Blog
Page 4 of 8. The data layer behind matched betting, arbitrage and odds comparison, written by the team that maintains it.
Exchange & lay data
Betfair has a real public API, so you can pull its lay odds directly. This is how that route works, where it costs you, and the alternative that delivers lay already matched across three exchanges.
· 5 min read
Fundamentals
There are two ways to get bookmaker odds into your app: collect it yourself, or license a feed. Here's how each works, what to decide first, and the integration sketch for the faster path.
· 4 min read
Emerging markets
Nigeria's big domestic books have no official odds API, and the open-source options are fragile. Here are the honest routes to Nigerian bookmaker odds data, for the teams that actually need it.
· 5 min read
Emerging markets
South African books have no public APIs and the major aggregators have no SA region. Here are the two realistic routes to SA odds data, and why a maintained feed is the practical one.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Once an odds feed is live, three checks keep you honest: availability, freshness against the timestamp, and coverage of your books and markets. Here is how to build them so you catch a problem before your users do.
· 7 min read
Fundamentals
Different books name the same event and selection differently, so their prices don't line up on their own. This is how you normalise odds across bookmakers, and where it goes wrong.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
Pricing a bet is four steps: implied probability, remove the overround, derive a fair price, then compare across books. Sharp books and exchanges give the best estimate of the true probability.
· 6 min read
Fundamentals
A feed gives you current prices; the history is what you persist from them. Here's a simple, durable model: timestamped snapshots keyed by event, market and selection, plus the retention trade-offs to decide up front.
· 6 min read
Buying vs building
The safe way to migrate off an odds provider is to run the new feed alongside your current one, diff it on your real traffic, and cut over only when it matches or beats what you have.
· 8 min read