HAVE BETFAIR GIVEN UP ON THE BETTING EXCHANGE?

Anecdotal evidence is considered dubious support of a generalized claim. Do you have anything a little more substantial to support this claim?

What a twattish response.

cpfc4me, the development of the Betfair sportsbook has affected the exchange, and current trends suggest that the deployment
of expert systems such as those first seen in the 1980s will soon re-emerge. On the other hand,
a technical obstacle in exchange technology is the investigation
of stable configurations. I view fuzzy, Markov,
mutually exclusive, collectively partitioned hardware
and architecture as following a cycle of four phases:
observation, deployment, synthesis, and investigation.
Nevertheless, A* search alone is able to fulfill the need
for the deployment of RAID.
I motivate new pseudorandom theory, which I call
"WaryGest".

Nas told me money make the world go round,

and Uncle Lou showed me how to make the girls go down.

There was 2 In-Play matches only this afternoon and for the first time to the best of my knowledge, both were on the Sportsbook and NOT on the Exchange.

This is again another negative message to Exchange Customers and the OP is correct in that all Betfair appear to care about is building up the Sportsbook.

The above was football

If that's right, that is both worrying and surprising, Westender.  Were they matches that would have featured IP on the exchange historically?

Yes

Both English U21 games.

I have packed up...don't trust these guys anymore. They are not interested in the exchange medium term let alone long term. Someone else will have to build an exchange. What I don't understand is why they don't sell it if they don't want it. Am sure some others would push it.

They've obviously decided to maximise profit from the mugs that they can attract to the sportsbook site rather than feed them up to the sharks on here.

This leaves the sharp minds battling it out on the exchange but still providing them with a great risk management tool together the backbone for its sportsbook price rush marketing campaign.

A perfect blend in my opinion.

No 72 hole tournament match bets for golf so far this year. I priced every one last year reasonably early so they can't argue lack of interest. Also no tryscorer market's for Rugby Union's Heineken Cup this season.

johnny , that would be a yes then ( to the op question )

A perfect blend in my opinion.

Correct.  Been interesting to see the two businesses "bolt" together.

Good idea. Let they sell the exchange to someone else if they dont like my 15 000 pound paid in commission last year with just 11 000 pound in net profit. There are customers who will never bet at sportsbook(Im banned on most of them for arbing) so there is a space for exchange surely. Thanks god that Ive started to run my own bussiness right now to improve and develop it. Breon the Magician is running exciting sportbook with thousands of bots operating all over the place at exchange- its called innovation hahahaha :)

That Sportsbook is a farce - is has the potential to be the new Blue Square at best.

BF may be promoting the sportsbook currently (obviously) but IMO they will always need the exchange to function to a decent level at least. No exchange and the sportsbook goes too I believe.

Take a look through the Premier League 3pm matches. The liquidity is dire.  It's been falling year on year but now I see markets at midday which last season were competitively priced seeing 1.01 on all outcomes and obviously £0 matched.

Oh, and if I do seed those markets, it triggers bots to enter the market and so is futile.

TheInvestor2 12 Jan 15 23:42 Joined: 28 May 11 | Topic/replies: 2,445 | Blogger: TheInvestor2's blog
cpfc4me, the development of the Betfair sportsbook has affected the exchange, and current trends suggest that the deployment
of expert systems such as those first seen in the 1980s will soon re-emerge. On the other hand,
a technical obstacle in exchange technology is the investigation
of stable configurations. I view fuzzy, Markov,
mutually exclusive, collectively partitioned hardware
and architecture as following a cycle of four phases:
observation, deployment, synthesis, and investigation.
Nevertheless, A* search alone is able to fulfill the need
for the deployment of RAID.
I motivate new pseudorandom theory, which I call
"WaryGest".

It appears Russell Brand has a Betfair account...

always amusing to hear the BF rep on talksport plugging big top prices matched on winners IP on the exchange... as part of their sportsbook campaign.

today's example: "palace were matched at 80/1 in play today". the word exchange strangely didn't feature.

Kind of my point that, viva - without their selling feature of mentioning the exchange (at least in some way) then they become 'nothing' in the market place of bookies.

What's an exchange? Plenty of marketing for the sportsbook, not seen a single one for the exchange in well over a year. Everything, including the marketing, pushes you to the sportsbook. Betfair have gone from a world leader in new technology to a regional bookmaker!

The people mugged on the Spudsbook wake up and bet elsewhere.

Betfair is going to be the next Blue Square at best

why not wake up and bet on the exchange in that case? It's right next to it.
That probably has been happening to some level I'm sure - prob why the main markets are still doing ok on the exchange.

As an early backer on horses I tend to compare what price and liquidity is available on the exchange vs what I can get on at BOG elsewhere inc the sportsbook, BetVic took BOG from me but Sportsbook is the only that restricts me and I don't exactly bet huge amounts.

Stu - I think that's more to do with Price Rush than people finding the exchange themselves.

Maybe so. Still seems obvious (and in the early notes apparantly a plan) to move people from sportsbook to exchange. It's not quite as hidden as it used to be on here, lol.

There were 6 matches today on the In-Play coupon on the Sportsbook but not in-play on the Exchange.

See my thread on the football forum.

This does appear to be a recent Betfair Mgt initiative as there is simply no other logical explanation.

i think it's possible Betfair have realised/have evidence that newcomers to the exchange are too vulnerable to the more savvy players who have been on here a decade or more and basically dont last very long, meaning any marketing investment on the exchange is getting a poor value return

i think it's possible Betfair have realised/have evidence that newcomers to the exchange are too vulnerable to the more savvy players, who have been on here a decade or more, and basically dont last very long, meaning any marketing investment on the exchange is getting a poor value return


[added punctuation!]

Any newcomers have no chance on the Betfair Sportsbook as they have to take the worst value prices seen in the Bookmaking Industry.

I've never bought the idea that players get eaten by the exchange any more than they would by a bookie offering poor prices.

This question started the decline of the exchange in the first place, while at the time the exchange was a thriving place for all players IMO.

There were 6 matches today on the In-Play coupon on the Sportsbook but not in-play on the Exchange

I believe someone said it elsewhere so apologies if repeating.

But it also comes down to the fact that BF have pulled operations out of several countries so "in-running liquidity" on some matches were pointless if they were going to have a handful of users on the match.

Where horses are concerned If you are straight forward backer or layer, but especially backer, you shop around and take the best price you can. On that basis I don’t buy into eaten on the exchange thing but trading and in play might be different imo.
My issue is lack of liquidity early on in the exchange or the sportsbook only wanting to take £20, hence most my money goes elsewhere for early bets.

One of the matches was Man City v Hamburg yesterday so that does not wash.

If there was no interest why would they be on the Sportsbook?

Have Betfair given up on the betting exchange?

I wouldn't say they have completely given up but the exchange has firmly taken a back seat to the sportsbook. Nothing lasts forever but the demise of the exchange is still sad.

Speaking with someone that does a fair amount of football. 

If he uses betfair, 95% of his bets are best priced on exchange.

If you'd sked me yesterday, I'd have said definitely no, they haven't given up on it, considering the amount of time and effort they've put into the new API (API-NG), and the amount of help they give to developers to build API-NG apps (which currently work only on the Exchange, to there are hints it may eventually work on the Sportsbook at some time in the future).

That was yesterday, but today I was trying out my brand new (cheapo) Android Tablet, and, since I haven't yet mastered the black art of transferring bookmarks from pc to Tablet, I just googled in the Tablet to get to Betfair.

The first, and, so far as I could see, only Google links took me straight to the Sportsbook.

"Fair enough, I'll just find the link to the Exchange."

That was about an hour ago, and I'm still looking for a link to the Exchange!

In the end I had to go to my pc's bookmark to get the Exchange address and then type it into the Tablet's browser to get to the Exchange. Well, obviously, whilst it's irritating, it's no big deal for me, but If I'd been a first-time visitor to Betfair, I don't see for the life of me how I could ever have even discovered that the Exchange exists!

Good point Gus. All mobile customers are on sportsbook. The sportsbook campaign is very aggressive.

seems to be picking up if anything


that's football main markets


side markets def' last rites and all that

No mobile version of the exchange??

There is a app for an exchange, but who bothers looking for it when you are pushed to use the sportsbook? Today when I type betfair in my browser it redirects me to... bingo, you won a hoover- sportsbook! I havent deleteted my cookies etc.

There's a reason the Betfair Sportsbook is called Betfair: the brand name is synonymous with having the best odds. Casual punters will look for Betfair, find the sportsbook and have no idea they're not at the real Betfair.

Jan 24, 2015 -- 2:45PM, Templeton Peck wrote:

There's a reason the Betfair Sportsbook is called Betfair: the brand name is synonymous with having the best odds. Casual punters will look for Betfair, find the sportsbook and have no idea they're not at the real Betfair.

This.

Sad news. 

In Australia, Packer bought out the remaining 50% to take full 100% ownership.  Within months, they went into business with another bookmaker, and they have now split the business up where the new bookmaker is in charge of the sportsbook/risk side of the business.

I am not entirely sure what all this means, as the same with everybody else, I have not seen an advertisement indicating Betfair is actually an exchange.  We have some ridiculous "winners elbow" campaign for Betfair over here.

It is very concerning, but at the same time, he bought it for a reason, and if he has palmed off all sportsbook to another bookmaker, then his strategy must be simple.  To lobby law changes to our online gaming.  Whether this is just for casino games, or what, is of no concern to me, because in play betting allowance will be a by product of that.
Unless he turns Betfair Australia into an online casino only, then the exchange must have some plans for the future.  Surely?

Or what am I missing?

"Next Manager To Leave Post " Is it too much effort to put this market on exchange -You gus are right! There is something weird with market putting on exchange recently. 2.25 Harry R 4 Steve Bruce. Of course it at sportsook. there is no exchange market.

"Next manager to leave post" has regularly been on the Exchange. Hmmmm.

Some football matches last week were in play on the Sportsbook but NOT the Exchange. (Man City v Hamburg an example)

In addition the method of victory and round betting for the Rios v Alvarez boxing was on the Sportsbook but NOT the Exchange.

It does appear to be a recent Betfair Mgt initiative to move business from the Exchange to the Sportsbook as there is no other reason one can think of.

Could it be that BF gets a data feed that is easier to plug into the sportsbook but more complicated for the exchange (with suspensions, cancelling unmatched etc.)?
Therefore any old football match can be in-running on the sportsbook as long as a 3rd party can provide data.

One thing I have noticed lately (not sure how long it's been happening) is that once a horse race starts, if you're on the sportsbook it says

RACE OFF!
Bet In-Play now on the Betfair Exchange

Followed by a button saying 'Go to Betfair Exchange'. 

So at least they are 'promoting' the exchange in that way.

That's good news cdog, I wasn't aware of that, and I have to say that for my style of betting on InPlay horse races my impression is that liquidity is at least holding up, and possibly improving, so perhaps that's where the money's coming from.

Jan 25, 2015 -- 2:48PM, Darlo Bantam wrote:

"Next manager to leave post" has regularly been on the Exchange. Hmmmm.

They seem to be reading the forum posts. Th market appeared today.

Try getting a bet on the australian open using a ipad,waste of time but using a computer you will be skimmed.getting staff to run there site on minimum wages says it all.

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Jan 25, 2015 -- 8:48PM, Darlo Bantam wrote:

"Next manager to leave post" has regularly been on the Exchange. Hmmmm.

They seem to be reading the forum posts. Th market appeared today.

No, it was because I asked them for it. The reason it hasn't been on is they were waiting for the Newcastle situation to be clarified. Now Carver has the job til summer, they went ahead with the market.

That's one reason why I don't do in play , too much potential for it being down to whose got the fastest link into the server , betting against people who are their watching it live x seconds ahead of you etc etc

Legia Warsaw v Zenit in-play on Sportsbook and not Exchange

Must be a Betfair Mgt Initiative

westender , have you emailed them about this for the upcoming Q&A ?

Hopefully they take steps to improve liquidity on the Exchange

i can see why some games aren't on the exchange - 

i expect a slimming down on the exchange which can only be a good thing in time

I doubt they'll be slimming down the exchange if their cross market cross matching works for them.  Too many easy opportunities for them.

Beautiful, cant wait to see invisible money. Nice job by moderator to delete posts here. Regards.

gus i have been saying that for the last 18 months,you need a sat-nav to find the exchange,if it takes us tens of minutes to find it how are new customers ever going to know it's there

What happens to the newcomers once they have been deemed 'surplus to requirements' by BFSB?  They're the ones that should be getting pushed this way....

they say that the sportsbook is tied into the exchange but how does somebody know they COULD get 40s about a 4s chance IR? that money isn't sat in the in play market because they have taken the 4s!

and i'm not talking about leaving easy money in the IR market it's that people might like this kind of thing as opposed to fixed odds

Jan 26, 2015 -- 5:37AM, Westender wrote:

Some football matches last week were in play on the Sportsbook but NOT the Exchange. (Man City v Hamburg an example)In addition the method of victory and round betting for the Rios v Alvarez boxing was on the Sportsbook but NOT the Exchange.It does appear to be a recent Betfair Mgt initiative to move business from the Exchange to the Sportsbook as there is no other reason one can think of.

Can't see this question anywhere on the Q&A.

That is because as always, Betfair ignore questions they don't want to answer.

Happens every Q and A mate.

The exchange is officially crap. Can't believe they have gone all out to be a bookmaker! Talk about a total 180 degree turnaround.

what's the point of the sportsbook when I try to put an early bet on it will often limit me to say £20 when it's not the fav but bet365 doesn't baulk

this is why Betfair will never become even a  tenth of the size and build as good as reputation as Bet365 .

They may as well try to get the exchange back on track and forget the SB

Just withdrew 90 percent of my balance as a result of the state of the exchange markets.

Here's a case in point why the sportsbook is sh&t.

I just tried to back Shaishee in 1630 at Meydan but was limited to £15.62, like WTF??? I only tried because it was one of the rare occasions they offered a better price than bet365.
Sportsbook 9.0
Exchange   8.2
Bet365     8.0

I took the £15 at 9.0 with BOG and put the rest elsewhere.

So what's your plan, BB?  Take that 90% and put it elsewhere or just start to wind your operation down? 

I know the early markets are thin, but you must be working in sizeable lumps if the market immediately prior to the off is not still sufficient to support your punting.

You can get an Exchange App (I've got the exchange app on my android mobile and tablet)

Scale it down. I can assure you that my bets were regualarly crashing the prices, either due to poor liquidity or being copycatted.If I wanted to lay a 5s chance for example it could be 8s within a minute. Not worth fighting the weakness of the market any more.

I've gone back to the bookmakers and it's a shock to the system having small bets turned down. Had a bet of £35 rejected and only £10 accepted today. I don't think the customer service departments of various bookmakers are taking kindly to my angry emails and live chat sessions after having bets refused.

Today I started to believe that its possible that we will have an another option someday. On West Ham - Crystal Palace we were following... daq! guy placed a back bet at 3.8 for more than 20 000 pound. We had 3.8 here and 3.6 there. And for whole game we were following huge backer there. There is a light in a tunnel. Free of charge Saturday market is definitely worth a look.

they need to sort out the graphics


betting on there is still an ordeal

I would love to know where certain web designers hail from - some basic questions ,

did they get as far as  primary school  ?

are they color blind ?

do you not need to do some basic training ?

look at most sites and they're a mess -UK govt sites are amongst the worst - urghhh

Seems to be common to betting sites in particular I find Coach. Some awful designs and functionality - been looking at Matchbook recently. Love the idea of their site (ie an alternative) but does everyone not find it an awful site to use/look at??

it's the thing that would put me off on a site i spend a fair amount of time on Stu.

I actually prefer paying the premium charge as an alternative

Who are the big share holders in Betfair, and what are their objectives?  Could it be that people who have an interest in bookmaking, also have a commanding position here at Betfair and are aiming to turn the clock back to the good old days.

Around 11 years ago, I was hired for what ended up as 18 months as a "secret shopper"/consultant to place bets on six sites (willies, koril, vic chan, tote, laddies, stan). I didn't know which firm had hired me.

Each week, given assignments including time of day (i.e. Saturday an hour before kick-off, certain high traffic moments in tennis and horses).  I had to place singles, multiples, every assortment you could imagine.

From there, assess everything which most of the time was horribly frustrating. 

After three/four months of sending in a balance of criticisms and positives, I started noticing one site integrating in what I had been sending in which ws koral.

My initial contract ended at a year (Nice to be given betting money by six firm to place in win/win scenarios) but was extended six months.

You have to remember that technology and platforms were straight-up then but by the end of it, not just down to me, Koral's site surpassed the others AT THE TIME.

But it was amazing to see how (a) the sector in general still made it so difficult for people to place the simplest of bets and (b) how when technology advanced, the sector in general seemed to work in the opposite direction of any successful on-line venture that focused on making things simple for people to purchase or book events, the betting industry feels they have to bamboozle users and bombard them making searches impossible and making gamblers stagger over a dozen other events like supermarkets trying to sell you tins of soup that you don't want.

Betfair's shares have climbed and this is down to a "balance" they have found between the exchange and their sportsbook, something they can do better than any outside firm using betfair (as they have for the past decade).

Will be interesting to see if the exchange engine is taking further over the next year.

PS Coachbuster: I once was sitting with a design team working on a sportsbook site.  Their techs all had 22 inch screens, etc.  When I asked if any of them had looked on either a 17" or a 15" laptop, they looked totally perplexed at the idea ("it's what your customers are more likely to be using").  And they were all well-paid techs. 

The basic rule I used when the internet started out was the same when I used to work with design teams for album covers;  If it looks eye-catching and is readable from 6 feet away, people will see it in the racks (challenging with CD's, I may add).  The same goes for web-site platforms; you need to be able be able to stand back and look at the screen and have a sense of what you are looking at.

Betfair's shares have climbed and this is down to a "balance" they have found between the exchange and their sportsbook, something they can do better than any outside firm using betfair (as they have for the past decade).

Should have read "partly down to"

all too often with design people who would never actually use the end product have too much influence over said design

Shapeshifter - glad you showed some  foresight  , some seem so visually and mentally  challenged . Btw some sites are very good and even an improvement ,so not having a go at everyone .

My little rage for the day  .