Key features explained

Most support questions come down to one of the points on this page. Read it once before you run real money.

1. Betting systems

Every member has three betting systems, System1, System2 and System3. They share your Betfair login and nothing else: each has its own selections, staking plan, conditions, extra features and settings. So one system can lay first favourites in UK racing while another backs a tipster's selections in greyhounds with a completely different staking plan. You can rename the systems on the Profile page.

2. Bet firing time

On the Settings page you set how many seconds or minutes before the scheduled off the bot should start trying to place the bet. If a condition isn't met at that moment, say the price is outside your min/max odds, the bot keeps checking and keeps trying until the race goes in-play. So the actual bet time can be anywhere between the time you set and the off, depending on your conditions.

If you want conditions checked once only, at the time you set, tick Check bets only once; if the conditions aren't met at that moment, there's no bet. A negative betting time (for example -1) tells the bot to start checking and firing as soon as the market goes in-play.

3. Betting in-play

Tick Allow betting in-play on the Settings page and the bot carries on checking conditions after the market has turned in-play. A negative betting time enables this automatically. The bot still only fires when your conditions are met; it never uses Betfair's "keep in-play" option to leave an unmatched pre-off bet in the market. Be aware that in-play prices move fast and most in-play markets carry a one-second delay, so bets can match a touch above your max or below your min odds.

4. The betting cycle

A betting cycle is the period between betting being started and betting being stopped, whether you stopped it or a trigger did. The bot counts wins, losses and profit per cycle, not per day, and it's those cycle figures that drive Stop at profit, Stop at loss and the other triggers. Every time a cycle ends the counters go back to zero.

Example: Stop at profit is £100. After two races you're £60 up and you click Stop Betting for some reason, then start again a few minutes later. The bot won't stop after another £40, because clicking Stop started a new cycle and the £60 belongs to the old one. It will aim for a fresh £100. The System summary shows the current cycle's Running profit, Wins # and Losses #.

5. Prices to use

The bot can check your betting conditions against three price types, chosen on the Settings page: Betfair live (the best current back or lay price), BSP (the projected Betfair Starting Price), or on-course odds (the live show price from SportingLife). This setting decides which price is compared with your conditions. It does not decide which price the bet is placed at: bets are always placed at the best live back or lay price, or at Betfair SP if you've enabled it. So you could, for example, check the projected BSP against your odds range and still have the bet struck at the live price.

6. Small stakes

Tick Allow small stakes and the bot can place bets under Betfair's £2 minimum. Without it, any stake under £2 is cancelled. Betfair discourages sub-minimum betting, so don't build a system that only ever places small bets; the acceptable pattern is a small share of your bets falling under the minimum. Small bets also take longer to match, which gives them more chance of matching slightly outside your odds limits, especially in-play.

7. Dutching staking plans

Dutching means backing more than one runner in a race with stakes calculated so you make the same profit whichever of them wins. It's very sensitive to price: if one bet matches at a different price from the one used in the calculation, the result isn't what you expected, and if one bet goes unmatched the result is wrong altogether. For that reason the bot will not place dutching bets at Betfair SP (the price isn't known until the off), and we don't recommend dutching in-play. Enable All runners must exist on the Settings page so the bot places all of the dutching bets or none of them.

8. Min/max odds and which price is checked

You can set Prices to use (point 5) and Place bets at BSP independently, which means they can disagree. Say you check conditions against live odds but place at BSP: the bot checks the live price, and if that's inside your min/max range it places the SP bet, whatever the SP turns out to be, even if it ends up outside your range. The reverse happens if you check against BSP but place at live odds. The bot only ever checks the price type you told it to check. If you want the price your bet is struck at to always sit inside your min/max limits, match the two settings: Prices to use = Betfair SP when Place bets at BSP is on, Prices to use = live odds when it's off.

9. When only some of your selections qualify

With more than one selection in a race, some may meet your conditions and others not. Say Max odds is 5.0 and your selections are at 3.5 and 6.0: the bot fires on the first and the second is no bet, and it stops checking the second once the first bet is placed. If both are above your max, it keeps checking until one or both come into range. If you only want bets placed when every selection qualifies, enable All runners must exist on the Settings page.

10. Recovery and progressive staking plans

Plans that change the stake after a win or a loss, such as Back Progressive, Back Recovery and Back Pro, should not be used with more than one selection per race. The bot would, for instance, put the loss to recover on both selections and double your liability. Also enable Consequential betting on the Settings page, so the bot waits for the previous race to settle before it bets on the next one; otherwise the next stake can be calculated before the last result is known. Flat plans, where the stake doesn't depend on previous results (Level Stakes, Fixed Profit and the like), don't need Consequential betting.