Can I have Ltd company funds on my sports gambling account? (legit reason)

[NotAllThere]

So are you a gambler and wish to continue gambling mixing your company money and your own money?

It's clear from the OP's question that this isn't the case. Any further comments on these lines will be removed.

[Fabs]

So are you a gambler and wish to continue gambling mixing your company money and your own money?
Create a new/company named account then it keeps everything separate

To test whatever it is your doing, I assume you could use very small bets (pennies or single pounds) - but now it sounds like you want to drop 5K on something?

Sorry if I didn't make this clear, the 5K budget was not to drop into the betting account but to cover all associated costs (hosting, domain, design work, advertisement, trading funds as/when needed too, etc etc).

Betfair doesn't have a test/simulation environment, they do have a pre-prod api key which just delays the market but you'd still be placing bets with real money anyway, the simulation mode is something vendors have to do themselves and it's just too much work (for little benefit on this project) for a one man team.

The placement of orders from my app would be with the minimum amount allowed (the majority at least), otherwise it would simply be stupid - who would drop huge sums of money for an app that's unfinished to play with? Not me for sure.

Will a betting company let you setup an account using a business bank account???
Is that the actual problem the OP won’t say?

I'm pretty sure I've asked betfair if they have accounts for companies and they said no, maybe worth asking again but if it smells bad to HMRC I'd rather not risk.

Thanks for the feedback / suggestions

[Lance]

I'm pretty sure I've asked betfair if they have accounts for companies and they said no, maybe worth asking again but if it smells bad to HMRC I'd rather not risk.

They have loads of regulation around money laundering hence why I thought this might be an issue.
If you can pay into the Betfair account with a company debit card then you're good.

Good luck and let us know how you get on. I've a interest in this sort of thing, just an interest that costs me money

[GhostofTarbera]

Sorry if I didn't make this clear, the 5K budget was not to drop into the betting account but to cover all associated costs (hosting, domain, design work, advertisement, trading funds as/when needed too, etc etc).

Betfair doesn't have a test/simulation environment, they do have a pre-prod api key which just delays the market but you'd still be placing bets with real money anyway, the simulation mode is something vendors have to do themselves and it's just too much work (for little benefit on this project) for a one man team.

The placement of orders from my app would be with the minimum amount allowed (the majority at least), otherwise it would simply be stupid - who would drop huge sums of money for an app that's unfinished to play with? Not me for sure.



I'm pretty sure I've asked betfair if they have accounts for companies and they said no, maybe worth asking again but if it smells bad to HMRC I'd rather not risk.

Thanks for the feedback / suggestions

Do what everyone else does

Test users use own personal accounts, claim back as an expense via company

Anyhoo

If just app based it will be way to slow to have any edge in the in-running markets due to the time delay even if attending the event in person surly?


Sent from my iPhone using Contractor UK Forum

[Fabs]

Do what everyone else does

Test users use own personal accounts, claim back as an expense via company

Anyhoo

If just app based it will be way to slow to have any edge in the in-running markets due to the time delay even if attending the event in person surly?


Sent from my iPhone using Contractor UK Forum

I wouldn't mind doing that, but what category of expense would that be? And surely would need some proof of that which wouldn't be straightforward to get. I've moved on and considering other options.

Being app-based is less than ideal for strategies that require placing a lot of orders (high-frequency trading) or that are very sensitive to latency and stuff like that, this is not the case for this app. It's only partially automated so the edge would still be dependant on the customer, it's nothing too complex and mainly targets markets that are not that volatile so I think the app will do fine, it's also not it's main feature so not too worried.

[TheDogsNads]

The accountant has said this is a high risk strategy. Personally, it seems pretty obvious what's going on. The OP's accountant has given their advice, the OP is determined to push on.

Betting companies use a test environment copied from Live and anonymised but it's still a test environment.

I wont be surprised to see another post in about 18 months saying Im under investigation by HMRC, what should I do?

[BlasterBates]

One of the problems here is that it is totally implausible to suggest that you are running a business testing a gambling application by actually betting.

HMRC will simply assume you're gambling.

[Paralytic]

Agree with the above 2 posts. If the 3rd party does not provide a live system, then build mock interfaces/stubs to mimic their interface. If you can't build a stub because you don't understand what their API will return, then I'd suggest you don't know their business well enough to be able to build an app that will be a success.

Is your app looking for arbitrage opportunities across betting platforms?

[Fabs]

The accountant has said this is a high risk strategy. Personally, it seems pretty obvious what's going on. The OP's accountant has given their advice, the OP is determined to push on.

Betting companies use a test environment copied from Live and anonymised but it's still a test environment.

I wont be surprised to see another post in about 18 months saying Im under investigation by HMRC, what should I do?

Yeah I've already ruled out the option of using company funds (mentioned above), not worth the trouble. I'm sure they have their own testing sandboxes, but that doesn't mean they let everyone use it - Betfair certainly doesn't, you use their API in "real" mode always, the only difference is you get a delay until you pay for a production API key.

If the 3rd party does not provide a live system, then build mock interfaces/stubs to mimic their interface. If you can't build a stub because you don't understand what their API will return, then I'd suggest you don't know their business well enough to be able to build an app that will be a success.

Ideally yes that's what I'd like to do but this is a one man team and mocking a sports exchange is in itself an enourmous project, it would cost less to lose money testing the app than building such thing. It's something I'd like to do for future projects but for this one is really not worth.

Is your app looking for arbitrage opportunities across betting platforms?

No, it'll have a mechanism of closing some positions you have automatically based on certain criteria.

[Paralytic]

Ideally yes that's what I'd like to do but this is a one man team and mocking a sports exchange is in itself an enourmous project, it would cost less to lose money testing the app than building such thing. It's something I'd like to do for future projects but for this one is really not worth.

No, it'll have a mechanism of closing some positions you have automatically based on certain criteria.

Sounds interesting, and good luck. If your app is effectively making position decisions for users, I hope you have specialised insurances for if/when you launch. That is a *big* thing to take on as a one man team.