HOW MUCH WORSE CAN IT GET

And yet the share price is at a two year high. The mind boggles.

They are obviously banking on the sports book making a shed load of money whilst they run the exchange into the ground.

You must be seeing different markets to me Coner - seems fine to me. All this doom and gloom is a bit far-fetched. The only thing that seems ridiculous t me is their promotion of the Sportsbook over the Exchange.

Whats up and what is down? Certainly the market dynamics are changing.

Yep, the market dynamics are completely different and have changed significantly over the last year or so.

There seems to be a lot less money matched when there's days to go before an event.  Many markets aren't even seeded until the actual day. 

An example of what's up is cricket match odds. Was funny to see they almost halved in the days after the IPL players being arrested in May!  A sign the money's from India?

What's down?  Too many to mention.  And predominantly side markets which I don't mention on here as I don't want to direct others to them.  You used to see a lot of small bets but now it's a few lumpy players.

bilbobaggins is obviously deluded

Agree. Almost overnight as well - from about March I'd say.
I've had so much time off this year.
The choice between playing leapfrog with a bot all day or the golf course is a no brainer.

The Sportsbook has certainly had a huge effect on the £2 punters. Having the exchange accessible through a tiny link pretty much prevents any new customers and many recreational punters from using the exchange. 

Only 'sharks' are left and it becomes that much tougher to make money. Slowly but surely, the smaller sharks leave as they require plankton to live off, then the bigger sharks have nobody to make money from.

And this is coming from someone who had their most profitable week ever last week.  I'm not suffering at the moment (a change in tactics and improvement in ability) but the changes in market conditions are clear to see.

Yep, there are plenty of issues, including the ones you mention, but the Sportsbook is one they can control.  I think it's a very confusing message to general public with there being two versions of Betfair.  If you're not a regular user, you might not have any idea what's going on.

sure the price is manipulated: on a daily basis by everyone that trades the shares

also you should not be a trader !

Ditto to what I'm reading above. I'm noticing a lack of liqudity. Even premier games. The money comes in lumps, not a flow of punters.
And the lack of liquidity means it's easier for market manipulators to stick their dirty oar in. Basically you sit there, pretty much nothing happens, then a big lump comes in. Repeat. That's the new betfair. I can't believe it's because people are now suddenly betting less it's because they are killing their unique selling point, the exchange, by sticking big diversion signs to all new customers to their sportsbook. And for something that IS like an ecosytem, the exchange, it can be a death sprial.

I don't play golf but maybe I should take it up...

Try it yourself. In a browser with no betfair cookies, go to betfair.com.
Offer -> to sportsbook.
Click on sports, football. Matches listed. Bets -> sportsbook.
In fact this is even worse than I remember. I can';t even SEE where the ****ing exchange is, the used to have a bit at the bottom of the main page, "go to exchange" it's now gone!!!!
I'm not joking, I've spent more of my life than I care to think about on betfair, and in a new browser that's not got my cookies for the exchange I cant' find the ****ing exchange on the betfair website anymore.
Unbelievable.

French ligue 1. Used to be one of my favourite markets. ko 6pm (in 40 minutes). Looking at 0-0, the most common bet in CS surely:
Lorient - 3 pts on graph.
Reims - NOTHING matched. Null points. Not a red white and blue euro cent.
Rennes - 2 points, a whopping £55.
Bastia - some liqudity at least. A bit. Sort of what Conference might've had 3 years ago.
Sochaux - 4 points on graph.

Here's an anecdote. A couple months ago a guy on the football forum was asking for help. His join date was reasonably old.
He was someone who used to use betfair, had a break, and had come back.
Queue scratching our heads as we couldn't tell him what to do to help as what he was telling us didn't make sense. I can't remember what query was, something to do with laying or something as ...
After a while we worked it out : he, someone who was an old betfair user, had come back and was now on the ****ing sportsbook and didn't even know that was what had happened, wanted the exchange to do exchange things, and had to go on a forum to eventually work out why he couldn't as he was now effectively on a rebranded billy hills.

Face it the exchange is dying and it's plainly BFs intention. Anyone who is thinking of jacking in a job to go "full time" here needs their head checked.

Precisely TP. Except I'm beginning to think any money I might make (if I can stop being an undisciplined idiot ) again won't be worth it anyway now as it's using my time which has a value, to try and make it, and it just looks all downhill, and BFs decisions are the cause of it.

They should just close most of it down and leave main match markets to bet on. It's all about the sportsbook as it's more profitable for them.

Does the BF sportsbook restrict accounts? Will the only people on the exchange be bots, the diehard, and people with restricted accounts?

I was restricted to pennies the moment it opened.  They know who knows what they're doing and who doesn't so can limit the smart players immediately.  Quite an advantage for them.

In the over/unders markets I've noticed the big matches like EPL televised are fine.
The Spanish matches not involving RM or Barca have really taken a massive hit.

Less than £100k matched on Valladolid v Getafe Over/Under 2.5 at half time. Not really worth my time trading this.

With the switch to focus on the sportsbook they are either:

a) Trying to sell their customers something they do not want.  Indeed, something they are actively here to AVOID.
b) Trying to entice new customers with something vastly inferior to what is already available.

Regardless of whether the strategy is a, b or both, it's laughable.  A sportsbook directly in conjunction with the exchange might work, but by the time that happens properly the exchange might be dead.

Just Checking 31 Aug 13 20:58 Joined: 25 Jun 06 | Topic/replies: 12,804 | Blogger: Just Checking's blog
Liquidity disappearing is the death of trading as you risk being matched one side and unable to be matched other side (or only at very bad red odds).
So traders also leave the market.

It's a death spiral.

I said exactly the same thing to someone on skype earlier!