Is Bet Angel Professional the undisputed king of software for trading on Befair? Maybe. Let's have a closer look at this 'Swiss Army Knife' of trading programs. There are tools to get you into most trading strategies and tools to get you out of them too! This software is packed with all the features you are likely to need in order to make a profit on the exchanges. With bookmaking and dutching features in addition to single click betting, an advanced ladder interface, charting, automatic settings and more, this software takes some learning. However, the effort is worth it.

Getting started

Installing is easy and logging on requires only your Betfair details. A quick word about connection modes is required here - One great feature of Bet Angel is the ability to use different 'connection modes' to Betfair including a 'non-API' mode. Great for when Betfair upgrade or meddle with the API - you can still use Bet Angel!

One Click Betting & Ladder

The one click screen is self-explanatory. A single click in here and your bets are fired into betfair. This could be fairly dangerous except when you start there is a 'Confirm bets' option that is ticked by default. Once you are used to the software this can easily be turned off.

The ladder is a whole application in itself. You can view three ladders at once or tick 'enhance' ladder which shows one selection but with the profit calculator, graphs, charts and a market overview. I imagine that most traders will spend most of their time on this screen. One or two advanced features need a mention in the ladder. There is the trading profit column that runs alongside the ladder. This can be displayed with or without greening and shows what your position will be if you close at the price at that level on the ladder. Brilliant. On top of that you can now select a single click stop loss. With a click of the right hand mouse button you can ask Bet Angel to fire an automatic bet to prevent loss of profit or to minimise a losing position. Brilliant again. The trading profit calculator is another invaluable tool provided with the enhanced ladder mode.

Automatic Greening

One of the great things about trading is seeing a screen of green - potential profit on each possible outcome in a market. Bet Angel Professional has greening buttons next to each selection that allows you to do just that. The greening can be set to green against just one runner or the entire field! The new version in 1.20 even shows you what the profit will be before you click on the button. Bet Angel call this the 'closing position column' - a gripping description that really hides the potential of this powerful feature. See in the image the different possibilities when choosing to green by runner or across the field. The figure in the buttons show the potential profit against that runner if the buttons are clicked.

 

Profit Calculator

The ladder screen is comprehensive and can be 'enhanced'. This means that instead of showing three ladders for three runners, the screen concentrates on one runner - but with added whistles and bells. For example, in addition to the ladder with all its flashing colours and lights, there is a price chart and weight of money chart. Handy for keeping an eye on the dynamics of the selection. Just above these is the 'profit calculator'. This gives you three options - close your trade at current prices, close at reverse prices or close at a manual price. After using this for ten minutes, it is hard to think how I ever managed without it before. A great tool. Then I found that there are in fact THREE calculators that can be 'undocked' from the main screen and used to look at three runners. Handy for when you are trading on more than one runner.

Excel

Integration with Excel is available for those that have an aptitude for programming Excel VBA. Using this, many different triggers can be set up and bets fired in automatically once these triggers have been met. A full range of commands are available such as 'offset, greening, stop loss', etc.

Dutching & Bookmaking

If dutching or bookmaking is the direction you wish to go in then Bet Angel has these two strategies covered too. You can choose which runners to include when doing either of these - or you can include the whole field. It is easy to play around and see which prices to ask for in order to make your profit before firing in the orders. Well thought out and easy to use.

Market Overview and Risk Meter

With the release of version 1.22.0, Bet Angel Professional for Betfair has seen the addition of a new feature that should, in theory, make it easier for a trader to spot good trading opportunities. From the guide:

Betting exchanges make lots of information available that could be useful when deciding how to trade a particular market. Bet Angel Professional can now display a wide range of information from last traded price to volume percentages.

The chart when used with the risk meter should be able to throw up entry points. The meter basically reads the market and decides if it is more or less volatile than it should be for that kind of race. Obviously, the more volatile a market, the more risk is involved with prices liable to shoot off in one direction or the other at any moment! See the examples below.

With less than a minute to go the prices are moving around and the risk has increased! Click on this thumbnail for a larger image.

But the same race 20 minutes earlier looked a lot different...

 

Automation

It is possible to set up a number of 'Rules' for Bet Angel Professional. These rules can then be applied to backing, laying, dutching and bookmaking for example. One use could be 'if book % >101% on lay side then lay entire field' and vice-versa.

There is a comprehensive user guide and detailed training videos available on the web site. PLUS there are exclusive videos for Bet Angel customers that demonstrate the advanced features of the software - invaluable for getting started. I found the videos quite good at teaching me what each part of the software did. In addition, the support from the team at Bet Angel is renowned - with any questions or problems quickly addressed.

New features introduced include how saved bets are handled. Once a market is suspended, unmatched bets can be re-introduced into the market. Now a delay can be set before the bet is resubmitted.

The pricing structure of Bet Angel is as follows: £4.99 for 24 hours use, £49.99 for a months usage or £299 for a whole year. You can also trial it for 20 days for £15 - Less than £1 per day! But you can only do this once! There is also a 'basic' version. The basic version however, does not have any of the advanced features that are available in the Professional version.

LIMITED OFFER - One month for half price trial.

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