What are trigger variables?
The MarketFeeder Pro’s manual has it that:
Trigger variables are special keywords that the program replaces with certain values.
For those who are not technically savvy, here is a short introduction to the world of variables that help you automate your betting on BetFair.
In fact, you use variables every day without even noticing it. You say “ASAP” and automatically assume that the audience will decipher it as “as soon as possible”. You say “tomorrow”, and that is supposed to mean the date that will come after the current date, so every day this world changes its value. You read “Prime Minister” in the paper, and mentally replace these words with the actual name of the person who is the present Prime Minister.
So it is not hard to imagine that there are numerous entities and concepts that could be called with a special word, a variable. It is called a variable because its value may vary depending on the circumstances. But some variables always have the same value. These are called “constants”.
In the examples above, ASAP is a constant, because it is always identical to “as soon as possible” and it cannot have any other meaning. However, “tomorrow” and “Prime Ministers” are true variables, because they may be associated with one value now and with a different value then (not that frequently though with Prime Minister).
In MarketFeeder Pro, there are over 200 variables and prefixes that cover about every aspect of the BetFair betting environment you could imagine. After a while, you get used to relying on them, so instead of “bet £5” you opt for “bet default_backa” which in MF Pro’s language means “bet the default back amount chosen for this market”.
Variables are a highly efficient trigger tool because they shorten the time needed to program a bet. Instead of adding a dozen similar instructions to “lay at 4.6 if the back price is 4.0”, “lay at 4.8 if the back price is 4.2”, “lay at 5.0 if the back price is 4.4” and so on, you just put “lay at r_ticks(back_price, 3)” which means “lay at 3 ticks higher than the current back price”, and this solution covers all cases quite elegantly.
They are called trigger variables because they are used in triggers -- simple instructions that you give to MarketFeeder Pro using drop-down menus and other intuitive user experience controls.
Once you have fully grasped the subject of trigger variables, you can step onto the next level, the User Variables, which will be dwelled upon in one of the next articles.