What is the future of Betfair?

Only main markets will survive. For football that means match odds, over/under and correct score. For tennis and cricket just match odds.

Will they still have this forum here which no one can join, that's the question.

A new innovative peer to peer betting exchange product will appear and leave Betfair behind.

Betfair is a likely target for a private equity bid. Also, check out co-founder Mark Davies' comments, especially in regard to price sensitivity.

http://green-all-over.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/buy-buy-betfair.html

10% of your customers are very price sensitive and 90% are not

No wonder they don't care about the exchange then. Betfair are clearly building the same experience as anywhere else to chase their share of the 90% rather than maintain their niche product to ensure their lion's hold on the 10%.

the competition is very weak, so they don't really give a toss about their customers

Agree - to an extent - there. They are abusing their monopoly position.

But the opposition for the sportsbook isn't weak.

PC aside , what advice would you offer betfair to ensure healthy liquidity in all sports in all markets

That question is about as useful as high speed broadband in an area suffering from a power cut.

The PC charges and threat of PC charges is the problem driving customers away.

Westender they don't want winners on the exchange as they take money out. They are happy enough to lay bets themselves using bots which have taken over the exchange. You can't compete with bots which instantly match bets and pay no comm, so can lay at higher odds and hedge off at pinnacle and the asian books. Betfair = for losers.

westerner , i asked about PC aside as it is 1.01 that every PC payer will say "remove the PC"

Nov 7, 2014 -- 6:52PM, pablo-fanque wrote:

westerner , i asked about PC aside as it is 1.01 that every PC payer will say "remove the PC"

Betfair revolves around the PC. You can't separate it from the future of Betfair.

Betfair is what is. Much like East Germany it will take the money from those who can't go elsewhere, but as soon as there is another option it will die. Much like the citizens of the East Germany we all hope it will see sense as a ridiculous death spiral suits nobody, I suspect we'll get the same outcome.

but as soon as there is another option it will die

there is another exchange , daq/purple , it has been around for years , and betfair is still here with all the liquidity.

i am a PC payer , that's why i asked about PC aside as we all know how PC payers feel about it .

how would liquidity and the betfair "experience" improve without the PC , apart from PC payers earning more money ?

As a PC payer, could you do what you on purple? There lies the answer.

It's an alternative exchange, not an alternative option.

ok, how do you improve daq to be an alternative ?

It has to offer the same markets as here to begin with.  I've questioned before why, if they're in bed with Laddies, they can't share market setup and settling data.  Automate the process so that you don't have that excuse ("It's not worth our while").  Until you offer the same markets, you are always giving people a reason to bet away from your own exchange. 

Now, in the exchange world, I don't believe the "IF you build it they will come" adage necessarily holds true.  Liquidity is still king.  That is the biggest hurdle purple has to overcome, and it has been forever thus.  While certain parts of BF are dying on their arse, the main markets are still holding up in most sports - possibly even strengthening in some.  Purple has never been anywhere near as proactive in going out and attracting liquidity as BF has (in the past, not now).  This probably needs to change.  BF keep telling us how expensive it is to attract the new fish, and that may well be true, but without the new fish, Purple will not grow.  The thing with exchanges is, liquidity breeds liquidity.  Once you get the snowball rolling, you can gain momentum very quickly and the thing can grow exponentially.  They've never really managed to do that, despite all the own goals BF continue to score.  Let's be honest:  if they can't manage it in the face of PC, they likely never will.

true latalomne .

my opening question should have been re-phrased to :

apart from removing the PC , what advice would you offer betfair to ensure healthy liquidity in all sports in all markets .

i would suggest betfair seek to develop streaming technologies with the best in the business in this area , so that they can stream all sports straight to betfair live video with delays under 0.3 of a second .

Betfair have cut the 3rd party contract to the bone and are miles behind Bet365 with live streaming.

Very much so.

pablo-fanque 07 Nov 14 23:42 Joined: 22 Oct 14 | Topic/replies: 143 | Blogger: pablo-fanque's blog
ok, how do you improve daq to be an alternative ?

For me, the first two things they need to do are increase number of markets on major/televised events and have the option of 'My Markets'/'Favourites' so I can easily track the events I'm working on.

Purple need a vialbe in running product. Without that they have no chance and there is probably only likely to ever be one proper i/r market and at the moment BF still very much have their hands on it.

I have had enough now lads.Only peanuts left and no liquidity.
Only people who have an edge are the cheats now.Back USA mainly but sometime UK and I have had enough.
Impossible to get a price now with any volume.
I would advise anyone who want to win to give up too as the exchange is in it's final few years
and is becoming worse by the day.
I made over 350,000 with lots of hard work and I am proud of the work I did to achieve that.
I have a PC portal account statement.
I have paid just short of 20k PC charge and that is enough.The future is very bleak.
My account from about year 2000
Username: lottaluck

Lifetime Profile
Markets        49520   
Gross PL    £    386,692.37   

Good luck and God bless you all.Goodbye.

in all honesty , i wasn't really asking as an interest to get daq more popular , i was asking how betfair can/could improve things to keep the "show on the road"

Pmbets, well done and good luck.
This will be my last jumps season seriously punting and the main reason is that it has got to the stage where the only way I can have a bet of a wortwhile volume is to be sat at my computer 90 seconds or less before the off hoping that there isn't a raceclash to kill what liquidity there is left. It is effectively SP bets only and you can knock a point or 2 off the price in the process of getting a grand matched (or less in very weak markets).
What's the point in going through a race only to have to wait for the prices to be nibbled at overnight and through the day with no proper volume ever available (apart from the main meetings)? If you attempt to have a bet any earlier, you just invite a whole hosts of copycat punters (mostly robots) feeding off you and taking the prices only to lay them off a click or two shorter for risk-free profit. The markets are so weak now that horses are halving and doubling in prices on a regular basis. Most meetings now resemble what Wolverhampton Saturday nights did a few years ago.
It is only going to get worse. Horse Racing is nearly dead as a betting medium.

I was hoping to get a few more productive years out of the game but I think it has had its day now, it was good while it lasted and I have been fortunate to be in the position to do it profitably for over a decade but lack of public interest in racing and Betfair encouraging all new punters on to the sportsbook have hastened the demise of exchange betting. It was fun while it lasted.
BB

Good Luck @pmbets I will join you soon brother. With similar figures on PC portal. They offered me VIP account, but means nothing for me as Im stuggling to feed myself in London with cost 1000 pound per month. That's how much Vips have here. I feel that future is somewhere else. Im crossing my fingers fo Matchbook as they have amazing prices.

Matchbook are consistently worse than betfair on price.

Matchbook are useless for anything but the most mainstream stuff.

I love matchbook, can't go wrong paying 1%. If they have worse odds, why don't you put some up - it is an exchange after all. The prices will depend on what you're looking at. I find they are generally much better than the other exchanges. Example, New Zealand were 7.1 in the cricket yesterday prior to the start at matchbook and 6.8 on betfair.

pmbets and barton banks. I have heard matchbook exchnage are looking to offer horse racing next year so keep an eye on them to see if they do.

They'll be no good. Volumes are hardly likely to be bigger than on here.

Smarkets are the only exchange that are putting up a decent alternative to Betfair as regards to markets offered. They seem to have a bad rep, anyone have a different view on them?

Are they not a Mickey Mouse outfit trading in very small amounts?
Being realistic, much as we rightly suggest that liquidity on the betfair exchange is falling, whenever you look at the alternatives they are still a long way ahead.

I dont understand this.  550k matched in the last at Donny today. so thats 275k clear isnt it?
why is that not enough liquidity for you?

are you punting 1k at 20/1 horses or something?

I heard Smarkets exist for the purpose of a handful of bookmakers who get winners banned.

Yomamma if smarkets offer horse racing US included I promise to seed it big for a year.

275k on a race is not that much really when you are looking at a double figure field. Nearly all of that will be concentrated on the first 2 or 3 in the betting. And yes, a grand at 20s would be nice if I fancied one at that price but the reality is you can't have that sort of bet without crashing the price at anything other than the top meetings.

There are times when I play in the early markets that I feel that I'm the only person on Betfair....gets very lonely

I used to be prepared to put up overnight lays for horses to a 110-115 percent book for decent amounts. Now no-one can do that because within a microsecond of your bet hitting the screen a bot has jumped in front of you and moved the price.

I use the bet view slider to hide all the £2 rubbish so I can see the real money; only works if you're on an API product which does that or on the new site, which I know a lot of people around here aren't on.

Barton Bank
19 Nov 14 13:45 Joined: 31 Jul 01 | Topic/replies: 3,045 | Blogger: Barton Bank's blog
I used to be prepared to put up overnight lays for horses to a 110-115 percent book for decent amounts. Now no-one can do that because within a microsecond of your bet hitting the screen a bot has jumped in front of you and moved the price.

This is a major bugbear of mine. I've just stopped seeding a bunch of markets with the result being they remain empty until much closer to the start.

Betfair's reponse to this is has begun with them beginning to seed these markets themselves with their sportsbook prices and an extra few % margin built in.

Would like to see them seed them for a few grand but I won't hold my breath.

Where are the people who are going to lose to the good horse racing punters?

All the people I see betting in shops are on the machines.

I think you will always have a few folk with dreams of cracking the horses even to this day  - maybe badly thought out strategies that can only end in failure  , but that's about it .

I can't remember the last advert i  saw for the Exchange -  ultamitely  the whole sorry episode will die on its ar$e

very bright

IMHO, Betfair are pushing a new betting experience with cash out and price rush etc, with the exchange in the background providing the technology for these new 'gamble whilst you gamble' betting experiences for Joe Bloggs. We can only expect more of them.

This is what Betfair wants to become - a new morphed sportsbook with a hint of exchange to give it a double thrill and USP. Judging by Sad blokes' refusal to provide decent liquidity on purple, I'd guess Sad Blokes will be playing the same sort of games in the future, rather than looking to grow their new exchange.

As a person who has used BF on and off for ten years, it now feels different- ashamed of it's exchange roots.