Without a doubt, there's steady decline across the board in terms of liquidity. Aside from cricket, all sports seem to be suffering, with the side markets in particular becoming desolate wastelands. Even this section of the forum has started to die.

A big anomaly to all this is the big political markets. I can never remember them being big in the early days, but they're now setting all time records in terms of volumes matched. Brexit saw well over £100m matched and the US election is currently at £75m with 2 weeks to go. I wonder if some US money is starting to find its way onto the exchange, or whether there's just a growing appetite for political betting.

^ Wrong thread above for my cricket observation ^........while I'm here I notice % of visitors from UK visiting Betfair is at 26% that seems on the low side, also notice Romania likes Betfair (quick check of population of Romania)  wonder if Brexit will have consequences for that market.

How much is the other option affecting here?

zooot , you say Now it is a hard slog against the established sharps and the very high commission

what percentage are you on ?

Racing markets particularly poor today. Most race markets are starting to look like Wolverhampton on a Saturday night. Weak and volatile.

how do you stop exchanges? Build a s*** new site that drains liquidity.

Think the tax has a lot to to do with it.

http://blog.paddypower.com/politics/2016/10/18/paddy-power-pay-out-hillary-clinton/

Enough said!

No

lairs then

surely it's bots that have destroyed betfair- not the premium charge.

I only use gruss one click software , no automation .

no fast pics

no advantage

but I pay PC

I don't use bots either. Would be fascinating to see the percentage of PC payers who do use bots. You still see bots operating that I'm almost certain aren't profitable, at least for the periods of time that you see them active. I'd imagine there's actually quite a few bot users who aren't on PC. At the end of the day, a bot is only as good as the person who can programme it.

I remember the days of betfair classic

they bring a tear to my face, just thinking of them

Problem is if you are a genuine position player and paying the premium charge then you're effectively acting as a bookmaker (or professional punter) under the betfair remit. But a bookmaker or professional with no rights, no power.

They don't give a monkey's about you. They care about their shareholders and what they can show them on the balance sheet, that's like any business really.

I'm not sure an exchange or bookmaker model exists which caters for the professional punter, and doesn't hit them with massive charges or shuts them down completely.

Sadly, that's a fact of life.

For me it's neither the site design, the PC, nor other users' bots that are the problem. It's been the introduction of betfair's own cross-matching bot that's decimated my already feeble returns. Every day I see numerous bets sitting at or near the front of the queue waiting to get matched, only to see hundreds, and sometimes thousands, trade at 'my' price without me getting a penny matched. This makes me ever more reluctant to provide liquidity, as doing so invariably leaves me getting matched on the bad moves and unmatched on the good ones.

I don't trade in the lesser side markets, but without doubt, the even more recent introduction of the cross-market cross-matching bot will have driven substantial amounts of liquidity from other customers away.

So betfair can continue to nick a pound here and a pound there, but there will ultimately be a hefty price to pay. A few years from now the entire betting landscape will be radically different to what we're seeing now, imo.

the exchange model does not work for the PLC..if the BF exchange still exists in years to come it will only exist as a very small part of the Betfair portal where a few hobbyists and nerds tinker about with a very limited number of markets

I think the exchange is living on borrowed time, certainly for sports like Horse Racing. Unless Betfair changes direction and starts to actively promote the exchange, which imo they aren't going to do.

must say US politics markets are very impressive right now

in every way

After 6 months or so away from sports betting all I can say is that it is a very pleasurable experience:
- time to do all sorts of fun stuff
- weekends are weekends - not work
- peace of mind - not the nagging sense that I should be trying some new system or approach that might work long term
- No longer the sense of being a loser (which you tend to feel even if you are profitable because of psychological impact of losing streaks)
- no more disappointments as the market adjusts to your approach and profits dry up yet again

If it aint paying you better than your daytime job per hour try a break - you'll be a happier person for it.

why are betfair trying to be a sportsbook