Hi — I’m Stephane. I run BotBlog as a personal project: a place to write up what I learn about Betfair trading software, automation, and backtesting. I’m not a tipster and this isn’t a signal service — it’s guides, reviews, and tools for people who want to understand the how before they trade or automate.
Background
I’m a UK-based IT Service Manager with more than 20 years in the industry. I was born in France and have lived in the UK for 30 years. Day job work — reliability, governance, and making systems run properly — is a big part of why I care about process, logging, and not cutting corners when something handles real money or personal data.
BotBlog is my sandbox outside work: Linux VPS setups, bot logic, scripts, and the occasional late-night tweak when something doesn’t behave in simulation.
Why BotBlog exists
I enjoy the building side as much as the trading side. Bots feel like logic puzzles: entry rules, exits, stop-losses, what happens when liquidity dries up. Whether it’s a tennis or football idea or a VPS deployment script, I tend to ask the same questions: Can this be automated? Can it be made more reliable?
The site is independent. Some articles link to software I use via affiliate programmes (see our affiliate disclaimer). That helps pay for hosting and research; it doesn’t decide what I write or recommend.
What you’ll find here
Ask Bob backtesting
Ask Bob runs on BotBlog and tests strategy rules against historical horse racing and football data — the same kind of “does this hold up?” question I ask before trusting a bot in live markets. You can pick a playbook, describe your own filters in chat, or paste rules for a Strategy Snapshot report by email.
Privacy & data
Twenty years in IT made me cautious about data handling. Newsletters, contact forms, and Ask Bob each have their own privacy notes — the full picture is in our Privacy Policy. I aim to collect only what’s needed and to be clear about retention and your UK GDPR rights.
How the site is built
BotBlog and Ask Bob are built with Cursor — the AI code editor I use to ship content, calculators, and backend tools. If you’re building your own bots or a similar site, it’s the workflow I actually use. (Affiliate link — I may earn a referral credit at no extra cost to you; see the affiliate disclaimer.)
Away from the screen
When I’m not writing or debugging something, it’s usually tennis or football — which also happen to be the markets I end up testing automation ideas on. No guarantees, no hype: just curiosity and a preference for understanding the machinery first.