What happens if betfair can't match bets placed at betfair SP?

As far as I know, the bet merely lapses unmatched. It happens very rarely because of queue position and leads to the differential treatment (in terms of matched at the reconcilation or not matched) of bets at exactly the same price point.

askari, that only applies to sp bets where a min/max price was specified which was the same as the returned betfair sp.

All SP bets with no min/max specified are guaranteed matched AFAIK.

So if I lay £1000 on a horse at 1000 just before the off, and there is only say £30 being bet at SP, who matches it? Clearly no one. Would betfair take on the liability themselves?

So if I lay £1000 on a horse at 1000 just before the off

Not sure what you mean pumpkin. Are you talking about an sp lay where you've declared the max odds you're willing to lay is 1000.0?

Only SP bets with no restriction on odds are guaranteed to be matched.

I mean, if a horse is being layed at 1000.0 on the exchange and I lay for £1000,000 liability through the Betfair SP, what happens? Will they return an SP bigger than 1000 if there is only £10 being backed at SP? And what if there is nothing being backed at SP?

Don't think they've ever guaranteed to match bets slayer, I've had BSP bets lapsed at 1000 before because there weren't enough backers and I wasn't first in the queue.The bet just lapses you won't get an email.

1000 is their max odds so they won't get a bsp higher, I think they now have some sort of cross matching incorporated in the reconciliation but at 1000 it has little effect on the book %'s to come into play.

I'd guess the 'reconciler' would add money to ensure matching if there was value to be had but I was wrong they don't guarantee matching.

http://sp.betfair.com.au/FAQs_theBasics.php

How can Betfair guarantee to match a $50k SP bet?

In order to match that amount of money at 1.01, we would only need $500 of layers’ liability. Unless the selection is genuinely a 1.01 chance there is a very high probability that there will be enough layers to guarantee a match. However, we don’t guarantee a price. In practice though a large amount of money placed to back at SP will be likely to result in a price projection that is attractive to layers, and vice versa.

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Will there be unmatched SP bets if the money isn’t there?

In theory, there could be unmatched SP bets.  We don’t actually guarantee a match. But this would only happen if the price is 1.01 or 1000 – the two extremes of our SP. If 1.01 were the final SP, then some backers might be unmatched. If 1000 were the final SP, then some layers will be unmatched. However, we expect this to be very rare.

Feck, ah yes, that is what I'm remembering--there being an inevitable cut-off point within those who requested the exact price point at which reconciliation was worked out.

The formula of money available to lay by money available to back generates a starting price. This is the starting price the bettor takes unless he specified a price.

The result of this theoretically is as per the first Grand National they had the SP--much lower starting prices because of the pressure of backing money.

askari, you wonder what happened to betfair's theoretical PERVS (pouncing equilibrium restoring value seekers) that day.

I had a small 'Take SP' bet lapse earlier and the agent told me that they cannot guarantee that a BSP request can be filled.

@TornUpTickets

I know that happens if you set a small LAY bet to "Take SP" and the bet is so small the liability is less than the SP Lay minimum (£10).

I suppose it might logically be true that a back bet below the back SP minimum (£2) might also lapse rather than taking SP but I have never noticed it.

For any other case I would be challenging the agent's line.