Problem with the 'Cash out' feature.

1) Don't use this feature, it's crap and you get a worse price than if you do it yourself, and betfair pocket the difference.
2) It doesn't matter what you have in your account, you can still back it using potential winnings.

Hope this helps.

Couldnt agree more with The MaskedAvenger

Cash out is utterly rubbish, cant believe people actually using it at all..

pure rip off from betfair..

Akin to theft.

Mental!!!

designed for people who can't work out how to green up.

Anyone who can't work it out shouldn't be on Betfair in the first place.

Betfair do not pocket the difference - a poorer price is displayed to give you a "worst case" idea of how it might turn out. Once your order hits the market, all the standard rules apply wrt best execution.

^^^^ just to show that is complete rubbish, I've currently got a bet on a market in a premiership game (pre match odds for a game later). If I cash out, it is offering me £1.68 profit. If I do it manually, it is £3.39.

Oh, and there is well over £5,000 available at the amount needed to green out, so why would it need to show me a much worse price

"a poorer price is displayed to give you a "worst case" idea of how it might turn out"

So the price is guaranteed, even if lots of others do it at the same time? No...didn't think so.

There are a lot of accusations about the Cash Out feature in this thread but no credible evidence has been produced in support of any of those accusations (in any of the posts in this thread).

I can only presume that the forum users who stated that the Cash Out feature is a "pure rip off" and "akin to theft" have strong evidence to support those claims but, for reasons known only to themselves, they have elected not to submit such evidence to the thread.


TheMaskedAvenger,

As you at least made a weak attempt to support your assertions, I will focus on your post.

You claimed that if you had greened out manually in a particular market you could have achieved a profit of £3.39 whereas the cash out feature indicated that it would provide a profit of only £1.68.

In my opinion, your example falls a long way short of credible evidence to support the suggestion made by others that the Cash Out feature doesn't provide best execution.

Unfortunately you neglected to provide the relevant market, prices and stakes. Without the provision of such information, it's impossible to assess whether you were making a fair comparison based on even the Cash Out indicative figures.

Far more importantly than that, you didn't actually use the Cash Out feature. Therefore, in common with some others in this thread, you appear to have based your criticism on indicative figures as opposed to the figures the Cash Out feature would have provided had you used it. As Chilly the Dog suggested, those figure may differ.

Perhaps you or some of the other critics can produce some credible evidence in support of your claims? As a last resort you could always test the results of using the Cash Out feature as opposed to basing your assertions on indicative figures.

Prior to reading this thread I don't recall ever using the Cash Out feature. Nor do I recall making any assertions in support of, or in opposition to, the feature. On that basis, I see little reason to spend the time and money that may be necessary to fully test the assertions made by you and others in this thread. Nevertheless, I conducted a single test:

Market: St Johnstone v Aberdeen, 19:45 07/11/11; Over/Under 2.5 goals
Original Bet: Back £3 on Under 2.5 @ 1.68. Bet matched in full at stated price.
Market Status: Under 2.5 available to lay at 1.69; Over 2.5 available to back at 2.44
Best available price at which to green/red: Lay Under 2.5 @ 1.69
Cash Out Indicative Figures: Take £2.96 with the display suggesting the result being a loss of -£0.03 on Under 2.5 and a loss of -£0.04 on Over 2.5. The available prices remained static prior to and during the use of the Cash Out feature.
Result of use of Cash Out feature: Lay of £2.96 matched at 1.69 (£0.00 profit/loss on Under 2.5 & -£0.04 loss on Over 2.5).

I placed the bets using the standard website and Cash Out feature as applicable. The market was also monitored using the Geeks Toy to better detect any price changes prior to or during bet submission (none occurred in this case). In the above test, the Cash Out feature appeared to achieve best execution.

Reviewing the bets in the Current Bets section of my account I note that the Cash Out feature submitted the lay bet at 1.7 but, as 1.69 was available prior to and more importantly during bet submission, it was matched at that price. This again supports CtD's claims about the differing indicative and actual prices achieved using the Cash Out feature.

Fixtures 07 November / St Johnstone v Aberdeen / Over/Under 2.5 goals    Under 2.5 Goals    Lay    1705419****    07-Nov-11
14:51         1.7    2.96        1.69    07-Nov-11 14:51   
Fixtures 07 November / St Johnstone v Aberdeen / Over/Under 2.5 goals    Under 2.5 Goals    Back    1705416****    07-Nov-11
14:49         1.68    3.00        1.68    07-Nov-11 14:49


I am not stating that you and the other critics are definitely wrong in your assertions about the Cash Out product. I am simply observing the lack of any credible evidence produced in support of your claims and the evidence to the contrary.

In fairness to you and the other critics, I also note the apparent absence of any assertion by bf, in the relevant FAQ section, that the Cash Out feature does always offer best execution but nor did there appear to be any information to suggest that it doesn't. **

**
What is "Cash Out"?

Cash Out is a new product from Betfair that allows you to lock in a profit or loss before waiting for the match to finish.

Betfair do the math to offer you a value in real time of your current bets based on the live market prices.

Using a single click you can cash out all bets placed on a single market.

Important Points:

Cash Out is currently only available on the following markets but we intend to add more:
Football:
- Match Odds
- Correct Score
- To Qualify
- Over/Under 1.5 Goals
- Over/Under 2.5 Goals
- Over/Under 3.5 Goals
Tennis:
- Match Odds

Cash Out automatically places bets on the Betfair market to lock in a position.

The cash out value is the minimum amount you would receive if you were to make a successful cash out.

Any profit made on the market will be paid when the market is settled.

Any reduction in exposure will be credited back to your account after placing a successful cash out.

Cash Out will only appear if the bets to be placed are greater than £2.

If there is a lack of liquidity in a market Cash Out may not be available.

The cash out value is the minimum amount you would receive if you were to make a successful cash out but cash out amounts are not guaranteed as they are based on the live Betfair markets where prices are constantly moving. This means you may receive more or less than indicated, or Cash Out may not be successful or only partially successful.

If a bet is partially accepted then we will offer you a new Cash Out amount based on your revised position and the current prices in the Betfair market.

If a bet is not accepted then we will offer you a new Cash Out amount based on the revised prices in the Betfair market.

If you look at what your browser does when you click cash out, you'll notice it simply sends in a bet. the bet looks identical to bets submitted from the market view, it's just that it's generated by that button instead of in the normal way. I and many other punters use best execution to quickly get onto a price with a small margin built in to cushion against market movements. If I can get on at 1.95 but would take 1.93 at a push, I'll put my back in for 1.93 and hope the market will not move away more than 0.02 so I still get matched before much else happens.

Cash out now is just a website feature, it interacts with the exchange in the same way any api client or market view screen does.

Thanks for the information Chilly the Dog.

Okay, since you wanted more information I'll provide it.

It was on the Fulham v Spurs Match Odds market, I had backed Spurs at 2.4 in anticipation of them coming in, and it was when the market was showing 2.34/2.36. Like I said, the cashout feature was based on the price going through at 2.38 despite the fact that there was well over 5 grand available to lay at 2.36, without even taking into account that it was possible that it could have been matched at 2.34!

What benefit is there to the customer by having a worse price being displayed than the current one, given that it is not guaranteed anyway?!?!

Given the numerous other ways in which betfair takes money at the expense of the customer by offering poor value, why should we not expect the same here? I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with regards to best execution.

What benefit is there to the customer by having a worse price being displayed than the current one, given that it is not guaranteed anyway?!?!

The Cash Out feature will only match bets at prices that would achieve the minimum indicative return or better. Therefore, the inclusion of a small cushion against disadvantageous price movements in the indicative figures increases the probability of the successful use of the feature - at a price the user is content to accept if a better price isn't available when the bets reach the market.

I think the cash our feature is pants but the hysterical allegations of betfair ripping people off that keep getting repeated on these boards don't make sense and appear just that : hysterical allegations. It's buggy, doesn't work well and a bit rubbish, but that doesn't mean there's 'malice' behind it. It just auto does some bets for you.

Given the numerous other ways in which betfair takes money at the expense of the customer by offering poor value, why should we not expect the same here? I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with regards to best execution.

Well I'm telling you, for a fact, that you're wrong. If you are an IT pro, you can verify it for yourself by inspecting the traffic from your browser. If not, then you'll just have to test it manually and lose a couple of quid.