General Betting
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14 Jun 13
22:13
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Date Joined:
26 Aug 07
Interesting reading from www.puntersverdict:
Is Betfair trying to silence its own customers?
Once upon a time Betfair gave its forum users free blogs – so keen were they to encourage comment, debate and the onsite participation of their exchange users.
Then they changed tack. In August 2012 Betfair ‘temporarily’ stopped new customers joining the site’s forum. But there’s been no sign since of that ‘temporary’ suspension being lifted.
Long-standing forum users are starting to compare Betfair to Communist Russia. They say expressions of dissent and dissatisfaction are being stifled by Betfair. And there’s much to be dissatisfied about…
Betfair insisted on introducing a new exchange site that nobody wanted and that nobody particularly likes…
Customers are confused by another new development which means Betfair’s traditional exchange service now shares a platform with Betfair’s new Fixed Odds betting service (now the default landing page to the Betfair domain)…
Technical problems have become far too common – with the site regularly dropping at key times… 3pm on Saturdays, just before the off in the Grand National, for example…
Poor Customer service has become the norm… if you send an email and get a response within a fortnight then you are doing well these days…
Liquidity is slowly diminishing on key markets (whilst on **** – Betfair’s key competitor – key market liquidity is gradually growing)…
Sports punters are tired of Betfair’s relentless drive to grow its gaming revenue – to the point where instant games ‘cartoons’ take priority over proper display of the bet slip…
Ten years ago Betfair appeared to have struck a fatal blow to the traditional bookies. A decade on and Betfair appear to have been hitting themselves over the head with a blunt instrument – so clearly have they lost their way. Talk to their staff on the phone and you can almost taste the in-house rot. I am told that morale amongst Betfair’s Head Office troops has hit an all-time low.
Betfair customers are not happy either. On the forum you will struggle to find any punters – and many like me have been with Betfair for a decade and more – with a good word to say about the company. The people who run Betfair are regularly slated – generally with good reason.
Is that why access to the forum is not available to new Betfair customers? Is Betfair trying to hide the dirty truth from fresh-faced and wide-eyed new recruits?
Are gnarled veterans like me now something to be locked away in the cellar like the sub-normal cousins of Victorian times?
Have the forum users – the customers whose betting activity built Betfair – now become an embarrassment? Are the punters who originally embraced exchange betting and helped bring it to life now something to be silenced – lest we say something embarrassing (truthful) that affects the Betfair share price?
Is onsite debate being phased out? Is the forum being starved of new blood and new voices so that it might simply die quietly and unseen in a dark corner as its ever-diminishing band of users lose interest, drift off or find themselves banned from the forum for transgressing the arbitrary rules that Betfair bigwigs are increasingly enforcing?
It’s certainly looking that way…
Betfair, Betfair, Betfair…. What happened to you? You were once so great. We loved you. Now you’re little better than the rats we hoped you would put out of business. A story which promised to be so wonderful has turned out be a dreadful disappointment.
I’ll be back with the Verdict next week.
Is Betfair trying to silence its own customers?
Once upon a time Betfair gave its forum users free blogs – so keen were they to encourage comment, debate and the onsite participation of their exchange users.
Then they changed tack. In August 2012 Betfair ‘temporarily’ stopped new customers joining the site’s forum. But there’s been no sign since of that ‘temporary’ suspension being lifted.
Long-standing forum users are starting to compare Betfair to Communist Russia. They say expressions of dissent and dissatisfaction are being stifled by Betfair. And there’s much to be dissatisfied about…
Betfair insisted on introducing a new exchange site that nobody wanted and that nobody particularly likes…
Customers are confused by another new development which means Betfair’s traditional exchange service now shares a platform with Betfair’s new Fixed Odds betting service (now the default landing page to the Betfair domain)…
Technical problems have become far too common – with the site regularly dropping at key times… 3pm on Saturdays, just before the off in the Grand National, for example…
Poor Customer service has become the norm… if you send an email and get a response within a fortnight then you are doing well these days…
Liquidity is slowly diminishing on key markets (whilst on **** – Betfair’s key competitor – key market liquidity is gradually growing)…
Sports punters are tired of Betfair’s relentless drive to grow its gaming revenue – to the point where instant games ‘cartoons’ take priority over proper display of the bet slip…
Ten years ago Betfair appeared to have struck a fatal blow to the traditional bookies. A decade on and Betfair appear to have been hitting themselves over the head with a blunt instrument – so clearly have they lost their way. Talk to their staff on the phone and you can almost taste the in-house rot. I am told that morale amongst Betfair’s Head Office troops has hit an all-time low.
Betfair customers are not happy either. On the forum you will struggle to find any punters – and many like me have been with Betfair for a decade and more – with a good word to say about the company. The people who run Betfair are regularly slated – generally with good reason.
Is that why access to the forum is not available to new Betfair customers? Is Betfair trying to hide the dirty truth from fresh-faced and wide-eyed new recruits?
Are gnarled veterans like me now something to be locked away in the cellar like the sub-normal cousins of Victorian times?
Have the forum users – the customers whose betting activity built Betfair – now become an embarrassment? Are the punters who originally embraced exchange betting and helped bring it to life now something to be silenced – lest we say something embarrassing (truthful) that affects the Betfair share price?
Is onsite debate being phased out? Is the forum being starved of new blood and new voices so that it might simply die quietly and unseen in a dark corner as its ever-diminishing band of users lose interest, drift off or find themselves banned from the forum for transgressing the arbitrary rules that Betfair bigwigs are increasingly enforcing?
It’s certainly looking that way…
Betfair, Betfair, Betfair…. What happened to you? You were once so great. We loved you. Now you’re little better than the rats we hoped you would put out of business. A story which promised to be so wonderful has turned out be a dreadful disappointment.
I’ll be back with the Verdict next week.
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Replies: 22
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couldn't sum it up much better myself....betfair is no longer a betting exchange with punters interests at heart..it's trying to very clearly become a jack of all trades would be sport book yet failing on all counts miserably
turn the lights off.... |
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They are actually worse than the rats they set out to take on.
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to be finished no other way for a plc that has to be licensed can go, the defamatory posts its only a matter of time before a twitter esk court case would not be good news
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The management at Betfair will all but ruin the company, they're clueless with no vision and can't see further than the next quarterly profits.
Betfair used to be a company that had a fanatical loyal customer base but now their customers hate them. From the Premium Charge to putting the exchange on a back seat by offering their own sportsbook to virtual games. They want to use the exchange which is their only original and innovative idea to promote the usual rubbish that every other bookmaker does so they can become just like everyone of their competitors. The exchange idea has been created and is here to stay. It might take 50 years but with the internet making the world a very small place at some point there will be a huge exchange that anyone who wants a bet goes through. It's highly unlikely that the company will be Betfair. History is littered with companies that had a great original idea but lacked vision. It's like Microsoft taking the original idea off someone else but with some vision and creativity taking all the spoils for themselves. |
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Ridiculous post.
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1.01 landed again
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It says a lot they used to regularly ban people for dissent, whereas now posts like GandalfTheGrey's and Get on MASSIVE's are just up there for good now.
Betfair wants to be like Bet365 or Paddy Power - much higher profits, just watching the cash roll in. There are two models in bookmaking - hire traders, then set prices and restrict winners, or save the expense of hiring traders, let customers bet against themselves, and the cost of hiring traders becomes the cost of winners taking money out of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, the winners are probably now too sophisticated, and Betfair are making the decision it would be preferable to hire a team of traders and restrict people instead. |
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agree with that..how long did it take them to ban feck n eejit? he slagged them off on a daily basis..not exactly sure what the straw was that broke the camels back though
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Feck?
Wasn't he the one who was the ultimate class warrior? The one with a chip on his shoulder so large that his kidney's were partly on display? |
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not sure, you could be right, i just remember his constant anti betfair tirades
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If its the same guy I remember, he seemed to be anti everything!
He especially despised (I don't think that word is strong enough though) traders on the exchange. He kept suggesting that BF withheld the liquidity from screens, in other words, a "black box" type of exchange, at least for certain markets anyway. |
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no loss, imo. his pea-brained rants against traders were so unutterably boring.
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and his idea that the way forward was to hide prices from punters was the product of an addled mind.
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was Feck a drunken scot?
I seem to remember he was pretty clued up on API's etc... and all things betting |
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feck n eejit is an irish saying so i presume he was irish
he was also an alright fella imo |
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i liked feck.
if you get past the initial impression of a militant loon, he frequently made a lot of sense. and whilst he was scattergun in his hatred of what he thought constituted "trading" he made a lot of very valid points i. traders are not the primary source of liquidity. ii. the commission structure is hugely in favour of traders, despite their not being the primary source of liquidity. iii. the in play delay in many cases favours those with the quickest information rather than helping those behind a delay. no delay might be fairer. |
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I endorse the last post.
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What dumfounds me is that internal innovation was quarterly for five years. And I still feel that the exchasnge is still not completed to its fullest, a platform that could earn more accolades is srill achievable.
A company is aloud to change and customers will come and go. But the pie in this sector is shrinking and the competition for each pound/bet is fierce. Offers require a slide rule now, most unachievable. Customer loyalty should be the priority of any company right now. Serious traders use api so any changes to the platform mean nothing to liquidity. If betfair have no interest in their trading platform, then fund the api teams like gruss, etc, to take the technology further. Meanwhile, there is a world beyond betfair and the forums are out there with excellent banter. |
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Dstyle, iii. would be a death blow for football liquidity where people are already adequately protected. Although it could work with a complete overhaul of the system, where bets are voided when goals are scored quickly after bet placement (as Asian bookies do). I think the current system works ok though, so no need for that.
Might work for other sports though. |
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agreed Investor. sports where there are lots of small outcome influencing events occurring in a short space of time might work better with no delay (tennis, darts, snooker)
my post was actually more a general defense of Feck who made some pretty leftfield suggestions which he was pilloried for, but there was often some very solid thinking behind them. |
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one benefit of binning the forum will be that canutes like that wanchor^ above wont be able to publicise the total bollox they come up with. good roddance. and feck n eejit was precisely that. no irony involved
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For what its worth, I never had a problem with Feck's intelligence, it was the wave after wave of dogma spouting from his posts that was so exasperating and wearying.
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