Cross Matching Questions.

No & Yes.

Sorry, forget my post. I misunderstood.

It's another case of Betfair shifting from a pure 'exchange' into a standard bookmaker role. (Although technically BF has always been a bookmaker, this isn't how it was originally conceived by its creators).

Careful fellas - in my experience it is possible to lose your forum access for questioning the cross matching!

I don't think I broke one either - hence reinstated (after some debate).

Yes, Betfair can legitimately claim 'best execution', as it is not possible to back or lay at odds increments that don't exist.

If an over/under markets looks like this:

under 6.5 - 1.01 1.02
over  6.5 - 60   65

And someone backs under 6.5 at 1.01, it was never possible for them to back this outcome at 1.0156 instead.

If you see backing under 6.5 and laying over 6.5 as two distinct bets (which they are), Betfair offer best execution.

Of course, for all practical purposes they are identical, and only the price differs.

It's not just losers that are giving up value by cross matching. If the market is

1.11 1.12
9.8  10

I may well back at 1.11 instead of taking the 10 under certain circumstances.

They need to explicitly state in Australian markets thats its on in the market aswell.

Wonder why uk is so laissez faire

So the British punter gets ripped off but the Austrialian one can't, that sounds fair.

Anyone from Betfair like to comment

Cross matching has been active on Aussie wallet markets for a while now and there must be a lot in the skimmed money pot.  Form an orderly in the queue for the dash for cash when Tasmanians decide please.

I would say you were off the mark stewarty. In fact I'd say cross matching was the only good thing that's come out of betfair towers in the last 10 years.

blank, I didn't know they were under an obligation to return the breakage from Australian markets to punters.

This very shady practice of skimming shows why bf whd be regulated by the FSA in Britain. Bf has a lot of professional customers whose level of expertise is at least the equal of at-home spread bettors or people investing their personal wealth--but customers get fobbed off w/ the Gambling Commission, who do not appear to be staffed by bettors or people who think like winning bettors (esp. on the bookmaking side).


There may be times when cross-matching speeds market clearing but imv that isn't sufficient compensation for being skimmed.

The Investor, they will come up w/ some rubbish about their ladder being their ladder. No matter than bf SP does not round up (or more likely round down) to ladder odds.

Just to stress, my prob. is not w/ the legality of their skimming or w/ some idea that they shd operate as an exchange. I wd be very happy for them to book-make to provide liquidity.

It's more w/ the way they said nothing about the change, aren't following the implicit principle of 'best execution' and can give themselves eye-wateringly generous 'the field against two' bets on underpopulated markets (conceivably the latter stages of IR horses). I only go IR if I've made a mistake, but I'm sure an IR player will be able to say how often this happens.

feck, wasn't there some discussion something like 4 yrs ago of bf being regulated by the FSA (i.e. not the Gambling Commission)? Do you know the ins and outs of how they escaped this?

It is not plausible that a body that oversees whether the balls in the National Lottery are all the same size will also have the skill-set to police bf's thousands of events and derivative markets per day.

I don't recall such a discussion askari but the Salvation Army would be more savvy than the GC.

*disappeared

Probably Feck, however, I've very seldom had problems getting a bet matched if I'm laying a beast. Maybe a touch of paranoia.

Do you think the cross matcher has led to more money being matched on fallers at 1000?  The figure often goes up quite significantly during the race after one is down, especially if a fancied horse falls early.  I wonder if BF are profiting from that somehow via their skimming/ability to have skinners against the field?

would be so easy for betfair to give the skimmed money back and brand it as a "betfair bonus". unless they want to quietly hang on to it (which blank's link suggests they don't), they're missing a trick not doing so.

stewarty, I'll probably be back this June, more out of boredom than anything else. I've kinda fell out of love with horse racing and the path betfair have chosen to go down. The pc was never likely to affect me once they changed to basing it on lifetime profit.