really sick of the 1.99 bot parasite

ignore it?  and just get £1.99 less done when a price taker comes along?

it's the betfair 'crack' traders practicing before they go live - you'll get fk all matched then

Its a guy who bets in euros and bets in wide markets. There is on who has just 1 bet per market and updates it, then another who has strings of many bets layed out in frount of you in very wide markets.

Which markets ? Total goals ?

Obviously a money launderer for drug cartels.
Give him/her a break.
Somebody has to do it.

I intend to duplicate these strategies. I have my euro account set up. Will pick a day and generate huge transaction charges for the one that updates. And get in earlier than the string bets one. But I have more important project to be getting on with first.

So what is the minimum bet size in euros?

The no lose pennies bettor is hammering the markets at the moment too.

2 euros, and it doesn't show on the screen.

It could be a manual layer doing it to avoid bots going a tick over their price.

No, its too wide spread and reacts too quickly.

Totally inhuman in fact eh pumpkkin ?.
Let's call it a "virus" punter maybe ?
Whatever, I do tend to agree with VEP, in that BF should step in in some form or manner to cut it out of the exchange system.
It's a polluter, however you look at it.

to address some of the points here.

it's not just 1.99, it's 1.99 repeatedly, on each of multiple selections. you put up a price, and 1p gets nibbled off it. so you look at the graph/chart and sure enough, 2 quid's been matched a tick above, and there's another invisible 2 quid (actually 1.99) gone in at the same price point.

that's not a coincidence based on euros - it's a deliberate strategy to front run with the maximum sized invisible sterling bet.

and it's on every runner. so if you're trying to make a book, it ends up unbalanced no matter where you put your offer, because it automatically gets invisibly front run.

the only way to counteract it is to retaliate in kind, so the net result for betfair is deceptively poor prices and markets more moribund than they would be because marketmakers in slack secondary markets get discouraged.

The current value of 2 euros is £1.61.  Are there £1.61 bets all over the place?

It's annoying but for anyone taking prices it means they're getting slightly better prices than they expected, for anyone making a book it's only a couple of quid so generally only affects the lower liquidity markets where the market makers are offering piss poor value to start with.

If it's not betfair themselves it will be one of their 60% partners.

cat, yes...  a large number of 1.99 and Euro sized bets

The way I see it the only person losing out is the >£2 price maker, and this is only because £1.99 is not obvious without looking at the order book detail, so he finds it a pain to stay as the best price.

The price taker gets a better price than he/she would have if the £1.99 player was not there, so in this sense it's competition, which is good(for the exchange at least)

I can understand feeling wronged, because >£2 bets are officially against the rules, but I can imagine they would be difficult to prevent across the board.

If I was in your shoes I would either:
Use this forum to drum up some support to petition Betfair to allow you to see smaller available prices on your betfair screen
And / or
Use a bit of software which shows you all the prices

Yeah, I think it's unfair.  The minimum bet size should apply to everyone but I'm not sure how currency fluctuations could be dealt with,

IMO it's being able to see bets over £2 that's the problem.

LOL feck I'd like to add that people are not breaking the rules as betfair supports betting less than £2 by offering the option to bet 2 euros.

@catfloppo:

not really. what happens is 1p of your offer gets matched. then another 1p gets matched. meanwhile money's steadily being matched a tick above, showing as 2 quid at a time. and there's always another 2 quid available. in other words, 1.99's  being dripped in at a time to invisibly front run.

@babyjesus and j livermore:

the punter's only superficially getting better prices. in fact they're getting worse prices because the invisibility's stopping the market developing and nearing 100% overround. the practice is subtly damaging to betfair; it keeps secondary slack markets moribund.

"what happens is 1p of your offer gets matched. then another 1p gets matched."  but price takers are often submitting more than £2 at your visible price, aren't they?  If you are putting up best prices only in £2 I can see that this 1.99 bot would be killing you.

yes; but the problem is with the longer odds selections, where people typically bet 2 quid at a time. the result is it becomes impossible or very difficult to make a book.

for the short odds selections I don't really care if the first 1.99 of a three figure lay gets invisibly taken by this guy - whom for convenience I shall henceforth refer to as Mr Tw@t.

This sounds like it could be a simple but decent strategy if Betfair allow it.

Could also be someone betting in Hong Kong dollars. The minimum bet of 25 HKD equals 1.9925 GBP currently.

yeah, it theoretically could be mr A. but let's face it, it isn't.

apart from anything, this has persisted for at least a year, during which time the exchange rate has fluctuated, so how come it's always 1.99?

i don't really see the point of trying to argue that this is anything other than what it clearly is: someone using a bot to drip invisible bets into quiet markets.

I understand how this can be annoying Mr. President, and to a certain extent I'm also annoyed by "invisible" bets, but I don't really blame whoever is doing it.

I'd be happy about a change that make 2 euro and 25 HKD bets visible to everyone though, or an increased minimum bet size for those currencies.

I don't blame him in the sense that he's found a way of making money by breaking betfair's rules and getting away with it.

like I said at the top, I just wish BF would shut the cu nt down.

If he's betting in e.g. euros and the min bet is currently less than £2 what rule, precisely, is he breaking?

As others point out he's giving the person getting the bet slightly better odds?

Why, other than p1ss1ng YOU off, is he doing anything wrong? Are you Feck II with your faux moral outrage?!?

"As others point out he's giving the person getting the bet slightly better odds?"
Actually he isn't. Doh! I'll go to bed now, burning with shame

Actually he is giving better odds. I'll shut up, and tell you what Freddy Kreuger thinks about him tommorow.

Why shouldn't he be p1ssed off about it Just Bitching? It's another quirk of a crazy interface that allows nomarks to make their mark. They should make the minimum visible stake less than the minimum allowable stake across the range of currencies. How long has it been £2 for? Why not make all bets below a certain level "fill or kill only" instead of having penny pinching Ferengi kvnts exploiting the system and pushing decent sized bets off the screen with 6 quid worth of bets.

Why don't you just write a bot that puts up 1 cent bets whenever it finds a 1.99 front runner.

Won't cost you much and the "offender" then won't be invisible :)

Beat them at their own game I say....

Good idea about small bets being "fill and kill" only Feck

A good idea but it should really be directed at betfair Freelance.

Feck N. Eejit

pushing decent sized bets off the screen with 6 quid worth of bets.

Maybe you'll simply have to adjust the margins you're willing to operate on.  If someone's willing to lay at above the odds you're offering, they shouldn't be vilified for it as they're offering a better price for the backer, shirley?

Absolutely agree Rob, it's fundamental to the whole exchange philosophy.  Not sure how to make the min bet consistent across all currencies, I guess for all but the base currency the min bet would need to be updated each day.

Yes?

Btw £1.99 could be a minimum HK$ bet. Unlikely but it could be.

No specific rule being broken but Betfair do have some vague rules about protecting market integrity and fairness. It's a massive advantage being able to put up invisible bets because it means you dont have to compete with the other market makers because they dont know your bet is there. It might be true that he's giving better odds but if invisible bets were not allowed and he put up a visisble bet it would probably get jumped so he's stopping better odds being offered.

Maybe you'll simply have to adjust the margins you're willing to operate on.  If someone's willing to lay at above the odds you're offering, they shouldn't be vilified for it as they're offering a better price for the backer, shirley?

WALOFS. I could be hard up against the other side when I put the bet up. The whole point of the thread is that some bets in the queue are not showing and your argument is that no one has the right to complain unless they're willing to stick up a 5K back and a 5K lay an increment apart.

catfloppo, this being "fundamental to the whole exchange philosophy" is why this place has turned into Last5minutes.com. The min bet would not have to be consistent across all currencies. The min size that was shown would just have to be lower than the min of all currencies. e.g. if the min size that was shown was 2 and the min bet was £3 or 3 euros then neither min bet would slip under the radar.

but if invisible bets were not allowed and he put up a visisble bet it would probably get jumped so he's stopping better odds being offered.

Correct blank.

WALOFS. I could be hard up against the other side when I put the bet up. The whole point of the thread is that some bets in the queue are not showing and your argument is that no one has the right to complain unless they're willing to stick up a 5K back and a 5K lay an increment apart.

Which part of it was a load of shoite?  All of it?  I never mentioned anything about 5k bets; I believe that you were the one referring to "decent sized bets" being shoved off the screen in favour of these so-called parasitic amounts, weren't you? 

The whole point of the thread to me is that someone's getting a bit uppity about not being able rinse quiet markets.  Surely it's a case of either beat the price being offered to the point where the bot decides it's not worth it or wait until the market becomes more liquid and get your bets on?

The whole point of the thread is someone's getting uppity about others having an interface driven advantage over them. As blank just pointed out, how do you beat the price if you can't see it? Stick a 5K back & a 5K lay hard up against each other?

or wait until the market becomes more liquid and get your bets on?

Exactly my point about last5minutes.com. Thanks.

And what is your point about that?  Put some prices up early doors if you like.  If I think they're worth betting, I'll do so.  Doesn't matter to me if it's more than five minutes before the off.

I used to stick up large bets in the evening when I was going racing the next day. When I was ready to leave the following day around noon I'd have about £60 matched out of maybe 10K's worth of bets despite the fact they were put up at fair prices (as many ended up longer as ended up shorter). Large early bets only act as book ends because they're soon pushed aside by the £2 leap frog copycats.

The guy who just puts up one bets and jumps can see bets less that £2 with his API. I know because if I lay 2 euros ahead of him I get jumped. Yet I cannot see bets below £2 through the API. I am not clear as of yet about why this is the case.

I can see

forum does not like less than signs.

I can see less than £2 through API.  Perhaps it varies depending on the type of call you make.

All depends on which api request you make , think getCompleteMarketPricesCompressed contains all data whereas getMarketPrices will only show the £2+ amounts

You can see bets < 2 without the api, they appear on the graph page. It would only require 1 other person in the world
to make a second bet on this guys 1.99 to make it greater than £2 and "visible" and defeat this strategy.
A strategy would apparently give the person on the other end of the bet better odds anyway.

Once again people seem to be confusing "I want the system to make me money and want it changed to suit what I do" and "what's actually objectively fair or unfair" confused.

If Feck has seen £10k of bets matched at better odds than he put up that's a lot of people who got better odds. They are happier, the system did it's job, Feck is throwing another of his little temper tantrums, basically EVERYONE has won here - what's not to like?!

"ITS job", ffs.

I used to stick up large bets in the evening when I was going racing the next day. When I was ready to leave the following day around noon I'd have about £60 matched out of maybe 10K's worth of bets despite the fact they were put up at fair prices (as many ended up longer as ended up shorter)

In what way does that equate to people getting 10K of bets matched at better odds? Half of the bets ended up a bigger price than the price I requested. In any bet, if someone got better odds then the person on the other side got worse odds. This trader spiel about better odds is all about wanting to be loved and to be seen as providing a useful function.

BTW, try and cut it down to a bottle a day and start a bit later.

Well, if you want a bet as a backer you get better odds. Layers don't.

pumpkin, in the absence of my 10K worth of bookends (all backs) it would have probably been the other way about.

Just Checking
11 May 12 00:46 Joined: 25 Jun 06 | Topic/replies: 9,411 | Blogger: Just Checking's blog
Actually he is giving better odds. I'll shut up, and tell you what Freddy Kreuger thinks about him tommorow.

---------

JC - think about it. why's the bet at the size it is? to be invisible so that it doesn't get front run.

that doesn't give people better prices, it stunts the development of the market.

and think about it some more. what does it incentivise others to do? if I put a £2 bet in front of him, it will immediately be front run. but if I play the same game and put £1.99 there, I get first position.

for the record, I've got absolutely no issue with people front running me. yeah, i'd love to have markets to myself, but competition's how this all works. it's the dripping in invisible bets that's the beginning and end of my beef with this tw@t.

Viva, you might consider running a 2 pence bot on the markets you play that will make the bets visible

If BF aren't prepared to pick these exploiters up, making £1 bets viisible would be a start. But it's a bit rich, when their own skimbot can bet in pennies as they please.

I've not seen the 1p 1.49 pennypincher around for a while but trap bettors keep popping up on the cricket runlines, it's just too easy.

Trap betting has appeared a lot lately.  U.S. horse racing has it a lot at night trying to catch out tired punters in the UK.

Every once in a while, you'll find a spike on the graphs where someone laid 46 thinking it was 4.6

If I'm on a market, I will block it (i.e. ask 4.4 / offer 46, I'll put 30 to make obvious).

Keep bets legalised (for want of a better word) trap betting even before the crossmatcher became trap bettor supreme. Must be a nice little earner for skumfair even if one of their mugging crew get there first. It would be simple enough to put in an optional warning message, pre-ir at least.

Feck N. Eejit     16 May 12 12:40 
Keep bets legalised (for want of a better word) trap betting

There's a fair few on in play footie the opposite is true, they stopped keep bets on correct scores cos they were being left up on immpossible scores. Also keep bets on match odds get hoovered if they are left up at the wrong price or forgotten about.

True trappers probably cancel their keep bets as soon as the event goes in play. Pre-off it would be a simple job for betfair to give a warning when anyone attempts to place a bet that's way out of line with recent action. That's not the skumfair way though.

Given some of the things that go on in this place, their customer commitment updates would make you vomit.

Keep bets are safe for things that move toward the initial value of the bet with time decay and away from it with major events (goals in football). An example would be a back of any unquoted in Correct Score.
Still a small risk with a red card though.

Other ways of doing keep bets are dangerous, and have cost me £ thousands.

Does the old adage "watch your bets" ring any bells!