Bots all over the place

Oct 11, 2013 -- 1:23AM, viva el presidente! wrote:

the problem with some (not all) bots JC is they cripple the process of market formation. superficially, yes - if a bot's putting up money one tick higher the recreational punter's getting a better price. but if it's also deterring other market makers from getting involved it's actually worsening prices.prime example, the front-running 1.99 parasite. there are markets I've given up bothering making because on the longer shots the first 99.5% of nearly every bet's being stolen by someone who's hiding their offer. if BF had any sense they'd have shut this pr!ck down years ago.on the other hand for something like DNB in play, joe punter can bet to sub 101% at more or less any point to reasonable size purely because of bots, and it's perverse to argue that that's damaging to the exchange imo.

So you have given up your 2 pound bets because of somebody using .01 less than you and he is a parasite for offering so little?  The markets will never recover from losing your market making capabilities.  A petition needs to be started to get you back involved before BF crumbles to a heap that it can never recover from.

BJT shouting his angry little mouth of about something he doesn't understand. has this ever happened before?

where did I say I was trying to lay 2 quid?

Where you said the 1.99 layer was taking 99.5% of your business.  rotflmfao

when you've picked yourself up and reattached your errant ass, here's a hint.

the first 99.5% of nearly every bet's being stolen[...]

this really isn't hard if you read what people say and think about it. if you don't want to do that, fine, but then it's probably best not to get involved as you run the risk of making a tw@t of yourself.

as per the cricket forum, which is what this dismal intervention's actually about.

Of nearly every bet on a market where there are no bets happening.  That is the point of this thread, that the markets are dead.
Cricket forum has nothing to with this thread from what I can tell.  Haven't seen cricket mentioned anywhere until your post.

that's it, keep digging.

bjt stop being a dipsh1t.

Great points you both make.  BF likely to look straight into it.  Well done.

some bots are detrimental to a betting exchange. it's as clear as daylight to see.

what point is there left to make? you came on trying to take the p!ss out of someone you don't like, failed to understand a fairly simple point and made a t!t of yourself. your signature move.

Some bots are detrimental to greedy fcuks that have had it easy for too long.

Would it make a difference if it was a bot or simply somebody sitting there moving there bets around.  Sounds like that is all it would take to drive the competition off.  2 pounds.

Oct 11, 2013 -- 8:03PM, viva el presidente! wrote:

what point is there left to make? you came on trying to take the p!ss out of someone you don't like, failed to understand a fairly simple point and made a t!t of yourself. your signature move.

Who don't I like?  I responded to a post you made, so are you referring to yourself?  I have no idea who you even are, so not sure of your point.

the general betting forum used to be full of smart people and intelligent discussion. there's only mugs left on the forum and on the exchange due to most the smart people leaving because of the pc. betfair is a place for losers and idiots now. i'm out of here.

really? forgotten the ashes and your marathon seethefest already? if you were any more transparent you'd be a greenhouse.

What difference would you make to the ashes?  Why would you feel important enough to invoke any emotions from me?

You made a post or something and now I hate you in your mind?  Just like the 2 pound bot has put you out of business.
Small world you live in.  Time to think a little bigger.

The focus on the 1.99 bot is that it's a bot. It should be that it's minimum bet abuse. The prevalence of invisible bets makes markets inefficient and gives the invisible bettor an unfair advantage, especially if the 1.99 bet is replenished every time it gets taken.  Sometimes when you look at the graph there are dozens of them all lined up 1 tick apart.
It's not unreasonable to expect, or hope for a level playing field but it looks like BF have given up on the exchange and are just letting it die a natural death now that they have their sportsbook.

bjt,the problem with bots is not a question of fairness it is a question of what is good for the exchange.  for manual operators some markets are not worth to compete with a bot. this leads to a downward spiral of liquidity as the bots cut margin without competition and a chance to trade positions.

Oct 12, 2013 -- 4:08AM, 1.01 Layer wrote:

The focus on the 1.99 bot is that it's a bot. It should be that it's minimum bet abuse. The prevalence of invisible bets makes markets inefficient and gives the invisible bettor an unfair advantage, especially if the 1.99 bet is replenished every time it gets taken.  Sometimes when you look at the graph there are dozens of them all lined up 1 tick apart.It's not unreasonable to expect, or hope for a level playing field but it looks like BF have given up on the exchange and are just letting it die a natural death now that they have their sportsbook.

See this is where it all falls down.

Invisible bots, bots, all a problem.

It is a problem if you put a bet on and a "bot" immediately jumps in front of you.  It is also a problem if you put a bet on and a "bot" immediately jumps in front of you with a bet that you can't see, even though you probably put your bet on at a ridiculous margin the bot was already in front of.

Obviously the people complaining are the ones that are pissed off that somebody else is getting matched for 2 pounds and it ruins their day.  Sit behind the 2 pounds with big bets, and if somebody wants a decent go, they will take the 2 pounds and straight into your bet before the bot has even fired up with its next 2 pound bet.

If you are scared off by a 2 pound bot, then you have no business calling them out for restricting you from seeding the markets, because really you are not seeding the markets with any more money than they already are, at a % that represents better value for the punter anyway.

And who says it is minimum bet abuse?  It is quite plausable that the bettor is using a different currency.  At certain monetary levels I am always out by a cent.  Maybe it is exchange rates and this guy is sitting there all day doing zero wrong.  Either way, all this rubbish complaining about a 2 pound bettor is just sad and ridiculous.

BJT, you seem to have missed my point that the whether the 1.99 guy is a bot or not is a secondary consideration to the minimum bet abuse. In the main, I don't mind bots.

I accept your point about currencies, it is plausible.  I am definitely not complaining about £2 punters, so don't try and suggest that I am.  As regards being "scared off", who says that I am? You seem to be making several assumptions about me and my betting. Perhaps you could try reading people's posts before you switch into rant mode.

One bot that does annoy me is when you go to a completely dead market, put up a bet and the bot enters in front of you. You do the 2-step with him for a minute and give up. Then you cancel and so does the bot. End result - zero matched and market empty again.

I seed virtually every sports market (bar football and tennis) on Betfair for a few hundred quid. The majority of the time, especially in empty markets, £2 beats my prices. Am I bothered? Not in the slightest. I know the price I want to lay at and that's the price I put in. If someone wants a decent bet then they'll take the £2 and then hit my money. I turn over hundreds of K a week in matched bets so the £2s really aren't affecting my turnover too much. I'd be more bothered by a BOT putting a few K in front of my prices because that would affect my turnover greatly.

Exactly.

I think Betfair should provide a facility to allow a customer to tag his bet to keep it at the front of the queue, be that on the bet side or the lay side, with the proviso of allowing the customer to place his minimum or maximum criteria. I know they tried this a few years ago, but it was a bit half hearted and never really worked, with the 'crack team' of programmers they have now I am sure they could add this type of betting to the Exchange. It would certainly drive the markets to lower percentages pretty quickly having bets Gazumping each other every few seconds or so.

So to counter the pesky bots, people want to run BF approved and programmed bots.


ok.

To the ones complaining about leap frogging bots, if they think that strategy is profitable why not get a similar sort of bot for themselves or encourage Betfair to provide a facility to allow their prices to leap frog . To the people with leap frogging bots what's wrong with allowing lots of other customers to have the same facility, or do they think it might mess up there strategy.

indeed. seems that many of the complainers are assuming that the liquidity they provide is somehow superior or more important to the exchange than the liquidity provided by bots, and then deriving their conclusions from that rather fanciful assumption

betfair clearly disagree, as they are happily rolling out a new API as we speak

"I think Betfair should provide a facility to allow a customer to tag his bet to keep it at the front of the queue"
And what happens when you have 2 or more BF bots set to go ahead of each other? Within 1 second the back/lay is 1 tick??

Re sub £2 bets you see that all the time if it's bet in euros, it's like £1.66 or whatever comes off instead of 2.
If someone has that 1 tick ahead of you and it gets matched, either the matchor (matchee?) was trying to also go 1 tick ahead of you (strange if that happens all the time) or they are trying to match your bet and you lose a (small) fraction of it?

Why shouldn't more people have the opportunity to have there bets at the front of the queue, or is it only the preserve of a privileged few. Why shouldn't there only be a a tick between prices, if you were making an error in your perceived value you would soon start loosing money and either give up or revise your strategy .

BJT, feel free to pick me up on things I didn't say in one post and then ignore my reply. At least you got to tell us what you think (again), which is the most important thing.

llademos, read this again and think about it .. "what happens when you have 2 or more BF bots set to go ahead of each other?" ..

Just checking I can read thank you, Yes you are right, if there are more than one they will leap over each other until(and I suggest you read my comments) they reach their maximum or minimum price criteria. Why shouldn't there be more than one Gazumping bot, I say again why should these leaping bots be the preserve of a privileged few. This smacks very much of an Animal farm atitutde, All Betfairians are equal but some are more equal than others

Not it smacks of common sense. I have no dog in this race, I have no such bot. It's simply this, as soon as 2 bots are set to  go +1 over the bet before, they'll instantly race to their maximum value (if one is set or allowed to be set). If BF give everyone this bot, this'll happen all-the-sodding-time.
So you might as well just put the bet on at the odds you want - which would be your limit, and be done.

... or just get a bot yourself from the many available, I'd imagine from what I've read on this thread programming the configurable bots out there to do what you say is simple. And nobody is stopping anyone. ANYONE. From setting that up this very afternoon. Right now, if you want it, go do it.

And if as someone else has said this b365 bot is seeding the market ... well that makes sense. If the market makers at 365 are going to the effort of pricing it up, then a bot can easily track that -  a margin here. It's just a specialist version of this : I'd be absolutely shocked if there werent' a load of bots out there arbing the prices of other markets out there anyway, just pulling in the data in an odds checker way and seeing if a profit can be made her.

herE.

And might I add if bots were banned (madness) what would happen? You'd just get sweat shops in asia of people manualy entering bets on 20c an hour?!

This is just the reality, all this whingeing is frankly a waste of time. And on that note I'm off to do something constructive

(PS by front of the queue did you mean current bet + 1, as this discussion is all about that, or on top of current front, which is putting you .. near the front of the queue. The latter wouldn't instantly race away.

With regard to banning the bots, that's not and never will be practical. I am no computer expert and if I am wrong in my description can some one please correct me. The reason the API was introduced a few years back was to stop people Scraping information, this was having a drain on the site, they thought by having an API they could at least control the flow of information. So if you ban bots, programmers would just go back to doing what they did before the API was introduced

Just checking, yes that's what I meant. On many markets at the moment you have one or more gazumping bot, these are often working to certain criteria , for example refresh speed, maximum/ minimum price range, and many others, you don't get the markets instantly moving to 100% but they do head that way over a period of time, with more people having the opportunity to play the gazumping game it would just mean you would get to 100% quicker, in the long term, people who were laissez faire about their criteria would just loose money over time and fall by the wayside

Ok,if that's what you mean that's fairer so that's not so bad ; But it would open up the manipulation of people moving a 2 pound bet into place in on "bad" odds to draw the bots to place on top of it, then scooping the lot.  In fact someone wanting to back could just pull a lay onto the odds they want by doing just that. Not hard to work out I'm afraid.

Llamedos - yes that was a reason for introducing the API - people can scrape the site anyway and hammer the webservers with heavy request loads. since the webservers are providing loads of graphical information which is irrelevant to the scrapers, this is very inefficient for both parties

the API gives them a way to do this which is both more convenient for programmers and more efficient for betfair, providing pure data rather than full web pages. since the data flow is separate and controlled, betfair can also charge higher fees for heavy API users, while keeping a free version which is strictly throttled for 'lite' users

and betfairs even newer API (the API-NG) is even more trimmed down and compact than the old API, for exactly the same reasons

(I didn't mean last sentence as an insult, just .. people will work it out very quickly).

Just Checking,That's only assuming that somebody has put criteria for say their lay bet to move out in price to an unlimited number. A simple example if you where laying a favourite which you felt was a 6/4 chance you wouldn't let your lay bet go out to 100/1 you would probably have the maximum set at say around 2.7

1.01 Layer 12 Oct 13 10:08 Joined: 23 Aug 03 | Topic/replies: 4,690 | Blogger: 1.01 Layer's blog
The focus on the 1.99 bot is that it's a bot. It should be that it's minimum bet abuse. The prevalence of invisible bets makes markets inefficient and gives the invisible bettor an unfair advantage, especially if the 1.99 bet is replenished every time it gets taken. 

--------

that's exactly the point, and also the point I was making in the first place which BJT totally failed to grasp in his usual shouty 14 year old just out of sarcasm class way.

why is the bet 1.99? to prevent people seeing it and beating its offer. it's set at the level it is to get business but also stifle the formation of an efficient market.

if it was 2 quid, it would still be annoying in the way that competition's always annoying, but I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Llamedos

..................... I say again why should these leaping bots be the preserve of a privileged few. This smacks very much of an Animal farm atitutde, All Betfairians are equal but some are more equal than others


Not too sure how you've come to this Animal Farm conclusion, it's not as if Betfair is giving anyone an advantage, they haven't paid or programmed the bots for people, you're perfectly entitled to commission or write your own you know? It's always going to be the situation that some people will be prepared to put that extra effort in or pay extra to get an advantage over the masses whether that's courtsiding or botting.

Ghetto, I have often seen written that to write a program similar to the type of bot being discussed was relatively  easy, if that was the case, why doesn't Betfairs 'crack team ' of computer programmers add this type of facility to their new site. At least everybody would have opportunity to have a go with a Gazumping bot, that would then make it fairer for everybody

Why on earth would Betfair want to introduce additional features that'd continually be polling the site for prices and impact on the site's stability just because people can't be bothered to use the dedicated API themselves. I've heard match tickets are relatively easy to obtain too , hopefully Betfair will get me some and hold my hand whilst I'm there so I don't get scared.

Re your earlier quote ''  it's not as if Betfair is giving anyone an advantage '' well I am afraid you are wrong, I have as an extra premium charge payer been offer(at least until the end of October)transaction free charges, I think you would consider that an advantage over other users.

Oct 12, 2013 -- 6:42AM, 1.01 Layer wrote:

BJT, feel free to pick me up on things I didn't say in one post and then ignore my reply. At least you got to tell us what you think (again), which is the most important thing.

?  The Man replied, and I couldn't have said it any better, so I replied "Exactly".  Replying specifically to you every time you post seems a little arrogant on your behalf.  By the sounds of it, you give up if anybody has a price better than 1.01.  You are probably the one that sets all trap 1.01 lays are you by the sounds of your name?

Oct 12, 2013 -- 8:17AM, viva el presidente! wrote:

1.01 Layer 12 Oct 13 10:08 Joined: 23 Aug 03 | Topic/replies: 4,690 | Blogger: 1.01 Layer's blogThe focus on the 1.99 bot is that it's a bot. It should be that it's minimum bet abuse. The prevalence of invisible bets makes markets inefficient and gives the invisible bettor an unfair advantage, especially if the 1.99 bet is replenished every time it gets taken.  --------that's exactly the point, and also the point I was making in the first place which BJT totally failed to grasp in his usual shouty 14 year old just out of sarcasm class way.why is the bet 1.99? to prevent people seeing it and beating its offer. it's set at the level it is to get business but also stifle the formation of an efficient market. if it was 2 quid, it would still be annoying in the way that competition's always annoying, but I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Nice attempts at insults?

A few questions for you.

What is the exchange rate from Euros to GBP?
My Google says 1 Euro equals 0.85 British Pound Sterling.

What is the minimum bet size for Euros?
My Google says 2 Euros is the minimum allowable bet.

What is the minimum bet size for GBP?
My Google says 2 GBP is the minimum allowable bet.

What is the minimum bet shown on Betfair?
My memory says 2 GBP is the smallest physically shown on their site, also backed up by your gripe of 1.99 GBP bets not showing up.

Given my Google, would it not be perfectly reasonable to assume that somebody placing a 2 Euro perfectly legitimate bet, that equated to 1.70GBP, would not show up on the BF system?

That isn't people abusing anything, that is BF having a system not consistant with its rules and expectations.

Not saying that is definitely what is happening, but given it is a perfectly reasonable explanation, that it is something you should be taking up with Betfair, and not people placing bets that aren't showing up on the BF system.

Unless your Google is different to mine?

The way I see it the exchange is now riddled with £2 bot operators and that can only be bad for BF.

For example, I often see markets that have 8 bots competing and offering £2 bets, ironically they are dumb bots that just gazump the latest bot's price, so are actually offering good value to the opposing punter and as such I will very often take the first 3 or 4 bots money.

But the point is, when the recreational punter wants to get 20 or 30 quid on, and being a recreational punter he doesn't know the correct price, all he sees is offers of 2 quid after 2 quid, so he will disappear to a bookie that will let him get his 30 quid on and the exchange misses out not only on that occasion, but also that that punter has probably gone for good.

I don't know what the answer is, but if I was running the exchange I would like to trial perhaps a minimum bot stake of £50 to clear out some of the more parasitical bots and offer recreational punters a stake worth having.

BJT, I don't understand where Googling comes into it sorry, but Viva is correct in that some punters like to place a myriad of £1.99 bets in order to get matched ahead of the visible amount, but not entice the visible amount to jump it. It's rife.

And I am correct in saying the minimum legitimate Euro staked bet will not show on the exchange due to BFs system, and through no fault of their own.

And for all the smarties out there.  How do you feel the exchange would even know a bot was running?  Excel triggered betting for instance, is just a bet triggered to bet through the betting program it is linked with, ie Gruss/Betangel.  There is nothing on the bet reference that says "this bet came from a triggered bet".

If they're allowed to stake less than £2 then yes it won't show, but the point is by looking at the graphs you can see sometimes dozens of £1.99 bets that aren't there by innocent euro stakers, they're there because that's the maximum sized stake that will remain hidden and not entice a punter or bot to jump it.

How do you know?

They are allowed to stake 2 Euro, which is about 1.7 GBP.  That gives them the scope of about 2-2.33 Euros that won't show on BF servers.
That is they system they work on, so why the fcuk not take advantage of it?

Are outright soccer matches affected by 2 pound bots?  If they are such a problem, then surely it is just a matter of time.
All these "recreational punters" out there, how many of them would want to bet on these unpopular markets?  They are unpopular because most of them are ridiculous and unneeded.  There is too many markets and some won't be popular. 
Recreational punters, would want to back their team to win, not score 1.6 times between the 22nd and 27th minute of games played between 20 and 21.5 degrees.

Good point about triggered betting, I actually wouldn't have a clue how to run a bot or detect who was doing it, so will leave the answer to someone else.

I've nothing against bots btw, as per my other thread they can be easily manipulated and the exchange is rife with them at the moment for easy pickings, but I just think the exchange on the whole would be more attractive to recreational and new punters without the £2 parasite bots being the first thing they see when trying to place a bet.

Yes, but as above, that is on the assumption that these recreational punters are avoiding the obvious markets that people like to bet on, and going for the specialist markets.  Specialist markets are called that for a reason.  Recreational punters rarely if at all, bet on specialist markets.

Admittedly, I very much dislike soccer, so am not going to pretend to know what all the terms mean.  So I will consider myself, if I were to bet on the game, to be a recreational punter.

Now the options I have:
Arsenal Clean Sheet?
I assume that means they aren't scored against?

Aresenal win to nil.
I assume that means they aren't scored against?

Correct score Arsenal every option to 0.
I assume that means they aren't scored against?

In fact, there are 77 different markets, for 1 game of soccer.

I call a big WTF.  Why are so many markets needed where a lot essentially do the same thing.

What recreational punter would join Betfair to try and place a bet on Norwich being scored against first and then coming back to win the game?
You seriously suggesting they are joining for these markets?  They are probably more turned off by not having a clue how to simply place a bet on their team to win the game through the myriad of ridiculous markets.

77 markets for 90 minutes of soccer?

Come on now.  1.99 pounds is the least of peoples issues here.

People do not use bots,apparently betfair use inhouse bots to cut your price back or lay,so I am constantly being told
by the experts.
I don't know what to believe anymore as betfair deny these claims obviously.
You can make your own mind up like I have Swedebank,
but you are correct that bots are killing the markets so why do betfair allow their use,to improve market depths they
tell me but I find that answer is not true as the market depths simply have not improved in my 7 or so years of using
this product,so why really???

Just backed 3 horses in a Melbourne trot race,
each time I placed the bet a bot kicked in and I had
to redo each bet at a lower price to get on in time.
As soon as each bet was matched upon refresh the price would
drift back out again as if my timing was just bad!.
Very very hard to comprehend that someone is using bots
which say that if someone wants the price available then
they will get that price first and if no one like me wants
that price then these people using bots will simply go
without the bet aswell.Makes no sense at all yet betfair want me to believe this is true...

I just hope these shy recreational punters appreciate the efforts of full time traders like trev and viva  speaking up for them.

I imagine it has been said and I haven't read all the thread but the increase in bot activity is due to the scrapping of the transaction charge.

Ghetto Joe, I'm not speaking up for anyone, I'm just saying what I believe would be best for  growth of the exchange.

BJT: They are probably more turned off by not having a clue how to simply place a bet on their team to win the game through the myriad of ridiculous markets.

77 markets for 90 minutes of soccer?

Come on now.  1.99 pounds is the least of peoples issues here.

The match odds market is easily visible, the other markets are too many IMO but that's a whole separate issue.

Do you place £1.99 bets yourself BJT? If you did would it make any moral difference whether you bet in pounds or euros? In both instances your plan would be the same.

the problem i find with bots is they manage to sweep up bets quicker (somehow)   how do they manage it ?   usually noticable after a goal has been scored and the SUSP sign lifted

Oct 15, 2013 -- 7:19PM, Trevh wrote:

BJT: They are probably more turned off by not having a clue how to simply place a bet on their team to win the game through the myriad of ridiculous markets.77 markets for 90 minutes of soccer?Come on now.  1.99 pounds is the least of peoples issues here.The match odds market is easily visible, the other markets are too many IMO but that's a whole separate issue.Do you place £1.99 bets yourself BJT? If you did would it make any moral difference whether you bet in pounds or euros? In both instances your plan would be the same.

How do you know that they are 1.99 pound bets?  If they are hidden from everybody then you have no fcuking clue if they are 2 euro bets, or what.

And if the answer, is you can see on market depth what they are, then the simple answer is, so can everybody else.  So deal with it.

BJT, your relentless, monotonous and aggressive reiteration of the same points is bordering on bullying now.  As important as your opinion is, it is not the only one.

I welcome the difference of opinion on the forum but I have no patience for trolls. At least Morse was amusing at times.

Belittling someones views insulting them ,calling them a troll and accusing them of bullying, seems a bit hypocritical to be honest

BJT just seems to be pointing out the fact if these 1.99 bets are hidden why are they of such importance to anyone arriving at the site to have a bet, the simple fact is the people who complain about the 'hidden' bets are well capable of seeing them as they're also using the API but just annoyed someone else is beating their poor value bets with slightly better poor value. If you go on the new site there's  even an option to change what the minimum bet value you see is , so obviously not everyone even want's to low amounts displayed in the first place. If people are annoyed about the 1.99's they need to direct it at Betfair as minimum bet abuse, no one on the forum can do anything about it.

The continual whining about sub £2 bets on the forum isn't going to embarrass Betfair into action as the fact is the only people who care are pretty much  employing the same tactics.

Oct 16, 2013 -- 5:06AM, 1.01 Layer wrote:

BJT, your relentless, monotonous and aggressive reiteration of the same points is bordering on bullying now.  As important as your opinion is, it is not the only one.I welcome the difference of opinion on the forum but I have no patience for trolls. At least Morse was amusing at times.

Bullying?  rotflmfao.  Oh dear.  Sensitive Suzy is on the case.

The 365 tracker bot is now operating on every basketball every basketball market, so sad.

BJT • October 17, 2013 2:24 AM BST

Bullying?  rotflmfao.  Oh dear.  Sensitive Suzy is on the case.


Haha, love it!  Classic troll response.

Keep it up, BJT. I wouldn't expect anything less

Come on now Suzy, you are the only one that has been personal here.  Your bullying remark was absolutely ridiculous considering your posts directed at me. 
Enjoy your time on the forum.

I make a fair number of side markets across a few sports and have plans to do more. I do it with bots. Those markets I plan to start making soon currently have sod all liquidity, after my bot turns up they have more liquidity. Would you care to explain to me how that is a bad thing? Of COURSE I don't leave poor value money up! I do this for a living. What you lot are moaning about is the loss of people careless enough to leave up poor value money due to manual market making.

I reckon the people who made manual pricing sticker guns and labels are still seething about the invention of bar codes + scanners :)

HA Ha. I think the problem is more because people are not coming into the shop and those making it to the front door are been diverted through a side door to the rip off shop. Barcodes or no barcodes will make no difference if no one is coming to the till.

Bar codes + scanners were a forward step in technology. The same can't be said of an interface that requires the exchange of megabytes of data hundreds of times over to get a couple of hundred quid on a horse. If you mapped the betfair interface to a hypothetical physical scenario, people would choose their goods, they would stand in the queue, when they got to the front the cashier would e.g. open a packet of sweets. He/she would ring up that sweet, the customer would pay for it then move to the back of the queue. The supermarket would then boast its staff served more customers than all other supermarkets put together.

Forgot to say, each customer in the queue will be issued with a new price list every tenth of a second to see if they still wish to purchase the same goods.

"Those markets I plan to start making soon currently have sod all liquidity"
Just looked at french league 1 game, Rennes Marseille, kicks off 4pm. A grand total of £106 matched over the entire correct score market. (So really £53).
Re the betfair interface.. not sure how you can complain about queues, they are the basis of how the site works.
What other way could it work and be fair? People BUY a place to be matched quicker? That would cause uproar.
And prices changing - that's just another part of the site. How would you stop that?

Private price auctions. It would be a bit like the betfair sp with limited bets hidden. Auctions would happen infrequently early on and increase in frequency as the event approached.

Well get some venture capital and create it. Doesn't sound like anythind I'd want to touch with a barge pole.

"Excuse me, how much is this bag of sweets?"

"Make an offer"

"Er....Okay. How about 60 pence?"

"I'll let you know in half an hour"

"Can you direct me to the nearest bookies website please......."

And the metaphors for how "in play" could possibly work under such a system just write themselves :)

My my, touchy! Real first name "half"?

Sounds a marvellous idea feck, I'm sure most punters would welcome a more complicated system to place their bets with the uncertainty of what price they'd get compared to the simplicity of placing a bet at the price they'd like, as it is now.

LOL is witt "feck"? I thought that, was the same sort of stuck record ranting about parasites but I didn't say anything.

A lot of people have issues with betfair, myself included, but they are to do with poor reliability or their sportsbook etc NOT wanting a completely different system. If you want that and think it will be an improvement, as I say get some capital and go create it. Nothing stopping you. You have the idea, go forth with it, and multiply your profit

PS I am not Feck but I am a Fecker.

"The fact it's already been used twice on other threads probably illustrates your usual M.O."
This makes absolutely no sense. How could the fact others (in your total of 165 posts) have repeatedely thought to refer to you as that, have ANYTHING to do with MY M.O. I've never responded to you before. In fact by any rational sense, the fact your ramblings make the word "half wit" fire in peoples neurons then onto a keyboard clearly illustrates something significant about you, and absolutely nothing whatsoever about mine as it's been nothing to do with me. Jeeze.

I'm guessing you're a copycat JC. HTH.

BTW JC & Baby Jesus taking me on. You & other "half witt" jibers must find that hilarious. HTAH.

'Taking you on' ?? I made one post about your ridiculous auction idea and all the sudden I'm taking you on, you need to reign in that paranoia. Everyone trying to force their point on these type of threads is doing it out of self interest, you're no different , feck. I'll leave you all to it, it should be obvious by now Betfair won't take a blind bit of notice either way.

No idea why you took offence at that BJ, you should maybe look at your own paranoia.

As for my "ridiculous auction idea" let's just suppose that was the way betfair did it from the outset. How ridiculous would anyone pushing for a stock market style exchange look.

"We want to be able to see who wins the next point before we decide if we want the tennis bet"
"We want to be able to see what others want to bet and for what stake before we bet"
"We want to be able to bet the winner after they've passed the post"
"We want to be able to trap people with ridiculous odds"
"We want to be able to penny pinch with penny bets"
"We want to be able to place bets that no one can see while we see everyone else's"
"We want to be able to spoof the market"
"We want pendulum odds so that placing a bet is like pinning the tail on the donkey"
"We want an interface that deters large bettors unless they've got a degree in programming"
"We want reduction factors that suit traders rather than RF's intended to map the price to the expected subsequent price"
"We want to be able to bet on impossible in-play scores so we can cash out"
"We want traders to pay only a fraction of the commission others do"
blah, blah.

What would you call an exchange with such an interface? Bentfair? last5minutes.com? How long would it last before the plankton disappeared? Were it not for the fact that bookmakers want only losers betfair would already be dead. Betfair could not have worked out better for them had they engineered the exchange concept themselves.

Re my self interest, can you explain? I can programme the API myself. I can drip feed a multitude of small bets such that I can get a few hundred at value early odds. I can lay the others as a way of getting a back at value odds. As a price sensitive punter I get prices I wouldn't otherwise get as a result of spoofing and pendulum odds. So why would the auction idea be in my self interest? Do you really think I'd suddenly be able to get grands on the early 9.0 shot that should really be 5.0 while every other shrewdie was trying to do the same and said shrewdies were putting nothing up on the other side? Of course I wouldn't. We'd all just be getting buttons matched until we reduced our odds, much as happens now. So unless you're really stupid what is it about the auctions that would be in my self interest? Ah, you mean the increase in liquidity it would bring in? The fact that large bettors could stick up bets without their large bets acting as bookends? The fact that plankton would be getting the same odds as everyone else and wouldn't be getting ripped off and leaving the site forever? The fact they'd be getting a run for their money without having any value eroded by talentless middlemen and shysters? The fact they'd be presented with a simple interface and commission system?

I don't expect betfair to take a blind bit of notice. It won't be betfair that will implement the idea but it will come if betfair don't manage to tarnish the exchange concept forever.

anyone who thinks bots are foolproof should have a look at the trading history on the plzen v b munich over/under 8.5 goals market

Ouch!

" Were it not for the fact that bookmakers want only losers betfair would already be dead. "

lol, up until then I was with you.  Remember that bookie that took your bet when it knew you had a market edge?  The only reason would be to shape prices but why would they when everyone has a comfortable oligopoly to protect and cross sell to make all their money?  Besides that, wouldn't you just drip feed a load of prices on your winning account and find a friend to pile in the other way?

I regularly find that the

seem to have self-censored.  I was saying that I tend to find I match bonus fragments all the time and it probably takes 5%-10% of my bet at a preferential price.  Splendid

CoinFlip, not everyone that's confined to this place is a winner with bookmakers. If they were it would be even more shark v shark than we're already at and we'd arrive far quicker at Shark v ? as the less successful sharks gave up.

in theory post premium charge , it should be/was getting easier on here for those on popular markets for a limited time .

with sharks getting frozen out of their specialist area ,they should be/were chancing their arm at those  more popular markets -with their relative inexperience in these new markets, they should be/were getting picked off -

eventually you will have/had sharks v lesser sharks for a limited time ,then left with just the few sharks which existed to start with - so a scaled down exchange

this has probably happened to a great extent


a lot of the specialist sharks may just go back to full time employment

so for those on say football markets only,  they should have seen a rise in fortunes  at around 2009/2010 and now slowly going back to pre Oct 2008 levels for a short time  , then eventual death caused by shortage of  new players

Once betfair is down to the bare bones in a year or so how are the bookies going to price up events because most of them wait for the markets to form on the betfair exchange then copy the odds. They'll have to do some work for a change and price things up themselves.

What happens if the betfair sportsbook is a failure like blue sq. was, will they go back to being an exchange?

odds compilers -    hey ,that's a job for us 

i think the easy days everyone winning easy money are long gone. i dont have a data but from the sharpness of the markets these days , i think the number of small winners is decreasing and mostly few people are increasingly taking more profit. this will be the demise of betfair. betfair have to remove or charge punitively large  charges to the big winners and distribute the money to losers.

i say this because i feel that most casual punters who come here come from moutht to mouth marketing and a belief of winning that they can win here. i dont think value plays a role to most casual punters . if they are faced with super sharp lines and sophisticated bots using deceptive techniques to take casual customers momeny in a blink of an eye, casual punters will quickly leave. at least witht the bookies they are retained by the promotion and offers.