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"grafec 07 Mar 20:03
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. "" Excellent post graf. |
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Yeah he nailed it.
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10/10 to wiljons for starting this thread.
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Great fishing. ;)
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feck, i think perhaps i'm just offended that betfair felt they could pull a fast one, start operating in their own markets and take a profit. reeks of greed.
as a positional player myself I see the advantages you are keen on.. sure it will suit me, but i don't like the idea of betfair operating in these markets at all, i think it has really dodgy integrity undertones, i don't like the direction this is going at all. just that they thought they could skim, i find gives me a sick feeling. |
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Taking a simple two outcome event like a tennis match, how have Betfair's actions changed the following scenario?
I submit a back on a player at 1.45. As my bet waits for the 5 sec countdown a back of 3.2 on the other player hits the market. The way I am used to the site working is that my bet would then hit the market causing a small temporary overround on the lay side. I curse because I could have had a better price laying the other side, and my bet is swallowed a few secs later. Reading some of this huge thread it would seem that the change is that Betfair would take my 1.45 exactly as it hits the market and the equivalent amount of 3.2 to arb it, beating the clock and pocketing a small profit. Is this correct? How would this change the way people felt about it if instead they tweaked their algorithm to match my submitted bet at the best available price when it hits the market, in this case 1+1/2.2 = 1.4545. Betfair would no longer be banking a profit by beating the clock, and they would be matching bets at the best available price (which is something I would like to see), even though they are still beating the clock. |
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spot on disco. you understood correctly, no chance to correct your mistake, not even a chance to curse before it gets snaffled.. in fact at times you might not even know what's going on, other than you getting consistantly worse prices than what are available. we don't even get the slight satisfaction that it's some other punter it's going to.. it's the exchange ! those people that make the rules and now take your money too. nice isn't it.
your second suggestion is also what most would like to see.. if indeed we are to be subjected to this matching technology.. |
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Or we could get rid of in-running.
First we had people **ing on each other. Now betfair are **ing on us and committing suicide in the process. Great... Told you it would do more harm than good. |
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Betfair need to make a statement to clear this up .
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Yes, I suppose that in my example I have submitted the bet I want and it has been matched so no big deal. But if I had made a mistake and asked for a massive back at 1.01 then not only would it wipe out all the lay bets on that player, but also all the back bets on the opposing side with the back bets arbed against my 1.01 which is definitely not good. It is a toss up whether it would be better to match my bet instead at the inverse price of the back bets, or to give me a chance to cancel the amount that doesn't get matched. In a heavy volume market it might end up doing the mistake maker a favour.
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I understand your frustration steady but at least they've been found out and they can't be in much doubt as to the feelings of the forum. There's been long threads before but I've never seen one with the acceleration this one had.
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I was just having a look Feck, this thread is only one day old...
Those who have been out for one day will be shocked. :) |
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This is the fourth implementation recently that I have had objections to and as a result I have had to put some resources into other exchanges. I have been pleasantly surprised with the results so far. I will now be stepping up these efforts even though I would rather be devoting my time to making money on here.
I am not going to make a difference on my own but I will now be actively seeking ways to increase the liquidity elsewhere. |
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sorry, not sober enough to work this out.....
if backing is laying and vice-versa anyway, then if I get matched anyway, why am I concerned? Not every best execution price creates an overbroke book? I could spend hours reading the whole lot and working it out, but I'd rather do the form for next week... |
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This system is here to stay. There is no way that Betfair would not have got the relevant permission to put this system in place and therefore they are technically not doing anything wrong.
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One thing we have learnt is that people like the Magician who cream of profits through identifying **s don't seem to have a major problem with BF betting with absoloutely zero risk at all.( Although betting with fast pics is tantamount to genecide.
We should just call it the ** club. |
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a lot of people are using the word greedy to describe betfair's actions or intentions. i couldn't disagree more. their behaviour is the very definition of avarice.
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avarice -
insatiable greed for riches; inordinate, miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth. A new word I can use in Scrabble... |
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I think you guys are underestimating the amount of money betfair is making with this. I think it is huge amounts they make here. This happens with every 10th bet or so, especially in-play markets, every second... , it is a lot of money betfair makes with this so if if noone forbid it for them they will continue this. With the traders who trade 100 times during a tennis match they only get comission once, but they get the overround money all the time. I guess they just didn`t have a program that could do it before that`s why they didn`t do it before. (haven`t read the whole thread though)
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Either this is a load of crap, or their new algorithm isn't working correctly 'cos my bot still makes as much as it ever did.
Don't fret boys and girls |
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I'm sure the racing post etc would be interested in betfair getting involved in profiting from the over round, instead of just acting as neutral broker of bets between 2 players
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This is an absolute disgrace. This should be banned or at least corrected to offer best price available. It is not difficult to match bets from either side of a two sided event at best price. If you ask for 2.0 and this isn't available on your side but 1.95 is avaliable on the other then you should get the lay of 1.95 (i.e 2.05263). The fact that betfair are keeping the difference is beyond belief. The amount of money taht betfair will make from this will exceed commission on all in-play markets in my opinion. This has got to be unlawful.
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hank,
call me a cynic, but ..... betfair do lots of advertising with the RP and no doubt have revenue sharing for click-throughs and people who sign up from following a link on their site. i'm not sure that they will be falling over themselves to publish a story about this. |
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perhaps you're right squatting - but the difference between high st robbing bookies and bf is becoming less and less transparent - I really hope this was a mistake by them and not premeditated, but I doubt it :(
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hank, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that this was an oversight!
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No disrespect to anyone on here, but wait for the official line from Betfair before you start worrying about it.
If it is true, then I can't see betfairkeeping the profit. The user placing the bet will just end up with slightly less liability that he otherwise would have. No harm done really - just cuts out the middle man / bot. |
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If it is true, then I can't see betfairkeeping the profit. The user placing the bet will just end up with slightly less liability that he otherwise would have. No harm done really - just cuts out the middle man / bot.
-- Come again? |
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is there an independent governing body that can investigate these rather serious accusations as it is absolutely usless asking betfair if this is the case ,of course they are bound to deny it .they obviously have an unfair advantage .
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PS: I do believe that this was an oversight and somebody did not think around 5 sec delay problem. No way are they that stupid.
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so its not person to person betting no more, its person to person or person to betfair, that brings in all kinds problems, they have a tv advert that is now misleading, it needs to mention it could be person to betfair betting.
as betfair revenue continues to fall they will have many more ways to keep revenue up, lets face it you know things are happening when they start taking 2 bets on the phone and now tote bets, if they didnt have to take these bets they wouldnt, they have to do it just like they have to now take person to betfair bets. wait till they put the commission rates up again |
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i_love_bots_me
where do you think the difference goes? it doesn't disappear into thin air, it disappears into betfair's gaping maw. |
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know all,
i don't think there is any 'have to' about it, they do it because black, wray and their institutional investors want ever increasing returns. |
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Colourwizard : Betfair are not denying it they are claiming that their system can't give best available between the two sides of the market (yet). Its whether this changes and how long it takes!!
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sqaut.. like i said, the punter would simply end up with less liability than he otherwise would have so he's better off.
ie, in a two horse race, if he wanted to back horse1 @ 3.0 with 10, normally he'd stand to make 20 with 10 liability on horse2. if that wouldn't match but he can lay horse2 at 1.48's, betfair will match with that instead resulting with 20 profit on horse1(same as before) but only 9.60 liability on horse2. so he's just in the same position if his bet comes in, but actually 40p better off if it goes against. apologies if the numbers are wrong, but you get the theory i hope |
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but that's not the case, because they take the difference ...... they arb it.
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Bot : It doesn't work like that, the bet wouldn't be matched at 1.48 but at the equivalent of his 3 (i.e 1.5 Betfair take the 0.2 at no risk).
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But it's all speculation. I said wouldn't worry until betfair release something about it.
I know for an absolute fact that overrounds are still happening now. |
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Well of course they want bigger returns rather than smaller, other things being equal, who wouldn't? But I would think that the devaluation of the quality of their returns from this fiasco, which I genuinely believe arises more from a misunderstanding within the organisation than any deliberate attempt to depart from the companys core values of transparency and integrity, would offset the benefits of the short-term increase in earnings many-fold in the eyes of the founders.
When Betfair mistakenly recruited Stephen Hill as CEO, they were quite decisive in returning the organisation to its roots when they realised their mistake, and I imagine that that perpetrators of this fiasco are shaking in their hovels just as much as SHs acolytes were when their mentor met his nemesis. |
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This is a great development.
Betfair can create the megabot that scoops all under-/overrounds and consigns to history the tens of whining minibots that clog up the servers. Hopefully this will mean the following for the non-robotic customers: quicker site lower commission rates |
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Bot
It has been confirmed not officially on the site but by email and the Q & A posted on p17 |