WORST WORLD CUP FOR BETFAIR

They are a sportsbook first and foremost now. I doubt they are bothered the exchange has slipped down slightly.

Football will be fine.  World Cup 2010 markets, were huge, much bigger than that year's Premiership matches and we can expect the same again.

Looks like coner is on to something.Betfair shares crashed 3% today.

Lost the plot a long time ago imo

BF will be down a lot I'd say on previous world cups as they've lost a LOT of their customers, Germany, Italy, Spain, France etc all used to be involved big in that.

FA CUP FINAL--Terrific liquidity in extra time markets. at one stage in the under over halve goal market you could bet 1.37 or lay 1.57
What a waste --time and effort no wonder every one looks elswere

World Cup liquidity will  be fantastic (at least the main markets like Match odds, Correct Score and Over/Unders), as there's lots of money to be made and the (big) fun bettors know they will be able to get action.

It's the smaller markets where traders, market makers and the like are giving up in droves, making them less attractive for fun bettors, which in turns lowers volume making them less profitable for traders and market makers creating a downward spiral. I would expect PC has a lot to do with this.

How is the liquidity with the 'smaller markets' anyways?

Any time myself or partners have looked into incorporating them into our matrix on an event, there is little liquidity, even pre-off.

Handicap and total games died.

They haven't even put up quarter winners for the French Open.

With respect, Frog, it did not.  The decline started way before then.  That is not to say that it hasn't contributed to it. 

Darts, snooker and rugby handicaps all experience a similar decline, albeit they never had so much liquidity to begin with.  This drop off HAS happened since the introduction of PC2.

Latalomne, The Australian Open case this year was just another one on a long list. Chennai 2011, Auckland 2012 are two others I can think of immediately. The case this year where you have three ex-Betfair employees running a company employing courtsiders was just terrible news.

The average punter betting Tennis in play is just giving money to these guys. As I said the market might look tight but in reality you can only get on if you lose the point. The system is basically just handing huge sums of money to these syndicates. Betfair is taking its cut in PC but the average punter must be losing at a rate of about 10-20p of every pound bet. There is no long term future in these markets.

You are not seriously using totals matched as a metric for betting liquidity? No one is getting stale prices? Get a grip. Why do you think teams spend thousands a year getting people to court side in tennis yet not for football?? Why do you think it's the Market ex exchange employees focus on??

Isner Levine was in 2008. 2008 ffs.

DStyle 25 May 14 00:01 
Isner Levine was in 2008. 2008 ffs.

do you understand the relevance of this post?

the point i was making?

Don't see the relevance of a non tv match 6 years ago. I am not sure where u are getting your stats from about most bets not being matched mid point or even the relevance of that. I think it's all to do with the money going up and being taken down before the home punter bets with the delay. I won't bore u with the details but I studied around 5000 matches 200ms data of order book and traded data and there is a major advantage to getting data first and getting first in the queue at point changes. You can deny this but the stats are against you.

The most erroneous of your claims is the picture you paint that inplay tennis markets are all about action on individual points and that courtsiders therefore prevent everyone without their advantage from fairly betting on in play tennis at all times.It's a nonsense. Part of the action in in-play tennis is this area, but it is just one area.

I have never said everyone is prevented from playing. If you only bet at the change of ends clearly you could be fairly if you got the bet in within 5 seconds of the next point happening. So I agree with you on that.

As I have stated numerous times before, in conversations with you, yes there is an advantage to being at the front of the queue. You own the spread for the next point and yes there is a market makers advantage in being able to cancel orders

So we agree on that. The level of advantage we may disagree on. I think its massive.

As for stats,  7 years trading tennis on here, plus software with half second order matched updates retroactively synced with live score data when it happened. The score bit's quite important don't you think if you're going to make the claims you're making; you don't seem to have done that.


Of course I have the scores! You think I just collect Betfair data 5 times a second and guess at the scores? You say you have the stats but what analysis are you doing on them?

Do you break it down to every order and try to work out what type of player made it?

Can you tell from your analysis the percentage of bets matched during/within five seconds of points being played.

Have you done any estimates of how much the market makers profit?   

Have you run any tests on expected profit/loss for bets left up for x number of points?

Do you know the expected profit/loss for all 'keep bets'?


Yes, there is hoovering. But as i've said before, how do you know what is getting hoovered. An order someone placed thirty minutes ago because they had to go out and wanted to hedge should that price occur, an order someone wants matched regardless of the outcome of the next point because they still consider it value if the point goes against them, or is it always honest joe getting screwed over by the big boys.

See above. If someone puts up a 'hedge' do you know their expected profit/loss? Is this really a service if the expected loss is a very high percentage? Is there really a long term future in punters hedging bets once they are aware of the margin they are likely to lose at?

It's not ideal, the ideal situation is that everyone has access to fast enough information that allows them to cancel in time (as it was for the AO, despite all your claims then, unfortunately those threads have been deleted).

Fast enough to cancel or a level playing field to get in the queue? Fast enough to ensure efficient pricing so bets left up get a fair go because of competition by informed bettors to take their bets?

but to constantly paint this picture of it being impossible for the average punter to bet on inplay tennis is just outright horseshit. There are some areas which mean on some occasions for some of their actions, they have to be acutely aware of the time delays to not disadvantage themselves. but there are times in matches when this isn't important. Plenty of people have told you this before, but you wilfully ignore it.


I agree if you place you bet between games you will get a more efficient (fair) price. If you bet during points this will apply also provided the point doesn't start or end within 5 seconds of you placing your bet.

I don't know what your agenda is.

Agenda is for a fair exchange that has a long term future. Rather than having a PC to carve up profits from fast picture players I would rather see fairer markets where punters return again and again. If there is a say +/- 3% threshold on winners/losers the exchange is far more healthy than if some are winning at a big margin and same are losing at a big margin. The big margin losers are unlikely to hang around. What is you agenda?

Quite how this is different from any other sport with unmanaged markets is a mystery.

Its no mystery. I would say the worst one is in play racing where there is a one second delay. Thats why so many travel to racecourses and hire boxes to bet using fast pictures. I would suggest that the more people are willing to spend on getting a speed advantage the more they are gaining from it.

It's a fairly rough estimate, but I think Betfair make about 5x more in commission on football per £1 backer's stake than in tennis, although that's based on fragments of info put together, as Betfair don't publish full figures.

I'd say you were right here. To me, it's pretty obvious that the likes of tennis and some cricket (particularly T20 and ODI) are heavily-trader dominated with vast amounts of money being recycled and recycled.

Reported last week that 800 million expected to be wagered in the UK on World Cup.

600 million on-line.

The pie is about to go into the oven ready to be split, some pieces bigger than others....

almost £27M matched on the match odds market alone.

my first world cup since being on betfair trading and the markets seem booming to me better than I expected!