1. We have introduced a partial solution to BetFair’s recent restriction on bets below the minimum (or, to be more specific, small lay bets).
On June 19 in the afternoon, BetFair has introduced a new, unforeseen change to their API, due to which some Lay bets below the minimum of £2 are no longer accepted. You can read the official notification here:
Retrospective - API Release To Prevent Minimum Bet Abuse - 19th JuneFrom what little information we could find, you can lay £0.8 at any price up to 1.01, but anything less than that can be tricky, e.g. you can lay £0.2 at 1.04, but not £0.1 at 50.0.
If you lay a greater amount but only part of it gets matched, e.g. you lay £4 and only £0.5 gets matched, whereas £3.5 remains unmatched, that’s fine – the exchange will accept such bet even if you cancel the remaining £3.5.
Back bets below the minimum have not been affected (yet).
We cannot provide any guarantees as to whether BetFair will keep the matters as is or introduce some other change.
The greatest grief at the moment is that small back bets cannot be greened up. E.g. if you back £0.5 at 2.5 and the price drops to 2.4, you cannot green up with a lay bet of £0.52, because this bet will be rejected by BetFair and you will end up with £2.0 at 1.01.
To remove some of the inconveniences our clients, including probably you, are experiencing, we have released an emergency workaround. Its idea consists in laying the minimum required amount of £0.8 (adjustable in Betting Options) and placing a compensation back bet to eliminate the extra liability. So in the example above, the program will lay £0.8 and back £0.29 at 2.38 to remove the liability created by laying the extra £0.8-£0.52 = £0.28. Note that this will reduce your potential profit or increase your potential loss (in case you trade out with a loss). But at least it will prevent you from losing all of your bet, and it will be done automatically by the program, without losing the precious time.
See an example below:
Also see this video for several scenarios of placing small lay bets:
https://youtu.be/y8GaCe60BqATo benefit from this fix, you will need to download the latest version of MarketFeeder Pro:
Download MarketFeeder Pro v. 8.7.9.2You can adjust the minimum size of your small bets in the Betting Options tab of the Settings:
Please be aware that you are still strongly recommended to withhold from placing bets below the minimum, as this violates BetFair’s Terms and Conditions. In no way shall we be held responsible for a possible suspension or closure of your account as a result of violating these T&Cs; nor shall we be held responsible for any financial loss that you may incur while placing bets below the minimum or otherwise!
2. We have fixed a problem in MF Pro that made it drop a proxy connection under certain circumstances, due to which the program would freeze and stop refreshing markets if it was previously doing this via the proxy.
