougkpga
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:12 pm

Thanks SB.
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