is it person to person exchange anymore or person to bot

Betfair have diverted all dumb money to the sports book. Not even the price rush goes to the exchange now. Just bots left and Betfair don't care, the exchange is dying.

By betfairs own admission 70% of its business on the exchange now is by bots

Bots, bots, bots.  Like you say, plenty of markets remain empty if I don't put money down. In I go and bots can't help but jump ahead of me.

a bot is a human using a computer.....some use it to bet, others to copy paste the very same nonsense hundreds or thousands of times


i am sure there is somebody out there in the woods talking to himself about guys using an internet forum instead of a handwritten letter to show the world their ineptitude

a bot is a human using a computer???????????........other 30% is????????

US racing on here died years ago, without bots they'd probably be no prices or action whatsoever. Used to be large amounts matched on most races but Betfair's incompetence and apathy killed them off a long time ago, they did the same to the financials that also used to have decent liquidity then they killed them with tradefair. Guess that's progress for you.

roache 03 Apr 16 19:57 Joined: 27 Mar 04 | Topic/replies: 175 | Blogger: roache's blog
By betfairs own admission 70% of its business on the exchange now is by bots

I'd like to know the % of bot business that is betfairs own bots.
Pretty high imo

Betfair can't possibly know what percentage of submitted bets are made by bots.

They can report on how many bets are submitted via the website and their mobile platform and how many bets are submitted using the API.

But there is no information on whether these bets are coming from people or from automated autonomous software.

For example, i access the site via the API, but every bet I submit is manual. The software i use gives me improved navigation, some automated market analysis, a better view of many markets simultaneously and hedging functionality that's better than cash out. But the decision to submit the bet is always a manual one.

Likewise a bot (which is an automated program requiring no intervention) could be accessing the site via the URLs the website uses and so not show up on API bet submission counts.

We should probably also consider what construes "activity". Of course there are highly active bots on this site but how many of the bets they submit actually get matched? Or even have any chance of being matched. there is a semi-automated bot on tennis matches and you often see it chugging away, updating itself after a point is completed, on illiquid markets with the total matched not shifting an inch.

Exactly DStyle. Pity so many people fail to realise this.

I don't think any one thing is to blame for BF no growing as much as many of us would have liked. The top four sports on here are football, cricket, racing and tennis. Football had £15bn traded in 2015. The other 3 had £10bn traded each in 2015.

Racing stopped growing after 2011 (no significant growth since 2008) and now is in decline.
Tennis stopped growing after 2012 and now is in decline.
Football  stopped growing after 2012 and now is in decline.
Cricket had its highest year in 2014. Too early to tell if in decline.

The reasons I see for the stop in growth:

1. Internet saturation in the western world by 2008. By then most sophisticated punters were here.
2. Product too complicated.
3. Fightback from the bookies. BOG, inplay etc.
4. Failure of Betfair to address clock beating.
5. Premium charge effecting more and more players.
6. Being a PLC limits access to grey markets (unlike 365).
7. Management short term outlook and experience in sportsbook not exchange.
8. No advertising for the exchange.
9. Affiliate deals lower for exchange than sportsbooks.
10. No education for exchange.

Longbridge, i'm not sure if Frog's source is the same, but i've seen those sort of figures quoted in a thread on the Betangel forum, where a couple of people have broken down figures from the data.betfair files.

http://www.betangel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9402

the problem is that the only important figure is how much money changed hands at the end of the event which is information only available to betfair.

isn't the "commission" somewhere in the accounts?  If the city boys don't realise its the most important figure in the business, words fail me.

fixed, you have really been suckered haven't you? The sportsbook and exchange are separate products, they are not linked. Betfair make it look that way for PR. If you don't believe me, try getting a price rush on the sportsbook and waiting for it to arrive on the exchange. Not only does it not give you the exchange price, it never hits the exchange. Try it!

One piece of data is clear - the Exchange is fecked under Paddy Power Mgt

I've been wondering about taking my poker business over to Betfair. Any suggestions as to the wisdom of this? I'm just a low stakes grinder.

only a fool would anticipate them giving up such a valuable piece of business

There are only 2 kinds of businesses; Large Volume and Large Margin. On the internet every business should be a Large Volume business because the incremental cost of a transaction is almost zero. Amazon being an example. They do vast volumes for very small margins.

BF is trying to run a Large Margin business on the internet, which is a recipe for failure.