Why have minority sports have died a death in the betting markets?

I am not understanding your point.  The effect of PC2 would mainly affect the supply side whereas tightening belts should affect the demand side.

#exchangeecosystem

Hi Wrinkles, long time no speak.

I suppose I'm contemplating the double whammy of supply drying up as pc payers pursue more lucrative or more efficient strategies AND the recreational punter just having a tenner on the match odds, not following it up with a few more tenners on the handicaps or whatever.

There is also the case of the future potential pc payer who might just be thinking "sod that" and not honing his or her skills on the quieter (and higher overound) in play markets.

Either way, these markets are a shadow of what they were.

Hi, I could have done with you this morning when I was having a complete mental block on a maths exercise.

I am guessing that there has been a fall on both the demand side and the supply side. PC2 may have been well timed.  I would guess that any drop in demand as a result of PC2 or indeed PC is absolutely minimal although I do accept that a small percentage would love that to be the case.

The whole thing is cyclical and there should be a pick up towards payday at the end of the month.  Nothing to fret about, we must adapt.

Just an observation:  I have noticed very little contribution or comment from the Greek fraternity on football matters of late. Greek football is only something I would bet on where the patterns look peculiar though, so I have not looked for a while.

Don't know how big part of the explanation it is, but PC3 certainly has made it less interesting for some professional players to get involved in the small markets. That's something I said months ago, and I stand by it.

Basically PC3 means that your profit margin must be razor-thin, or BF will take half of your profit. If the market is small you'd want a bit higher profit margin to make it worthwile to research, price up and keep an eye on the market. I.e. some players now find it half as profitable to get involved in small markets and maybe no longer find it worth their time, and in their absence some markets may not work that well.

Razor-thin profit margins are more acceptable in markets where turnover is higher.

When it is 20% the big players wanted to play as many markets as possible to contribute commission. When it is changed to 40% there is no point trying to make up commission. It is next to impossible for pros.

What they do now is stop playing minor markets, low liquid markets and taking poor value bets. They are very selective and hits hard when finds good value. They play high liquid matches mostly and minimises their bets.

Liquidity and turnover should be down if this is the case. We need to wait for six months to see is this true or not.

Betfair thinks it deserves take all our deposited money not just commission.

US horse racing has been impacted because of PC.. the liquidity is down because few of the big players left to join purple.. 

betfair should exclude some markets from PC to bring in liquidity. with winter setting in, horse racing will do well if PC charges are dropped allowing layers to lay some bets and us mug punters to back something...

what markets do people think are in decline...

and I will post the facts.... and maybe they ARE.... just lets get the facts about it

Snooker frame betting over the last 3-4 years.

Lori

Was snooker not killed by the IR cheats...

peopel dont play pre-off now as cant trade faily IR...

That's quite possible yes.

PC related ones and IR ones are quite hard to seperate. I know that I stopped marking up some markets when PC came in but this was in part due to being picked off (although being picked off on it's own wouldn't be disasterous the way I trade if not for the PC)

Set betting in tennis is one that I touch far less often now due to PC.

I'm not a big player so I doubt my numbers alone would make any difference, but it's one that I think might be affected.

six core sports are all growing

soccer
horses
tennis
cricket
greyhounds
basketball

will take a look at the lesser sports on the other thread for early next week...

but some Died due to totally unfair IR... am suprised more have not been killed off... but betfair where warned..

IR baseball (fallen massively over a number of years partly perhaps because it used to be a max of 2% commission rather than 5% or 62.5% and possibly because it is apparently no longer possible to bet from the US)
darts tournament books
IR domestic rugby markets (big bot operator disappeared in last couple of months possibly because of pc3)
IR gaelic sports (perhaps the loss of setanta (no cross matching here))

i think that in some IR markets (particularly those with two outcomes) the decline began as long ago as the introduction of cross matching which certainly put off those looking to lay every eventuality to produce a high percentage book. in the short term that would have suited people taking bets rather than putting them up in low liquidity markets but in the long term that may have led to a cut in supply.

not sure of where acct number growth is coming from but soccer, tennis, cricket and particularly basketball are international sports. whereas those i listed above (and particularly snooker) are more parochial. not sure where horses/hounds fit in because i wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

Can I ask what's the deal with IR snooker cheats? Is it along the similar lines of courtsiders in tennis? Snooker is on my list of things to try as heard can be quite profitable, but won't waste time if too many cheats.

I can't really talk for pre off volumes as almost all my betting is IR but excluding the match odds, my perception is that IR volumes are down for all the "side" markets in Rugby (U&L), Cricket, Basketball (don't know about NBA), American Football, Snooker, Specials Markets and Politics, to name but a few.

I've noticed clock beaters on the snooker at a couple of events but it usually seems pretty clean.  The worst sport for it (perhaps not including tennis or horses) is Darts imo.

Lori

how is darts Liquidity...

DEAD i hear...

it was nothing, then TV and betting rew massively
Betfair lets the IR cheats clean up
dead product

tragic,

I'm purple only until I'm automated but I've been keeping an eye on the betfair horse odds as a guide. Is it my imagination or is betfair's much bigger liquidity appearing even later? I'm often shocked at some of the trivial sums that are in pole position maybe 8 minutes from the off. Are we talking Last3minutes.com now? One thing I am sure is getting worse is the market manipulation. It's not just the first two in the betting that are swinging back and forth ping-pong style. If it was really true that the course bookmakers blindly follow the betfair odds then their boards must be like belisha beacons where no punter is able to pin down a price. PinTheTailOnTheDonkey.com city Arizona.

In my experience with the snooker - the big BBC events are fine for not getting hoovered. You have to be on the ball but it is easily possible to cancel before getting taken. With the more obscure events that are televised on Eurosport its not quite so easy - its borderline when you see a shot missed to when the money reaches the market.

I tried to get involved with the darts a few years ago but it wass impossible. The delay wasn't long enough to beat the hooverers but the pace of some matches is so fast that a longer delay would mean being almost a go (ie - 3 darts) behind.

The Magician (101)
06 Oct 11 23:08
Joined:
25 Sep 07
| Topic/replies: 187 | Blogger: The Magician (101)'s blog
six core sports are all growing

.............

How can you tell this? Matched volumes? Is it not the case that the top 10 players by volume make up a much higher percentage of overall matched than they did six years ago?

I gave up on darts for the following reasons...

1. Couldn't trade fairly in running so couldn't trade at all.  Virtually no "windows" to bet in 
2. Couldn't get my 180 bets on with the bookies without jumping through too many hoops
3. Phil Taylor was winning everything which made the o/r less interesting
4. It was on tv too much and it was always the same players which meant the value was gradually eroding
5. Set betting died a death on here

Each one of course impacts the others and once you are out of the loop you dont go back.

The problem with snooker is it's so boring and too easy to price up

I think darts is about the same as a year ago. It did take a big hit at some point 1-2 years ago for the reasons CB points out but don't think it's significantly further declined since then.

Golf is down massively since PC3 - especially days 1-3, which is no surprise as the two largest layers will have been hit.

Things like run lines in cricket have fallen off a cliff (Although the match markets seem steady)


The reason for baseball's decline imo is simply that Betfair are unable to compete with the tight margins offered by the US facing bookies on that sport.

The delay on darts pics through my sky dish is approx 5 seconds (on sky sports), which makes trading in running a non starter except during ad breaks. There are people sniping from the venue, which I don't have an issue with (they've just gone to the effort to cut the delay out - more fool the idiots betting from old pics!)

Regarding comments above about IR on various sports, IG/Extrabet used to marketmake on here in a few sports including rugby - they could well be the big bot operator that disappeared

It never seems to get mentioned as a reason but bookies banning or restricting accounts effects business on here (adversely)

You are more likely to get banned at the bookies if you bet on side markets as your bets stand out more.

Lori's last point brings me to my latest rant. WTF were market base rates all about? When they were first introduced I assumed it was so they could reduce the rate on markets that only had a few outcomes so they'd be more competitive with the bookmakers. I also assumed their subsequent reluctance to make use of them was down to the fact they didn't want to give traders an even better deal. The PC changed that but we've still got people paying 5% on the likes of football. Surely they didn't add that further complexity solely as an cover for their increased points bands?

They ran Big Brother at 8% or 6% for all of about ten days until the market emptied.

(Thats a few years ago, not this one)

Ah, it was about increasing rather than decreasing then? FFS.

Feck, it's not last3minutes.com it's now lastminute.com.  Never in my nine years on here has the early liqidity on horses been so bad.

Yeah, there were some other 6%s which I forget.

RichWill, I agree. It's as near as you'll get to SP only.

Frog

Not sure about the share of top 10.... depends if you mean risk or T/O

Market base rate for frames betting in snooker was once 7%, I believe.

Everyone has already stated the answers--that pc players do no longer have the incentive to churn aiming for breakeven across main and derivative markets.

Bf have incumbent thin-margin price offerers in place in all their main markets, esp. their most liquid markets IR. They need people operating at what are (to them) fat margins in order to price up other events, and have perhaps decided these products aren't core and can die a death.

My view, further, is that the potential doesn't really exist for bf to be undercut by another exchange operator w/ a pure exchange model. One corollary of marketplace diversification wd be that information wd be more unevenly spread across markets. Losers wd get picked off and drop out; and bettors wd lose confidence in the integrity of what they were betting on (both event and betting platform).

7% on frame betting was around 2006 I think

Also 10% on xmas number 1, similar time (proceeds to charidee, how sweet)

7% on frame betting was around 2006 I think

Also 10% on xmas number 1, similar time (proceeds to charidee, how sweet)

2004 xmas no 1 so I suspect that was the case with the frame betting.

There was more interest in the xmas No 1 market in 2003 than every year combined since

maybe i'm dumb but there must be some way of taking advantage of this late liquidity on the horse racing?

Mythical

there is.... many of them

as opposed to being taken advantage of by early liquidity ?


shame betfair can not offer some kind of 'IR liquidity up/down' markets as those would be easy to manipulate, but would love to see some of you guys in action there

is that an implication that most of the posters on this thread use bots?

I'm pretty convinced the problems with in running darts betting has something to do with somebody at Sky.

I could be way off the mark but I really don't think it's someone sat in the main hall picking it off.

The exchange needs the perception of fairness to thrive.  And darts betting isn't thriving.  They didn't do anything about it when they did care and now that they don't it's just dog eat dog by any means, fair or foul.

The only time they ever cared was when DJ set the scvm-of-the-world on them. City filth with the morals of city filth imo.

Well, they've certainly set their stall out, Feck The high street must be lapping it up.

It will come back to haunt them one day 1.01 (NAP).

The reason for baseball's decline imo is simply that Betfair are unable to compete with the tight margins offered by the US facing bookies on that sport.

surely you mean unwilling? liquidity has sunk so far they would be better off running these markets (and college basketball) with no commission while creaming off pc2 (never mind pc3) and enticing american football and nba punters to the site. but as others have suggested they seem to have binned the idea of variable pricing when they realised people weren't willing to pay more on certain markets. even so you would think they would charge less than 5% where this would help to maximise their overall profit.

Yep, I meant unwilling.

The easiest way to avoid PC is to go under the 250 markets/month rule, which is possible to do even as a "big boy" if you simply cut out all the side-markets where trade was low anyway.

250 markets/month rule

I wish...

250 markets a month rule?

To get back to the original question it's down to a few things...all imho and only imho of course

1. The Premium Charge
2. Parasitic bots
3. Reduced demand led by the recession
4. Bookmakers closing accounts...loses arb money..loses ability to reduce exposure
5. Bookmakers not offering the markets...loses help in pricing up..loses interest generally..loses aility to reduce exposure
6. A broken loop
7. Chicken and Egg syndrome

8. Too many sharks now ready to pounce (relative to casual money)

1,2 and 8 lead to reduced demand and interest, which in turn leads to 6 and 7.  Also with points 4 and 5, if you cant get on with said bookies, because either they no longer offer the market or you can't get on even if they do, another avenue of profiting from the leg work has gone.  This is more important than the arbing aspect and reducing exposure aspects which are peripheral imo but do play a part.

I used to like doing Darts in-running but gradually got turned off by the obvious clock beating going on and finally by BFs refusal to have somebody suspend in a timely fashion on the winning dart.

The amount of hoovering going on was criminal.

Rugby markets have definitely been affected by the bot leaving.  This I believe, as somebody stated, was IG/Extrabet.  People used to moan that it was "now you see me now you don't" money but it did actually seem to encourage trade and gave people who couldn't set their own odds some paramaters to work with.

and gave people who couldn't set their own odds some paramaters to work with

Which is probably the reason they got fed up vis. It's little fun doing all the work only to be undercut by a copy cat.

It's little fun doing all the work only to be undercut by a copy cat

You might aswell just become a copy cat...but then of course there ends up with no one to copy from

It's a vicious hexagon Clydebank (imo).

The bookies have got so use to copying that in a few events now its either one up all up or no one up at all.  It's like not wanting to be the first one to arrive at a party.  By the time the first guest has arrived the party is almost over.

Good analogy Clydebank but you're beginning to sound like one of those private auction commies.

Which is probably the reason they got fed up vis.

seems unlikely. around for the best part of five years and then gone around the introduction of pc3.

i've often found that the best time to get ludicrously good value laying is before the bookies or the bigger betfair players have had the cojones to be first to put a price up.

The copycat last night got well and truly stuffed. Of course, the smart guy watching me take on the copycat two nights ago well and truly stuffed me.

Well seeing as a couple of us are fairly sure it was Extrabet putting up the prices via a bot and they have now ceased trading, I don't think they got fed up.  The operation just stopped betting.

I'm fairly sure they were doing nicely enough out of it anyway as in generally thin markets and often being the only volume up of note they got plenty of takers over the course of a game.

copycat bots and pc3 equally to blame imo
welcome to betfair for simpletons, match odds only in 2 years time

Cannot Betfair themselves take up the slack in the derivative markets? Without PC, commission, transaction charges or data request charges I would have thought they would do ok out of it. I dont think we will see match odds only due to that.

Wsex tried that with Matchbook. It didn't end well for them.

I thought the idea coming out of betfair was that they would take over these less liquid markets with their proposed sportsbook.

That is the idea. How long it lasts before they do their conkers is another matter though.

Without PC, commission, transaction charges or data request charges

They would have lots of other costs though. Taxes, insurances/benefits, office space, recruitment costs (it seems nobody wants to stay for long!), etc.

Not convinced they would have much of a cost advantage in running these small markets.

In many cases they would probably end up wanting to run these markets at margins that would get anyone else deep into the PC mire.

PC3

Should have rewarded price makers over price takes, and even potentially size over scraps.... but neither was incorporated.

Still say Betfair needed to protect the fish.... but the shark net they used caught some dolphins

They could have done so much, Magician to improve on the PC.  Medieval taxmen showed more vision.  Still, what do they care as long as they get their bonuses.

I've not bet here since July 17th.  I might not be a big player but I was regularly responsible for framing the markets on tennis, rugby, darts & snooker in-play handicaps.  I've taken my trade elsewhere and, while you don't get as much matched as you would here, it is slowly improving.  The interesting thing is that the prices are sometimes quite a bit bigger over there than on here, even before PC is taken into account!

No clockbeating, no insider trading, no trap bets, and competitive markets protects the fish, not Lee Dixon and the cash out facility, not Betfair multiples and not PC3, but that's another topic.

Any news on numbers? It wouldn't surprise me if they were the same as before, just that more money maybe now goes into bigger markets that previously would have been pricing up the side markets.

Spanish segunda correct score markets and over unders seem to be less liquid by the week also Romanian footie looks less active recently...

ITS THIS LAYOUT ,BEFORE YOU SAW THE BASKETBALL GAMES AND CRICKET MATCHES AND THE REST  STAIGHT AWAY ,NOW YOUVE GOT TO LOOK FOR THEM

football markets are dying by the hour - just the pirhanas left

The spread between the asking price and price offered is increasing on many of the secondary markets too....

God you lot are a bunch of whingers aren't you...

Too many bots everywhere, bye bye Betfair.[:p]