alternative handicaps and points

somebody has had the blinding insight that the way to liven up moribund markets is to make them more complicated.

I asked Betfair to add these markets and received this reply:

"Thank you for your e-mail, but we have made a commercial decision to only offer one handicap market for these matches, so unfortunately we will be unable to accommodate your request on this occasion."

So I've written back to them, and I suggest that anyone else who is concerned about this does the same. They did a similar thing a few years ago with rugby markets, quite a few people complained and in the end they changed their decision, This is what I wrote:

"Thank you for the prompt reply. That this is a ‘commercial decision’ I find somewhat puzzling. I would have thought that it would be in Betfair’s commercial interests to encourage as much activity and liquidity onto the exchange, and as someone who has been quite active on NFL markets for a number of years I am certain that this change will do precisely the opposite.

I can illustrate this with an example. Suppose as tonight we have Inidanapolis @ Chicago with the Indianapolis -9.5 handicap trading at about 2. Lets say that after the first quarter Indianapolis are 14-0 ahead. At this point the Indianapolis -9.5 would be trading at something like 1.14, and most typical users aren’t so keen at trading at prices like this. What would normally happen is  that attention would shift to another handicap line at this point, -19.5 pts say, and this would become the most active market. The point of having multiple handicap lines on televised games, therefore, is just so that there is a chance of maintaining interest in a game where one team or other starts doing much better than expected.
Do please forward this to the person concerned, I am convinced that this is an ill-conceived decision, and I’ve noticed that some other NFL customers are equally concerned by their contributions to the ‘North American’ section of the forum under ‘alternative handicaps and points’"

Exactly what I told them.
Surely the aim is to keep the interest going until the end of the match.
A 16.5 hcap market in the indi game would have more matched on it than at least 20 of the irrelevant markets they've put up instead.
It is just stupid beyond belief

possibly by "commercial decision" they mean, we want to move business  to our own fixed odds site, so we're making the exchange as crap as possible.

Betfair need to start listening to their customers.  I cant fecking believe the minefield of shyte bets available.

well done betfair - now all the markets are dead

Any newbies are gonna take one look at that lot and go back to betting with p4dday power. 
If it aint broke why fix it?

you really do wonder what goes on at BF towers sometimes.

anyone with any experience of betting on american football could tell them the changes would kill liquidity. but somehow despite ten years to figure this stuff out no one who matters puts their hand up and says "wait - this is completely stupid. let's not do it."

I've just used the other exchange for the first time ever, their liquidity isn't great but the functionality is better.  Come on Betfair sort it out

good to see someone's got some common sense

Most markets empty again last night, no explanation from Betfair why they have expanded the range of bets.  Why not keep it simple? 

I'm still finding the whole new site unmanageable and slow despite trying all available browsers on a superfast laptop.  I have a new router on the way so hopefully that may help.

A frustrating start to the season

What has to be an example of a wank is the fact the match odds for NFL games is now described as moneyline its been match odds for years and all betfair punters found it without any trouble whilst other sports it is match odds..please i thought usa was illegal to bet on the sports over the internet so who are betfair trying to please
moneyline ..what a wank