BetFair:
Betfair Customer Services 06 Jun 15:55
We held a forum Q&-A session in March in which we announced that we were working on an improved version of bet matching. This would allow us to match bets across selections, and to match those bets at better prices than requested where possible, as we do now when matching back bets against lay bets on the same selection. We wanted to provide customers with an update on our progress towards this.
An example of how this would work in practice:
You submit a bet request to back Roger Federer at 1.7, but there are no unmatched lay bets on Federer at 1.7 or higher to match your bet. However, we do have an unmatched customer request to back his opponent at 2.2 already on the system. The way matching works currently there are two possible outcomes:
1. your bet will remain unmatched, or
2. another customer will subsequently lay your bet, and it will be matched at 1.7, the price you requested.
With the improved bet matching process we would match your request to back Federer against the customer looking to back his opponent at 2.2, and provide an improvement to the price you requested. Your bet would be matched at the best possible price that is a valid increment on Betfair’s odds ladder, in this case 1.83.
As we mentioned during the Q&-A, doing the necessary calculations for an individual bet on a market with only two selections is relatively simple. However bet matching has to work efficiently in much more complex situations: i.e. in markets with many runners, where bets may be partially matched, and matched against bets at more than one price. We also understand that customers would expect no deterioration in the overall performance of bet matching as a result of us adding this functionality. It’s taken us a little longer than we originally hoped to find a solution that meets all those objectives. However we’ve coded a new version of bet matching, and our performance tests on the new process indicate that it will match backs against lays and bets across selections more efficiently than the existing bet matching process.
We are now into the final few weeks of testing, and expect to be ready to introduce this improvement to the site in early July. Again as we mentioned in the Q&-A it was a higher priority for us to find a way to provide price improvements for customers than to resolve issues around the withdrawal of non-runners, so we don’t intend to match bets across selections in horse racing markets in the near future. We’d therefore expect most situations where we would match across selections to occur in the busiest 2- and 3-runner markets, including football and tennis. It’s a busy month ahead for both those sports, and as we believe it’s prudent not to introduce this change at peak times we’ve taken the decision to wait until Euro 2008 and Wimbledon are completed. If Wimbledon is completed on schedule, and assuming remaining testing goes to plan, we expect to make this change to the site on Monday 7th July. We will confirm this nearer the time, but wanted to give customers advance notice as we’ve previously promised.
Thank you for your continued feedback.
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More Old Info:
– Michael Robb
– Tony Clare
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Any charge, fee or commission should be clear and provide clarity for all customers – a golden rule in commercial enterprise. This semi skimming bot however does not give that clarity to customers. That’s ok, because betfair are actually bookmaking company, accepting one bet from a customer and offsetting their risk by acceptating another (inverse) bet from another customer.
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The result ? Any mention of betfair by betfair being a P2P betting exchange, even an exchange, anywhere, should be dealt with immediately. Because they are not, or not anymore, and thanks to their involvement in their own markets, it doesn’t even come close anymore. Betfair have just sold off a crucial part of their business for a few pennies…
unless they are allowed to advertise and sell their business as an exchange.
Betfair would probably disagree because they think they can get away with anything. They could be right.
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And then there’s another interesting problem (for the Gambling Commission at least) regarding Time, but that’s Adonis’ territory.
The next Betfair New logic will probably turn you upside down and shake you about to get any loose change out of your pocket.
Resistance is gaining momentum on the betfair forum.
Betfair are going to have to pull it, or offer best execution. It’s best for everyone.
Let’s see how long it will take before they figure out that one. I give it 3 months.
This whole thing stinks. How can anyone allow an operator (a bookmaker) to extract money from the market (people who are in the process of matching bets) while disregarding the delay every other customer has to submit to, and advertise the company as a P2P-exchange ? On top of that, nobody knows exactly how much they are extracting. We haven’t even considered the time parameters betfair are using because we are kept in the dark on that as well.
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It’s a good thing, for betfair, that some of us are restricted from posting on their forum. Not so good for the consumer.
It’s no fun having a discussion without the usual suspects from the betfair forum. I told them at the time, it would be best for them to shut up and let it die. Well, they are not on here, so I guess there is some brain cell activity amongst some of them. With it, some hope for Britain as a nation.
You should have been there, three years ago, on betfair’s forum.
They were all over Adonis, like dogs fighting over a bone. Some of them even had multiple user-names (like “scripophilist”, who has recently been exposed by a poster named “morris’, for being “Golga” as well). It wasn’t hard to get the crowd to join them, I almost joined them myself, and I did for a very brief moment. But something didn’t feel right, and as I took 2 steps back I figured out what it was. You see, Adonis was one of very few who asked questions, material questions which concerns our well-being, not just that of betfair. And there were lots of people with vested interests posting regularly on the forum at the time. A modern day crucifixion, that’s what it was. I was very impressed with Adonis’ courage at the time and called him “The last Samurai”, as most of us would have thrown in the towel within a week. I’m proud to have him as my friend. You should be proud to have him too.
Just getting back on the issue of consumer protection. Here’s another example to add to your list of reasons why betfair ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CARE about their customers. LET THEM BE FLEECED is their motto. Unless there is sufficient pressure to make them think twice.
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http://site.forum.betfair.com/…..ID=1598069
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Let’s just skip to the conclusion of this thread, as your time must be valuable.
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“It seems to me that the Gambling Commission have fallen asleep. At least the Australian authorities are on the ball, they insist bets being void in these circumstances.”
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We need a lot more babysitters. Just the way it is.