Calling 'Traders' only

No views on current trading climate?

Dying a slow death Stu.  The frame betting liquidity in the WC is a joke.  There was a Masters tennis final with no game betting put up - these used to have great liquidity.  The greed of BF re. the PC has hit the market makers in the peripheral markets who are not bothering due to getting fleeced which in turn the lack of action turns away recreational punters, probably to 365 etc.  The PC they collect every week in tangible but have they taken into account the loss of revenue from this loss of business.       

No doubt some clueless numpty will come on here blaming the exit of the Greeks etc. but this has been slowly happening over the last several years.

What are your views?

PC has killed this site.

Snooker died years ago. I'd add the change to digital TV hit all the bettors who relied on fast pictures to nick a few quid.

The site's dying a slow lingering death and with Betfair effectively hiding the exchange from visiting punters, in the hope they go via the sportsbook, things aren't going to get any better.

jas is correct imo

Make more money from new new Sportsbook customers, than if they let them come to the exchange where they only get a slice of the pie.

Its a good job Billy Hill didn't buy Daq because it would have been game over for betfair and their ingenious idea.

But Billy knows that betfair are cocking up the only thing thats worries them.

john23 21 Apr 13 16:23
What are your views?

I'm not primarily a trader, more a position taker, which is why I was interested to hear from people who base their business on here from trading. I do trade for some markets, but only usually to try and get better value. I have considered trading more, maybe I shouldn't judged on these comments, lol

One thing that strikes me though - BF used to actively look to recruit players who were solely traders - didn't they run workshops etc? Do they still run those?

I personally disagree that PC has killed this site. It's a bit dramatic as the site is still there and people are still trading away. Also pc in itself is primarily there to discourage good traders from trading. The more good traders you have trading away the harder it is for you to trade and make a profit, so something that discourages them from doing this in itself can't be to blame.

Of course on the other side of the coin there is the argument that maybe it has removed liquidity from markets making it harder to trade.

I suppose the answer to the question really depends on which type of actual markets you trade as to how it has changed over the years.

Stu - Which types of market are you mainly concerned with?

Most profitable for me is specials (novelty, tv etc) betting. But events are limited for frequency there - I'm mostly a simple position taker for those markets, though if a trade appears may take it. I also play football markets quite a lot, with varying between positions and trades. Small amounts other sports, but less successful with those (Tennis has always been my worst market, so given it up).

I reckon the transaction charge is probably more to blame than the premium charge, in niche markets. Lets look at two scenarios:

Seeder Steve prices up inplay frame markets on the snooker based on his 'orrible mess of excel, vba and squishy human brain. He might have an excel plugin to place his bets or gruss or something to manage his positions. He prices to 105% (lets say) and gives away his opinion of the true price of either player winning the frame. For this he gets: queue jumped by £2 jokers with some ebay bot, a decent share of the market volumes since he's the only guy willing to seed at decent risk levels. Betfair charge him 2% per market and up to 40% PC to cover their customer acquisition and ongoing operational costs. Seeder Steve is relatively happy. Seeder Steve pays no income tax so, really, he's doing pretty damn well.

Scenario two:
Seeder Steve prices up inplay frame markets in exactly the same way as above, but instead of £2 queue jump joker bots, the queue jumpers have some decent API software, a brain and some cash. In this scenario, every time Steve updates his prices, he gives the Q jumpers the latest information, which they then use to change their bets, undercutting him by a tick. Steve, who is the only one doing any real work here, now takes significantly less of the share of vols in the market. Because the Q jump bot can operate with no real skill on many markets, it pays lots of comm and can afford to place as many bets as it likes. Steve cannot. Steve would love to change his bot so that it jumps the Q jumper but it costs him 1p a bet after 1000 bets (and during a snooker tourney, as a seeder, that's very expensive). So, due to this and volatility, Steve decides that it's not worth him time for a mere few hundred quid a week and decides to go back to doing whatever he did before Betfair arrived. This market now has no market maker. The Q jump bot has no prices to jump and vanishes, leaving the market bereft of any real money. 1.01 jokers and their ilk are now the only action in town. If Steve ever comes back, the Q jump bot (being a trivial piece of software to write or buy) immediately continues and Steve has to stop again.

So:tldr, the PC isn't what's stopping Steve making money, it's Q jump bots that can outpace most niche market makers. Markets like footy or the horses where the overrounds never go above 100.5% are effectively immune and are the ultimate evolution of a high volume market. But frame betting will never be that tight because there's far less money involved, far higher likelihood for bent players and less published material on high quality prediction models to use as a basis for a pricing strategy. Niche markets need protection from highly parasitic traders far more than the high liquidity stuff, IMHO.

Steve needs to get himself a Q jump bot.

A Q jump bot appeared recently in a market that I play in, they are parasites yes but that's life, asking for them to be banned would be very popular to market makers but life doesn't work like that, it's an exchange for all punters including parasites. BF isn't going to ban them just to make life easier for someone else.

Sometimes they're quite dumb and you can easily make a few quid from them by manipulating them into false positions, then taking their offers. Others can be run out of the market by taking them to their price limit. Many are more sophisticated, but they are all dumb compared to a live operator, and hence open to manipulation.

It would be a shame if you gave up because of them Chilly. Personally I would put up my best offers knowing that any bot who undercut me would not make money long term.

I don't find any problems with the £2 queue jumpers. I mean, if someone wants to get £1000 matched, they're not going to just take the £2 and leave the rest because that's all that's at the front of the queue. It's the queue jumpers which dominate the market that frustrate me.

There's hardly any replies cos there's hardly any traders left.
Markets are full of betting site tracking bots, filling the screen with peanuts and adjusting the prices for every tiny event of play.
They must cost betfair money long term.

Tennis is struggling as well. Only on prime time(satrdays,sundays nights- there is possible to get normal profit) during a week very, very difficult. Full time here is a big question for me. But still here. I have fewer bets(y/y) fewer profit(y/y) + bigger charges. Struggle. Im on worst month ever btw.

Any thoughts on trading in the traditionally 'strong' markets - e.g. over/unders football etc?

from glancing at my data on pre-ko football in the biggest leagues (english/german/italian/spanish) over the course of this season

correct score volumes are fairly steady

match odds volumes have declined slightly (although theres a drop jan-apr last year too). premier league figures are comparable to last year, german/italian/spanish are down.

over/under 2.5 volumes have declined massively
over/under 3.5 volumes have increased massively, o/u 4.5 are up a fair bit too

so the biggest trends i can see just based on crude pre-kickoff averages are what looks like a decline in non-english big leagues, and a switch from o/u 2.5 to o/u 3.5 and 4.5 markets

assuming my data is correct of course

Even figures staying the same is bad news. Having them go down is terrible.

Figures are not the same. Bundesliga, Bundesliga 2, Premier league and more, more - visible lack of small bets.Lack of Small punters.
What can we expect if punters placing bets through mobiles are placing their bets on a sportsbook-as a default?
Only guys with PC,laptops are placing bets on the exchange.
I used big stakes for the last time here.(more than 5000)
Im Going to reduce it(limit myself) because its getting very hard to get matched back.
and finally finished this terrible month :
-Basketball: £761.98 |
-Soccer: -£6,252.09 |
-Tennis: £5,546.17 
-Total P&L:  £56.06
Service significantly slowing down. New, fresh money are not pumped to the exchange. Money paid for premium charge are not coming back as a new customers to the exchange as it was promised, mentioned. As I started new thread "they" will not catch us, but if this trend will continue we will catch "them".

P.S I've been on ,15 Basket,52 Tennis,314(!) football markets.
Trading manually(dont have bots) and only 56+
I did amazing job for them and feel like a b*tch. Going on holiday for 4 days so enjoy you time with no bets on exchange, Traders :) wish luck!

Get ready to raise your game siwaadupa, because it's not going to get any easier...

I was facing big loses this month:
6 April was a killer for me:
- -5123,49 Dortmund-Augsburg (Match O)
- -1949,5 Juventus-Pescara (ov/un 2,5)
- -1595,55 Bologna-Torino (ov/un 1,5)
For this day I had: -£8,024.07
9 April I went to Arabs... Backing 1.3 draw
- -2732,48 Al Rayyan v Al Ain
11 April
- -942,35 Rubin - Chelsea (ov/un 1,5)
- -893,76 Rubin - Chelsea (ov/un 2.5)
15 April
- -5111,37 Erzebirge - Kaiserslautern (Match O)-Had a Back at 1.10 2 red cards(9man-11man) and had a equalizer in 83min.
21 April
- -3265,17 Gefle-Aik
24 April
- -1839,67 Dortmund - Real (ov/un 2,5)
26 April
- -2152,32 G Furth- Hannover (Match O)
28 April
- -1321,93 St Pauli - Hertha (Match O)
And so happy that i walked out from this mess on +56

i dont see how your losses relate to issues associated with the exchange

henok, the issue is that if it becomes more difficult to win, certain customers leave, setting of a chain reaction of decreasing liquidity.

If their only staying because their winning surely theyed have taken money out of the exchange not put it back in?

Apr 26, 2013 -- 1:53PM, subversion wrote:

from glancing at my data on pre-ko football in the biggest leagues (english/german/italian/spanish) over the course of this seasoncorrect score volumes are fairly steadymatch odds volumes have declined slightly (although theres a drop jan-apr last year too). premier league figures are comparable to last year, german/italian/spanish are down.over/under 2.5 volumes have declined massivelyover/under 3.5 volumes have increased massively, o/u 4.5 are up a fair bit tooso the biggest trends i can see just based on crude pre-kickoff averages are what looks like a decline in non-english big leagues, and a switch from o/u 2.5 to o/u 3.5 and 4.5 marketsassuming my data is correct of course

Show us your data pls.
2,5h to Liverpool Derby.
over/under 3,5: 
2,248 matched.
(point the increase)

siwaadupa
Show us your data pls.

data.betfair.com

i can see a decrease in average matched volumes for o/u 2.5 since january in england/germany/italy/spain top leagues, and an increase for o/u 3.5 and o/u 4.5

dont ask me why, ask betfair (or analyse the data yourself and figure it out)

Thanks @subversion. I didn't know about that page.

one reason that crosses my mind is that a lot of people are talking about reduced liquidity in smaller matches, but still good liquidity for the top teams

the top teams (Barca/RM/Man U/Bayern etc) tend to have more goals per game than weaker teams, and so will have more traded in high goal markets than weaker teams

this might explain some of the shift in the averages

or of course, the data could be bad... or the system i use to read the data could have a bug somewhere, who knows

one other thing i remember about january, we had 2 league games in the space of a few days with 8 goals in one half (most leagues go entire seasons without a single game with 8 goals in one half)

the chaos and gubbings it caused might have shifted some money into higher goal markets

but its just speculation isnt it

only betfair know the truth. and maybe even they dont know the reasons.

henok, the issue is that if it becomes more difficult to win, certain customers leave, setting of a chain reaction of decreasing liquidity.

This exactly.  Betfair should make it easier for people to win, especially the hooverers and insiders.

no moves
Date Joined:     24 Feb 04
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02 May 13 00:06 Joined: 24 Feb 04 | Topic/replies: 1,631 | Blogger: no moves's blog
If their only staying because their winning surely theyed have taken money out of the exchange not put it back in?

Mr.Angry
Date Joined:     05 Jan 11
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05 May 13 12:18 Joined: 05 Jan 11 | Topic/replies: 3,946 | Blogger: Mr.Angry's blog
henok, the issue is that if it becomes more difficult to win, certain customers leave, setting of a chain reaction of decreasing liquidity.

This exactly.  Betfair should make it easier for people to win, especially the hooverers and insiders.


That's missing the point guys. Here's what I mean: People operating with a profit motive, keep spreads (relatively) tight. Say someone betting for fun wants to bet in the rather obscure Hamburg +1 market.

They navigate to the market and see
1.39-1.61
5.6-11
5-9.4

Book is 109.8% - 81.8%

Most fun bettors would understand this is not a 'properly' formed market, and wouldn't have a bet. Let's say a winner steps in market makes this to a 2 or 3% overround. The effect will be an increase in volume. Now you can argue winners take money out of the exchange, but without them, there would be no market in many cases. The people betting for fun aren't suddenly going to flock here and create a tight spread, it requires people with a profit motive.

In the recent 3pm EPL matches, liquidity has been down. When liquidity drops people betting for fun lose interest as they can't easily get their bets on. The people profiting from these markets see their winnings drop, perhaps to the point that they won't bother any more. That means liquidity drops, making it less attractive for leisure punters, which in turn makes it less attractive for the remaining winners and so on... Like I say, the big matches have been absolutely fine, the smaller ones are not looking as healthy.a

Here's a question for you.
If Betfair can earn more profit from Sportsbook business as they can the Exchange (considering the huge expense of the Exchange too), why not close the Exchange and become solely a sportsbook?

If all the vast majority of customers from the exchange migrate to the sportsbook over time then they will

why would anyone want to go to the sportsbook?

awful value???

Mr.Angry 05 May 13 12:45 Joined: 05 Jan 11 | Topic/replies: 3,951 | Blogger: Mr.Angry's blog
Here's a question for you.
If Betfair can earn more profit from Sportsbook business as they can the Exchange (considering the huge expense of the Exchange too), why not close the Exchange and become solely a sportsbook?

I've been wondering that myself. I guess Betfair have to keep the exchange in any case though. If they closed it, all that would happen is that purple or smarkets or someone else would take over. Better for Betfair to eat away at their own margins than someone else.

In any case, I see it as virtually inevitable (legislation willing) that a betting exchange like entity will eventually become the biggest and most profitable betting company on the planet.

I wonder what would happen if over time, people were willing to market make all the side markets you see with the traditional bookies on the exchange. It would basically make the sportsbook obsolete (except for people who don't 'understand' exchange betting etc.).

The USP for Betfair was the punter v punter betting, giving better value than the thieving bookmakers.  That WAS Betfair.

Now they've introduced PC and SuperPC makes it much difficult to claim "better value".

Now the USP is the previous reputation, goodwill and advertising.  But not sure how much longer that will last.

It's a pitty really.  Have Betfair really given up on the Exchange?  I sincerely hope not, because I still profit from that.  But if I were not profiting I wouldn't care less.  So long as I can get good value, ability to back and lay, to trade in-play, I don't really care against who.

If they do lose the exchange would be the mistake of the century business wise.

The dominant betting exchange should (and would) have been a huge business to own. If they'd done things differently of course....

Get rid of PC, invite everyone back again, get this place thriving again!

But the Exchange model is flawed.  Without a PC there is too much drain.  With a PC there is falling liquidity.

still haven't seen any proof that it is flawed with PC. Have you?

*without

I think the drain without PC is something Betfair would have been better off allowing. As the market matures the problem solves itself (admittedly hooverers and inside info guys are an exception to this).

What would stop it being an issue is 2 things:
1) Competition between winners decrease margins over time, which lowers the number of consistent winners in PC territory.
2) Many winners (especially ones with automated strategies) will continuously add increasingly marginal strategies, meaning they churn more. Many big winners don't pay PC due to that reason in the first place.

should re-open forum incidentally too - the community BF had was part of the success (even the nutters...)

stu 22 Apr 13 11:16

One thing that strikes me though - BF used to actively look to recruit players who were solely traders - didn't they run workshops etc? Do they still run those?

Notice no-one answered this, anyone know?

Don't think they are interested in teaching people about the exchange concept. Look at the 'cash out' advertisement they are running at the moment.
And how does the cash out function work in markets with no money in? This is probably why they are reducing the number of markets.
Also using the cashout function means you have to use the Beta exchange and what a disaster that is.

A company like bf needs a core of people at the top w/ a shared understanding of what the business is.

It doesn't have that at the moment because it got too big, and then anyone heading a team 'bigged up' what they were doing (because it was the source of their wealth and status) at the expense of any original concept.

Traders w/ freeze-outs denied the technical advantages built into the site wd be fine, provided enough of them provided always-on liquidity.

maas: If all the vast majority of customers from the exchange migrate to the sportsbook over time then they will

-----------

I just can't see this happening. people already on the exchange will either stop altogether (if they rely on the flexibility of an exchange) or migrate to wherever the prices are best.

so the only thing that would stop that would be industry leading prices on the sportsbook, and if that was part of the strategy they'd surely be way better than they  are already.

new customers will go there, but only because they're being taken there by default and having the better alternative semi-hidden from them. which creates a headache down the line, because as you start to lose their custom to better priced sportsbooks, do you take steps to tell them about the exchange or not? either way, in this confused business model you lose out. you lose a chunk of their spend to competitors, or you lose a chunk of their profitability to your own better offer that in an ideal world they'd never use.

creating your own conflict of interest is rarely a good business strategy.

this confused business model

This.

Perhaps they should use this in the way they used to use the 'sharp minds' slogan...

viva, in the conference call w/ investors & analysts today bf mgmt. talked about customarily offloading sportsbook bets into the exchange to 'maintain a covenant w/ layers'.

Bf wd get a bigger cut than they do at the moment but not at the cost of putting winning players out of business.

I don't see as the mgmt. seem to do how the exchange and sportsbook are complementary in marketing terms and I suspect that there's an element of 'warm words' in bf's presentation and that they will always see winners / pc payers etc. as their rivals.

However, they do seem to be serious in a strategy of a complementary exchange and sportsbook.

askari, did anyone ask them why their sportsbook offer is so poor? if they can unload the risk onto the exchange more effectively and cheaply than other firms, why are their prices and limits where they are?

I also can see how the two things could be complementary. eg in a jurisdiction like spain (currently) they could effectively offer exchange back prices minus a tick or two as sportsbook bets, with automated hedging to the exchange.

but what they're doing at the moment doesn't really look integrated; it looks confused. even mugs aren't stupid. if you run advertising campaigns telling people you have best prices, then take them to a sportsbook where you don't, you're effectively relying on them not realising. that's basically not going to work. some of them will use comparison sites and see there are better prices elsewhere. others will just know it because the prices will look skinny compared to what they're used to/expecting. others will get tempted away by other books' advertising/offers and stay where the prices are better.

the bottom line is, if you're going to compete with yourself by starting up a sportsbook, it had better be a good one or all you're going to succeed in doing is haemorrhaging business and goodwill.

They replied re the sportsbook that they had no intention of being best industry price--only to offer prices that weren't rank or were as good as a bettor might expect.

The presentation was at 10am but I didn't watch it live.

really?

why poison your own brand like that?

I wd guess the truly miserable limits are for shrewdies, to prevent themselves i.e. the sportsbook's 'crack trading team' being caught with their pants down on a steamer. This happens all the time w/ the conventional industry.

One v. interesting stat was that customer acquisition or new accounts was up 107%--that is, it's more than doubled--since they started the sportsbook.

Either bf staff grannies have been pressed into service or there were a lot of being who wanted to bet with bf who were discouraged by the complexity of the exchange.

I agree w/ you in that I can't see the sportsbook and exchange as complementary offerings in the way they were trying to describe in the presentation.

This shd be the stream:

http://www.livestream.com/betfair_internal

As to good prices / fair prices / best prices, how price-sensitive can recreational football punters be? The implied cost of setting up fifty or so accounts, and the time or carrying costs of funding them, are surely going to be greater for the average casual punter than the benefit of better prices.

If you want a one-stop shop you cd try Pinny, but they're not British, they don't advertise, and I'm not sure that bf sportsbook is targeting the kind of person who scours betbrain for 0.5% advantages.

I wd be fairly happy if I were senior in bf after the presentation, in that they managed to under-promise and seemed to be pitching to be people who were not investors and understood less about the company's travails e.g. than we do. They have zero, nil, nada big London institutional support at the moment and just one interested bank will surely buoy their share price.

Does the 107% figure include customers transferred from Blue SQ?

when was the bluesq acquisition? is that included in the +107% figure or was it after the relevant period?

their advertising's improved massively since the dark days of the betfair front room, so I suppose that could be relevant. but it does lead to one fairly obvious question. if customer acquisition and retention are up so markedly, why is revenue static? is that purely down to regulatory problems?

tommycockles, ah that must have been it, the people I was calling the employees' grannies were Blue Sq customers. Maybe they've even done some double counting.

'Cost of customer acquisition' is a pretty useless metric imv, since you don't know how profitable over a lifetime a new customer is going to be, or how often the customer of a bolt-on acquisition like Blue Sq is going to bet w/ you.

Apr 25, 2013 -- 2:00AM, Trevh wrote:

A Q jump bot appeared recently in a market that I play in, they are parasites yes but that's life, asking for them to be banned would be very popular to market makers but life doesn't work like that, it's an exchange for all punters including parasites. BF isn't going to ban them just to make life easier for someone else.Sometimes they're quite dumb and you can easily make a few quid from them by manipulating them into false positions, then taking their offers. Others can be run out of the market by taking them to their price limit. Many are more sophisticated, but they are all dumb compared to a live operator, and hence open to manipulation.It would be a shame if you gave up because of them Chilly. Personally I would put up my best offers knowing that any bot who undercut me would not make money long term.

I'll keep putting money up for exactly as long as I think I'm getting value. The thing with niche markets is you might only be willing to take £5-£10 on a price at a given time due to the huge uncertainty. If someone is min bet Qjumping you, that's a 20%-40% volume reduction. Obviously this is all small potatoes, but a lot of liquidity gets turned over in a very high number of niche, small markets where this stuff can drive a real seeder out of business. Of course I'm not asking for bans, that's childish and unrealistic. I'm just saying that there are other reasons than "OMG THE PREMIUM CHARGE" for terrible liquidity in certain markets.

the bot that drips 1.99 invisible bets into markets is really frustrating. you're trying to make a book, and the longer priced selections keep getting matched 1p at a time.

tommycockles   

Does the 107% figure include customers transferred from Blue SQ?
.........

Do we think the figure is even a +ve?  Taking out the Blue Square acquisition it could easily be negative.  How on Earth could anybody know?  Talk about misleading figures but if true that one takes the biscuit.