Clearly erroneous bets

No. 

It's an exchange and we're all over 18. If you make a mistake it's your own fault

No, I think that sounds awful tbh. You would very often get into situations where you are unsure where you stand. Will bet X stand, or do I have a 2,000 liability on outcome Y? You reckon that you backed Y at a price that is only 15% off the fair market price, but will the powers that be agree? Maybe some manager will decide that it was 22% off, and hence void my bet? What models would be used to ascertain what the fair price is, and would those models be made public? Would it become a big advantage to have friends at BF headquarters? Suppose bookies generally offer between 400-1 and 600-1 on an unlikely outcome, but that widely used models say that the odds should be at least 3000-1 (not unusual att all that bookies offer atrocious odds on long shots), and suppose that three bets are struck at the exchange at odds of 390, 620 and 1000. Which bets should stand? Any at all?

It would be good if there was a big wall of money everywhere 15% from fair value say, so that any misclick hits that.
I think it puts novice players off if they get totally screwed by clicking a clearly wrong price.

By the way, it makes a lot more sense for smarkets to do this than betfair, as they are the only large scale market maker on their own exchange. So they can void when they make errors.
By the way, if betfair screw up in this way, they will also void.

There always needs to be some discretion of what is 'erroneous'. It should be clear-cut whether or not a bet qualifies, so the talk of '15% off fair price' makes it a bit more murky. But it's a good attempt to try and clarify an exchange user's "palpable error".

There are lots of bets made on Betfair that are very obviously erroneous bets. For example, a horse trading at around 6.00 backed in to 1.01  prior to the start of the race. Happens from time to time. The user may have accidentally pressed an extra key and ended up with a stake 100x what they wanted, and this wipes out all the liquidity on the runner, taking every bet offer all the way down to ridiculous odds. Or, I've seen every runner laid at odds < evens. Perhaps the user clicked 'back all' instead of 'lay all' by mistake?

You can say "we're all adults" but everyone still makes mistakes. What do you think that user is going to do? They were probably a novice exchange user, and now they've just wiped out their bank. Do you think they are going to keep using Betfair, or will they curse the user-unfriendly site and bet elsewhere?

It's in everyone's interest to prevent these wrongful bets from taking place. Betfair could put in place extra safeguards to protect users against these errors.

when did they bring that in mr...............guy on horse forum currently taking action against them because he seen he could lay a 1.01 for several thousand on a horse pre race....when it should have been much much bigger........obvious it was someones error..........

they wont pay him....

I imagine they are only interested in protecting their own traders. 

There is no way at all that a "fair market price" can possibly be determined.  It would also open the possibility of collusive market manipulation.  If the Gambling Commission was in the slightest bit competent, they would ban this clause.

yes there should be something in place .


most of us on here would not want to win a bet  because of someones error

How p1ssed off would you be if you layed a horse at 2.1 for 1k and then re backed it at 3.4 for 1k only for the horse to lose and then be told that the lay at 2.1 will be cancelled as it was an unfair bet.

We have all made mistakes and have to live with them.

Smarkets are just protecting their own money for when they fck up. Simple.

Yes, who decides what 'fair price' is. They'd be able to retroactively voids bets for 'preferred partners'. I wouldn't go anywhere near this outfit, and I'm all the more for competition in the exchange market place.

http://community.betfair.com/horse_racing/go/thread/view/94102/30676751/smarkets?pg=1

This is the post that freddie refers to above. It looks like a decision is due very soon.

Mr Magoo's suggestion would be good if it was workable but I think the complications in deciding what was erroneous (and where you draw the line) are too great.

Personally, despite making a few "fat finger" mistakes I prefer the clarity of knowing that any bet I make stands.

Even if BF did come up with a workable solution, it would only be for pre-off betting as it would be impossible in-play.

You can say "we're all adults" but everyone still makes mistakes. What do you think that user is going to do? They were probably a novice exchange user, and now they've just wiped out their bank. Do you think they are going to keep using Betfair, or will they curse the user-unfriendly site and bet elsewhere?

And what do you think a newbie on to the site who has just laid a 1.1 to win a grand, then suddenly has the grand winnings taken back out his account, being told the bet was a mistake. Do you think he/she are going to keep using Betfair?

It works in roundabouts. You already have to push 'confirm bets' as a safety net.

Maybe it would be better if a Chris Tarrant pop up popped up every time we went to place a bet to make sure one was sure

Maybe it would be possible to add another safety net? Unless you opt out of it, all your bets could be checked by a Betfair computer before they are actually placed. That computer might be able to catch most of the most obvious mistakes, and then pop up an extra obvious warning and ask if you really really want to place that bet?

For example: Someone submits a bet to back over 6.5 goals @1.01. The BF computer would notice that you can get higher odds for over 0.5 goals and then pop up an extra obvious warning message before the bet is actually placed. The person in my example might have wanted to lay @1.01 rather than back.

Another example: Someone submits a bet to back "Hopeless Horse" @1.10 for 10,000. The computer notices that so far "Hopeless Horse" has not traded below 9.20 and pops up that extra obvious warning. "Do you really really want to back @1.10? That price is much much lower than what it has traded at previously!"

Just an idea. Not sure if it's good.

it's pretty simple.

if you can ascertain that a price is a large enough delta away from an accurate price/last matched price you can warn the user at the time of submission and give them the chance to reconsider.

you could even have an option to automatically prevent users from submitting these bets.

that would be sensible functionality for betfair to introduce.

anyone writing a bot could do this themselves.

however once a bet hits the market, it's live and it should be impossible to retroactively void INDIVIDUAL ORDERS.

of course, very rarely it may be necessary to void an entire market because of technical issues. e.g. when someone laid that horse for crazy prices for 2147483647. But you void the whole market, that's the important bit.

allowing retroactive voiding for individual bets breaks the exchange model because it means that you cannot guarantee the integrity of your current P/L in a live market.

it also provides the dangerous and murky environment for subjective and inconsistent interpretation of the rule, possibly to the benefit of some players in the market, and to the detriment of others.

crossed posts Mr A.

If this was workable fairly and clearly then it would be a good idea, but as others have said its not. There are probably hundreds of offers at clearly "erroneous" odds available on smarkets now, why are they up there in the first place.

WTF??? What a load of phucking wusses on here! You phuck up, you pay the price; it`s very simple. I can only assume those in favour of such wet-nursing are blame-culturists, on the dole, used to having someone else pay for their mistakes and all-round general uselessness. Pathetic.

Don't hold back, tim!

he's right.....no good reason at all to ever deviate from 'every bet stands'... fair clear easy

They're seeding their own markets, so this is a damage limitation exercise.

Similar thing happened when the utterly clueless Ibetx mob were trading - they left a market up, I believe it was the Ryder Cup qualification market, while a tournament was being played on the Saturday afternoon. Some guy turned them over for about 18k and they refused to pay him.

Think he took them to court, but not sure they even had a pot to p1ss in by the time the case came up.

The only time that rule will ever be invoked is when smarkets market makers are on the wrong end of the bet. Prices on exchanges are fluid and continually changing , a market can move 15% in seconds with unruly horses at the start etc. If they were really serious about it you'd just block prices from being taken outside of certain boundaries pre off.

This sort of rule a complete and utter reason not to touch tin pot exchanges (or bookies).