Betfair trading on a traditional ladder interface
When using Betfair trading software like Bet Angel the Ladder trading screen is the one interface that gives you the full depth view of the market, by full depth I mean you can scroll up and down to see all the price points from 1.01 up to 1000.0
This will allow you to see the activity thats occured by looking at the amounts traded at each set of odds. You can also see all the money currently waiting on both the back and lay sides.
While it’s nice to be able to see and get an overview of all the money waiting to be matched at all the prices on either side of the book, what really matters is the money waiting to be matched at nearest prices to the current odds being traded. In particular, you probably want to give the most focus to the best three prices on either side of the book.
When a market is liquid and fully formed there will be no gaps between these prices, but in earlier markets, you will often find gaps between prices of where the money is waiting (being offered), so the 2nd and 3rd best prices could be several ticks away from the best price.
When a market is fully formed it’s the money waiting at these three prices that will have the biggest influence on the direction a price is likely to move in the short term, especially when trading horse racing pre-off.
Finding opportunties using Bet Angel ‘Markers’
Most decent Betfair trading software will give you the option of highlighting the front three prices with money waiting, but using Bet Angel’s innovative ‘Marker’s you can not only highlight these prices to make them more easily visible. You can also configure them so they are only highlighted when an amount greater (or less than) your specified amount is waiting.
For example, you might want them highlighting if there is more than £250 waiting to be matched at the best three prices on one or both sides of the book, or perhaps you want to highlight just the best price either side but only if there is less than £100 waiting to be matched on both sides. This would allow you to quickly spot opportunities to nip in and out to get a quick scalp without needing to wait behind hundreds already waiting to be matched before your orders get near the front of the queue.
Or perhaps you could do a combination of both? For example, highlight the prices if the money waiting at the best back and lay prices is less than £200 and the 2nd and 3rd prices both have greater than £500 waiting. This would indicate you could jump in front to grab a quick scalp with the re-assurance there are decent amounts supporting both sides behind therefore the price is less likely to suddenly shot off one way after only getting one side of your bets matched.
Take a look at the image below, I’ve configured some markers to highlight the best three prices were there is greater than £100 waiting to be matched, notice how easy it is to spot very quickly which selections and which sides have £100 or more waiting at all three prices
How to import this marker into Bet Angel
If you think something like this would be useful for your Betfair trading and are interested in setting something like this up on your ladder screen, you don’t need to do much. The settings have already been created and saved for you to import into Bet Angel.
All you need to do is download them from the following page on the Bet Angel forum and then import them directly into your Bet Angel and your ready to go.
Of course you might not want them to show when there is more than £100 waiting to be matched, if so its just a simple case of editing the values to whatever you want, and setting it to greater or less than that amount – everything else has been done for you.
Or you might not like the ladder design and layout above and have a prefered one of your own, thats no problem after downloading and importing the settings file you can just copy them into your exsisting ladder file, or edit any part you don’t like – the choice is totally yours.
For more examples on ways you can customize and display your Bet Angel ladder trading screen please see this blog
Or for more examples on how ‘Marker’s can assist you when using the ladder trading screen please see this blog
