Geeza job Banks. Racing for change. I can do that. I can make silly suggestions.


I`m afraid I don`t hand out the Racing for Change jobs however if I did you would no doubt be head and shoulders above all other applicants.

I reckon you are one of those who think they could do better than anyone who has a decent job yet miraculously has never held such a position to be able to prove this.I

A submission in response to the Gambling Commission’s paper “In-running (In -Play) betting: Issue paper”

1. Introduction and background

1.1 I have been involved in the racing industry for more than 20 years, and for the last 5 years have been betting with variously betting exchanges but predominantly Betfair. As such my commentary may focus on Betfair occasionally but you should consider the comment equally relevant to other exchanges and high street shops. As a hobby (away form my fulltime occupation) I run various complex ‘bots’ on betting exchanges to; monitory markets, develop betting algorithms, detect corrupt betting patterns, and various other ideas I am working on. Additionally I bet with high street firms and on course bookmakers.

1.2 My ‘bots’ bet on virtually every horse race that Betfair offer globally including Australia, UK, Ireland, and USA as the main components each day. I do extensive data analysis and back testing of betting patterns, and comparison of betting patterns between the different countries and hence regulatory regimes.

1.3 Some of my ‘bots’ are not profit making but are used to capture market activity for technical analysis. Others are profit making. These ´bots’ ultimate place significant bets each day for very small net percentage returns – and as such I contribute significant commission to betting exchanges and as such the Levi.

1.4 Additionally I have been a vocal advocate of betting exchanges on many issues – and I believe in total they are good for racing in the UK. Additionally I have been a vocal opponent to Betfair on several issues.

1.5 I was a significant voice in encouraging Betfair to increase their IR warnings on the market menu, and am in continuing discussion with Betfair regarding the fairness of their markets, transparency of their rules, and provision of information for their clients.

1.6 I have recently provided evidence that photo bets where being matched by people that knew the result prior to market suspension. This apart from being totally unfair and unacceptable - is also obviously and clearly against the objectives of the gambling act especially the second licensing objective. As such I requested and Betfair to cancel such bets and Betfair has obliged in doing so. This had not been the MO in the recent past. This decision ushers in a new era where people can begin to bet with confidence in the knowledge that the result becomes known their bets will be cancelled. This type on confidence is what Betfair should welcome and the GC should enforce.

1.7 In general for a bet to be fair it needs to be struck where no discrepancy in material information exists between one counterparty and the other. Inside information is an obvious example and inherently wrong, despite its acceptance as ‘the life blood of the industry’. I believe there is no place in the administration of racing for people that hold those views.

1.8 I would highlight my comments and concerns relate to IR betting on horse racing – while my generic comments about fairness and time delays may be applicable – I do not seek to comment on IR of other sports except to compare the inconsistent application of ‘fairness’ across the various sports.
I HAVE REMOVED THE MAIN BODY AND DETAIL OF MY SUBMISSION FROM HERE
2.45 You may be aware that I have had strong views on the fairness of IR for several years. And to this extend in mid 2007 I had software developed that allowed every Betfair user to run an analysis of their Betfair horse racing bets. This software and database was developed
and maintained at considerable financial cost to me. The program and some of my motivations for it can be found here; http://betfairdata.googlepages.com/home. Several hundred individual have now used this software (based purely on a few threads I started on the Betfair forum, and no wider ‘advertising’) – indicating there is a clear demand from Betfair users to be able to see their PnL divided into pre-off and IR. Additionally they can separate their bets by picture provided and as such begin to see the real impact of time delay on their profitability. They can dissect SIS v´s ATR v´s RUK and see the impact of the differing time delays.

2.46 If you read the various threads I have stared in the general betting forum you will see multiple users of my IR segregator have come back thanking me for the information it has provided them. Many have found that while they are net winners on Betfair, they where surprised to learn they where winning on pre-off betting and giving a big portion of that money back IR (so winning 100 a day pre-off but losing 40 a day IR for example).

2.47 Betfair or other exchanges or bookmakers to my knowledge do not currently provide this level of granularity in the PnL statements they provide for clients. Despite the fact that they will allow you to separate the profitability of your soccer bets from your horse racing bets they will not provide a separation of IR and pre-off. The provision of this data is insignificant from a technological point of view, and these reasons it is not supplied need to be questioned by the GC.

2.48 I would ask the GC to enforce the provision of such information for the public. The GC must support maximum transparency in betting statements for punters to give them maximum opportunity to protect themselves from loss making areas. I would ask that the GC make it a requirement of any operator exchange or high street, that they cannot offer IR betting unless they proactively provide statement segregation that allows their clients to simply separate their IR from Pre-off betting. This is required for reasons of fairness, transparency and because they a distinctly different products with different risk profiles and fairness levels. I cannot see any argument against the provision of this transparency for the public punter.

3. Collusions

3.1 As alluded to in the introduction this submission is placed by a private individual with no formal alignment or alliance to any betting operator or commercial betting related enterprise.

3.2 I would ask that the GC make serious attempts to implement of my two requests given in 2.43 and 2.48 as implementation of these two points would 1) satisfy point two of the objectives 2) provide all the information and protection available while still allowing adults to bet on all the fair products they wish too

3.3 I make this submission under my Betfair username pseudonym ‘The Magician’ because under my real name I am essentially unknown in betting circiles. Virtually all of my discussion and dialogue on betting is conducted under the moniker of The Magician on the Betfair forum. Which you can easily verified

3.4 Finally I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the information and suggestions I have made here. Additionally there are several pieces of information I am not prepared to put in writing, but would discuss off the record

Regards,

Betfair Forum user ‘The Magician’

Note: due to the use of master and sub accounts on Betfair to run my various bots, I post under mulptile forum names – as each sub account
needs its own name. As such I post under

The Magician
The Magician ( )
The Magician (1)
The Magician (2)
The Magician (3)
The Magician (4)
The Magician (5)
The Magician (6)

I can see where Robin's coming from here in fairness!

If you consider that a serious submission, you're massively overestimating the level of importance that other people attatch to internet forums.

(FWIW That's not intended as a slur on your integrity or meant to ridicule you in any way, it's simply intended to point out that you've misjudged things here IMO )

To you (and I) and a handful of others, the postings on here are a pretty important part of gambling life and exchange of information. Through being here a long time we have a feel for who makes sense and who doesn't

To the GC, and 99% of the population it's a bunch of people talking crap in cyberspace.

Fair enough
FWIW, either way, It doesn't make them ignoring it anything close to being right.

Someone has dug them up on this otherwise it would've been swept under the carpet (NAP).

I think everyone nowadatys should keep an open mind.After all it was the punters of AP and UB the unveiled an online
poker cheating scandal that reveiled both sites had employees and many many associates who opened accounts
and the site could see everyones hole cards.We as you can guess 10's of millions was stolen from players accounts
when the cheating insiders looked at their own hole cards and also all their opponents hole cards.
What was interesting was early into the investigation the so called professional expert security
department told the accusers that their was no cheating.It was the players who finally got both sites(owned by the same people)
to admit that the some employees of the site where cheating.
No one was ever arrested and the sites are still playing back the players who where cheated.Which racing has never done when
cheating in horse racing has been proven.