It seems they were serious.

No Jim Bowen for betfair SP

Jim Bowen would be good. When the site crashes he could pop up and say

"Lets have a look at what you would've won...."

comingupthehill     16 Jul 11 06:27 

great news ,betfair have signed up jim bowen as their face of multoiplies,kile andy gray ,micheal vaughan,- jim will be the main guy and will be promoting the benefits of this great value bet.

why jim bowen


betfair spokesman - jim was poular in the 1970s/80s,and all our older customers remember him well,its also the time of micheal dickenson - where regulary every saturday ,silver buck,bregawn and wayward lad would win - but the starting price was - NO SP returned,as they were that big a cert.

as customers known ,betfair will and can trade out any risks/liabilties they have in the multiplies - so if you ve got 4 out of 5 - expect the betfair SP to be - 0.0 or no sp returned,

jim as knidly offered to phone up any multiple winners and when they see the industry sp 10/1 ,yet betfairs 0.0 - then jim will brighten up their day when he will utter is classic line .

:LETS SEE WHAT YOU WOULD OF WON.

maybe they got the wrong jim.

"dear jim - please could you fix it for me to add australian events to my markets?"

you've still got BFH

.
http://corporate.betfair.com/investor-relations/~/media/Files/B/Betfair/pdf/fy11_analyst_presentation.pdf

Page 35/66

Keep money in ecosystem for longer
Make losing customers “better bettors”
Increase number of trades
More commission for Betfair

With arrow pointing to:

Customer Education
•More statistics
•More analytics
•More tips/pundits

freaky

Weird how often that happens Brendan, nobody replies for hours then two people reply at the same time.

PC2 was the black swan of betting.  I don't believe that any person with a reasonable understanding of the betting world could foresee a 60% tax on winnings.

Thanks Lori and Brendan.

I guess all the 'money makers' on here agree that tips/pundits will do absolutely nothing to help leisure punters lose  at a slower rate?

A more pragmatic approach would be to get customers to make optimal use of the exchange: educate people about delays and hoovering so they can avoid it, make sure they understand backing and laying and the risks involved with betting in an illiquid market with a huge overround.

Many leisure punters won't even care that much, but for those that are somewhat price sensitive it would help.

Maybe even explain the imperfect negative correlation between inverse odds [;)]

Some key points:

Statistics / analytics are completely useless for people who don't know what they're doing. Access to this won't magically make a losing punter smarter. I expect the effect to be zero. Providing these stats has been shown to increase the number of bets placed, but it certainly won't increase the 'cleverness' of the people acting on this information.

Tips/ pundits: Someone who is an expert in a sport has very little chance of actually being able to bet profitably on that sport, it's a completely unrelated skill.

how do you educate someone to avoid being hoovered?

I think it'll be fractional but if there's weight of numbers on one side of a market, (which will almost certainly be the soft side to begin with) they'll move the odds enough to collectively take a worse price.

also, lori, who's on the other side of the bets they recommend?

if it's a loser, then pointing people in the direction of their bargain prices will hasten the process of them losing.

if (more likely) it's a winner, the price is probably below true value.

I get the impression the sporting geniuses will herd the mugs into the PC payers open arms.

The last 3 paragraphs of that Star article:

Betfair’s Andy Lulham said: “Vaughan, Greenwood, Dixon and Nicholls are some of the most respected names in world sport, so it is really fantastic to welcome them to Betfair.


“Our customers are set to benefit from their valuable insight and experience over the coming months.”


Betfair was set up in 2009 and is said to have more than three million customers.

You know if only more people spoke more sense more often like you Investor, then perhaps the likes of me would not feel the uncontrollable urge periodically to ridicule them so often.
So though I am going to try to post less from now on ( not doing too well thus far), I will remain a reader in the vain hope that things will get more balanced on here.
I will therefore perhaps from now on, just to acknowledge my reading presence if nothing else, occasionally just post up the acronym HACT.
I would not expect anybody to be able to translate that, as it is really just a private in-joke.
But it sums up my advice to the many small and petty minded personalities on here, too many in fact.

That would make more sense viva, although out of line with their mission statement.

Thanks FAFH.

Lori, I didn't actually look at the tips, I just assumed that would be the case. It's not really clear what Betfair are trying to accomplish these days.

"...then after I'd spent two days on a drip spewing my ring he asked me if I fancied investing"