Getting live odds through API/scraping

[tnt]

Has anyone been able to get a feed of live odds from a betting website (TwinSpires/AmWager/etc.) into Excel or a Python program? Their APIs seem to require authentication keys but not sure of who or where to contact to get them, while the dynamic nature of the data makes scraping likely too slow to be a good enough solution. I’ve seen that some of the programs advertised on here have live feeds of odds so it must be possible. If anyone has any insight, I’d love to hear.

[sjk]

Amwager makes it easy to copy the exacta and win prices to your clipboard and from there you can make an excel macro to name the pertinent ranges and process further. I use an Access macro to take it from there and prepare the bets for uploading.

I expect that Jason will see this and provide further guidance.

[Ted Craven]

1. AmWager. Contact Jason at AmWager to obtain their API (see PM). Their API indeed uses a token to access after you've registered to use it. You can set up either a 'push' (server sends you = optimal/most real-time) or 'pull' (you initiate fetch from server = pretty good real-time). Data comes in JSON format payloads (all odds matrices, results, everything you see in their ADW's UI). If you can program, consume the JSON data into whatever programming language you use and display and/or interact with the data. If you use Excel, there are Excel/JSON plugins which digest the JSON data stream and convert it to Excel data format. This is more organic (and real-time) than cutting and pasting.

2. TwinSpires. Go to their public site (i.e. no login required) - https://www.twinspires.com/bet/program/todays-races. Find a current race you like. Use your browser's Web Developer Tools to watch the network traffic. Look for JSON traffic types. Voilà - the API. (Warning: no guarantees of consistency over the years, subject to change without notice). 'Pull' only.

3. ATRPro. Great program to fetch odds data from several ADWs (not AmWager) including TwinSpires. Options to export real-time (sort of) to structured CSV files which you can then import into your Excel sheet. http://htr2.com/atr/at_the_races.htm

Best of luck!

Ted

[Dave Schwartz]

Ted, that was quite excellent.

Thank you.

Got anything like that for fast prices?

Emphasis on sites that refresh prices quickly.

[tnt]

This is incredibly helpful. Thank you guys!

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

Ted, that was quite excellent.

Thank you.

Got anything like that for fast prices?

Emphasis on sites that refresh prices quickly.

RDSS has an API to Equibase for fast Charts (pull only) so when the host track propagates results to them, I can pull too.

Aside from that (and not necessarily any slower), I also do a Results pull from TwinSpires on a 10 second increment refresh starting about 2 minutes after the Official OFF signal until the Results data fetched indicates 'populated' (i.e. I got the quick Results and Mutuel prices). Also, if I'm watching live video and see the Official Results broadcast, usually within a few seconds, a manual refresh on TwinSpires' Results API populates RDSS' database, screens, models, etc. About the same time as the roll-over to the next race live odds.

The same turnaround for Results applies to AmWager's Results API (just not all tracks, due to CDI track content restrictions).

Usually, full Result Charts follow from Equibase/TrackMaster within about 20 minutes of Official status.

Hope that's helpful Dave!

Ted

[Dave Schwartz]

I find EqB to slow.

What I need is the results within a minute after the race is official in order to properly size my next bet.

Copy & paste is an option.

[Ted Craven]

Originally Posted by Dave Schwartz

I find EqB to slow.

What I need is the results within a minute after the race is official in order to properly size my next bet.

Copy & paste is an option.

As mentioned, I find TwinSpires Results API call to be functional within a few seconds of race Official. Should provide all that's needed for programmatic future bet sizing in the same time frame.

AmWager's 'push' Results API data would be the most timely. Their own UI refreshes as a result of the very same API as what one could access in one's own program. So could all accessible APIs for all ADWs - just, many/most of the others have higher barriers to access.

Ted