May 11, 2016 -- 6:28PM, wolf3011 wrote:

People complaining about robots should be aware automated systems have been on here since 2000. I hated that when I joined but soon realised to compete you have to develop them.so basically if someone wants to use any knowledge of sport they need a degree in IT first to develop bots.. that's not what I signed up for. The people making money are not gamblers just people who excel in software programming which isn't what any betting organisation should be about. Its betfair not botfair

    It's not betfair or botfair, it's botunfair.   

May 11, 2016 -- 4:41PM, pablo-fanque wrote:

Dropping the PC now would lead to loss in revenue because people have moved on to do other thingseveryone who pays PC wants it to be stopped , but they would settle for a fairer charge . 40%,50%,60% is not right .not sure what is ,probably between 10%-30% max, but it's not like they would lose 100% of revenue if PC levels were fairer , as they would still be receiving some and it may attract more liquidity which in turn more commission . so they may make up what they lose on reducing the brackets by increasing bets and liquidity .

You have cracked it mate

May 11, 2016 -- 9:55PM, NewMoney wrote:

Argee with many posts on here.  Nobody should underestimate the power of the brain. For the non-botted punter, you have to be clever with what bets you place.  I.e., stick to the markets that automated solutions are poor at.  For example, in-play football is full of value.  The botted solutions will not be able to see how a match is panning out (they may be able to get upto the minute stats but this is no match to a keen eye).  West ham yesterday was a great example. The odds were completely wrong throughout even when manu went ahead.  These situations occur all the time.  This is something a bot cannot deal with well.  Where automated systems work well is in reversion to the mean, and lots of bets where there maybe a small edge over hundreds of bets.  On an event by event basis they are pretty poor.  There are many markets which offer so many opportunities for the "human" avid fan/pattern finders.  Markets that are difficult for the human bettor tend to be pre-event markets as these will have the scrutiny of bettors with huge databases of form on them, so very difficult to beat, but again somebody who makes it their job to watch races will have a huge advantage over the automated users, as they can be selective as they won't be constrained to requiring a large turnover.The problem here at betfair is the fact that the punters who are not using bots will have a small turnover and thus they are more likely to hit the high pc charges 40-60% as their profit margins will be in the 5 to 10% range.  This means when these charges come about, they can no longer compete, removing an important part of the ecosystem. This means less money in the markets.  This and lack of advertising by betfair over the years, and trying to get all the money into their sportsbook has devastated the markets. This all has secondary effect on the bot and non-bot operators alike.  Without money in the markets, the bot operators can no longer compete, the 0.5% - 1% edge they have over hundreds of markets is no longer possible as they will tend to get matched more at bad prices due to illiquid markets.  So slowly these start to drop out too. You only need to look at the side-markets in most sports.  Horse racing place markets are a prime example of this deterioration.  This leads to a downward spiral, no bots/people pricing up the markets means lots of "empty boxes", this is not what a casual punter wants to see.  They look at the empty markets and think, "I'll just use the bookie instead where I can get matched NOW".When pc3 came out, I was told by betfair that the pc charge would be used to attract more punters.  This has not happened and was a blatant lie, probably stated just to divert the anger they were receiving from those affected.  It does seem like the PC charge came about as explained above, as a means to up the IPO price.  What we are now seeing is the ecosystem dying.I was told when the sportbook went live not to fear, their intention was to try and poach punters from typical bookies such as b365 ppower etc who found the exchange a difficult concept... they intended to eventually divert new sportsbook users to the exchange but again this did not happen, just made-up for short term appeasement of the market makers etc to keep them quiet and from expressing their anger!  This could easily have been sorted by simplifying the website interface instead etc.  That and advertising of course and being happy with the risk free profit they were making. Too much envy of how much their competition were making was the downfall i.e., introduction of the sportsbook.In the early days, I was expecting that bookies would become something of the past, that was a prediction I got completly wrong! The future doesn't look good for the exchange.  Too little too late!My prediction for the future is in the short term the exchanges will die but eventually a crypto-currency based exchange will rise and do the job betfair failed to do due to greed.  Maybe that is just wishful thinking haha.(sorry for essay :b )

Glad someone else can see the wood from the trees.

I also think the increasing gap in the Exchange market, due to the increasing failure of Paddy Power and Ladbrokes to meet the needs of Exchange customers, is more likely to be filled by a new entrant that will make the Betfair Innovation look like an old TV with Teletext.

The world is full of innovation - new improved products and services appearing all the time but we have seen the gambling industry head back to the 1980s with Bookmakers taking over and killing Betting Exchanges.

I simply cannot see Paddy Power led by this CEO suddenly changing from an Exchange liquidity deprivation strategy to a high growth strategy to get the Exchange markets efficient again.

Hope to be proved wrong