HOW TO BUILD A ‘BOT’ WITHOUT KNOWING CODE

This article was crafted for Betfair's Hub.

Make money while you sleep. It isn’t as far-fetched as you’d think. There’s thousands of Betfair members whose primary income is derived from automated trading algorithms.

What might surprise you is that a lot of those traders don’t know code. Some of them don’t know absolutely anything about it.

Our globalised, outsourced world means you don’t have to do everything yourself. If you don’t have the time or interest to learn a new skill, then find an expert to do the work for you. This is especially relevant in the tech landscape.

Where To Start?

Before you invest any time or money in an automated model, you need to develop a manual one. What specific trading strategies are you winning on over the long term? What betting options exceed the true probability?

Some examples:

1. Are Tasmanian horses that trade after the advertised start time, priced between $1.90 and $2.00, only winning every 2.09 races? Could you lay every horse that matches that criteria?
2. Do the live trading prices in Twenty20 cricket move too far after a six? Are you having success backing the bowling team within 10 seconds of a six being hit?
3. Do the Golden State Warriors have a winning record when they are down 10 or more after the first quarter, yet the average odds over the last three seasons is $2.10?
4. When a golfer is $10-11 after day three, do they win every 9.5 tournaments?

The conditions can be as detailed as you like. The robot will be able to handle it.

Now What?

Once you’ve found a discrepancy or strategy that wins over the long term, you can look to automate it.

There are numerous resources, which we’ll get to shortly, but you’ll find the process much easier if you speak ‘computer science’. If you don’t, you may find it hard to communicate directly with a developer.

An easy way to overcome this is to enlist some help from a tech friend. Someone that understands development. They can translate what you want to achieve into words that a developer uses. Get them to help you with the next step.

Finding A Developer

You can check out the Betfair Community Board or the Betfair Development Program. These forums will put you directly in contact with developers that understand gambling.

Another option is listing a job on a freelancer website. There’s no shortage of these online, here are some of our favourites:

1. Upwork – the biggest freelancing meeting place
2. Freelancer – another huge market
3. Toptal – the top freelancing talent are accessible here, however, gambling expertise may not be as easy to find
4. Gun – a niche freelancing site for developers
5. Guru – over 1.5 million freelancers with a strong software focus

Once you’ve signed up with a profile, try to find similar jobs. Search for terms such as Betfair, sports trading and “API”. Hopefully you can find a like-minded listing, and use that as a template for yours. You might also see people who applied for that job and contact them directly.

List Your Task & Hire

Next, launch your project. Be specific and detailed. Again, if you need help with the language and tech specifics, try to find a friend that can help.

Hopefully you can attract a freelancer who has worked on similar projects. Experience with gambling programs is a rare niche and may be hard to find. However, once you find these people, they are invaluable.

How Much Does This Cost?

Less than you think. We’ve built a custom Australian horse racing program for several thousand dollars. We then built a similar concept for sport, harness and greyhounds for less than $1,000 each, because the infrastructure and relationship already existed.

We do not recommend paying more than $5,000 for your first project unless you are certain about the freelancer you’re working with and the automatic betting strategy.

Be Demanding

Lastly, be detailed about what you hope to achieve. You’d be shocked at how easy it is for the developers to create sophisticated and nimble programs. Do not underestimate the freelancer as they may be able to include every variable you imagined, drastically increasing profits. 

Conclusion

Sophisticated trading algorithms are prevalent on Betfair. Thankfully, it’s nowhere near as complicated as it sounds. Come up with a manual trading strategy that you’ve tested and then take that concept to a freelancer. Software developers can create the most impressive custom programs you’ll ever find. Plus, they can have them live within weeks, and the whole thing might only cost you a few thousand dollars. If the betting strategy works you’ll end up with an exponential return on investment.