Next Generation Sports Product

So will we see people banned if they win to much from the sports books?

Can't imagine the "crack trading team" operating without a swatch at what successful players are doing. The game's a bogy imo.

Do you mean unexceptional JL or am I reading it wrong?

They have stated that they will only be operating in the less liquid markets, so I guess maximium bets will apply.  More than £3.65 I hope.

Will loses be PC deductable for any churners

(actually we can generally tell but by the time you've worked it out it's often too late to get a bet on)

They have stated that they will only be operating in the less liquid markets

That will be them all then hazel until Last5minutes.com kicks in.

They will basically be inline with what other bookmakers odds are. If they are not then there is value to be had somewhere.

How does Betfair SP fit in with their new sportsbook ?

I would have thought BFSP is all they needed to be added to all markets?

and will the sportsbook offer lay betting as well?
to be competitive against other bookmakers wont they need to offer better prices?
so exhange users can lay off the sportsbook markets ?

Or am I fick ?

i dont understand this, whhy dont they simply create an entity which will offer liquidity in the exchange markets. as long as they dont have any time advantage or matching prefernce it should be acceptablle for most here.

Good point, henok. frog is probably correct (it's so they can restrict betting with the people they want and to the amounts they are happy with)... but their approach has terrible downsides.The site at the moment is a pain to navigate. With the new product,will punters have to first visit the exchange, decide the prices are rubbish,and then try to find the corresponding market on the new bookie site? That's just great. More pointless clicking around getting in the way of betting.

Betfair should do something about just making the site easier to find stuff.Like for example, making the sports front page load fast.

Almost certainly henok. As with exchange games, customer gets stuffed twice. Firstly on the under EV odds, secondly on commission on the winners.

Betfair could pioneer new ground here, offering better liquidity, whilst avoiding being picked off.  They have made a big mistake recruiting a "crack trading team" ("expensive" would be a better description, compared to the limited value the team will generate). 

Betfair have looked at the huge profits Bet365 have made compared to Betfair, and want a piece of that kind of action.  That is fair enough, but what they have chosen to do is very inefficient.

The real way forward is to use a system of dark pools.  The higher the percentage win rate on an account, the less they can see on the screen at prices set/available.  The on screen amounts displayed to a shrewd customer would be in fivers/tenners, and small amounts would move the price quite a lot.  Whereas big losing accounts would be able to see the full liquidity up on the screen in the hundreds/thousands of pounds.  It doesn't really matter on the occasions when a price is quite far away from EV, a non-shrewd customer is just as likely to back as to lay at the on-screen prices, and will not be able to discern which is value. 

The shrewd punters would nibble away, forcing the market up or down (and if the market has say £5 at 1.78/1.79/1.80 to back and £5 at 1.81/1.82/1.83 to lay, then each time the shrewd punter nibbles at say the back price, say with £5 at 1.79 and £5 at 1.8, the Betfair algorithms would automatically try to get back out of the bet by placing a bet backing on screen at 1.79 and 1.8 in the lay queue).

Each time the shrewd punters have nibbled away more than say 0.05 units (e.g. moved the price down to 1.75 from 1.8) an alert would be generated, and the Betfair 'crack trader' could then move the backs and lays up or down accordingly, to bring the real market into line with where the shrewd punters have nibbled away. 

This system is much cheaper than what Betfair have done.  It would still generate valuable information from the shrewder accounts, whilst not letting them take big nibbles/chunks out of Betfair profits.  Then the losing customers would have big chunks/liquidity available to them. 

The non dark pool system Betfair have put in is a sort of copy of what Bet365 have done.  Instead, Betfair should have gone for the much cheaper, much more efficient, much more lucrative, and much more satisfying for losing customers system of constructing dark pools where shrewd accounts can't see the full liquidity available, and have to in effect 'declare their hand'.

Do dark pools exist on other betting sites ballabriggs or is this an idea from elsewhere?

Cannot see BF charging commission on this new product at all as then it would be a non-runner against the competition with the target audience they are aiming for.

Wonder if they will do early prices on the horses - that would be fun to see from the "crack" trading team

This could be bad news for anyone playing in illiquid or semi-liquid side markets, Betfair could replace these with their own sportsbook markets. A lot of people have been complaining recently that the side markets and minor sports are dead, this could be a perfect time for Betfair to replace them with their own markets.

Can't I just use someone elses account to see whats in the dark pool?

There was another much cheaper, simpler and more effective way Betfair could have done this. 

The trading team set a price at what they judge is fair value, say evens for an NBA team to win or lose.

A winning account logs in and sees 5/6 the pair.  A losing account logs in and sees 19/20 the pair.  The rate of winning/losing on every account could be calculated automatically (and updated automatically after every market). 

This way, the price available to the biggest winners is the furthest away from the price set, whilst the price available to the losing accounts is very close to FV.  It doesn't matter if a big losing account ends up getting value on a selection, they are just as likely to take a poor price as take a good price.  Its arguably quite good to give losing customers value from time to time too.  What matters is to keep them playing.

By having in effect the same price for everyone, you need an expensively assembled "crack" trading team, judging bet by bet what to accept, what not to accept, and what price to offer/change to.  Instead, if the overround was tailored automatically to each account, there would be built in protection, and the only times the big winners would take 5/6 (etcetera) would be when the price set by the trading team was a very long way from the real FV.  The trading team would then know they had to move the price immediately.  Under this current system, they wouldn't necessarily know that, to anything like the same degree. 

Automatically triggered increases and decreases in overround would cut the cost of the trading team, and their time and toil involved in keeping out the big winners, whilst giving a good service to the accounts they really want to be laying bets to.   Betfair kind of does this after the event with the PC, but it is possible to do it before bets have even been laid.

Betfair's concern is also poor liquidity when markets haven't formed yet, or poor liquidity on side markets, hence the need for this crack trading team to supply liquidity for the "30%" of markets which Betfair want covered.

Betfair have a real invaluable tool to deal with this already, and they don't use it.  If markets are too quiet, then incentivise them.  0% commission on these markets during the quiet times for bets placed in that relevant period, where Betfair wants liquidity to be boosted.  Its even possible to have negative commission - if you offer prices at this time, and someone else matches it, you are charged 0% commission if you win, but if your opponent wins, Betfair take half of the commission paid, and you get half of your opponent's commission.  That is surely better than the market being dead?

Betfair have to respect that working out prices takes skill, time, and in reality money.  They seem to want that service for free, without making any concessions for it.  They just have to tailor their product and charging, so that the people who price events up share in the profit with Betfair from these currently illiquid markets.

Completely agree with ballabriggs on this one. I've tried a few pricing strategies that don't pay because of transaction charging. similar concessions could be made there to allow seeding in quiet side markets to be cheaper.

Poor liquidity breeds poor liquidity. Who wants to put a decent sized offer into a quiet market when they know it will only end up as a book end while parasitic traders and copycats leapfrog them with their £1.99 bets. Betfair's "crack trading team" front running them will only make matters worse. Will last5minutes.com become last2minutes.com? It's about time exchanges realised it's their crummy stock market interface that's the cause of tumbleweed markets. Requiring a degree in computer programming to get a decent sized bet on kind of restricts your prospective customer base.