Liquidity is really drying up now.

Yes the secondary markets will be the first to go.

There's a strange dichotomy of opinion here between Racing and Football (or maybe just some people will always complain).

On Racing, where BF have added extra markets in recent years, people complain about diluting liquidity and 'making the site look like a ghost town'.

On Football, where BF have removed a load of illiquid secondary markets from lower-tier games in recent year, people complain it's a conspiracy to drive them to the Sportsbook and that it shows BF is planning to dump the Exchange.

"the market making bot with a time advantage"

What's that then?

there's a bot that runs on nearly every in play tennis match (I assume it has to be a bot given its ubiquity and speed) for which there is a score feed. If you want to see it in action, it's very obvious on non televised courts for main tour and mens challenger matches (i.e. not ITF). It's faster than everything else after a point has concluded, putting up the new odds, and fires in something close to kill or fill orders, often leaving up its money for somewhere between 6 and 10 seconds. Given the 5 second delay, the chance of anyone matching their money is remote. I also get the feeling they cancel parts of the spread in under 5 seconds.

I'm sure it seems like they're providing some sort of service, but in truth, given the speed with which they cancel their orders and how they're cancelled, it's highly debatable.  It's hoovering up the slow money and owning the spread, rather than providing "real liquidity" through a genuine piece of speculation with risk.

It's no big deal, they're not doing anything wrong (and I'd guess they're paying super PC), but it's important to see it as an illusion of liquidity.

When Betfair made the decision that they wanted all/most losing customers betting with them directly and created the sportsbook, they massively reduced the shelf life of the exchange. Simple as that. People blame the premium charge, I am not saying it wssn't a small factor but Betfair essentially shot their golden goose voluntarily.

I've not looked at the racing markets for a few months now, but you can see the (backer) money disappearing on a week-by-week basis on even the main markets on some of the 'minority' sports...

Can't comment on horse racing but many sports have these new line markets. For football a goal lines market which has in itself 33 different lines for goals. This replicates all the over/under markets and the total goals markets. You'd think they'd be cross matching but there isn't. I'm not sure there was any demand for this except for the bot which prices these up with a big overround.

No doubt Barton Bank !!

dlarssonf -     It may well be a "dying sport"..... but at least it is more
interesting than the way many football matches are going with coaches making matches very boring for long periods of time in match.

Coaches are copying tactics that are killing the game to watch.......OK you are not making any point relating to watching sport..........it is the betting and liquidity angle the thread is meant to be about.

You say that " most of the younger generation would rather bet on anything before horse racing"...........does not really say much if true about the younger generation.

Liquidity is down on horse racing, so bots will probably struggle......but for the more knowledgeable ones who use their brains they should still get far better odds on BF than on "sportsbooks", though not getting as much on as they would want.

Their is obviously a "conflict of interest" and this is not good for BF exchange markets. The sooner they resolve this the better it should be for BF.

There are two main reasons that the most of the younger generation don't want to bet on horse racing compared to other sports.
Perceived corruption is the lesser of the two.
The main reason is very simply that they haven't been brought up on horse racing and greyhounds being the sports that they can bet on. When I started punting, horse racing and greyhounds were the everyday diet of the betting shop punter, there was no national lottery, no 49s, no virtual racing. But even more relevantly, football betting was a much smaller concern. You couldn't have single bets on most league matches never mind all the side markets available now. Betting on many other sports was practically non existant.
Like it or not, racing is not a sport that stands alone as a spectator sport for most people. I had no interest in it until I started betting at 15-16 years of age. Whereas football, cricket, tennis, rugby etc are watched by plenty wthout betting interest. Therefore an 18 year old today going into a betting shop will have a bet on what they know, usually football. And that's even if the bookies don't manage to entice them onto to FOBTs.
The only hope of re-igniting liquidity lies in getting more overseas punters betting on UK/Irish racing but if anything it seems to be going the other way with Betfair harder to access in more countries.

The fact betfair put the extra place markets in play suggests they are happy for their bots to cream off whatever they can whether it dilutes the overall experience or not. There's not enough layers on the place market itself let alone the additional ones.

Are they stupid or just ruthlessly destroying the exchange?

Too right, the Fear. Ridiculous to have more markets when liquidity is falling. It dilutes the amounts available further and I am certain actively puts off punters even trying to have a bet on the place markets. The amounts traded are even worse than they appear as they include amounts being traded by the Betfar bots. I have no idea what proportion of the total this is but it is likely significant

Betfair will be around for a very long time, but betting on day to day racing on the exchange away from the big meetings will continue the inexorable declne until most people just give up altogether.

Unless you are backing the fav at the main meeting of the day you will do well to get one grand in the place market never mind ten without smashing the price.

Place only? I suppose he could lump on the tote and take 1.10.

sparrow surely betfair should be aiming to be the one stop shop for all punters? In an ideal world one shouldn't need to bet anywhere else.

Same story on Premier League football.  Swansea v Watford had 200k matched at kick off on Saturday.  Admittedly it wasn't a glamour tie, but it's pretty poor for the most covered league in the world.

Excuse my ignorance but was that a live TV game?

The previous round had every game on the red button.  Not sure if last night was the same, but I would assume so.

PP paid roughly double per unit of profit for bf versus the PP valuation. That more or less translates to bf growing twice as fast as PP to justify the price. It looks like a poor deal with most sports in decline on bf (cricket being the main exception).