Q & A answers

sorry, but what a load of cr@p.

We have learnt that we dont communicate this effectively with our customers, so we are going to improve that going forward. Previously we would always tell those people directly affected

Where possible any funds that have been awarded as a result of collusion are re-distributed to those affected

if the above is the case, then why has NOBODY on the forum EVER reported a) being told about the results of an investigation b) being refunded monies as a result of collusion.

so according to betfair, that means they have never caught anyone colluding and it involved a member of the forum being affected by said collusion. otherwise, per their statements above, said forumite would have been informed and (potentially) refunded.

big lol

Great answers - well worth waiting for imo

so basically the majority of the post has told us everything you already do regarding collusion, tournaments etc......which we already knew. so thanks for enlightening us

I think the answers are good in general and shows they put some thought in them :-)

Six of Clubs, you realise that the Forum is very small percentage of their player base right? So if there have been, for example, 10 cases of collusion reported, etc and 10,000 users overall, the chances of them being Forum users are very low..

is that 10,000 users overall since betfair poker began?

our schedule has to be tweaked in line with the trends of our customer base.

What exactly does this mean?

i dont know mrgrumpy but we might have to wait a while for an answer....which will then be delayed

POSTING IN EPIC THREAD

BACKLASHHHH

Looks good on 1st glance, well presented, nice spellling, some lovely bold, collusion clearly acknowledged, but in reality no substance whatsoever other than an hourly $1 buy in.

Your site was once great with potential to be a major player; Bruce has brought it to its knees and we can only grieve at the loss of this wasted talent.

i mean .ffs , nearly half the post devoted to telling the morons who think its all rigged that it isnt.

Simon, think about it like this. If there have been 200 posts over the last 3 years about specific instances of collusion, and if just 5% of those were investigated and determined to be fraudulent, then 10 forumites should have been informed and potentially had monies refunded.
Basically the whole post is a pile of poop and I wont be returning.
Again I'm surprised that I'm surprised at the sub standard response.

Have just taken another look at betfair poker site, to remind myself if it really is as bad as i remember. Actually it's worse.

However do not despair , the look and feel of your site is so antiquated, i am sure if you were to apply to english heritage they would give you a grant and class it as a listed poker site. Enabling you to keep it in it's present format for future generations.

pretty expected response, no acceptance of anything being wrong (bar communication) and nothing in that reply that will tempt those who have long since left to come back to the site.

basically theyre going to add some $1 mtts, the customers all want turbos (despite the many many posts on this forum to the contrary), and a 3k stack is a deepstack lol

with regards to the helpdesk and their levels of understanding, they must have received a lot of training since I last spoke with them, I didnt see any address as to why no one of any standing is on duty when big tournies are running (eveniong/weekend)

complete avoidance in the response regarding the technical improvements the site needs (hu rematches, reloads, stopping data mining etc)

as for the collusiion response, sounds like the right policy, just be nice to see evidence of its implementation, as most of the evidence on the forum has been to the contrary

So am I reading this correctly - the sum total of what they learnt from the collusion topic is that they do not communicate well?

What anti-collusion/**ing software do they use? Does this software exist? If so, why are they not using it?

Those who report collusion is their front line? WTF, should they not be our front line and those who report should be their back-up.

What exactly are their "high standards of monitoring and preventing"? They say "Our Fraud Department monitors and investigates any fraudulent and collusive behaviour 24/7, 365 days a year" - How do they do this?

What am I missing here or was this just lip-service and in reality meant little to nothing?

I used to love BF and played daily. Since the move to the new skin with no improvement on stability/liquidity at the site in the year after that I found it impossible to continue. The answer to the collusion issue has done nothing to convince me that I can return with confidence. The book is now firmly closed and it is a shame as BF could have been huge.

I think Betfair have answered the questions perfectly well, and hopefully it has now put anyones fears to bed.



Well you never know when i might need a job ;)

Why are most of our tournaments and satellites turbo or super turbo? And related to this why do we not have more tournaments that have 15 minute blinds?

Looking at our customer base there is a big demand for quicker tournaments

This quote was so good i had to reprint it in bold.

I agree with JPJ. Having been made redundant once already this year I'd just like to say that I think Betfair Poker

No mention of why they used to hide behind the data protection act when dealing with collusion reports. It would have been nice to see an explanation for this and why all of a sudden after this Q+A the data protection act isn't an issue for them anymore.

Overall though the answers given haven't really altered my views on betfair poker. As someone else says the response is well worded but there's little substance. When looking at it you realise that you could have written exactly the same thing. The proof of whether they take this seriously will be in their actions which speak louder than words. We need to see someone posting on this forum that they reported collusion and got funds returned to their account to see if betfair are true to their words.

At the moment there's nothing to make me want to play at betfair poker more often. I played most of my poker at betfair for a while but now I will only visit fleetingly. Anyone who plays most of their poker or all of it on betfair is mad IMO, they just don't do enough for long term customers to make them feel valued and there are far better alternative sites out there. I hope though that I am wrong and we see significant changes and I can maybe be tempted back to betfair gradually.

Whilst the replies fall short of what most would like to read, just the fact that collusion has been highlighted means there should be a big improvement in this area.

The games, schedules and layout of the site are down to personal preference (I enjoy Stud, Oma hi/lo, Horse, etc, so play elsewhere for these), and there are enough sites around for everyone to be accommodated.

Blue and White army 11 Nov 16:52


KunkuWap 05 Nov 16:44


Yea min buyins, hit n running are tilting.

I think they should def introduce some 50bb min buyin tables + 60min time before returning to table with less than you left with.


Wonder if they'll listen to one of their sponsored pro's.
If they don't then we may as well all give up!

Not even a mention :(

collusion

These people who investigate(in my experience return standed e mails ) What experience in all forms of stts do they have,without understanding the game at a very high level , they can not do the job.its fine telling us you will investigate , but investigate what, if you dont know what your looking for then might as well investigate the jack the ripper murders,shorditch is a good place to start .

p.s Forumtramps has he had a late night or did his chat get banned just b4 you released it. You could investigate that,the fact he hasnt replied yet points to foul play.

he's prob having a posh one over this.

So just to clarity... theres never been any collusion... the software is fine... we may give it a tweak after xmas... the rng is fine althought outdated and obsolete... were throwing in a few mtts to keep our ever expanding customer base happy...

Yep... Everything is just fine and dandy...

Well done!!!

Thanks to Betfair for organising the Q&A :-)

all fart and no poo imo

The best thing about this whole predictable farce is that all the usual suspects who have been moaning and moaning moaning about collusion - WILL STILL CARRY ON PLAYING HERE, and simply just keep moaning about it. LOL.

STOP MOANING FFS. How many YEARS will it take for it to sink in that they (allegedly) don't give a damn!? Will it ever sink in? Will you ever learn? How can you possibly not understand this after all this time? If you want to continue playing on a site full of **s and colluders that you continue to see, continue to report and continue to see them at the tables, then fair enough. Keep playing with them. But STOP MOANING ABOUT IT! :) If you are good enough to win on one site you are good enough to win on another where there will be just, if not more, as many fish for you.

Year after year.
Decade after decade :)

fedddddddd uppppppppp 18 Nov 16:10

the rng is fine althought outdated and obsolete


Where do you keep getting this ridiculous idea from?

i also lol'd at the one thing in the op they didn't put in bold which was

Fears over COLLUSION have been widely expressed, and we would like to address them.

It is rather like a bad sitcom. Only funny because it is so predictable. Do you realise that people are laughing not at what you say, but at knowing what you were going to say before you said it, and knowing it was going to be bollux anyway?

Good luck, see you next year when you return for another "Why did it go wrong again" episode.

I noticed that too GB. Also a little odd that they chose to answer a badbeat question that I don't recall anyone answering?

Clearly they assume the forum is a group of low IQ, unskilled, unqualified, newby poker players! I suppose they got something right ;-)

yeah, it was almost like they had an answer for that prepared and thought, might as well include it anyway.

been having a bad day


thanks for the joke thread betfair


thanks

I get the impression that the same exercise, (ie feedback request), has been carried out elsewhere. Probably directly at greek market etc, and this was the number two issue, number one obviously being the lack of $1 superturbo's.

:D :D :D :D

So...

...that's what has taken - how long to produce?

Waffle 7 Substance 0

Thank you Betfair. I'm sure everyone who went to the effort of posting on the original thread will be as pleased as punch with that reply. All our gripes have been washed away.

Just as an aside though, perhaps you could seek the permission of players who have been the victims of collusion and to whom you have made refunds, to print their names here. In that way we will be able to fully appreciate your attempts to stamp out **ing and be fair to your honest up-standing customers. I ask because I have reported collusion to your helpdesk; cases where players have actually discussed the collusion in the chat box, and I have received nothing, not a penny, back.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Since they are audited by an external agency, (though that is only a statement and does not indicate the depths of an audit), they would be able, (and should be willing), to report on numbers.

Players suspected/investigted for collusion
Funds confiscated
Funds reallocated

You can bet that these figures would be embarrassing and therefore not forthcoming from betfair. You may have some entitlement to them from auditors or regulatory bodies.

No mention of why they used to hide behind the data protection act

But, also no mention of using it as a reason not to discuss outcomes. This at least shows that they took some notice of the feedback. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Perhaps Lisa should resubmit the complaint where there was open discussion in the chat box?

I'm afraid the passage of time, a fading memory and a new computer rule that out "M" but to be honest there'll be another case of **ing just round the corner - if not for me then someone on here - and we can see them spring into action, a B on their chests.

Betfair Customer Services

Why dont we test things properly?
...If you have any problems we have a dedicated and knowledgeable poker help team to try and talk you through issues.

"Have you tried clearing the cache and re-starting?"

that should read

If you have any problems we have a undedicated and unknowledgeable poker help team to try and talk coherently

Hello and welcome to the betfair helpline:

If you are obsessive/compulsive press 1 repeatedly.

If you are codependent ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalites press 3 4 5 and 6.

If you are paranoid we know where you are and what you want just stay on the line and we will trace your call.

If you are delusional press 7 and your call will be transfered to the mother ship.

If you are skitzophrenic listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are depressive it wont matter which number you press because nobody will answer you.

If you are dyslexic press 69696969696969.

If you suffer from short term memory loss go back to the start of this message again.

And finally if you suffer from low self esteem just hang up now because we dont give a f . . k




:D

Last week, betfair were a country mile behind staaars......

This week, betfair are still a country mile behind staaars.

So there you have it, no progress at all. Have a good weekend.

Give them a chance !

They've said they're now paying more attention to Customer concerns.
Give them some credit for trying, and give them a chance to change and improve
things.

Anyone remember the disconnection problems a few months ago ? Things are Soooooo much better
now.




Calm down with all the vitriol already.... Remember its just a game, and you're supposed to enjoy it

Unfortunately for Betfair they do not have a monopoly like on their exchange so they cannot get away with having another try.

i was told that following investigation the players we caught colluding had their accounts closed. however as they were not winning players, there was no need to refund people. i cant reproduce the email as it will get the thread pulled.

this is not the case. they were all winning players when they colluded, and anyone scoping boba12345, tamtamsan and sexybiene can see that at their peak their colluding WAS producing results and profit.

anyone who has played in a d2n involving these players who were **ing and have been banned, and who lost, is entitled to a refund imho.

Obv i was joking yesterday about some posters going missing , but does no one else think its odd that ForumTramps, doobs and arbboy have not posted yet on this thread, must be foul play at hand.

Obviously if they were colluding and that colluding led to any winnings (which it surely must've) then people are due a refund. The fcat that they are losing players overall is irrelevant

looooooooool yes thats the solution, just calm down!!

after all, its not like you're paying betfair poker to provide a service such as cash tables or tournaments - ooh you are!! :0

If they have banned them and not refunded then that is quite simply disgraceful.

I can only guess that they mean, no money available in their accounts to confiscate. This however puts the onus on them to take recovery action, as they intimated that they did with the sixpack fiasco.

If it is good for the goose then it is good for he gander imo.

they should pay from their own funds and then reclaim from said individual. This would also encourage them to act better to stop collusion!

If they was to pay out refunds they would constantly have there hands in there pocket, u will never ever stop collusion in these d2ns. as soon as these 2 or 3 go they will either open new accounts or others will take there place.they are structured to make it soo easy for colluding that it will never stop.... Withdraw the games altogether and create a better format like pstarz....

Other sites have d2n sngs which are not riddled with collusion

such as where??

starz anbd i poker have d2n games

Yes if u read my post i have already said the pstarz ones are much better, it is a lot harder to collude in them, even though it prop still goes on as in any form of poker..

So basically Betfair email a few peeps to say some players have been finally caught colluding (shock horror).

However, oh by the way they don't have any money in their accounts so no one gets a refund!? Seriously?!! :^0

THAT'S NO EXCUSE BETFAIR! FFS!

You ARE responsible and should refund the **ed players out of goodwill.

This response seems exactly like the responses you used to give to disconnected players... when firstly you'd fob them off with reasons why they weren't due any money back (claiming it wasn't your fault), and only after an almighty fuss agree to refund players.

What do u expect your customers to do when you treat them all with such contempt?

How do u think people react when they discover that their friend got a refund...eventually... after he caused a stink, but everyone else hasn't, even though they are in exactly the same position?

It's all very well preaching your great works but you only have tpo look at sites/customer service like pokersstarrs to see how this kind of thing should be dealt with.

Two points from me.

our schedule has to be tweaked in line with the trends of our customer base

That is typical 'management speak', when you have a load of management sat round a table one says something like that and they all nod and agree as they fear asking WTF it means for fear of having their ignorance exposed but when they are all clueless then coming out with statements like that is easy to get away with.
But in reality it doesn't actually mean anything!

Secondly,

All the answers about the software including why it isn't fixed (LOL) and why it loooks so bad 9which it doesn't, try looking at ipokey or Pacific) but no mention of the much asked question 'why does betfair software chew so much processor power and what are they doing about it'?

I guess there is a gaming management book somewhere that says all your customers are stupid, and BF have taken this on board and whilst it is likely to be correct when bringing in new customers, it tends not to hold too well with people in the marketplace for a long time. BF clearly considers the short term revenue from its superturbo/greek/colluders to be of more importance than the several hundred loyal long time players that they have lost and cannot return despite wanting too at times. Maybe Im wrong, but growth will not come without the loyal, so imo it is a fallacy to take solice in your user trends if they are typically short term players, and you cannot attract older players back.

And that is without overlooking the obvious, they really couldn't give a fk combined with not knowing what they are doing.

I haven't responded as I have been busy.

I'd have liked an answer to this "and why does the UK data protection act protect "Romanian"* players on a site based in Malta?", but guess by their answer that it doesn't.

And I simply don't see why they can't just say 500 people were investigated in period x, 100 were banned and $y was returned to customers. Something along those lines will give more comfort than just words.

Anyway I am pleased they are now going to keep us informed of their investigations in to collusion. Nothing worse than them hiding behing the data protection act and not knowing of any bans etc.

Would like to see chipfire's email too.

several hundred loyal long time players that they have lost

For once Jim I think you are wrong, by now they will have lost thousands.

Just noticed that the only real deepstack is $1 buy in, i thought they was at least gnna increase the other deep stacks from 3k to 5k but no we are kept happy by the $1 deepstack.

i have had 4 so far doobs, most of them contradictory. correspondence is ongoing. i wasnt really affected at all by the collusion i was just mortified that a week after tamtamsan was outed by punterz and arb he was still colluding and cash dumping.

me and joffy emailed bf the same night they all vanished off the site.

you only have to look at his (tamtamsan ) scope graph to get an idea of the scale of it. a long term losing low stakes donk wins 2.5k in a month from good players, and nobody gets a refund ????

perhaps arb, joffy, punterz etc have been refunded and sworn to secrecy. fair play to them if they have.

drop me a mail doobs and i will let you have a look at the correspondence, some of which was identical to that posted by joffy.

markdobson@hotmale.co.uk

No refunds however thye have asked me to stay vigilant ;)

Regards

Juliet Bravo

Kangaroo was seething on cash tables. Apparently betfair banned various forum accounts he uses just before announcement on collusion. He is insisting he is refunded via email as he reported **s and they were still allowed to play for a week after. I can see where he is coming from, in one game he bubbles against two **s and loses $211 for a seven days after the people can still afford to register for these games.

It seems to me like betfair are telling lies saying they refund cash. If they don't refund in this instance when will they refund? A player is clearly **ed and the **s clearly have cash in their accounts still. If you can't get money back in this instance then you never can. More lies and empty promises from betfair, I won't be coming back here any time soon.

you couldnt make this up

basically they might now refund YOUR money providing you chase them enough times and the** who took it havent gone busto

cant believe almost some praise at this new stance, received an email from stars yesterday for a refund of $80 dollars from 8 months ago. They even apologised for the long time it has taken to refund me ( i had no idea i warranted one to be honest)

i have taken things as far as i can. like joffy, i have had confirmation all the players i reported are now banned, and also been asked to report anyone else i suspect.

if i had the time and the inclination i could probably spend an hour on scope detecting other usernames involved in this, but i suspect they too have realised the game is up and will be laying low for a while or moving to another site.

on a positive note at least these players have been banned. the moral of the story i gues is you need to be careful who you sit down to play with, and if you suspect collusion the onus is on you to keep hammering away at bf until they act.

Seriously ask yourself who really are the mugs here!
So many poker sites out there folks :-)
Banging your head against a brick wall is not the way.

Why do i have to wait 6 hours before i can play in the next 10 minute blind levels tourney ??? Please put a few more on will you s** a few of those 15 minutes blinds $5 reg to 10 min blind thank you

A decent lawyer is charging you £150 ish to write a letter to BF, (I'd send it to UK head office, especially if you were originally an Exchange customer), and ask all the relevant questions regarding policy and procedure, (past and present), and referring to specific instances. Perhaps Patrick Russell at Charles Russells.

On another point, unless you have signed a confidentiality agreement with BF then you have the right to reproduce any written content that they provide as long as it does not cause malice or harm and is reasonably in yours or the public interest. The footnote on the bottom of emails is rather contentious legally.

Absolutely Jim. Sticking a "don't share this with anyone on the end of a letter" means nothing. It's not a copyright.

"the players you've recently reported have now been banned form Betfair." (sic)

i think thats job done from my perspective. i didnt lose money to them so i dont need compensating. and i also got a nice thank you email today from bf.

ive played something like 2000 22$ d2ns this year. of those there has been definite collusion in 3 of them, which i raised in the chatbox during the game, and which i reported to bf. none of the colluders still play here.

there have been probably no more than a half dozen other games i suspect were rigged, but i couldnt prove anything so made a note of the players i felt were suspect. sometimes possible collusion is just bad play.

of course the best colluders are very hard to detect, particularly if you multitable, as you tend not to watch hands were you have folded pre. and i suspect these players are not going to be playing many lower stakes games. there certainly isnt widespread collusion at the lower stakes, perhaps one game in every 200.

its down to the high stakes d2n players to remain vigilant as there is more incentive for people to **.

if you report the colluders, and continue to badger bf, then they will ban people. i would also like to think they will compensate those who have lost out.

chip. they MUST compensate people. It's not enough banning them, it's ridiculous that despite bans players still havent been refunded, and been given that most ridiculous excuse!

Gl at tables sir, nice work btw.

am i the only person who suspects that 'The Fraud Dept' probably consists of one bloke who has 5 other job titles too.

they might also be responsible for sending out promotional prizes :p

actually i think that there isnt a specific poker fraud department at all, just one generic one for all betfair, and they are probably more concerned with cc chargebacks , kyc and money laundering than they ever will be with collusion on the poker tables.

personally I don't think they have any anti collusion software at all. lets face it, if they can't get the sattelite information right for two years what chance to develop functional anti collusion software?

that would tie in with call centre staff who service all areas of betfair, same prob with the fraud team who i suspect many of whom dont play poker and may not know what to look for.

what other explanation is there?

i wouldn`t mind a ten minute blind mtt but i might have to wait 9 hours until i get one at 8pm tonight.More 10 minute blind tournies please thank you

~X(

thanks mavis. to be honest there may well have been players refunded for all we know. i agree there certainly should be refunds made.

however those most likely to have been **ed e.g. arb and punterz have been very quiet on the subject, so perhaps a deal has been done to suit all parties.

daddy pig 21 Nov 22:17
~X(

What does that mean daddy pig?

i havent gone quiet on the subject. believe me i havent received any deal. i am fuming as i have lost $20k to these ** over the past few weeks. i have emailled bf countless times with no reply. once the aussie millions promo is complete i am sure betfair will see the kick back from this from the big players unless it is resolved. all of a sudden arbs 'unreal' $20k downswing with no upswing at all in a $20k downswing playing mainly 'coinflip' d2ns has finished his results have returned to their normal level (break even ish before cake).

I have a massive sample of games over the same stakes/players etc (over 12k games) therefore its pretty obv during this downswing that something was not quite right. then take kang who is a winning player again over a big sample of games and because of the aussie millions promo he starts playing d2ns to boost his cake and just like arb in the very same period does his brains.


doesnt look like u need advanced collusion software to work it out. just a simple understanding of variance and the fact that my $20k downswing playing d2ns is mathamatically impossible to be put down to variance

Bamboo 22 Nov 01:50


daddy pig 21 Nov 22:17
~X(

What does that mean daddy pig?

at wits' end face. got it from partypoker

Daddy pig why did you put that for?

Bamboo 22 Nov 18:36


Daddy pig why did you put that for?
it was at bf poker not your post. :)

I wish you would explain yourself a bit better9more precise please) ty

ok I will go and sit in the cornner ;)

you and your funny squiggles and crosses and that ~xo

why don`t you tell me what a ten minute blind tourney is called please?

Style over substance, the longest suicide note in history.

politics