Does size of stake affect priority of bets being accepted?

[MatGreenaway]

I've been using Gruss and been profit making since May 2008 so this works well for me. I've tinkered around now and again, and my current tinkering has led me to run my main spreadsheet which runs on my home ADSL connection, and then run the same spreadsheet on a dedicated server I have access to. I expected the dedicated server to be way, way faster, but this is not the case.

Here is a little more info:
Home PC, in rural location, getting approx 50ms response to a ping to the BBC site (Betfair doesn't respond to pings). Windows XP SP3 running Excel 2003 SP3. All the usual home stuff, many programs installed, and install date from early 2009.
Dedicated Server, getting 6ms response to the BBC. Windows 2003 64-bit server SP2, running Excel 2003 SP3. Nothing else on it.

Over Saturday and Sunday, my home PC made 35 bets, in-play on UK horseracing win markets. The "faster" dedicated server made just 30. And going by the betfair bet references, the dedicated server was responding quicker, but I wonder why it would miss out on 5 bets? And going by the bet reference, only 6 bets were matched quicker on my home PC, and on those occasions, I got a better price.

I know much of what I am saying is too vague, but wonder if anybody has opinions on the questions below:

Do you think 64-bit Windows 2003 Server could be the reason that server misses out on some "opportunities"?
Do you think it is the Betting Assistant version? I am using the latest 1.0.65 on the dedicated server (downloaded and installed on Saturday) and on the home PC, I am still on 1.0.62. Note all refresh options are 0.2ms
Do you think the stake size affects priority of bets being taken? My test server had £3 bets, whilst the home PC is typically over £300 a bet?

Any opinions would be appreciated! Hope you all have a good day.

Many thanks,
Mat

[London_Calling]

Does this bet also cancel if a criteria changes or the bet is not met?

[doris_day]

Mat, its an interesting question and a similar one has concerned me over the past few years as I have (or had) a similar setup to you, though my home setup is faster.

I assumed that my fast internet connection at the datacentre would always out perform my home setup but the results have been mixed and, if anything, biased towards my home setup being slightly ahead.

I've played with everything I could think of and recently I had use of a very fast PC at home that had every knob and whistle possible and that outstripped both my setups by a considerable margin. I came to the conclusion that the PC speed, OS and RAM size appears to have more of an effect than the roundtrip time. That certainly seems true for what I do but may be different for some other people.

My datacentre server was a slow one with only 512MB RAM and I think that was why it didn't perform as well as my home setup eventhough the RT to Betfair was only 2ms compared to my home RT of 14ms.

I also was of the belief that a superfast refresh time was of utmost importance and that also seems to be a bit of a fallacy as far as my algos are concerned. In fact, because of the recent increase in in-running volatility the fast refresh version I have has underperformed because the algos have been triggered by random movements due to the illiquid markets.

As you're discovering, its not a simple balance but I would say that the size of the bets has no influence, or certainly hasn't appeared to have had in the past. Then again, you never know what the Betfair lads in Malta are up to. I do know for a fact that there have been some pretty dodgy things going on in Betfair Towers with some people having been sacked and/or paid off and told to keep schtum after they've been discovered !!

[doris_day]

Thinking more deeply about your bet size, in your case this could have an influence because the bet size discrepency is so large. As Betfair is designed such that you'll always get the best price available, you may be finding that your £3 bets are catching some higher prices as small 'leftovers' which would be significant because of the small size of your bet but your £300 bets, from a percentage point of view would see these 'leftover' higher prices as a negligible amount. It could therefore appear that your small bets are being matched at a higher price.