BF getting rid of minor markets on some football

What's this Liquidity Slider they're talking about in the email?

First time they've admitted there is liquidity problems though.

"We are always striving to maintain and concentrate liquidity in the Exchange"

Sounds good in principle but then in reality they offer 60 Turkish reserve matches at same time with zero liquidity.

If they really want to "concentrate liquidity" I'd go much further and remove entire leagues such as 3rd tier Spanish/German etc.

The sportsbook will cater for those addicts. I suspect that's what will happen next.

The liquidity slider is where Betfair try to slide all the potential exchange money away to other products.

Depressing/worrying. I wonder what the real logic behind this is?

1) A sign of defeat by Betfair - an admission that these markets will never see enough money in them, and Betfair cannot/will not market them enough to make it worthwhile.
2) An assumption that these markets are fuelled by mugs, and if the markets are removed, their money will end up in the other markets by default. (n.b. this is the only way that Betfair can honestly claim this will concentrate liquidity, as far as I can see.)
3) Betfair want to get the mug money for themselves through their sportsbook.

I'm guessing 3.

Many of those markets were no longer seeded after the banning of Betfair in most of continental Europe. Germany biting the dust last November was the biggest blow.

BF is barred from it`s two biggest markets (USA & China) and slowly being denied legal access in most of the rest of those that allow exchange betting...

Given that they are only able to operate in a handfull of places it`s realistic to cut down on fringe markets IMO.

cutting those markets out of ALL scottish premier matches?

some of those markets have ok liquidity, especially when celtic play

Some of the ridiculously obscure markets have more chance of Elvis riding tumbleweed appearing in them than any actual liquidity, surely they won't be missed??

basically they look like a lot of markets which it's more trouble to check and settle individually than they're worth.

surprised at some of the non-televised PL ones they're axing though. for a start, presumably they mean non-UK televised. they're going to end up regularly not offering popular (exchange) markets on chelsea, liverpool, spurs etc games.

that's a depressing sign.

games in the Scottish Premier like Ross Co v Dundee Utd have been full of tumbleweed, sure

but Celtic matches, or games like Hearts v Hibs, I've seen no problems in some of the markets they are cutting

the often one-sided Celtic matches have had plenty of action in the high-goal markets like O/U 7/8, CS2 etc

They're not cutting THEM are they? It's the stuff like the Swedish Division 2 Junior Women reserves they should be cutting!

It is surely quaint that some care so much about Scotish football markets..almost certainly this is because they are turning a profit on those markets.
Nothing wrong with that at all - just don`t think BF owes you a living.
I have now moved to my third country in order to to legally bet on this site and even here (Croatia) it`s a grey area and could be banned anyday.

If you can make it pay and live at home be happy, really feckin happy . most of us are denied that.

Gins list says Clydesdale Bank Premier, O/U 7/8, CS2

havent seen the email myself but it seems very odd doesnt it. maybe they will make exceptions for individual 'big' matches or matches with high-scoring teams, who knows

As above, "liquidity slider", explanation anyone?

RAPS - I personally couldnt care less about Scottish football or Betfair owing anyone a living

I just find it odd that they are cutting markets where there is still decent liquidity in certain matches from what I've seen... since they claim they are trying to 'maintain liquidity'

Scottish premier has far better liqudity than a lot of the bizarre rubbish they've stuck up last couple of years.

For example how much will be bet in the Turkish League 2 Reserves they have in play tommorow, or the Hungarian U19 Juniors also in play, FFS!!!!

Is this a wind up?

I've asked them not to scrap some of these markets.

well those markets are definitely missing from the smaller games in Scotland this weekend, BUT the celtic match still has them

so maybe they are just being more targeted rather than scrapping them from all games, which would make more sense

being more targeted makes more sense i mean

OH you mean they're not dropping the scottish premier completely, just e.g. o/u 7.5 etc from them?
That's quite fair actually, I misunderstood.

As above, "liquidity slider", explanation anyone?

..........

Goto to purple to see it. Basically you can select your min bet and only odds with a min of that amount come up. A 100.1% book quickly becomes 120%+ once you ask for a £50 min bet.

I hope they do it to take out because figures for 1.01 and 100.0 and massively different.

I'm not a big football gambler, so I don't know the markets well. But wouldn't it be easy enough for Betfair to leave these markets up, just not in-play? There'd be no extra effort in managing these markets, and settlement should be fairly automatic, I'd assume.

I always thought that it was in Betfair's advantage to have lots of separate markets up, as if the money were channelled into fewer markets, there'd be more trading and less overall commission.

Thanks for the explanation, frog2. I'd hope they'd set it up to be based on take out too, but I can't imagine that would sit well with Betfair's trend of dumbing down.

I'd love to see the liquidity slider applied to their sportsbook & its max bets

A "Liquidity Slider" sounds like something that could easily be cleared up with Imodium

A step in the right direction as far as im concerned. If i was in charge I'd get rid of all of the trash markets and just keep Match Odds/ Overs/ Total Goals and CS and only on the main leagues. Thats about it.

Concentrate all the money in 1 place.

Anyone who wants to bet on Turkish Reserves Northern Section Youth League would be reported to gamcare and have their account seized.

Fortunately Im not in charge.

The reason they're doing it is to get punters to use the Sportsbook for their mug side bets so BF make more money than they otherwise would do from just charging commission.

Here's a question for ya....how come I haven't received this email? Surely every customer who is able to use the exchange should be receiving the email...I didn't so what gives?

There are a few markets on there that I don't want to see go.  Is anybody making representations to keep some of these and if so who are you talking to please as I would like to add my voice.

They don't think much of Scottish football!!  Kick in the teeth for the Sassenachs.

Did someone from Betfair confuse April and May 1st?

Doesn't look thought out at all. Why would you cull Dutch Jupiler league high goal markets when they see a lot of action? That will only reduce liquidity in the other Jupiler markets. Perhaps that's the plan?

Speaking of which they still haven't removed Dundee Utd from the Scottish Cup winners' market, and they got knocked out 2/3 weeks ago.  Clearly they don't like Scotland.

Severe twitching on my "bollocks meter". ;) :)

To be fair the vast majority of those markets are a complete waste of time unless it's a big game on tv

yeah ,cull long overdue imo 

the turkish reserve matches are by the by - its where there are too many markets on a big game that brings the  levels down on the main markets

Thought it was kind of funny when I got this email from the Premium Account manager- I've barely had a bet here since the PC2 was introduced, yet they keep me informed they are shutting markets due to lack of liquidity.  Put 2 and 2 together, guys.

May 2, 2013 -- 5:53AM, Total Bosman wrote:

Thought it was kind of funny when I got this email from the Premium Account manager- I've barely had a bet here since the PC2 was introduced, yet they keep me informed they are shutting markets due to lack of liquidity.

Am I going to type that out again?

I didn't get an email despite betting on some of these markets and having an a/c manager. 

There are way too many markets in many matches, but some of the stuff they're removing seems strange as there are others with less liquidity.

Some of the markets removed in the table that's now appeared on the football forum aren't THAT minor?

Half time score
Draw No Bet
Penalty taken

aren't THAT obscure, especially first 2. That's just at a glance, ymmv and see more.

Chelsea v Basel matched amount

Bookings Match Bet  £99
Corners Match Bet £921
Corners Over/Under 13.5 £1,112
Corners Over/Under 5.5 £4,213
First Corner** £228
First Half Corners  £29
Goals to be scored in both halves £443
Half With Most Goals £184
Hat-Trick Scored? £1603
Last Goalscorer £790
Last Team To Score £nil
Penalty Taken? £1,652
Qualifying Method/Method of Victory* £2,666
To Qualify* £643,980
To Score 2 Goals or More £1,638
To Score a hat-trick £228

There's certainly one odd one in there!

well, yeah, but which PL matches is "to qualify" actually relevant to?

Method of victory number low because the score would have to be 1-2.

In one off games you can get over 100K matched before KO.

Yeah just checking, Half Time Score and Half Time / Full Time should be part of the core markets for in play matches I think.

If those very markets are available on the "sportsbook" for the same matches then I think we know where we stand and what the "future" is....

There is a way to seed these markets easily and cheaply for Betfair if they wanted them to be seeded.  They just haven't worked it out.

They don't want them to be seeded though.

I've now come to the conclusion that they're happy to let the exchange slowly die.

This new measure is simply Betfair amputating the site's extremities.

They've been poisoning it from the top down for years and it won't be long before the signs of infection become even more apparent in the vital organs of the site. Liquidity's drying up and that's the lifeblood of this place - we can only hope it's not terminal.

As an aside: two observations for the people that run this place.

You know bookmakers, Betfair? Those people who offer a service to people who want to have a bet? Well you do realise that they make money yes? Year in year out; it's kind of a given. Well, professional traders on here - they're bookmakers too. Without them you have no-one providing a service. You might want to take that into consideration the next time you come up with a brand new way to push them away from the site.

And the second thing about high-street bookmakers - you could have put them all out of business, Betfair, you could have sent them all to their grave if only you'd had a half decent marketing strategy. The exchange concept was a juggernaut that should've changed the face of betting completely, but you fell asleep at the wheel.

It's not quite too late yet, but you must change direction. Being a two-bit online bookie married to a brand that people are confused about is not the way forward. Being just another bookmaker means taking a small slice of a shrinking pie. Sort it out Betfair!

Looking at tomorrow's EPL matches and the removal of the markets is ridiculous!  There's still a plethora of markets and they've removed some which have decent liquidity, even for a 3pm non-televised match.  I really don't get the thinking of saying you're reducing the number of markets to help liquidity but still have 66 markets for Norwich v Aston Villa...

I have noticed recently that a certain seeder seems to have disappeared.  I don't know who they are but I'm pretty sure there were a bunch of markets that were once seeded a few days before a match but no longer are.  Not sure if this is related to that.

if the betfair exchange model does die, would sadblokes be so keen to develop the purple exchange or wind that down too and convert it to a traditional bookie? after all isnt that what the main bookies want, the death of the exchanges?

maybe they could have a fake funeral.

May 3, 2013 -- 3:34AM, Templeton Peck wrote:

I have noticed recently that a certain seeder seems to have disappeared.

Templeton Peck • May 3, 2013 9:34 AM BST
I have noticed recently that a certain seeder seems to have disappeared.  I don't know who they are but I'm pretty sure there were a bunch of markets that were once seeded a few days before a match but no longer are.  Not sure if this is related to that.

There's some fringe markets that I play in, which have had less money in, sometimes none at all.

People that think the exchange is being wound down ought to have a look at betfair's financial statements.

btw, don't know if it's relevant, but Last Goal Scorer last night (chelsea game) was missing Any Other Player, a couple of outfield subs and No Goalscorer. Sloppy at best.

There's been quite a lot of sloppiness recently in terms of markets being loaded.  Some are missing lines, others aren't loaded, lots of start times have been wrong and so markets suspended hours before they should be. 

I'm emailing them a few times every week asking them to fix stuff.  I rarely had to before this year.

They introduced a lot of new markets for football a while back but most haven't taken off.  To fix this they're removing some of the staples that have been here for years!

I'm pretty much immune to this sort of stuff now. I've become used to Betfair being rather shambolic.

so looking at tomorrow's football, if someone wants to bet on there being a hattrick in the city or spurs games, they can't. but if they want to bet on BTTS or over 8.5 goals in the astra giurgiu game they can.

no prizes for guessing the total matched on those two markets, btw.

Have they actually deleted these markets or just put them on the new ("improved") web site only so nobody will see them?

they said they were deleting them, and I can't see them so I guess that's that.

presumably they'll be catering for those few bizarre people who'd rather bet on a bale hattrick in a PL game than on danish 2nd division football on the sportsbook; meanwhile exchange versions remain on the quack. it'll be interesting to see if they pick up.

I think this may be a blessing in disguise as I might give Saturday 3pm football a miss from now on and so I can live a slightly more normal life.

I'm involved in some of the markets removed, there was little liquidity but enough to keep me involved.  With them gone, I'm now only bothering with 3 or so mkts in each match now and it probably isn't worth my while.

If they'd removed the real dross, and the semi-dross from the smaller EPL matches, their plan might have had some effect on liquidity - not that I think this is their reason for removing markets.

I fail to see the need for having both 'Bookings Odds' and 'Bookings Points' in WBA v Wigan...

No Hattrick markets and no Last Goalscorers in prem games.

Shocking decision.

******* ***** got rid of first corner in the west ham game.

50 minutes to go before WBA v Wigan kicks off.  Card Over/Under: £0 matched and a 193.3% book; Total Booking Points: £0 matched and a 294.1% book; Bookings Odds: £0 matched and a 121.5% book; Bookings Index: I wish Betfair would drop these spread markets and it looks like nothing matched.

I believe Spurs v Southampton is televised in some places and the same four markets have a total of £25 matched. 

It beggars belief they'd dropped independent markets with ok liquidity and kept all this duplicated dross.

I'm wondering if they've identified markets where a small group of people make 'excess' profits and so decided to remove them.  It certainly has fcuk all to do with liquidity.

And video streams offer for saturday is just amazing: 2 italian, 2 German,1st(!)Israelian, Swedish, Turkish. A M A Z I N G!

Some believe they've removed markets which make them little on here through commission but could do well for them on the sportsbook.  I think there's something to that.  Ties in with my post about people making 'excess' profits.

Has anyone checked if the removed markets are available on this sportsbook?

(I've not looked at it, refuse to )

I had a quick look and many (if not all) were but at dire prices.  Not that they accept bets from me.

Templeton - Saturday afternoon football has really gone downhill in the last year or so

I have almost given up that slot myself

Yes, it has.  I think we're in the middle of a snowball effect with falling liquidity causing remaining participants to leave and the resulting fall in liquidity causing more to leave.

This week has been the most concerning to me since they introduced PC2.  Not so much the markets they've removed, but the fact they've gone further than just directing people to the sportsbook, they're actually beginning to give people no choice.

Is the writing slowly appearing on the wall...?

The new Chief Executive Officer must hate exchange(exchange customers) The exchange have earned so many money for them and causing problems now(sometimes big problems:regulations, turnover tax). They hate us! They dont need us. But we have nowhere to go. Not yet.

In the over/unders, the Saturday afternoon football has only been really poor since April, fine before then.

I'm no expert but isn't £18,890 on over/under 2.5 rather low 3 hours before a Merseyside derby?

Yes, that is VERY low.

The derby earlier in the season (28/10/12), also 1.30pm on a Sunday and on Sky Sports, had £60k matched at 10am, and £118k matched by now (12.25pm), compared to £52k here.

KO total was £400k, so we'll see how that compares.

If you go to the main betfair site and click on the big advert football link, its the sportsbook not the exchange you get taken to.

The "casual" punter coming to the website (to get free bet offers payed for by PC payers to attract new customers..) are now going nowhere near the exchange.

Um, the markets are back for the non-televised EPL matches.  An oversight or has the trial ended already?

Unlikely, but maybe they've listens to their customers.

we can hope SH.

we give them plenty of grief for the stuff they get wrong (which let's face it has been a depressing amount of stuff for the last couple of years), so if they have put back the relevant EPL exchange markets I guess we should give them some credit.

Removing some markets from the non-televised EPL matches was actually a good idea, it's just that they just took some ok ones and left some real dross.

exactly TP. loads of dross in minor leagues they could kill off imo.