Tag Archives: BetFair

Trade on BetFair with a TradeFair-like interface thanks to the BinarySoft order-entry software.

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BinarySoft:

BinarySoft develop innovative cross-platform software to operate with online betting exchanges such as Betfair.

Online betting is currently taking the internet by storm, with betting exchanges seeing huge traded volumes in a wide range of markets from sports to political and financial bets. The dividing line between investing and gambling is becoming increasingly blurred, with millions of people worldwide now actively trading on betting exchanges.

BinarySoft develop innovative cross-platform software to enable betting exchange users to trade more efficiently. We are officially certified by the Betfair API, which means that we work closely with Betfair to ensure that our software is reliable and secure.

BinarySoft BDI™ is a revolutionary new way to trade on the Betfair betting exchange. It uses binary prices to present a clean and professional interface for all Betfair markets and is especially suited to markets which have exactly two selections.

About BinarySoft
BinarySoft Ltd was founded in December 2006 by Chris Gibbs. Chris graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Cambridge University in 2003 and has since been involved in various internet start-up companies, providing a wide range of software products and solutions. BinarySoft, his latest venture, was formed out of a keen interest in financial systems and mathematics, together with extensive trading experience in sports and financial markets.

Our Mission
The primary mission of the company is to provide innovative software products for the betting and financial industries. Several exciting new ideas at various stages of the design cycle are currently in development.

Great care is taken over the quality and reliability of our software. All products undergo substantial beta testing before being released and we listen carefully to feedback from our users in order to provide truly world-class software. We pride ourselves in having the most elegant and efficient user interfaces in our field.

BinarySoft are currently based in an office in Bath, UK. The company is a privately held limited company, registered in England and Wales, company number 06032505.

Address:

BinarySoft Ltd
Suite 5
Piccadilly House
London Road
Bath
BA1 6PL
UK

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: +44 (0)1225 22 10 10

Chris Gibbs is the man!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus, I love Bath. Went two times. Not far away from StoneHenge.

Why does Tradefair care about Prediction Markets

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Are prediction markets good at providing a true measure of probability?

Crowd theory says yes, business interests may complicate things.

How is accuracy obtained?

Well of course the answer is obvious – if you want an accurate measure of probability look at the fundamentals for yourself and then ask a lot of people for their opinion. If you encourage the participants to put either reputation and/or money at risk their prediction skills get better. If you provide a platform where systems can participate as well as individuals then not only is the best assessment of probability obtained but it becomes highly dynamic and shifts with every small change in the underlying markets/world conditions.

Sounds complicated, but what does this mean for a business?

Well, simply build an exchange that can provide unprecedented capacity and let the world decide what the likelihood is of an event happening.

And who are Tradefair?

Tradefair is Betfair&#8217-s new home for the financial bettor and trader – our binaries exchange product has opened with straightforward traditional financial markets (FTSE up/down) but one of the things that excites us hugely is the inclusion of market types such as Interest Rates. We call these the &#8220-unhedgeables&#8221-, markets that we all have an opinion on, all understand some of the fundamentals but don&#8217-t have the safety net of an underlying market to hedge into. We are starting in a modest way but we firmly believe that the ONLY place that true market sentiment can be measured is on an exchange.

Why does Tradefair care about prediction markets?

Take a look at Betfair today – it has some of the most liquid, volatile and high participation prediction markets in the world. Participation drives the price down and provides fantastic value to our customers. This has allowed us to build a business that we are all really proud of. The Tradefair team believe that by focusing on financial markets, delivering exchange technology that allows mass participation in an accessible, highly available and transparent manner will allow us bring that same value proposition to the financial sector.

BetFair traders discuss TradeFairs 0-100 trading interface.

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And conclude that that&#8217-s the way to go!!!!! – (page 2):

BinarySoft Chris 27 Nov 10:38
I won&#8217-t be one of the initial MMers nope, but I may well do it at some point next year, depending on the spreads of the initial MM(s). That&#8217-s also assuming they do have a MM – launching TF Binaries without a MM would be a very unwise move! You are right that decimal odds are a bit counter-intuitive for trading – this is one of the main reasons why I developed BDI (binary-betting interface to the Betfair API) and it also means expanding it to allow support for Tradefair should be possible with very few alterations to the interface – possibly as straightforward as just displaying both BF and TF markets in the market navigation tree :)

BinarySoft Chris 30 Nov 10:32
If it&#8217-s a native binary exchange (and I suspect it is), then tradefair will remain a *separate* exchange, because the conversion from binary – decimal is not exact.

Dr Who 06 Dec 07:37
jules, BinarySoft Chris, or whoever you are, I take it you&#8217-re the guy behind BinarySoft. Just guessing of course.
Tell me, what is that nonsense on your site which says, &#8220-Binary prices are the most natural and intuitive way of expressing odds&#8221-? How can you possibly be taken seriously making a gaff like that? Why go to all the trouble to make decimal prices, which are in fact the most natural and intuitive way of expressing odds, into a completely arbitrary system like yours? When [Tradesports] started I spent a while developing an app to convert their daft Buy/Sell pricing system into decimal notation so I could arb between TS and BF. Now I&#8217-m sure there may be some city types who are used to the Buy/Sell system but to call it a &#8216-natural&#8217- or &#8216-intuitive&#8217- way of expressing odds is complete b0llox. I wish your software well but can&#8217-t see why anyone on earth would want to deviate from what is being offered on BF or Tradefair. Unless you can persaude me otherwise with an argument I haven&#8217-t thought of :)

BinarySoft Chris 06 Dec 11:40
Dr Who – I appreciate that binary prices will not be the most suitable for everyone, and also they may take a little while to get used to for people previously used to thinking purely in terms of decimal odds. However, the vast majority of the people who have made the switch to binary prices agree that thinking purely in terms of percentage chances is a faster and simpler way to trade (and also a more natural way to price any contract/market).
See this link for more comparisons:
http://www.binarysoft.co.uk/bdi/why-binary-prices.php
This states the case pretty convincingly in favour of binary prices – what advantages can you come up with for decimal odds?

BinarySoft Chris 06 Dec 11:52
Another advantage in favour of using binary prices for trading is that &#8220-buying&#8221- and &#8220-selling&#8221- are more natural ways of describing the trading process than &#8220-backing&#8221- and &#8220-laying&#8221-, especially for people who aren&#8217-t used to betting exchanges. Also, the fact that Tradefair natively uses binary prices means that Betfair appear to be in favour of this method of expressing odds (well certainly for financial bets anyway). The next version of BDI will also be able to access both Betfair and Tradefair from the same interface, with seamless switching between Betfair/Tradefair markets. Currently, users of Tradefair and (non-BDI) users of Betfair will have to keep on switching between decimal and binary odds if they wish to trade on both exchanges – it&#8217-s probably easier to just think in terms of a single way of expressing odds.

Dr Who 06 Dec 12:19
I said &#8221- My argument is that decimal notation is a much more intuitive and natural way to express [probabilities].&#8221- I&#8217-ve just read that back and frankly its complete b0llox. I&#8217-m happy to try out your interface Chris and see how it feels. I&#8217-m always happy to change my position if the facts warrant change but I found the Tradesports interface difficult.

BinarySoft Chris     06 Dec 17:04
One of the issues with that exchange you mentioned [TradeSports] is that it deals in &#8220-lots&#8221- – each lot is normally $0.10/point but it can vary for different markets and thus can get pretty confusing. Every other binary betting related product uses stakes expressed purely in terms of amount/point (Tradefair, other financial bookmakers and BDI).

Previously: BetFair officially launches TradeFair, one month exactly after it was announced on Midas Oracle, and the mugshot of its managing director published for all to see.

GUARDIAN BLOGGER: BETFAIR SPIN-DOCTOR DOES NOT SAY THE TRUTH ABOUT SPORTS CORRUPTION.

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Lawrence Donegan:

Odds-on liquidity showing interest in Scottish youth

Can it really be more than a month since Betfair&#8217-s Mark Davies appeared in print to reject the suggestion that the gambling boom is in any way responsible for the apparent increase in corruption in sport, by pointing out that dodgy dealing has been around since the days of the gladiators? Presumably, reports of 15 football matches from this season being under investigation will see Davis, like Edward Gibbon in a pork-pie hat, return to the fray with another tale from the Colosseum. Meanwhile, far from events at Anfield – figuratively if not geographically – comes news that under-21 games in Scotland are the subject of huge bets by Asian gamblers. Some might think this is a sinister development but not the Betfair spokesman, who told the Daily Record last month that the company would be happy to open a book on the youth sporting market if there was &#8220-liquidity and interest&#8221-.

With all due respect to the Guardian blogger cited above, I side with Mark Davies. See his verbatim, just below.

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Mark Davies, BetFair’s Managing Director (Corporate Affairs)

Mark Davies (BetFair’s Managing Director)

&#8212-

Mark Davies interviewed by The Daily Telegraph (in October 2007):

[Tennis] has always been liable to corruption.

I think that all sport has always been liable to corruption, by the very nature of it producing clear results one way or another. They say that chariot races were rigged for financial reward. I don&#8217-t see why subsequent sporting events should suddenly have been less liable to corrupt practice. We would strongly dispute the idea that sport suddenly has a corruption problem because of the boom in gambling.

The amount of money bet in the legal market may have grown — who knows if it has risen or fallen in the illegal one? — but the number of people who can be tempted by that money and use it for corrupt reasons is the same as it always was.

Meet Nigel Eccles, a veteran of UKs betting exchange industry, and an innovator.

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Nigel Eccles

Nigel Eccles (HudBud CEO – Previously with McKinsey, Betdaq, and BetFair-Flutter)

HubDub is developing a web application which will change the way people discover, track and interact with news stories.

His startup: HubDub – (What they are brewing: a news aggregator using some kind of prediction market mechanism.)

More info:

What we are developing is a social news aggregation site. Elements of it are similar to Digg but as a whole it is a totally unique concept (partially based on experience developing betting exchanges). The site will provide a whole new way of interacting with news and the site in turn generates its own news out of user interactions. Initially the site will be US focussed as it is the bigger market. The primary revenue stream would be advertising however there are a number of other very significant revenue opportunities once the site reaches some scale.

And, yes, they do have a blog. :-D

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

  • Oprah Winfrey
  • RIGHT-CLICK THIS IMAGE, AND FILL IN THIS SURVEY, PLEASE.
  • Papers on Prediction Markets
  • The Journal of Prediction Markets
  • The 45-degree Line
  • Implied Probability of an Outcome –BetFair Edition
  • Justin Wolfers on Rudy Giuliani = not convincing… yet

Only 7 web publications took the BetFair bait on global warming.

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BetFair climate

Yeah, at Midas Oracle, we do swallow baits on prediction markets!!! :-D

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BETFAIR: HSBC Investable Climate Change Index, ECX CFI Futures Contract, and Highest and Lowest UK Temperature.

MIDAS ORACLE: BetFair’s Global Warming Prediction Markets &#8212- CFM&#8217-s Views + BetFair&#8217-s Global Warming Prediction Markets

Slate publishes a BetFair explainer for the Americans.

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YouBet – The wonders and dangers of online sports wagering. – (page 2) – [BetFair explained to the Americans] – by Slate&#8217-s T.D. Thornton – 2007-11-28

[…] Betfair, which opened for business in 2000, is best described as day trading for sports bettors. Using Web-based accounts, anonymous users can set their own odds or bid on odds offered by other players. Online &#8220-betting exchanges&#8220-—there are dozens, but Betfair is the kingpin, with a 90 percent market share—eliminate the role of odds-setting middlemen like local bookies and Las Vegas sports books. Instead of wagering on take-it-or-leave-it odds set by the house, gamblers are free to choose among many different price points, striking bets for as little as $1 up to hundreds of thousands. […]

On balance, Betfair offers a number of advantages over traditional sports betting. Compared with bookies and casinos, exchanges keep a much smaller cut of the action, a 1 percent to 3 percent &#8220-vig&#8221- that&#8217-s far less than the standard 10 percent. (In the long run, the exchanges are banking on greater betting volume far outpacing the difference in price: Betfair handles 5 million transactions a day, processing more than 300 bets per second.) […]

Exchanges are also unique in that you can lay odds on a team or individual to lose a sporting event. Naysayers believe that betting to lose is, well, unsporting, and that it is an open invitation for corruption and skullduggery. But this argument is idealistic whitewash. Just ask anyone involved in high finance, where betting to lose is an accepted, ethical strategy—on Wall Street, it&#8217-s called short selling. […]

The most clever innovation, however, is in-game gambling. No longer must you stop placing bets once the game begins. In-game wagering lends itself best to slower-paced sports like golf. When the action is much faster, the limits of technology get pushed to ridiculous proportions, with frantic players punching in frenzied bets that have more to do with market timing than sports. […]

If the United States loosened up its regulations, online exchanges would proliferate here. By creating a market-based framework for stateside sports betting, a chaotic gambling scene would, for once, have some order and credibility. […]

#1. This is the most significant news piece about BetFair I have seen in the American media.

#2. You&#8217-ll have noted that the prediction market approach is completely absent from the writer&#8217-s angle. (TradeSports and InTrade are not even cited.) My view is that this betting exchange approach and our prediction market approach are complementary. BetFair should have both.

Sounds like Sean Park will strike it rich, once again.

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Sean Park (Founding Partner at Sixth Paradigm, and blogger at The Park Paradigm)

Sean Park is a leading independent thinker on the future of financial markets, the author of The Park Paradigm, and the founding partner of Sixth Paradigm LLP:

The technology of the digital age is driving an unprecedented explosion in the ability to create markets in anything. Trade anything. Not just physical goods. Not just financial instruments. But ideas. Events. Outcomes. The emergence of these kinds of markets will – over time – impact how we view and interact with the world in all aspects of our personal and professional lives. They will fundamentally alter the current world economic and social paradigm.

Sean is also a founding investor in innovative companies such as Betfair and WeatherBill (where he is also a non-executive Director) and has extensive experience investing in and advising start-up and high growth companies in addition to over 16 years of experience working at a senior level in capital markets and investment banking. Building businesses has been a key theme throughout his career.

I&#8217-m bullish on WeatherBill. They showed that an event derivative exchange can have a more user-friendly interface &#8212-stuff that BetFair-TradeFair and TradeSports-InTrade have not computed yet. I wonder whether the WeatherBill approach could work out with other risks &#8212-other than weather.

On Sean Park, as a blogger, one of my sources said to me that he sometimes elaborates on ideas invented by others years ago and makes it like they are his. I&#8217-m a brand-new feed subscriber to his little blog, so I&#8217-ll judge by myself.

&#8212-

Previously: Thoughts on Weather Bill – by Eric Zitzewitz – 2007-01-04

What I think is most innovative is the idea of marketing a prediction market contract as “insurance.”

Betfair may be forced to raise its commission charges.

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The British Horseracing Authority has put a case to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport for a greater contribution from the betting industry in the 47th levy.

Seeking a levy of somewhere between ?135million and ?153million for 2008-09, compared with an estimated ?94m from the latest scheme, the BHA&#8217-s document calls for the government to settle the levy on the basis of 15% of gross win on British horseracing.

The BHA also calls for betting exchanges to contribute to the levy on a new and equitable basis, stating that the contribution made by betting exchanges to the Levy should increase from the ?6m paid in 2006-07 to ?20m.

This figure would be achieved, they argue, through the imposition of a 1.25% Levy on the net profits of punters on betting exchanges, raising the possibility that Betfair et al, may be forced to increase their commission charges.

An insight into the contentious issue of how betting exchanges should be taxed, may be found here:

http://www.bettingmarket.com/tax.htm

External Link: The Guardian

BetFair-TradeFair fights corruption, while TradeSports-InTrade does not.

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No GravatarTennis Corruption - NYT

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BetFair-TradeFair is legal and has ethics, while TradeSports-InTrade is not and has none.

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Via Steve Roman who provides the recap and another excerpt, The New York Times:

[&#8230-] At the center of the investigation is Betfair, one of the largest so-called online sports exchanges, which matches bettors directly against each other, rather than against the house, as traditional bookmakers do. Betfair set off the current crisis when it voided $7 million in bets after Mr. Davydenko withdrew from a match against 74th-ranked Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina at the Prokom Open in August in Sopot, Poland. Mr. Davydenko retired because of an injury with Mr. Vassallo Arguello ahead, 2-6, 6-3, 2-1. During the match, Betfair notified the ATP that its security team had recognized irregular betting patterns.

[&#8230-] At Betfair, which is based in London, tennis ranks third behind horse racing and soccer among its one million customers, who together place five million bets each day. More than $60 million was handled for the Wimbledon’s men’s final, won by Roger Federer over Rafael Nadal.

Robin Marks, a Betfair spokesman, said the decision to void the bets from the match in Poland — the first time the company had ever done so — was an easy one. A large amount of money was coming in for the obscure match, Mr. Marks said, and the betting patterns made little sense: Mr. Davydenko went from an odds-on favorite to a significant underdog before the match started, and his odds drifted higher and more money came in for Mr. Vassallo Arguello even after Mr. Davydenko won the first set.

By the next morning, Betfair’s 40-person security team had unearthed additional information by combing its records and tracing unique Internet addresses. Betfair passed on that information in accordance with the ATP’s anti-corruption program, which was put in place in 2003 in the wake of a match-fixing scandal in cricket. Mr. Marks said Betfair has similar agreements with 28 other sports leagues on which it takes bets. He declined to specify what Betfair had found. “Why would the betting patterns change before a ball was even hit?” Mr. Marks said. “Why would more money come in against him when he had already won the first set? You come to the assumption that somebody knew something.” [&#8230-]

Previously: BetFair has an anti-fraud team whereas InTrade-TradeSports has none.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Terrorism Futures
  • InTrade-TradeSports and BetFair-TradeFair should take a close look at Cantor Fitzgerald’s strategy to gain a share of the $100 billion U.S. gambling industry.
  • The secrecy-seeking Mark Davies is solely to blame for all this mess… but this vibrating BetFair spin doctor has managed to repair the PR damages quite brillantly, it shall be said.
  • A Betting Exchange = A Bookmaker —> !??
  • BetFair’s new bet matching logic + BetFair Malta’s trading on the multiples
  • Dick Cheney, the new Churchill?
  • BetFair Malta’s combo market maker (trading algorithm + human market makers) operating on the multiples