[Purpose] PuntersEdge MCP is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets AI assistants read live odds data for Australian horse racing and sports betting. It can be invoked by Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code / GitHub Copilot, and any MCP client that supports stdio, to answer questions such as "what races are coming up", "what odds are the bookmakers offering", "which runners' odds are tightening", and "who won". This is a data access tool, not a betting tool.
[Main capabilities] The server provides 9 read-only tools, of which 5 are core horse racing tools and 4 are sports tools. Horse racing covers Australian thoroughbreds, greyhounds, and harness racing, as well as New Zealand thoroughbreds and harness racing; sports covers AFL, NRL, NBA, NFL, tennis, cricket, and more. Horse racing data comes from 14 Australian bookmakers: BetRight, Sportsbet, Betr, TAB, Ladbrokes, Neds, Unibet, PointsBet, NextBet, TABtouch, Palmerbet, BetDeluxe, BetGold, and BoostBet. Each response returns every runner's full quotes across bookmakers, the best price, data freshness information (such as age_seconds, the stale flag, data_age_seconds, stale_bookmakers), and passes through the API's X-Credits-* response headers, letting the assistant read the remaining credit balance without an extra call. Call cost is measured in API credits; each tool's cost is determined by the underlying API endpoint and is disclosed before the call.
[How to use] The server is not published to npm and must be installed directly from the GitHub repository; installation automatically compiles with tsc, so the first run requires git and a working Node toolchain, with Node >=18 required. Users must first obtain a free API key at https://puntersedge.online/api (3,000 credits per month, no credit card required), then configure it via the PUNTERSEDGE_API_KEY environment variable; the key is read once at server startup and does not appear in tool results.
Claude Desktop: edit claude_desktop_config.json, then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop.
Claude Code: add it with a single command in the project directory; adding -s user makes it available in all projects. Claude Code writes project servers to .mcp.json in the project root; that file can be committed and edited manually, but do not write the key into it—use an environment variable instead.
Cursor: project-level configuration goes in .cursor/mcp.json, global configuration goes in ~/.cursor/mcp.json.
Windsurf: the configuration file is ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json, with the same mcpServers structure as Cursor.
VS Code / GitHub Copilot: the workspace configuration file is .vscode/mcp.json; VS Code uses the servers key rather than mcpServers.
Any host that accepts a stdio server uses the same three pieces of information: the command, the arguments, and the environment variable block (carrying PUNTERSEDGE_API_KEY).
[Applicable scenarios] Suitable for users who need to query live Australian horse racing and sports odds in an AI assistant, compare quotes across bookmakers, or view settled results or market movement trends. racing_next_to_go returns races about to start, so it is in the period with the most complete data (the most bookmakers quote close to race start). When querying horse racing, pass country=AU; 87% of foreign and unlabeled races have only one bookmaker quoting, which usually makes comparison meaningless. Coverage is broad and fairly balanced close to race start, but several hours before the race often only two or three bookmakers quote. Sports coverage is sparser: at most 5 for AFL and NRL, at most 3 for NBA and ATP, and some events have only 1—this is a connector coverage limitation, not a fault.
[Limitations] The server is read-only and provides no betting, cancellation, or settlement functionality; all tools are HTTP GETs to read-only endpoints, and do notHolding bookmaker credentials does not change the PuntersEdge account (key rotation, billing, and webhook registration are all unavailable), nor does it predict outcomes or recommend bets. Every quote in the data carries its own freshness marker, because when a scraper stalls it does not raise an error but keeps serving the previous value, which looks no different from a live price. Betfair and Pinnacle are not in that data source; Betfair Exchange prices are hidden from client responses pending a Betfair data license, so Betfair prices will never be seen through that server. Bookmaker keys in the API do not always equal the brand name, e.g. NextBet is returned as playup. Arbitrage and exchange-related endpoints are unavailable, some returning 410 due to the Betfair license. When the monthly quota is exhausted, a 402 is returned, which is a hard stop and does not incur overage billing. The service is restricted to ages 18 and over and promotes responsible gambling. This repository is a TypeScript implementation and is a subset of the more feature-complete Python server; see the official MCP server documentation for full details.
