integrity@betfair.com

lol, ironic emaill address

KYC probably lost betfair a lot of customers. If being regulated by the FSA meant having to fill in the same sort of cr@p you do for the spread firms, they'd be losing a lot more. As a bookmaker betfair are just as entitled to arb one player off against another as bookmakers are to have 130% books. As bookmakers they'd even be entitled to front run successful accounts, put up bets that they don't have to honour, beat the clock or whatever. The bookmakers have been taking the p1ss out of us since betting was legalised. What makes people think someone with a white hat is going to ride into town to save us from an outfit who are matching people's bets at the prices they have requested. The only thing anyone can do is vote with their feet and those most affected just don't mean that much, in terms of commission, to betfair anyway.

I think this affects everybody, not just those looking to lock in a tiny guaranteed profit.

Any positional player will at some time have, say, backed a horse at 2.02 in a book that happened to have an overround of only 99.8%. Now he will only be allowed 2.0, as the Betfair bot will have ensured that overbroke books are "corrected".

Get On MASSIVE 07 Mar 19:36
I've sent an e-mail to:

integrity@betfair.com

Asking for an official statement. I suggest anyone who cares to do the same.

GOM
I sent them an email on 1 March and I received a reply today which I posted on here earlier. If everyone who has posted on this thread emails them I think you may get a reply by 2009

Going by the earlier Q&A that was posted betfair say the skimming will cease, so could anyone explain to me how "they are biting the hand that feeds them".

Rest assured if it was costing them tens of thousands rather than making them tens of thousands they'd have switched it off within two minutes.

A salient point is that BetFair, the company and it's employees, pride themselves on running an honest and transparent service. That's why we have "memoranda of understanding". That's why the Gambling Commission and the Joint Integrity Committee took pains to congratulate them on providing information with which to make a judgement about the future of exchanges.

Here we have absolute proof that Betfair installed a system which has an impact on 100% books, but deliberately concealed it from their user base until it was "found out" 21 days later. When a user found it was costing him money.

As customers, that is not the approach we expect. It is far from transparent.

My understanding from a conversaton earlier with a colleague who works in the Commons is that the Gambling Commission are likely to have had no idea of the implications of their "agreement". So we can surmise they may have misled a Government committee. There is a possibility they will be asked to explain their actions.

And as users we are still in the dark, without an official statement as to why procedures changed, why we were not informed in advance of the changes, and why that surplus % would be going home in their satchel, especially in running, and not spread amongst winning punters.

Re Scraps;

betfair can only match the bet at 1000 if they can back the other for the same return (assuming they have decided to impliment a risk free bot - rather than a bot that takes all prices that are 15%, 20% 30% wrong) and we must assume it is risk free as they have said it is only a matching alogrythem

so they need to back all runners for 150K

but the market has just opened and no depth exists.... the roughies might only have a total liability of 2-3-4K on them for backers|(if that), so betfair back the 1000 favourite for 2-3-4 quid, and 145 or so quid is left for the public

they are limited by the LOWEST depth horse

hence if you want - you can write a bot to stop betfairs bot from opperating :o) - but I would never do that


Re : how long will this last, I did elude to it but I think I will leave that alone - as I think this is a good initiative

Any positional player will at some time have, say, backed a horse at 2.02 in a book that happened to have an overround of only 99.8%. Now he will only be allowed 2.0, as the Betfair bot will have ensured that overbroke books are "corrected".

Screaming, in the pre-off markets what betfair are skimming would probably have been skimmed by overround chasing bots anyway. Even if they continue to skim it wouldn't affect most gamblers aside from the positive that they'll probably get matched easier for larger sums.

Pre-off is not really an issue. Overbroke books only exist for a very short period of time. However, it is an abuse of their position to exploit it anyway. In running is another matter.

that isn't a charge unless you are a buffoon who backs every option in a 120% book.

Your point has been made before Feck, but you are deliberately not seeing the point. You are saying that BetFair are licenced as a bookmaker therefore they can do whatever they like to make a profit.

Well, forgive me, but exchanges are considered different animals by the Gambling Commission. They stated in open submission to the Gambling Commission, to beg them to keep Exchanges away from FSA regulation, that they were "merely conduits for betting". Today we find out that they are skimming their own markets for profit. And doing this in-running too, by taking advantage of their preferential status and executing something no independent user can successively achieve.

You may have no qualms about that but I can assure you the Gambling Commission do. Especially if the user base were deliberately kept in the dark about the practice.

grafec

given the GC approved this software, I cant see them doing anything about it - as a retraction would confirm thier incompitence, and that they did not understand what betfair explained to them "in detail"

so people yelling the GC will not stand for this, you can have 1000.0 from me about them doing anything proactive

feck - Oh, I know that. My point is that "operator skimming" is not an acceptable practice and hiding it does them no credit.

If they want to operate a bot which does the same and covers all the same rules we have then fine, but matching bets and not giving best price is a gross misuse of their preferential position in the market. It was 21 days ago and it continues today.

Magician - you're right of course.

Why is that when it could only lead to increased liquidity?

Because betfair is prepared (as they have shown us) to seize any opportunity to increase their revenues at the expense of the consumer.

i apologise feck, i think i've overstepped the mark there.. and mistaken some of the things you have been posting. I am still a little surprised that you aren't kicking up more about the skimming.. i feel robbed in running.

The Magician: Thank you for clearing up my question about whether punters or Betfair would now benefit from a 1000 layer's error. I accept you are right and Betfair's bot would only get a relatively small share of the action at 1000.

But I still maintain that even a small amount is going to be a tasty, risk-free profit for Betfair and a substantial loss to to the markets. Even if Betfair only match 10 at 1000 on an even money favourite, they're going to guarantee themselves a profit of about 2500, which will be lost from their customers' pockets and hence general liquidity for ever.

Regarding positional players previously backing at 2.02 in a book that happened to be 99.8% but now having to take 2.0, I realize that a lot of those opportunities would currently have been scuppered by users' bots. But surely not all of them? Surely sometimes I must have been matched at an overbroke price, even if I didn't realize it? As I understand it, Betfair have now deployed the technology to prevent that happening.

betfair should be taking nothing IMO. people should be trading with people, not the exchange, it's a massive integrity issue. whatever next...

I can see the the Gambling Commision receiving plenty of complaints over the coming days! Be interesting to see how they and Betfair respond.

so i just made the archetypal lay the wrong team mistake in the rugby league: straight after reading through this thread i dropped as big a matched error as i can remember!

most matched at a lower price than i requested (so it could have been worse) but then the remainder went at the odds i requested in two separate bets. how do i know whether bf matched me with their "algorithm" or if another punter got a bargain?

the former is worse than the latter since i know i have profited from the errors of punters in the past. when betfair make an error i tend to lose out rather than gain.

steady, I do think the skimming's out of order but I'd be virtually unaffected by that and positively affected by it being easier for myself and other positional players to get matched. Given that the Q&A suggests the skimming will stop I don't see any reason for throwing a tantrum.

screaming, if the skimming stops will we not all be a hell of a lot more likely to get a bet on in a 99.8% book?