In-Play Delay time

It was Contrarian.

I guess they've had complaints from punters being hoovered after goals, surely BF want the delays to be as short as practicably possible?

White Hart Lane has long been a hunting ground for clock-beating.  The 8 seconds puts an end to it.  I do all my betting on football and can quite happily do this with 8 seconds.

Spanish football used to have 22 second delays.

Trevh
21 Nov 11 20:40
Joined:
21 Jul 06
| Topic/replies: 1,301 | Blogger: Trevh's blog
It was Contrarian.

I guess they've had complaints from punters being hoovered after goals, surely BF want the delays to be as short as practicably possible?


I don't get it - the game is on the radio - surely they can suspend in under 5 secs?

Hi Mr.Angry, yes, I also can do my betting with the 8 seconds, but it does hinder me more than it used to.

Gin, I agree that they can easily suspend in under 5 seconds without affecting anyone detrimentally.

I'm all for preventing hoovering, but an 8 second delay does make it much harder to trade.

Given how much Betfair are making from each of these UK televised games, they can surely afford to have someone at the match signalling goals/red cards, etc.

That would make sense Contrarian, but I guess it comes down to whether or not they get more money matched with a 5 second delay compared to an 8 second delay, and I assume they've done their home work on that one?

@Contrarian - Surely the issue is not how quickly BF can suspend a market after a red card/goal/event etc, but how quickly a punter can cancel his bet when he sees/hears/knows of that event?

Are you on drugs ??  Of course the inplay delay is about Betfair being able to suspend before anyone can hoover the market.

8 seconds delay for both UK live CL matches again tonight. It looks like this is becoming the norm

How fragile all these inplay strategies must be to be so materially affected by 3 seconds either way.
Boy am I glad that I'm not a knee jerk trader, even though I might be a jerk.

FAFH,

If you're trading several hundred times a match, as I do, a few seconds makes a massive difference.

. . and it's nothing to do with being a knee jerk trader.

It looks like the delay is being set to the longest common denomator lag (Digital/IP TV), rather than the fastest mass-market medium avaiable (AM radio).

If I'm listening to the radio and get information quicker than some goggle box watcher. I say tough to them for being idiots. Get thee down to Argos for a £5 radio.

Next they'll be delaying it because some poeple haven't yet watched it on Sky+ yet.

I was being my usual facetious self Contrarian.
I would have thought you would have sussed me out by now ?
Of course I know there is trading and there is trading.
And let's be honest most of the wannabe traders on here are no less than knee jerk reactionaries.
They just deludely think otherwise .

"Zola's Back Heel", has it not occured to you that the delay is for betfair itself to suspend in good time incorporating the human frailties of its suspend operators + any technological delays, to stop hoovering by someone at the event, and is quite obviously (I'd have thought) b*gg*r all to do with the lowest common denominator betfair customer?

And a customer obtaining a magical AM radio covering all the worldwide sporting events they cover might be a tad difficult, even if that were the case.

Which it of course .. isn't.

Sorry FAFH - I didn't mean to imply that I had taken offence.

What are you up to these days, anyway? Are you making money?

Just Checking... so 8 seconds is on UEFA Champions League games when literally millions of pounds of volume are spunked through their system?

They cant possibly do better than that? (Noting that until this year they actually did).

If it is true that its their in-house decision and not about customer requests why change it upwards from where it was and has been for years?

Sure Contrarian, I'm just still plodding away on my slow gradual build up of capital over a long pre-planned period.
Nothing sexy like the high action trading you're up to.
My main gripe is that I just hate it when all these internationals come along and junk up the calendar.
I can't do anything with them. Never have been able to and probably never will.
The variances in performances in quite staggering. ( Just ask the poor Argentinian fans with Messi and Higuain in their most recent team and still producing a complete dud result.)
How anybody can assess how a group of players who are normally at each others' throats in league competitions can turn around and gel as a team playing for their country every now and again, is completely beyond my capabilities.
Any helpful hints out there ?

FAFH,

Yeah, I hate the international breaks too, but only because there are fewer big matches to bet on. My strategies work just about the same there as they do on club football.

You're right, of course, about the difficulty of assessing the likely performance of the international teams. They are virtually no statistics available of any meaning, because even the recent encounters between the relevant two countries most likely involve quite different squads.

I have a friend who has a blanket policy on internationals to lay the favourite, on the grounds that the favourite's price is overly influenced by the recent performances of that country - performances which are now irrelevant because the team has changed so much.

Does your friend's policy work?

No

Back to 5 seconds for Stoke v Blackburn.

Helpful reply from Betfair:

I can confirm that we use whatever delay is needed to protect our customers and the majority of games now need 8 seconds in order for us to do this.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further enquiries.

Kind regards,

Jonathan Crook

Betfair Helpdesk

I have a further question.

Why are horse racing customers deemed to have different worthiness when it comes to "protection"?

They are virtually no statistics available of any meaning, because even the recent encounters between the relevant two countries most likely involve quite different squads.

If there are no statistics how do they expect anyone to make a tissue?

More mass hoovering in the Spanish football markets.  Real v Athletico.

Mr Angry,

Early prices would obviously be made on the basis of recent statistics. My point is just that these statistics are probably much less valid than corresponding ones for club football.

I'd certainly agree with that (Contrarian).

More mass hoovering in the Spanish football markets.  Real v Athletico

Really?

I was market making that game, and I wasn't hoovered.

You are mistaken.  There was hoovering.  It was very plain to see.

Forgive me but what is hoovering?

8 seconds again for tonights live Wigan v Chelsea............

Surely if Betfair can get a decent feed (say 2-3 seconds), the delay would only need to be greater than this, rather than greater than the "majority" broadcast (say 6-7 seconds for Sky)?

Or is the delay now used to protect punters during non-suspension times (i.e. free-kicks etc.) as well?

I have great hope that this is a problem that WILL go away over time with the introduction of official fast data feeds being readily available (some already available, some in development). If Betfair are getting a fast feed for a match that is allowing them to suspend quickly, then I'd be pushing them to make as much of their feed public as they can, the more information the punter gets, the better these markets will become.

macarony     27 Nov 11 11:55 
Forgive me but what is hoovering?

This is when players with a time advantage over other players, use that advantage to take the bets left available to them by the players that don't have that same time advantage.

The consensus on the forums seems to be that this is perfectly acceptable in pretty much EVERY other sport - and people only seem to get upset when it happens (or they think it has happened) in the soccer markets!

Come on guys seriously think about it. If someone is actually at the game with there ipad or iphone etc.. if the delay was less than 8 seconds he/she would av time get a bet on when the final whistle goes and might get it matched, due to the delay in the market been suspended which is done through a satellite link.

That's not the point, qwertyd702. The point is that five seconds has been satisfactory for all this time, and now suddenly it's not good enough now.

And it still varies. Sometimes we get five seconds on a game and others we might get eight. It even varies between EPL games - although the trend is only going one way.

8 seconds is an inconvenience, but I can live with it. whereas hoovering's a game-breaker. if the suspend can't protect me from it, I can't put money into in play markets at all.