Poker
There is currently 1 person viewing this thread.
04 Nov 11
18:18
Joined:
Date Joined:
02 Oct 07
Ok, quite a long list so hopefully wont miss anything.
I will bold my own personal comments after each section.
Essence
We were promised some sort of FAQ's and diagrams of roughly how essence works enabling us to get a fuller picture of how it operates. Apparently the format of essence has just been changed and they thought it was wasteful and misleading to give us an explanation and then having to change it in a matter of weeks.
I have been assured this will be done and we will have this before the end of November.
Not a fan of the essence system at all as I still believe the actual sites benefit far more than the fish do but they have stated it is here to stay so will be interesting to see just how detailed and open the information is when it arrives.
Feed related issues
They assure us there was an effort to decrease feed related issues and unfortunately they admit that it has actually got worse rather than better. The whole On Game network has been going down which is responsible for the vast bulk of any outages. They are still working hard to try and resolve this.
I actually have sympathy for them on this issue, it is hard to hold Betfair responsible for outages that are out of their control. A lot of the outages prior to this were Betfair only which obviously is their responsibility. Apart from actually leaving On Game (which isn't going to happen) what can they actually do?
MTT Leaderboards
As was explained at the time they have no immediate plans to re-introduce an MTT leaderboard as they feel their promotions budget is better spent elsewhere although there will be an On Game wide MTT leaderboard promotion over the Christmas period. They have also promised that if they do bring back a Betfair MTT leaderboard promotion in the future they will consult with the forum first.
I am an MTT player but had to admit they had decent reasons for not bringing back MTT leaderboards in terms of the people at the top were already big winners anyway and they would rather throw that promo budget at other areas.
Community Tournaments
They have re-jigged the community tournaments as promised and have John playing most weeks (or a replacement) and with the radio broadcast and the original prizes (which they will offer an alternative to if you want apparently). They encourage further feedback on this as it is our tournament and they will continue to reshape it if we want.
I think the community tourney is going well, cutting out the added money has driven away the Russian freerollers who offer nothing to the forum and with the radio broadcast and Johns informative musings I must say I think it has been a success. Big thanks to BFPRM
Cash table usability
This has been improved as promised with now an ‘open similar table’ button which people had been asking for and an’ autopost blinds at multiple tables’ feature as well. They have improved the 'time to act' sound and have introduced ‘always wait for Big Blind’. Time bank will be with us withing 10 days apparently and preferred seats by the end of the month. They have promised this is an ongoing improvement of usability and they will keep asking us what we feel is needed and they will keep us informed of ongoing updates via the forum and when there is downtime for updates what we can expect to find improved when we next log in.
The guy in charge of this side of things flew in from Europe to meet with us and has delivered what he promised and he did show great enthusiasm to improve the product and appears to be a driving force. I don't actually play cash so some feedback from cash players would be appreciated.
I think in this area in particular I have to say they appear to have delivered big style.
Separate loss limits on Sportsbook and Poker
They feel there is not enough call for this feature for them to justify expenditure to implement it when other things need improving/updating. Definitely not happening in next 12 months
We had already been informed of this on the forum and it is a hard one for me to comment on. I think only the people affected by it need to comment and they have made their opinions abundantly clear.
Customer Service
Apparently the spotlight is now on their department and all the cases we have highlighted since our last meeting on the forum have been investigated. They accept there are knowledge gaps in some areas of the poker customer service and their is an ongoing effort to plug these. SLA’s (service level agreements) are being introduced between departments within Betfair and between Betfair and Ongame. These will set timescales for query resolution and will also produce statistics for which departments/companies are actually delivering within a set timescale. Thuis will mean when a customer rings up with a query if he is promised a resolution answer within 24 or 48 hours it will hopefully be delivered within that timescale and if not it will be easy to see who is responsible for that failure.
At our meeting they promised that all outages would be reported on the forum and when the site was back up would also be reported. This has only failed once which I think was either the 1st or 2nd outage after the meeting. Since then they have had a lot of chances to practice this proceedure and it now seems to be working.
It looks to me like they are finally beginning to understand that their customer service for poker is just not up to scratch. They say it is improving and will continue to improve but on this subject I am always a bit sceptical. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating but I think we all have to continue giving feedback about any dealings with customer service we have whether it be negative or positve. If you think the service is getting better it is just as important to say as it is to report that something is wrong so we can get a genuine feel if there has been improvements.
Fraud
They said they would approach Ongame and try to get them to release data on fraud to them from across the network and inform us about frequency and levels of refunds. The ironic result is Ongame are citing the data protection act for not releasing data about other networks to Betfair. I get the impression that Betfair are frustarted by this and are escalating it to higher levels. The only data Ongame will release to them is where it only concerns Betfair players which is obviously of very little use.
Ongame is probably a bit up in the air at the moment with the Bwin situation but you would have thought that this would actually give Betfair more leverage to squeeze this stuff from Ongame. If Ongame wont openly release data to their second biggest (and soon to be biggest) customer then it is onvious that is is a big problem. It would appear to me that Betfair have finally realised that the integrity and reputation of the site is not as high as it should be and that it needs to change, I just hope for Betfairs sake that they can make Ongame see this or the situation and the reputation of the site can only get worse.
I will bold my own personal comments after each section.
Essence
We were promised some sort of FAQ's and diagrams of roughly how essence works enabling us to get a fuller picture of how it operates. Apparently the format of essence has just been changed and they thought it was wasteful and misleading to give us an explanation and then having to change it in a matter of weeks.
I have been assured this will be done and we will have this before the end of November.
Not a fan of the essence system at all as I still believe the actual sites benefit far more than the fish do but they have stated it is here to stay so will be interesting to see just how detailed and open the information is when it arrives.
Feed related issues
They assure us there was an effort to decrease feed related issues and unfortunately they admit that it has actually got worse rather than better. The whole On Game network has been going down which is responsible for the vast bulk of any outages. They are still working hard to try and resolve this.
I actually have sympathy for them on this issue, it is hard to hold Betfair responsible for outages that are out of their control. A lot of the outages prior to this were Betfair only which obviously is their responsibility. Apart from actually leaving On Game (which isn't going to happen) what can they actually do?
MTT Leaderboards
As was explained at the time they have no immediate plans to re-introduce an MTT leaderboard as they feel their promotions budget is better spent elsewhere although there will be an On Game wide MTT leaderboard promotion over the Christmas period. They have also promised that if they do bring back a Betfair MTT leaderboard promotion in the future they will consult with the forum first.
I am an MTT player but had to admit they had decent reasons for not bringing back MTT leaderboards in terms of the people at the top were already big winners anyway and they would rather throw that promo budget at other areas.
Community Tournaments
They have re-jigged the community tournaments as promised and have John playing most weeks (or a replacement) and with the radio broadcast and the original prizes (which they will offer an alternative to if you want apparently). They encourage further feedback on this as it is our tournament and they will continue to reshape it if we want.
I think the community tourney is going well, cutting out the added money has driven away the Russian freerollers who offer nothing to the forum and with the radio broadcast and Johns informative musings I must say I think it has been a success. Big thanks to BFPRM
Cash table usability
This has been improved as promised with now an ‘open similar table’ button which people had been asking for and an’ autopost blinds at multiple tables’ feature as well. They have improved the 'time to act' sound and have introduced ‘always wait for Big Blind’. Time bank will be with us withing 10 days apparently and preferred seats by the end of the month. They have promised this is an ongoing improvement of usability and they will keep asking us what we feel is needed and they will keep us informed of ongoing updates via the forum and when there is downtime for updates what we can expect to find improved when we next log in.
The guy in charge of this side of things flew in from Europe to meet with us and has delivered what he promised and he did show great enthusiasm to improve the product and appears to be a driving force. I don't actually play cash so some feedback from cash players would be appreciated.
I think in this area in particular I have to say they appear to have delivered big style.
Separate loss limits on Sportsbook and Poker
They feel there is not enough call for this feature for them to justify expenditure to implement it when other things need improving/updating. Definitely not happening in next 12 months
We had already been informed of this on the forum and it is a hard one for me to comment on. I think only the people affected by it need to comment and they have made their opinions abundantly clear.
Customer Service
Apparently the spotlight is now on their department and all the cases we have highlighted since our last meeting on the forum have been investigated. They accept there are knowledge gaps in some areas of the poker customer service and their is an ongoing effort to plug these. SLA’s (service level agreements) are being introduced between departments within Betfair and between Betfair and Ongame. These will set timescales for query resolution and will also produce statistics for which departments/companies are actually delivering within a set timescale. Thuis will mean when a customer rings up with a query if he is promised a resolution answer within 24 or 48 hours it will hopefully be delivered within that timescale and if not it will be easy to see who is responsible for that failure.
At our meeting they promised that all outages would be reported on the forum and when the site was back up would also be reported. This has only failed once which I think was either the 1st or 2nd outage after the meeting. Since then they have had a lot of chances to practice this proceedure and it now seems to be working.
It looks to me like they are finally beginning to understand that their customer service for poker is just not up to scratch. They say it is improving and will continue to improve but on this subject I am always a bit sceptical. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating but I think we all have to continue giving feedback about any dealings with customer service we have whether it be negative or positve. If you think the service is getting better it is just as important to say as it is to report that something is wrong so we can get a genuine feel if there has been improvements.
Fraud
They said they would approach Ongame and try to get them to release data on fraud to them from across the network and inform us about frequency and levels of refunds. The ironic result is Ongame are citing the data protection act for not releasing data about other networks to Betfair. I get the impression that Betfair are frustarted by this and are escalating it to higher levels. The only data Ongame will release to them is where it only concerns Betfair players which is obviously of very little use.
Ongame is probably a bit up in the air at the moment with the Bwin situation but you would have thought that this would actually give Betfair more leverage to squeeze this stuff from Ongame. If Ongame wont openly release data to their second biggest (and soon to be biggest) customer then it is onvious that is is a big problem. It would appear to me that Betfair have finally realised that the integrity and reputation of the site is not as high as it should be and that it needs to change, I just hope for Betfairs sake that they can make Ongame see this or the situation and the reputation of the site can only get worse.
sort by:
Show
per page
Replies: 22
|
By:
My overall view is that this has been a very positive procedure with lots of positives coming from it.
The main thing seems to be that Betfair is now looking much harder at themselves and that internal checks are being set up so that departments and people who are not delivering will be exposed internally and will give the customer externally a better service. In terms of improving the software there have been big strides made and within promised timescales which is a massive improvement to previously when we were promised the earth and delivered very little. It will be interesting to see what others make of all this but personally I feel it has been wortwhile. Obviously the whole fraud issue is very disappointing but when things are not wholly in Betfairs control then it is understandable that it is harder to deliver. At the next meeting I will be stressing exactly how important this area is and how they must continue to push for improvement if they really want their poker site to move onto the next level. Without customer confidence in the integrity of the site you can have as many software improvements as you like but you will always be facing an uphill battle to get customer confidence and satisfaction. |
|
By:
Separate loss limits on Sportsbook and Poker
They feel there is not enough call for this feature for them to justify expenditure to implement it when other things need improving/updating. Definitely not happening in next 12 months We had already been informed of this on the forum and it is a hard one for me to comment on. I think only the people affected by it need to comment and they have made their opinions abundantly clear. ----------------------------------------------------------------- chipfire227 Date Joined: 11 Nov 07 I dont think it matters how much of the client base wants it, for me its a social responsibilty for bookmakers to give punters the right to self exclude themselves from gambling. I assume, given the GAMCARE logos dotted around the site, Betfair claims to operate the same policy. However anyone opening an account with Betfair for the purposes of playing poker, which according to the High Court is a game of skill, cannot exclude themselves from Sports Betting, or set a loss limit for Sports Betting. Essentially if you want to self exclude yourself from gambling on this site, you are also not allowed to play poker.Which is strange because before the switch to Ongame you could set a loss limit, which suggests someone at Betfair has made a rational, thought out decision, to remove the safety valve we once had. How does this sit with a committment to GAMCARE ? Like others, most of my funds are in my non sports book linked accounts e.g. stars and 888 where i cant pish them up a wall. Sorry Bruce I dont see how your suggestion works. If you win 2k in an MTT on here late one night there is nothing whatsoever to stop you blowing the lot the next day laying horses. At least pre Ongame you could set a loss limit so that couldnt happen. Sad  |
|
By:
firstly well done on your efforts hope they are rewarded
i dont "buy" that setting up a stop loss for poker/sports betting is to expensive to implement. Jesus cant be that hard infact id go as far to say that it puts betfair in a very wonky position re responsible gambling tbh |
|
By:
^^^^ well said
|
|
By:
JB,
Apparently it is a 2 month project which if they had done would have meant other improvements would not have happened yet. They say it is about priority. Obviously I only have their word for it but I think if it was just a simple fix they would have done it. |
|
By:
1) Why remove it in the first place ?
2) Cant be that hard, when they manage to have seperate loss limits for poker, arcade, and casino for anyone using the sports book. 3) They have said minute numbers of people requested it, but I wonder how they came to that conclusion ? Overall I think things are getting better in a lot of areas, certainly the 2 way communication between BF and the forum has improved. If I'm honest I wasn't expecting much from the fraud side of things once they brought Ongame into the equation. In fact must of the negative stuff like outages, leaderboard updates, software updates etc seems to be being blamed on Ongame. More importantly we are pushing for another meeting before Christmas, so really need some feedback and ideas for topics of discussion from forumites. |
|
By:
have just noticed, but for players in th eppayers club and not on cake, willfrom later this month only b earning 3.6 points per dollar raked nstead of 5points on stt/mtts?
does this still mean a player can get equailant 40% now? or is this now impossible? |
|
By:
Customer Service
They accept there are knowledge gaps in some areas of the poker customer service . Since they have been denying this for years, right up to about 3 weeks ago actually, I find it hard now to take them seriously when they say they're going to address it. It's the main reason I hardly play on here and when I do it's for pennies while I'm working. To pass the buck on other issues to Ongame is a bit like buying a Kia and then complaining that it isn't a Porsche. It's not the Kia's fault per se. The fault lies within the original decision to sign up. |
|
By:
The curtain of the Data Protection Act that many a poker site, including Betfair, have hidden behind in the past is a nonsense, particularly here where overall figures are being sought, not individual cases.
The DPA does not cover the release of en-masse data. It is there to protect the personal details of individuals not the behaviour of thousands taken as a whole. |
|
By:
Refunded again on Stars during the week after playing against 2 cheaters. This time I didn't have a clue I was being cheated. This is twice in the space of weeks I've had cash back from the site and I've only been playing on Stars seriously for 6 months.
I've been playing with Betfair right from the start and have never been refunded a penny. Either Stars is rife with colluders or I've just been really lucky not to have been cheated on Betfair - I think both scenarios are highly unlikely. |
|
By:
Wouldn't it be possible to reduce your exposure limit on the sportsbook instead of self excluding?
|
|
By:
Prior to the switch I had a weekly loss limit of £50 on the sports book only, which I was happy with. It meant I could play as much poker as I wanted, could leave a decent chunk in my account,and I wasnt pishing poker winnings up the wall on the nags.
Now if I set the same weekly loss limit on the sports book it also applies to poker, which means if I have one losing session at the tables, or lay a couple of winners on the sports book, I cant play poker again for a week. All we were asking was that they go back to having seperate loss limits for poker and sports betting as they do for arcade and casino, but they wont do it, presumably because they dont want winning poker players taking money away from the site. The obvious solution is for us degenerates to grow a back bone, but its easier said than done, especially when there seems to be something sports related to bet on round the clock these days.  |
|
By:
Thanks for the update
|
|
By:
No one has ever said why the "poker room only" tab in the account statement section of "my account" has never been upgraded or doesn't work. I'm not to worried about breaking down my poker results because I don't play much cash and can get a good idea of where I stand on sngs with sharkscope. I just want an easy way of separating my sports betting from my poker betting and the only way I can see of doing this at the moment is to have 2 accounts - and that can't be good for your overall BF points tally. Any chance of a reply on this please BF Poker Manager?
|
|
By:
OK McCoy let me investigate.
I cant really check myself as we are not allowed to play poker so it has never worked for me. What you are saying (please correct me if I am wrong) is that when you click on your account statement it says there are no transaction? |
|
By:
Exactly.
|
|
By:
When you go to "all transactions" do poker results display?
Is anyone else experiencing this problem? |
|
By:
ive just checked this i very seldom do sports bets
in the poker it has no transactions but it shows in the all transaction page |
|
By:
I raised this issue about isolating Poker P & L over a year ago. It has never worked since the migration to Ongame. I must have brought it up quite a few times when they were asking for topics for the Q & A session but every time it just got ignored.
I suggested that the best solution would be for the winnings in each tourney to be put at the bottom of every HH file, as all the other sites I played at do. Never got any response whatsoever. |
|
By:
As far as Im aware it is a universal issue.
If you do a P and L search it gives you a breakdown of profit and loss sport by sport but excludes poker. From memory if you wanted P and L on old Betfair you had to request this in an email. |
|
By:
That's correct Chip. With the old betfair you could request it by email. That facility is no longer available since the merge with Ongame. I said how come if they can pass the data to Sharkscope they are unable to pass it to the player directly...no response as usual. I said well why not at least make the facility at the website to isolate poker transactions work....no response.
|
|
By:
As a cash player that plays up to 9 tables (3max) its great to see they are making improvements. I would love to see 'auto'top up' introduced, I think most regs would be able to play an extra table or two if this was added which can only be a good thing for ongame.
Also, thanks for taking your time to do this Helmuthian. Great to see things finally happening and players being involved. Keep up the good work. |