9. Using Geeks Toy II
To place a bet on the Geeks Toy, you first need to open a market using the Market Navigator, and then using either the grid or ladder interface to place a bet in the market. At this stage, it is best you try everything in training mode.
Filters
In the Market Navigator, you can filter the different markets offered - by type, by country, the type of the market, etc. It is extremely useful because for example if you specialize only on horse racing in the UK, it would be useless for you to constantly navigating through the standard Betfair offering to locate those races. Therefore, you can apply a filter in the market navigator that will then display only the British horse racing markets.
In the menu of this window you can also choose your default interface preference when opening a market:
Ladder Interface
Ladder is a fundamental trading interface, in which you can quickly place, cancel and amend bets. To be good trader you must understand the workings of the ladder interface. Its main advantages are as follows:
- You can see visually the price moving up or down
- You visually see any gaps in the market
- It is most effective interface to place bets – with just one click
- Very fast interaction such as amending bets using drag & drop
- You can easily view the full depth of the market from 1.01 to 1000
- Trading on ladder is like playing a game – important aspect.
The Ladder interface looks like this:
Grid Interface
The Grid is an interface for placing bets in which you see the odds stacked horizontally next to each other. This interface is similar to that used on the Betfair or Betdaq websites, with the main difference that Geeks Toy has lots of extra features in its Grid such as 1 click bet submission, and is much faster to place bets than using the exchange website. Compared to ladder this interface is more compact, and thus may be useful to someone who wants to trade a large number of sporting events at once. On the other hand, it does not have many of the usability properties as the Ladder, and so it is harder to visually present the price moving up or down.
Both the grid and ladder interfaces have their own menu (right-click to the top bar to bring it up) where you can change the properties, functionality, appearance or layout. Although you will probably use the Ladder interface for trading, it is a good idea to also familiarize yourself with Grid. I suggest however that you get acquainted with Grid interface, and also the workings of the Betfair or Betdaq websites just in case you will ever need to place a bet there.
