anyone received Betfair email about under £2 bets placing !!

What you see is that many bets are partially matched, frequently resulting in partial-matches of less than £2 and amounts left unmatched for less than £2.  It is against the rules to PLACE a bet of less than £2 and they do suspend accounts of people who break the rules in tis way.

*this

thanks for info .... I've looked through rules and can't find this written. I've been on BF seven yrs and at times have placed under £2 bets for various reasons, not least lack of monies being house-husband and new parent !!
I have never received such an email before and never thought I was breaking BF rules. However, certain betting patterns/markets on here, you can clearly see this goes on all the time (hence, never knew it was illegal) ....

I dont think they mind people putting bets on for less than £2, what they dislike is market skimming i.e. £0.01 bets with zero liability, because this is gaining profit for no risk and basically stealing someone else's money.

absolutely .... I think I need to write to BF personally and get full clarification of types of bets allowed/not allowed. After all, everyone's situation/betting style is different and I often don't wish to place £2 on a bet. If I fancy something at fancy prices then a lower stake would seem more realistic - I'm not greedy, just practical and trying to make a few quid (like we all are) ... thanks for feedback

I think the email to the op proves otherwise.

That was meant for s or a.  There are economic reasons why the limit is in place.

http://help.betfair.com/faq/index.en.html

And type in "minimum stake"

thanks cat for the link .... however, this doesn't answer why/how there are so many markets with less than £2 on prices waiting to be matched (and no monies have been taken at this price either) .... clearly not adhering to the rules, this is why I never knew it to be a written rule as so many other cases around !!

ignore them TWATS !

Ah but that's min. stake, not min. liability. There's a difference. People lay horses @ 150/1 for less than £2 profit but obviously their stake is much larger. Needs clarification I guess.

When you write to them ask for the email/letter to be escalated to a manager for reply because otherwise you'll just get a standard reply.

It's quite straightforward, the minimum stake is £2.

So I can lay a horse at 150/1 for less than £0.02 profit then. Because my stake is still more than £2.00 in that situation but it is no different to what the original poster is talking about.

You are confusing stake and liability.  If you lay a horse at 150/1 with a £2 stake your maximum profit is £2.

Some of the bets under £2 will be bets from abroad under various currencies-their minimum bets will obviously not convert to exactly £2.

they can't be that bothered, as someone's been running a bot for about a year which automatically frontruns all bets in part formed, high overround markets with 1.99 offers.

Your stake is the amount of money you are prepared to lose. So that is either a back 'stake' or a lay 'liability'.

I've put 1.99 bets up before betting manually, as anything higher will see bots jump in front. Can't be bothered with that anymore anyway so a non-issue for me.

Your stake is the amount of money you are prepared to lose. So that is either a back 'stake' or a lay 'liability'.


No, a layers liability = the stake * the odds

I've been on BF seven yrs and at times have placed under £2 bets for various reasons, not least lack of monies being house-husband and new parent !!

Seriously, if you've been here for 7 years and are still messing about with £2 bets or less, you should probably just give up.

Maybe he does not want to bet in bigger stakes you stuck up ****

ditto, the investor.

can't see why BF would particularly care about those, as all they mean is someone gets a slightly better price than they were expecting. which if anything is (very mild) promotion.

Johnhan...etc...., to receive a warning email it sounds like you may be placing no lose bets, for example perhaps laying 1 goal or more at say 1.1 for 4p, resulting in you gaining 4p when it's a 0-0 and losing nothing when it isn't. Obviously that has to be stamped out as it takes the piss out of the counter party.

But if you're just placing say 50p bets on outcomes of events then you're doing what thousands of others do. I can't imagine BF would bother you about that.

I remember someone being banned for placing 1.99 bets.  That means it must be quite recent .

jamesdean Maybe he does not want to bet in bigger stakes you stuck up ****

Maybe he doesn't, in which case why not open an account with an exchange that accepts smaller minimum stakes rather than break the rules? £2 bets are fine for people starting out, but seriously, after seven years, it's time to step it up to at least £2 or get out. Why my sound advice is considered 'stuck up', I'm not at all sure.

Maybe that is his personal comfort level, not everyone on here is a serious bettor or trader.The guy probably just likes having a £2 flutter now and again.

To tell someone they should stop doing something they like doing simply because they're only playing for small stakes is stuck up or possibly ignorant.

According to feedback from the forum, of one of the apps that I use, the issue appears to be
more of a problem for people resident in Australia.

i can understand fully why someone would want to bet say 50 pence on a 1000/1 outsider - i would do so myself , but on everyday events it seems a bit pointless

jamesdean The guy probably just likes having a £2 flutter now and again. I hate to state the obvious, but if that were the case, this thread wouldn't exist.

i got this email


verification@betfair.com to benni
show details 05/02/2008
Dear Sir/Madam

In accordance with the Terms and Conditions outlined on our website, please refrain from placing bets less than the minimum stake (£2/€4/$AUD6). Any future contravention of this rule will result in permanent account closure.

If you need further clarification on this policy or have any other questions regarding Betfair, please don't hesitate to contact us.

This is ridiculous. What if you bet on something for, say £10, then lay off at integers with £1 bets totalling a similar amount? Do Betfair want to drive the minor traders from this site, thus causing even less liquidity, when it is evidently dwindling anyway? I know there is a recession, but surely that should increase small stake punting on exchange sites not scare people away. Betfair can be doing themselves no favours with this unless they are warning the market skimmers as previously mentioned.

And catflaqpo, stake, by definition is the amount of money you risk, as is liability. They are the same thing. In a lay bet, there are two stakes, your liability, and the matching bettor's stake. So in a lay bet of £2.00 liability at odds of less than even i.e. the stake of the matching punter, your own liability and hence stake, is less than £2.00. Betfair should clarify that if they are going to warn customers.

thanks for all comments ...
to clarify, I'm from UK (so no Aussie issue) and a regular - almost daily punter - and I mix my bet stakes depending on sport/selection/markets. I am not a serious punter yet enjoy a flutter on a range of sports, adds to the interest factor when watching. Used to be betting shop manager for 6 yrs, so I know not to be silly with bets I can't afford.
What I tend to do is bets between £1-10, but on occasions when price is huge and I fancy it, ie. 3-1 or 3-2 scoreline @ 60/1, I have placed 10p bets (I can't afford £2 bets on these markets as previously outlined)
What I now need to know from BF, is it ok to place several bets on a market or selection so long as it totals at least £2, and if I've placed a £1 horse bet at say 20/1 can I lay it off @ say 12/1, making less than a £2 stake in effect.
I also want to know how others can get away with placing miniscule horse bets - often I've tried backing at big prices, e.g. 50p @ 500/1 and find only £0.05 is taken (rules should be the same for all)
Each to their own style of betting and it seems my football scoreline days are over, but I will continue to enjoy my flutter and my vast sporting interest

thanks for all comments ...
to clarify, I'm from UK (so no Aussie issue) and a regular - almost daily punter - and I mix my bet stakes depending on sport/selection/markets. I am not a serious punter yet enjoy a flutter on a range of sports, adds to the interest factor when watching. Used to be betting shop manager for 6 yrs, so I know not to be silly with bets I can't afford.
What I tend to do is bets between £1-10, but on occasions when price is huge and I fancy it, ie. 3-1 or 3-2 scoreline @ 60/1, I have placed 10p bets (I can't afford £2 bets on these markets as previously outlined)
What I now need to know from BF, is it ok to place several bets on a market or selection so long as it totals at least £2, and if I've placed a £1 horse bet at say 20/1 can I lay it off @ say 12/1, making less than a £2 stake in effect.
I also want to know how others can get away with placing miniscule horse bets - often I've tried backing at big prices, e.g. 50p @ 500/1 and find only £0.05 is taken (rules should be the same for all)
Each to their own style of betting and it seems my football scoreline days are over, but I will continue to enjoy my flutter and my vast sporting interest

S or A, you can look at it like that but it doesn't help you understand the Betfair rules.  When you lay a bet you type a value into a box labelled "backer's stake".  This amount under the current rules isn't allowed to be less than £2 which is why, if you enter a value less than £2, the bet is rejected.

Whether it would make sense to allow lays of lower stake where the odds are high is a different matter.

A lowering of the threshold would lead to an increase in the number of bets processed which would have a consequent effect on performance.

I had a £1 bet the other day, not had any e mail

Really can't see why Betfair just don't disable the method of going under the minimum, surely this would very simple , instead of threatening their customers.

tobermory they sometimes have bets of less than £2 themself when cross matching an overound for example they might clip 10p of a 1000 shot to fill the book in on a market with multi runners.

well if it's suddenly of such concern to them, then they should modify their system so that when you enter 1.01 and £2 and then change it to £2.50 (or whatever) it doesn't show as two separate bets, one of which you can then change!


and as other have said, it's liquidity at the end of the day. 

Anyone know how much of total liquidity these small bets make up?

^ In the horse racing markets - these bets make up about 90% of the liquidity - until 5 minutes prior to the off
Then the big hitters come out to play with bets of £3+

The system is deeply flawed, but a solution isn't obvious to me.
I have been reporting deliberate sub minimum bets to the integrity team for years but they do not have a solution or they would already have implemented it.
There is also an issue with legal but invisible bets because of exchange rate fluctuations ie. bets in a currency where the minimum bet equates to less than 2 pounds. They don't have a solution for this either but don't seem to care.
They should just make everything legal and transparent, but then they create the problem of bet spamming ie. 100 bets of 1 penny at the front of every queue.
There is no solution. Just get used to warnings when they can be bothered to try and enforce what they simply don't have the resources to properly police.

Reduce the minimum bet size and show £1 bets or perhaps even sub £1 bets and that will reduce the attractiveness of putting up strings of sub radar bets. Problem solved.

problem not solved, but problem ameliorated.

@Alex

Hardly solved if the 'best 3' view on the website shows nothing but penny bets - no real indication of what price is available for sensible money.

Early this year I was matched for 10p @ 880 in a none established market.

Potential profit, before laying off, £87.90.

It came as no great surprise that the bet was reversed within 20 minutes.

Nov 15, 2011 -- 12:40PM, longbridge wrote:

@AlexHardly solved if the 'best 3' view on the website shows nothing but penny bets - no real indication of what price is available for sensible money.

This is true.  But do the sensible percentage players really need to be told what the book percentages are?  Surely they can do their own maths.

Good one

^ Methane_Magnet