Is it really worth all the effort?

Let me tell you a story.

After losing close to 500 euros for several months while learning the intricacies of trigger development on MFPro from scratch, through trial and error, and fine-tuning my strategies (believe me, testing in test mode doesn’t really prepare you for the realities you will face when you eventually go live), I had started making a little money on the Overs/Unders markets in football.

In fact, in November last year, I managed to make a 150% profit on what I had deposited in that month. Problem came when I decided to implement a loss recoupment plan I had read about in this forum to take care of the occasional losses. I just did not know how aggressive this plan was, and promptly lost everything I had made on just one particular Sunday, when I suffered a string of consecutive losses. It was painful watching as one team after another in leagues such as the Dutch league, where they score an avalanche of goals every weekend, go on a goal scoring strike on just one day, the loss recoupment plan setting in and betting humongous amounts in a bid to recoup the previous losses, wiping me out in a matter of hours.

But then, just as I was beginning to make money from my triggers, I also started receiving the ominous emails from Betfair that I am using excessive data and incurring data charges which they, in their grace, will not charge me.

So, I started fine-tuning my data saving settings, setting a request limit max. of 10, making a trigger to reduce in-play refresh rate for a market if it was all green, making a trigger to prune markets with less than 2,000 euros matched 5 minutes to the off, so as not to have too many markets refreshing at the same time.

Let’s fast forward to February. After two months of inactivity, I deposit again in my Betfair account, take out a one month subscription to MFPro and promptly start making money again from my football triggers.  I also decide to venture into tennis and basketball. Betfair promptly starts sending their emails again, and this time deducts the amount of the data usage charge from my account the next day. They’ve charged me now 5 times in just this month, the highest amount being 75 euros. Every time I ask them to show me how they came to this, they send me a graph which only a rocket scientist can decipher.

Even after I set triggers to drastically reduce my in-play refresh rates, causing me to suffer horrendous losses in the fast moving markets like tennis and basketball, with my triggers firing twice or three times, I still get these emails and deductions from my account. Now, I’ve been wiped out again, by the huge losses incurred in the tennis and basketball markets and by Betfair’s data usage charges. The last email from Betfair was today, politely asking me to consider depositing again in my account, as the last data usage charge on the 26th means that my account is now in the red.

But I did learn a few lessons. In the communication with them at the beginning of the month, they kept on saying I was using two systems at the same time or using several Betfair accounts, which was not the case. I’ve never had two systems accessing at the same time, and only have one account. It turned out; this was being caused by me accessing the website to download my P/L while MFPro was running at the same time.

Secondly, the times they said I was using excessive data did not correspond, at most times, with my peak usage of MFPro. It turned out most of the excessive charges were occurring everyday around 10 am. This is the time I usually load all the Over 2.5 markets into my Markets in MFPro automatically using the Add to My markets function, before adding the Over 1.5 and the tennis markets individually by clicking on them. So, the culprit might not be the in-play refresh rate after all.

Now I have to ask myself. Is all this effort I am making worth it? Am I doing all this just to feed Betfair’s large belly? I have to make a decision now, I have to ditch either Betfair or MFPro if I am to retain my sanity 

What do you guys think?

Your settings must be wrong.  I have a football trigger that monitors 3 different types of market and I've never had problems with data charges.

Go through every single item in settings and your triggers and ask yourself, do I really need this data refreshed as often, if at all?  Also don't use the website at the same time, as you have discovered.

Are you sure you haven't been running more than one instance of MFPro.  If you press, accidentally or otherwise, the backwards arrow at the top right of window, it minimises  to the tray and may then be hidden without expanding the tray.

Hi rubold,

What, in your opinion and experience, would be the optimal refresh rate in play? I currently have two triggers that set refresh rates as follows:

for soccer games: MAXV(2.5, refr_market_markets/6)
for tennis markets: MAXV(2, refr_market_num/6)

With these, my avereage refresh rate is always 2.5 or 2 seconds for football or tennis respectively, so long as I am monitoring less than 6 markets at the same time. More markets means that MFPro just works at a crawling pace.

I start monitoring markets 15 minutes before the off and my idle refresh rates for football is 6 seconds for the trigger which works on the over 1.5 market before the off and for tennis is 20 seconds, because my tennis trigger only starts when a game is in play.

Hi Smurfaveli
Major improvements in data requests and market loading are just around the corner in V7.

Oh, and I stop monitoring football markets when they are all green or if every selection's P/L is 0, meaning the market did not meet my trigger conditions, and the lay price for under1.5 or 2.5 hits 1.10.

Are you sure you haven't been running more than one instance of MFPro.  If you press, accidentally or otherwise, the backwards arrow at the top right of window, it minimises  to the tray and may then be hidden without expanding the tray.

I am very sure I have not been running more than one instance of MFPro.

No, scratch that. I am not sure any more. There have been instances when there are too many markets being monitored, making MFPro just crawl along. This coupled with MFPro writing to log files in an external hard disk, makes it almost come to a stand still. When this happens, I have to close it down and open it again. I am now not sure if, while opening a new instance, there might still be another instance running at the same time. I will try to monitor this in the future.

OK, do you need the log files?  I never use them now.   As MarkV has hinted, Ver.7 will eliminate any problems of data charges, so hang on in there!!

I must say the log files have been quite helpful in seeing how my triggers are working and finding out what the problem is when they do not work. I will stop using the logging mechanism as soon as I can be confident enough with my triggers.

Any idea when the Ver.7 will be coming? Hope it comes soon enough.

Ok, my account today at Betfair is -37 or so. I will close my eyes and deposit again tomorrow, take a sub for MFPro for the next month and see what comes my way.

It looks as though V7 will be released on 1st March, as my beta test version ends then, but it's up to Welldone to establish the acceptible reliability of the release.  I personally have had almost no issues with the beta version for more than 7 days now and it's an amazing piece of software.

hey .. a bit old, but hope this advice helps.

Stop being greedy (for now at least), especially when your bank is small.

Run only the most profitable, or Run only Soccer (June/July Tennis only). data charges aside, it sounds like your bank struggles to stay afloat when a small bad run hits.

If/When you deposit again focus on making sure that you do not deposit again! Even if the monthly MFP subscriptions are not covered, so long as you are showing a profit on your account you are on the right track.

Most systems will not win you $1Million in a year, especially if you have a small starting bank!! BE PATIENT! You will make it.