Business Betfair Going looks hard for Betfair as managers quit and shares fall

Jesus, Marky. Under the current system any punter on 4% commission who ends the year dead level, i.e. made not one penny of net profit, would have paid plenty more than £90.95/week commission.

And you're complaining about a proposal under which somebody actually making thousands of pounds of net annual profit would be paying £90.95/week...

Ok, for me, that would mean instead of the 30k I have paid in PC, I would have had to pay 62k, and I'm a gambler, so how is this supposed to be helping me as a gambler exactly?

Another thread hijacked by feck, to spout off about how it's all so unfair Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Try the politics forum, they talk cr@p all day long in there.

Right or wrong, it's hardly changed bf's fortunes, since it was introduced.

ICS, laying 1000.0 shots is hardly typical gambling. The fact the pc does not offer rebates when the losing run comes is a legitimate grip in your case.

Another thread hijacked by feck, to spout off about how it's all so unfair Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Don't you mean another thread spouting off about how it's unfair put to bed by Feck?


Try the politics forum, they talk cr@p all day long in there.

No surprise you're familiar with it then.


Right or wrong, it's hardly changed bf's fortunes, since it was introduced.

Maybe, but not for the reasons you think.

I don't lay 1000 shots, far from it, the majority of my lays are under 10-1.

What percentage of runners in a race are you laying on average ICS?

I do sports not horses.

One point made some while back is that the sports exchange model required huge investment in tech and hardware to keep up with the turnover. Those investors needed to be paid back, hence the need for casino and poker etc as extra revenue. But then the site needed to then grow more to keep up with the expansion and the eye was taken off the sports exchange.

All this functionality needs to be paid for and the root is that its become too big; the sports exchange takeup has hit its ceiling without access to USA or China etc. Along the way the original vision has been lost.

Screaming - the difference is you know your position before you strike your bet and can make a call on whether it is value or not.

What percentage of outcomes in a market are you laying on average ICS?

Down to 766p now, bet there's a few shareholders wishing they'd cashed in at the opening price of £15.5 now :)

PC might be one small factor in their decline but they lost their USP ages ago and are just seen as another internet bookies these days butd one with a complicated price structure for the man in the street. They've just got greedy and moved away from the core business with allsorts of crap like virtual racing which probably cost a fortune and was a flop, plus all the poker/casino stuff is done much better by others so doubt that brings in any real revenue.

This thread should not just be about the pros and cons of the PC but take a broader perspective.

The key issue is that BF's profits are seriously not in line with expectations and the next set of results due soon is unlikely to change that. The share price on its IPO was set way too high for its 10 year performance and anyone who uses the site would have known that. Plenty of people pointed that out.

BF's record is poor compared to the rise of B365 which is doing much much better, suggesting that the no- margin exchange model has serious limitations especially as its overheads are so high and it has to continue investingin new IT assets.

In fact, to my mind this is where BF took the wrong road. It set out its stall to attract traders and leaving aside the unfairness of the commission system which was (and still is) loaded against stright position takers in favour of traders, the growth in super-structure is entirel the result of this poor strategic decision.

This has led Bf ibto the gobbleddgook world of IT and compared to its BM competitors it has no nous when it comes to betting, gambling, the mentality of punters etc. No-one who has the slighest understanding of punters would have ever have intoduced a profits-tax which kills the hope the illusion that making a profit is possible.

The traders which have been encouraged to flourish are nothing other than an extension of BfF inasmuch as they care not one jot for the sport but purely using clever software to cream off profit which would otherwise go into punters pockets. Their dominating influence iis to have created a super-efficient market which eliminates the edges that most opinion led players can identify.

Traders have no option to continue using BF (80% odf something is better than 100% of nothing) but opinion players are not so restricted. Faced with a marginal decision to place a bet with a BM at near comparable odds and placing one on BF is a no-brainer, providing you can get your money on. If I make say a a £1k bet on a 5/1 shot I have to factor in the potential loss of 22%. That means the BM need be no more than 4/1 for the alternative to be viable and most cases now the 5/1 will be available often with a BOG offer - and no commission. Forget about calculations made for a series of outcomes, the punter will make a marginal calculation on the one bet. How many punters have BF lost as a result? How much t/o have they lost from punters who remain on here. My own t/o has not increased one jot and despite difficulties large bets have to be placed elsewhere. it is only the option of hedging on here which appeals.

So, BF is a trading site and run by IT people. Just hwo many traders do they think are out there? Most people want to just place a bet on an outcome, so not that many. The clever traders are making a killing and yet they are no the profit providers for BF. It doesn't take a genius to see that BF have boxed themselves into a tight little corner and they are stuck with it.

Feck N. Eejit Joined: 10 Jan 02
Replies: 3829 25 May 11 11:22 


Don't you mean another thread spouting off about how it's unfair put to bed by Feck?

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believe me feck, that's not something that anyone other than you is ever going to say.

although, tbf, you are likely to say it enough times to make up for the fact.

Traders have no option to continue using BF (80% odf something is better than 100% of nothing) but opinion players are not so restricted. Faced with a marginal decision to place a bet with a BM at near comparable odds and placing one on BF is a no-brainer, providing you can get your money on.

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but that's a pretty big providing. certainly in football, to match or better the BF price you're going to have to pick the best offer from a firm. and doing that for four figure sums will get you shut down.

So it will with horses but it is similar to putting effort into PC avoidance strategies, isn't it|? Effort has to be put in. Anyway, I have no idea how value is obtained with football bets. BM's have all the stat's and more so where does the edge come from? Backing horses is hard enough but value is possible. Football though? trading I understand. Straight backing/laying, I don't.

yeah, that's a long-running debate. most people's conclusion is that:

a) the main markets for the main leagues are extremely efficient and
b) what value there is is to be found in more obscure games/secondary markets. or IP.

I used to think that, but I've become more and more convinced from watching PL match odds markets pre-KO that in fact they're far less efficient than people think.

but that's another discussion; surely the point is that if you consistently find the value, everyone bar the exchanges will shut you down.

believe me feck, that's not something that anyone other than you is ever going to say.

I wouldn't expect your average city trader to admit they were nothing more than guessers but it wouldn't necessarily follow that they weren't. As far as pc calimeros go, not one has ever addressed the post below so by their own silence they effectively admit they're sh@gged.


What is it about traders that make them think they're so important that the rest of us should pay for the running of the site while they get to operate virtually commission free. Their attitude is identical to that of the parasitic sc.um in the financial sector who are getting pay rises and huge bonuses while the rest of the country pays for their mistakes.


Suppose they deducted 22.5% of your lifetime profit as a running total making deductions / rebates after each market was settled and then each Wednesday they calculated what you would've paid under the old system and, if that was greater than what you'd already paid, docked the difference from your account (i.e. they're swapping over the normal and premium charge deduction times). Then

1) Everyone would pay more or less what they do now

2) The Ferengi wouldn't have a Wednesday payment

3) Almost all gamblers would have a Wednesday payment

4) Gamblers would be up in arms at having to subsidise the mainly worthless Ferengi.

5) The only people who wouldn't be whinging would be the Ferengi.

Can any pc calimero please tell us why the gamblers should have to make this wednesday payment?

Would giving those NOT being charged on the wednesday a rebate of 75% of their previous week's commission be a solution to the above injustice? If you think so then you need treatment.


Under the old system if you had 100 backs at 1.1 and they all won and I had 100 backs at 110.0 and one won, we'd both have the same turnover and gross profit but I'd be  expected to pay up to 11 times the commission you would. The premium charge doesn't even go far enough to address that injustice as those paying it are still paying a lower percentage of their profits in commission than all other long term betfair winners. They should lower the max rate of commission and recoup it with

The all new liquidity generating Premium Charge = (GrossProfit - 5 * CommissionGenerated) / 2.

viva

BF gave up on high rollers, even though they made a pofit, presumably because they were astute enough to recognize that they don't have the skills and experience to overcome the potential for large variance. So, that leaves them with medium and small punters..and traders...to target. Those punters who make a profit but do not pay PC do so because they have margin strategy where they pay more in commission than the level where PC kicks in. Nevertheless, I am sure that each one will look at the next bet and think ..does this take me into PC territory. The PC sits there like a vulture at a feast just waiting to pick the bones. BF have shown no sensitivity to this cissue preferring to stick with their needs for more profit and to argue that it is for the greater good. But above all, my contention is that the trader target group is just not large enough to sustain their profit target growth especially as it demands more and more investment in IT assets.

I don't understand this giving up on high rollers argument. in big football matches I regularly see 5 and 6 figure bets go in, and if you watch in real time you'll frequently see high 6 figure positions dripped into a market.

surely the truth is BF don't need to target high rollers, because if you want to get a really large bet on and you have the money, BF's about the only place you're going to be able to do so no questions asked.

The main issue is they're spending money trying to grow in an area where there's no growth left.

If they were happy with their x million a year that they had 2-3 years ago, there's no reason they couldn't have made that pretty much forever with very little extra expenditure.

Instead, they see the lure of casino "free money" and so on and for some reason think people will play here rather than at a household name bookmaker. Not sure why they think that, but it's clear they do.

They're in for a huge shock if America ever allows exchange betting legally.

They gave up on keeping the high rollers to themselves though. Or at least they say they did.

The premium charge debate has been done death.  No one knows how much revenue it generates so its impossible to tell whether its been a good idea.  The cost of the increased revenue is the loss in goodwill.

What is it about traders that make them think they're so important that the rest of us should pay for the running of the site while they get to operate virtually commission free.....



feck -

a guy sells shoes for 100 quid a pair -

the govt brings in a 20% tax for all shoe sales -

the guy increases the price of his shoes to 120 to cover the tax -

who's paying the tax?

viva

in big football matches I regularly see 5 and 6 figure bets go in,

2 points. 1 it's not BF standing them 2. How do you know whether these bets are left standing and not traded out of. Big difference in "in play/at risk" money.

I am probably way off the mark but my impression is that Betfair has spent loads of money on technology, primarily as a defence mechanism to deter competition, and adding "improvements" that no one really cares about one way or another and lost track of the most important thing in driving the business forward..."happy customers"

it's a good point, lori. if you find a niche and quickly expand to fill it, there's no logical reason to assume you should be able to grow beyond it.

a lot of the perception  of crisis is arguably in fact the result of a false assumption that endless growth is possible.

sandown - if you watch markets in real time you can see people dripping in massive positions that they clearly aren't trading out of.

gotta go out now, but will happily debate this further later if you're around and still interested.

What's your point iz???????

think about it feck...who ends up paying the tax/pc, the 'winner' or 'loser'?

Of what relevance is this to the discussion iz? You're surely not implying that winners pass on commission increases to the losers?

a guy trades on b/fair using 100 quid a trade -

b/fair brings in a 20% premium charge for traders -

the guy increases the price of his trade to 120 to cover the premium charge -

who's paying the pc?

The tooth fairy?

My wife wants a new house that costs 100K. I was goin to put a tenner on an even money shot but increase it to 100K. Who's paying for the new house?

a guy sells shoes for 100 quid a pair -

the govt brings in a 20% tax for all shoe sales -

the guy increases the price of his shoes to 120 to cover the tax -

who's paying the tax?

Nobody. If he could sell a pair of shoes for £120, he would have done  so before the tax was imposed. If he increases the price of his shoes, people either make do with the shoes they already have or buy them from a vendor with lower profit expectations who can absorb the tax.

feck that didnt answer the question.

and your example dont make sense

Fk me. There's two of them.

Lex, ffs, if you could just take another 20% off losers why would you wait to be charged 20% more to do so. Put it this way, if betfair introducing the pc brought in an additional x million did that mean losers lost an additional x million?

Feck N. Eejit Joined: 10 Jan 02
Replies: 3844 25 May 11 18:04 
Lex, ffs, if you could just take another 20% off losers why would you wait to be charged 20% more to do so.

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very hard to argue with this point imo.

One point made some while back is that the sports exchange model required huge investment in tech and hardware to keep up with the turnover. Those investors needed to be paid back, hence the need for casino and poker etc as extra revenue.

I'd bet a large slice of my bank that only the sports exchange is profitable and all the other 'diversifications' lose money. Not only do they lose money, they chew resources, so that needed fixes and improvements to the sports exchange simply aren't happening.

It is a fact that most diversifications, by most companies fail.

And as for the PC, I'd like to see a graph of revenue from it. I bet it has already peaked.

If you are smart enough to make money on bf, you will be smart enough to figure out the solution to the PC. The reason you don't see it discussed here, is people don't want bf to change the rules.

pxb, it is possible to avoid PC for those that pay it regulary and not to high amounts, but it may not be the smart thing to do as it it is time consuming and may take time and focus away from your original money making strategies.
  There is no doubt in my mind though that Betfair rake in huge amounts from gamblers/position takers on good runs.
  These customers PC paying will be more randomly but the payments will be much higher and it's not that easy to avoid paying PC when the amount is high and you often don't know if you have to pay it until late in the weekend.

Another huge change BF has faced is vastly increased competition from the high street in-running.  Initially BF was the only place to go but now all the major sites are doing in-running on each live game and providing you can get on, the choice is immense.

OK, this may not apply to the horses which is a different type of in-running market, but for other slower sports, especially those that have breaks or safe periods, the in-running punter has a wealth of choice.

Forward thinking companies like Bet365 now offer a host of markets in-play and each outcome gets a price whereas on here outside the core markets there are generally no offers, or extremely poor offers.  The individual prices you may not agree with, but in total the high street collective often provide much better prices than can be found on here.

As has been pointed out, pre-match or pre-race, the high street usually beats BF anyway before you take commission and potential PC into account, certainly on favoured selections.  Throw in concessions like BOG, money back on 0-0s, a straight forward interace and there is no reason why new punters (or those who can still get on) would want to come over to BF in the first place.

So the exchange is now being battered by increasing competition both before the event and during as never before.  Little wonder BF are having to put a huge amount of resource into their site just to stand still.

Eddie, about an hour after I wrote that i hit upon the no stress, no effort way of avoiding the pc. My current lifetime charges are at 20.07%. So just in time.

Some fascinating stuff on this thread.

Sadly, this comment is probably the truest of them all:

Almost all bf's thoughtful winning players (and some losing players) cd tell them where they are going wrong. But the mentality of some of those at the top seems to be very techy and distrustful of punters, who are a bit too chancy for them.

pxb Joined: 07 Jun 10
Replies: 1102 26 May 11 09:49   


Eddie, about an hour after I wrote that i hit upon the no stress, no effort way of avoiding the pc. My current lifetime charges are at 20.07%. So just in time.

  Is it closing down your account ?

lol

No its not. But that was my initial reaction to the prospect of paying the pc. I should have been paying the pc a while ago, but I got a generous concession from bf that delayed it for quite a while. Why I got the concession and others didn't, I have no idea.

Interesting pxb. Gonna tell us more?

The Vis while it is true you may getter better prices at bookmakers IF you shop around, generally the best prices are still on here.  You can back or lay on here, you can set your own prices and you can trade backwards and forwards on wafer thin margins with only one charge when the market is finalised, plus you dont have to worry that you will get shut down.  There's no comparison overall.

I don't know how true this is but my understanding is that the servers are continually getting bombarded for price information and it's costing Betfair millions.

This bombardment of resources isn't coming from "punter to punter" betting on which the whole success, generated goodwill and ethos of the company that it had in it's early days was built.

Interesting thread that really begs the question "How was Betfair ever going to sustain growth ? "

Not a single serious punter on here does not regret the path that the site has taken with games etc but if it were our business we would do exactly the same thing. A cafe wouldn`t serve tea and not coffee, regrettably the machine aspect of gambling is part of the product these days and Betfair was fully entitled to travel that route no matter how unpopular it was. The PC was and remains a disgrace, yet there are people who still pay it ! What does that prove ? that they are fools ? Certainly not, they realise that this remains the only true outlet for their pursuit of profit. Has the other site benefitted as it should have done...? I doubt it and the markets here will still satisfy the vast majority of small and medium size players.
The other more serious flaw in this site is the level of comm. as pointed out very well by screaming from beneaththewaves. 5% is colossal and deters any new recruits, though can just about be absorbed, but the points levels and more pertinently the disgraceful decay system (which makes the PC look fair) is a disgusting way to treat present clients and also attract new ones. To penalise customers for not betting is a deepy insulting way to do business, yet how many complain about this ? And how can we ? It has been there since day 1. Screaming gave an excellent example of how the affected punter cannot win...he may break level, but all he is doing is paying the wages and the bonuses of the BF staff. Why would he do this ? But he does ! So it is fair to sum up that the vast majority still believe that BF for bad or for worse is still their best chance despite racing odds for the horses punters want to back being virtually no different to the High St.after comm.
Betfair`s growth can only lie abroad with the US their only real hope of a major breakthrough. This country offers nothing, and the only way is down...the old punters are sadly going to the betting shop in the sky...there is not a single punter in the UK not aware of BF so there is nobody else to market to, they are all here already and the new ones coming to the game will eventually work out why they cannot win here. It`s no surprise is it ? Wasn`t it former director Mark Davies who told the world that only 1.7% of his company`s clients make it pay ?

This company took off for two reasons in my opinion and that was its ease of use and the unique ability to lay. That remains the case despite BF`s increasing isolation from their clients` mindset..the departure of Andrew Black only accelerated that process.
I have like everyone else no easy answers to Betfair`s growth problem...but it is Betfair`s problem not ours. Gamblers can only look at the bigger picture...is this still the best opportunity despite all its flaws...or do the traditional bookies offer us a better service and better terms ?

Anyone not knowing the answer to that really needs to address their punting expertise..or lack of.

I regularly get threads deleted here,

bf has liquidity problems in many of its Australian markets. I am a significant liquidity provider in quite a number of Oz markets. So thats my guess as to why bf gave me the concession. Amusingly described as a 'promotion', because clearly it wasn't promoted at all.

The pc problem is, whats an easy to way to churn where you have an edge of a couple of percentage points.

What I realized this morning (WAST) was something I thought should work in principle, ie deliver an edge, and had in fact tried over a year ago but decided it wasn't worth the bother, would work well to reduce the pc.

I tried it today. So far so good - $50 commision, a $5 profit after commision for less than 5 minutes effort.

"there is not a single punter in the UK not aware of BF so there is nobody else to market to"

I think if you stuck the word knowledgeable in between single and punter the first part would ring true but if you asked a Family Fortunes style question and asked 100 adults in the street to name a betting company Bill1es and L@ds would score in the 20s and 30s and Betfair would be lucky to score 5.  Most people I speak to about betting exchanges have never heard of them.

Regardless, nearly everyone has heard of Heinz baked beans but it doesn't stop them marketing like crazy and vastly outselling Branston baked beans which are vastly superior.

clydebank - one of the results of the PC, legitimate or not, has been that a lot of people stopped being betfair evangelists more or less overnight. a lot of informal free marketing just stopped with the lost goodwill.

so as well as whether people had heard of BF at all, the question became what those who'd heard of it but not tried it were hearing.

Feck N. Eejit
25 May 11 12:21
Joined:
10 Jan 02
| Topic/replies: 3,844 | Blogger: Feck N. Eejit's blog
What percentage of outcomes in a market are you laying on average ICS?

I typically lay one option per market, with how many options there are depending on what market I'm in. Anyway, this is moving very much away from the point of the thread, your model will result in an increase for this gambler, and I suspect I am far from unique in what I do, in fact I know I'm not. If the aim of the PC was to target traders (it wasn't, it was people winning) there are better ways of identifying traders than winnings alone. Differentials based on numbers of backs and lays, their weights and change in odds in markets would be a far better indicator of what people are doing. Gamblers are easy to identify if they want to- they don't.

ICS, I'm sure they could easily implement a system that guaranteed gamblers would never be touched by the pc but the difficulty would be separating bona-fide gamblers from insiders and fast pic merchants.

Duncan, nice to see you back.

You must have a very good strike rate ICS.

I have my moments although there are many long barren spells where it doesn't feel that way.

I think Betfair is almost certainly going to remain as is for a significant period. No growth. No major decline. Just bobbing along as another name in gambling.

Hi Feck..hope all is good with you. Maybe a day`s racing this summer ? I take it it`ll be our tab though ! The old hospitality days are long gone I assume.
Good to see you still have the energy for the arguments. I`ll email you sometime soon.

At the risk of breaking up the Feck fest, here's my tuppence worth. But I view the decline of betfair the same as that of the high street bookmakers. Greed was not the problem, but the way they acted on that greed which is the problem. In the high street, the bookmakers thought they could move their core clientelle onto higher margin products, in the end they gained new customers but lost the old. What they should have done is concentrated on keeping their old core customers while attracting the new customers who are happy with cartoon racing & FOBT's, i.e. have the best of both worlds.

But no, their greed was so much, that didn't want both, they wanted it all I.e. everyone on higher margin products.

betfair have done effectively the same in the online world.

Many on here are saying that the start of the decline was the PC, but that is you all seeing everything through your own persective. As has wisely been said by someone earlier, the ones who are affected by the PC are all the ones still here. It's the customers who would never pay PC that have gone.


For me, the start of the decline was the day that betfair decided they needed to start taking "properiatary risk" to increase their profits, that was the moment betfair changed from being the revolutionary betting exchange, the punters friend to just being another greedy bookie who makes a lot of mistakes on all sorts of levels.

Feck fest

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christ. imagine having weekend tickets for that.

Betfair`s growth can only lie abroad with the US their only real hope of a major breakthrough.

The USA has made it very clear that they will endeavour to keep any money made through gambling enterprises within the USA.

If they do become a growth region, Betfair won't get much of the pie.

The answer is to change the commission rate from between 2% and 5% to between 0.2% and 0.5%, while retaining the discount points system to encourage user loyalty and arbers. If they did this, they could destroy traditional bookmakers.

I know the argument that lower commission rates haven't helped the other exchanges, but they've always made the mistake of not adopting an equivalent points system.

When the D a q was between 2% and 3% commission, you needed so many points to get to 2.75% that there was no incentive even to try. You knew that there was no need to stay loyal or arb to retain the 3% level, yet no possibility of improving the rate. So liquidity never improved.

So the D a q gave up and pointlessly copied Betfair's commission rates.

0.02% and 0.05% would suit me better, and get rid of arcade, casino, poker and pc.



oh theyve gone bust. wonder why?

Reducing the commission rate is a no brainer and by that I mean its a no brainer not to reduce it.  They are already the market leader on price

appropriately enough on a gambling forum, a lot of people on this thread are talking their books - conflating what BF should do in its own interest with what they'd like it to do in theirs.

If they do become a growth region, Betfair won't get much of the pie.

BF's site technology is built such that it can be rebranded, and this allows them to become a technology provider. Which may well be their future outside the UK.

This is the standard business model outside companies that are naturally global such as Google and Microsoft.

To be honest I think they will be lucky to tread water for the next few years.

CLYDEBANK29

"Reducing the commission rate is a no brainer and by that I mean its a no brainer not to reduce it.  They are already the market leader on price"

You keep saying this Clydebank but it is certainly not true for my sport (both codes of rugby) where match odds on the fav are rarely a good deal and the nature of handicapping markets offered by the books means BF struggles to compete as both sides of the market can be better on the high street.

OK, that is a small sport betting wise, but I also dabble a bit these days with horses and see examples in every race where early prices on single figure horses are at least matched online and in many cases by BOG, so it's a no brainer where to bet.

Overall, I use the traditional bookies these days more than I have done in years.  You make very valid points about what else this site offers with respect to laying, trading price movements and so on.  But then we already know that on here and are not the ones BF needs to attract.

The untapped market has the likes of Ray Winstone in their face at HT, saying come along, look at the 100 markets we are offering during the game - we'll even give you up to £200 bonus if you join us........and of those that do, 365 can easily weed out those they don't want to keep whilst stringing along the promising accounts with a few more little loss leaders along the way.   Meanwhile BF has some bloke in a pub drinking milk.

Hi Duncan, if I do decide to start betting this flat I'm not sure about a day off to go racing as it usually means missing a whole day's other meetings. One notable exception is the September Sunday Hamilton meeting as it's the only flat racing that day. Not sure if that's also still the case with the Ayr fair Monday meeting. Have you heard from Sporty of late?

Betfair is beginning to remind me of Sage the software accounting company. They too screwed every penny out of their customers and finally the customer has woken-up.

TheVis give us some examples of rugby games this weekend

Leicester 4/6 PP 1.66 here, cap backers have -2 or +4 to chose from on the high street whereas the BF line sits right in the middle at -2.5
Leinster 1.73 with 5 or 6, 1.71 here.  The -2 Leinster cap at evens almost certain to beat any -2.5 offers on here.
Warrington 1.55 with Sportingbet is at least equal to the current market on here.
Live S15 games tomorrow - Stormers 1.36 Hills, Sharks 1.57 Fred and Bulls 1.30 SJ I think will all beat the BF line.  The only game where fav will be a better price than the high street is the Highlanders.

NRL doesn't compare like with like as UK books contain the draw whereas on here the match odds include golden point overtime.  Given the lack of 80 min draws in that league I suspect a backer would be better off taking the inflated UK prices that result of them settling on 80 mins.

The Vis PP are betting to 109.3% on the Leicester game (SJ are betting to 112%)...the Betfair market is 102.2%.  They are the only bookie offering a better price on Leicester after taking the max commission rate of 5% off.  If you want to oppose Leicester laying them at the same price is better than taking the best price combined on the draw and Saracens available anywhere else.

In the Leinster game the percentage is not so competitive at 104%. the best price currently on offer is 1.73 but looking on the history only £5 has been bet on that price.  If we take the current offer of 1.73 after commission you will be better off backing them at about half of the bookies odds but by the same token you are better off opposing them on here.

Betfair has the better odds in general plus as I have said before..

If you change your mind hearing the team news you are not stuck with huge overounds to come out of your position.
If the price falls to a price you wouldnt have played at before or less than the bookie price you can lay off for an all green book or lay off and back said team when the bookies become a better price.
the spread is quite big so you can stick your own prices up be first in the queue and have a decent chance of getting a better price.  if the price goes against you and you dont get matched so what you werent interested at that price.

The key thing is flexibility which you only get here (and you also get generally better prices).  If there was a way of selling/marketing that aspect of Betfair in a clear and effective manner thats where I'd be looking.

I agree that 365's adverts are very good as are PPs and a lot better than Betfairs milk advert which I agree was rubbish.

I dont agree with dropping prices as an across the board strategy although I do think some targetted price discrimination aimed at increasing visible offers in otherwise dead markets is an option worth considering

good post clydebank.

plus, if you put up an offer rather than take a price, you will generally get matched at least a tick higher.

My point is still valid in that each game mentioned the fav is at least the same odds somewhere else commission free.

It doesn't really matter what the over round is at the individual bookie as all I am looking at is his price and whether or not I can get on.

Yes all the flexibility points stand as before but if I want a bet now on say Leinster for a couple of hundred before I get on my flight to Ire, where should I go? I just want to know that I am on before getting to the game and crucially what price I am on at and have no concerns about BF's takeout/whether I got matched or not/whether I might get some PC nicked on Weds.

This is the difficulty BF still face.  It's far easier for the masses to just stick with the traditional route and by and large they can get the best deal on many sports along with a good few concessions on the way if they are at all price sensitive.

It's an ongoing whine in "Site Feedback" but it can take up to four minutes to log into this site these days, then you've got to stumble across a market, which isn't the easiest thing to do anymore.

It's one thing to diversify the product, but you can't do it at the expense of your core business. Endlessly whirling clocks that don't do anything and error messages are not the best way to get new customers.

Hello there TheVis.

You mentioned that "It's far easier for the masses to just stick with the traditional route and by and large they can get the best deal on many sports along with a good few concessions on the way if they are at all price sensitive."

The issue I have with this is the important fact that the masses are essentially stupid or lazy. That is why they lose. They are not price sensitive they just have their bookmaker and they stick with them. I've seen punters bet at bookies for 1 price when there is a much better price elsewhere. Why, because that's the bookie they use and they are not interested in looking around. Yes there may be another bookmaker with the same price as BF for the favourite but that bookmaker will vary from game to game.

So do the masses have 30 different accounts which they have at the ready to bet with. I doubt it they just have 1 or 2 and there will be a lot of times when the prices here are much worse.

But your indication of having bets matched and not having to worry about it does have some baring in that you are asking people to change the way they think about betting and try something different. OK betfair can do thing like allow you to access the site from your phone so you can check bets when you are out and about, but how do they get people to change what they are doing and try something different with a slightly different approach. My guess would be to start by improving their advertising.

So that then makes it doubly difficult then (and I tend to agree the masses on the whole are not price sensitive).

1. If they are not price sensitive, no reason to go to BF.
2. If they do become price sensitive, first port of call is open accounts with other bookies.
3. If they then get a feel for it and become more sophisticated they may well stumble into an account on BF.

In terms of new business then, BF is well down the pecking order.

On horses (the sport I bet) bf are not competitive on early prices, which is where the value can be found. In effect they offer a product to botted-up and other traders near the off but not much to those who determine traders' prices.

They had a promotion where they offered a comm. discount to people going up early whenever they got matched. I thought this was fair. If I am more or less on average providing something (i.e. a better tissue than the RP), then I shd get paid for it in however roundabout a way. Otherwise why wd I want to patronise the site?

Stating the obvious but if you just hand pick best prices at the bookies you'll likely get your account restricted to peanuts or closed altogether after a while. 

Most people are price sensitive.  The problem is they don't understand, or don't want to try and understand the prices, or they don't realise the same product is available much cheaper elsewhere.

Clydebank, of course that is what has happened to me. The last bm to restrict me heavily was Ladbrokes. With some firms I've got through five or six accounts w/ people who by address, name or location cannot conceivably be traced to me.

It is still easier w/ the big three having extensive shop estates (and three other early price bm s having a significant high st presence) to get in the 00s w/ conventional books than w/ bf.

And this is betting in denominations not likely to affect the market by themselves. If you are a big player, or have any significant inside info., I'm sure absolutely the last place you want to see yr money hitting is here before first show.

Just think what a punting heaven the internet era would have been without Betfair.

Every bookmaker on the planet forced to compete with each other for business, but no Betfair to tell them what their prices should be or to identify which prices are being taken by shrewdies.

Every winner gets there account severely down graded or closed with all the so called bookmakers,but sure as hell betfair are just the same,the pc tax is a sure way of shutting accs,without shutting them,just like a lot of on line firms that say your maximum bet is---000

askari1

The early price horse markets are dead for more than one reason. One reason oft overlooked is that if connections see that a value price disapears early doors they mat be less inclined to put the money down themselves. This is especially true of thin markets for lesser races although for the big betting races e.g where Pricewise is involved, this is not true maybe.

I studied this effect some years ago when I ran a tipping line. The strike rate for bets given late was twice that for bets given out early where the market was influenced.Interpret as you wish.

This is a symptom of a small company becoming a large (public) company.  It's happened dozens of times in the past and will continue to happen in the future.

As part of a small young dynamic company each employee feels valued - part of a family which is going somewhere and achieving something special.  Unfortunately, as soon as it answers to shareholders instead of the boss that family unity is lost.  No longer is an employee part of a team; he is simply an asset.  Then employment becomes just another job.

We can all argue the rights and wrongs of decisions made by the Betfair management, but what is absolutely essential, no matter the decision, is that consistent decisions are made towards a clearly defined goal which carries everyone alone with it.

It is a pity.

Luckily, Betfair will be here tomorrow.

As part of a small young dynamic company each employee feels valued - part of a family which is going somewhere and achieving something special.  Unfortunately, as soon as it answers to shareholders instead of the boss that family unity is lost.

I can relate to that, but it takes a special type of company to make their customers feel like that too.

Sandown, I can well believe that there are connections that will 'wait for another day' when other people's money is down and they have missed the price.

The thing is, that w/ a liquid market these moves are playable--a price when bet on will be held up so it is still value for the insiders, and it's possible to keep records of yards and owners and have a sense when a beast may not be running for its life on certain occasions.

On Pricewise and Saturday betting races, the money is there to be in the High St. shops in the mornings but not there on bf. I have opinions and wd be more than happy to play them when best price on here, but the company has forced me into using it as a hedging/trading tool.

They get a lot more commission out of me than I like on the arbs but they cd get so much more.

*the money is there to bet in the High St.

Come on guys, how can a company that charges 5% commission for every bet be in trouble?
On the champions league match betting last night it took £42 million!

5% of £42m is £2.1 million, on one category of the match.
If they are in trouble then it's simply bad management!

5% commission on a punter's net profit on a market, milo.

Their commission on that market was probably nearer £21,000 than £2,100,000.

And that's why Betfair has ground to a halt. They have bled their customers dry.

Starting to lose their way,  and share price continues to fall, 1,610p at launch,
less than half that now, 768p.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/30/betfair-hit-fresh-managment-d...

Seems odd that all this information is finding its way into the Guardian newspaper. Who benefits from this?

google news...
Matt Carter, Betfair’s director of architecture, research and prototyping, has left the company after more than a decade at the exchange, according to reports in The Guardian. The reasons for this are unclear, however his exitfollows last month’s departures of Tim Phillips, Mathias Entenmann and Robin Osmond, and the arrival of Raj Vemulapalli to replace former head of mobile Charlie Palmer last week.

Their new line in supporting fixed matches will see them become a TRILLION dollar business.

^^^^ since when has this been new

quite like the idea of there being a new head of mobile actually - because I'm not sure the last one was earning his money.

come on raj - take it to the hoop!

Maybe they are leaving now because they needed to stay to flotation to realise share options?

The Guardian journos do seem to be too interested and not happy with Betfair.

guardian journo's just paid his first ever wadge of PC NAP