Betfair Exchange September Newsletter: Bet delays reduced in European Football and data fields added to Cricket API stream

• Shorter bet delays in European football leagues

• New data fields added to cricket API

• API signposting improvements to Exchange markets

Bet delays reduced across European football leagues

The percentage of football matches with a bet delay of just five seconds was the highest it has been in August since early 2023.

For the past two-and-a-half years many European football leagues have been available on the Exchange with a bet delay of 12 seconds, but recent developments have meant that we have been able to reduce that significantly.

The majority of European leagues which were subject to a 12 second bet delay are now running at five seconds. We have already seen an impact from the shorter delays in some top European Leagues.

Change in volume for August 2025 vs. 2024

In the last three weeks of August, data showed that 90% of all football matches on the Exchange were offered at a five second bet delay - in the same period last year this was 80%. The standout leagues affected by this change include Belgium Pro League, Liga Portugal and Netherlands Eredivise.

We hope that the reduction of leagues subject to a 12 second bet delay will improve the customer experience and we will continue to ensure that the bet delay dynamic is optimal across all leagues and matches.  

Ten new data fields added to cricket API

An updated release to the Cricket Scores API will launch in September. It will deliver richer, more detailed match data and streamlined fields.

Expect new additional fields including match category, competition gender, tier, direct data source, latency, and bet delay information - plus full batter and bowler breakdowns. The update also retires the old participantRef field in favour of clearer bat1Strike and bat2Strike indicators to show which batter is on strike.

The additions aim to give users deeper, faster, and more accurate cricket coverage than previously.

Please see below New Fields Added:

In CricketFixtureInfo
   - category - match level (A-E). 
   - competitionGender - M or W. 
   - tier - coverage level (e.g., IN_PLAY_NO_STREAM). 
   - directData - whether scoring data comes directly from the venue.  

In CricketMatchStats
   - latency - feed delay in seconds. 
   - betDelay - bet delay in seconds (estimated real-time latency). 
   - betDelayChange - flag showing if bet delay has changed in the last 10s.  

In CricketIncident
   - ball - identifier for the ball within a match (for supported incidents).   

In CricketInningsStats 
   - batters - list of batter details (ID, name, runs, balls, 4s, 6s, dots, dismissal status). 
   - bowlers - list of bowler details (ID, name, overs, runs conceded, wickets, wides, no-balls).   

In CricketIncidentType
   - New ENUM value: INNING_START - indicates the start of an innings.

 Please get in contact with your Account Manager if you would like to subscribe to the Cricket Scores API, and with any feedback on the new release.

API signposting is live for passive bet delays

As part of an API release at the beginning of September, we'll be adding a new field on the Exchange API which will indicate a list of all the bet delay models applied to a market. It is an optional field returned only when a market has specific delay models applied and will be available for API customers.

For now, only the passive bet delay model logic will be released. This indicates which in-play markets support no bet delays for passive orders, i.e. orders that are guaranteed not to match immediately will bypass the in-play bet delay.

Initially, all tennis and baseball markets will have this logic in place. Football testing will recommence.

The field will be added to the Stream API at a later date, yet to be confirmed. Please visit our BDP Forum here for additional detailed information on the release and subscribe for further updates.

Enhanced suspended messages

In August, a new feature was enabled around market suspension, which includes a new field at the market status level. This feature is enabled for Football currently and available for the following suspension reasons: Goal, Live Updates Unavailable, Penalty, Red Card, Non In-Play Market. 

The feature is visible on suspended messages within a market and also on the Exchange Stream API via the suspendReason field.

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