Betfair trading | Betfair betting exchange outage - Peter Webb | Bet Angel |
If you're. Interested, in learning to trade on Betfair then visit the BET Angel Academy where you have detailed, structured, Betfair, trading courses or, why not visit our website where you can download a free trial of BET angel professional, but, also visit the forum where, you can get detailed images, examples, and downloadable. Files and don't, forget to subscribe to our You Tube channel and click on the bell icon if you want notification, of new videos as they're, released. Well. That was an interesting weekend. Wasn't it this. Isn't the video that I was expecting, to put up this weekend because I have, prepped, a couple of videos that I think would, be interesting for you and I intended to upload them but. Last, night I just couldn't upload it because on. Saturday we had a big Betfair outage. And. In fact the last week that we've had on Betfair we've. Had a number of issues and if you check out the, thread, on the forum you. Can see there's a thread, that we run that basically talks about add such as people turn, up and ask if people are seeing problems and stuff like that and the thread explodes, when there's an outage. And. This was a major outage on Saturday so it, took it offline for most of the afternoon, and. Obviously that's bad news because you can't actively trade but, worse than that you can actually end up in a. Position where you have an open trade to that you can't close which is obviously a bit of a nightmare from a trading perspective. So. Yeah if there are some stats that we've. Come out with in terms of outages, and stuff which is available on the threat so I'll put in the description of. The video the threads so you can check it out and you, know if you're arriving and seeing this video at, some point in the future because. Of an outage you can start reading up or posting information on the threat from there that may be useful for you but. I think you know it's interesting because there are a few discussion, points around this and. Some things to highlight as well so. I think it was worth doing the video just to give you my thoughts and, to. Talk. To you about specifics. Around. Outages, and stuff as well so. It's. Sort of inevitable with technology, that you can I have an issue now and again and we. Work really hard with, bet angel to, make sure that that's not the software and, you. Know one of the things that's unique about that change as I'm sat here using it all of the time, the. Same as you so that's important, to me because if. You're, using it you want to know that it's going to perform exactly as you expect and. You can be pretty much assured that that's going to be the case because I'm using as well my. Balls are on the line the same as yours are as well so we want to make it to work as perfectly as possible, now. Inevitably with information. Technology and any technology at. All you, get the odd problem, now and again, so. I think that people. Do expect that there may be the other issue so you know the first thing that you have to think about is is, the worst-case scenario so when you look behind me you only see part of my trading setup I can, trade from here from my laptop which is just down here from, other devices. I've got other locations, that I can trade from in, this office and around the house, and. Also I've, got backup locations, as well so my, mobile, phone I was going to reach down here for it but it's right in front of me my. Phone acts as a backup device as well because I've got a cellular connection in, case the internet goes down so, you just have layers and layers of redundancy you, try and eliminate all of the possible errors that you could possibly have I think, I've done videos on this before and you know one of the stories that I had was one day I was in the office the, office there was a power cut so nothing worked so.
I Switched to the laptop closed my position went home it turned out that there was an outage there as well. And the broadband and nothing worked and I thought well I can't carry on like this for any period of time so. I already, had the solution which was I had a. DC. Converter in the car, so. I basically got the laptop got my phone went in the car and I drove to the nearest mobile, phone mast where. I could be assured of a very strong signal and I knew they had a generator there as well because, I've actually spoken to the engineer when he was there once at when I walked past on one of my morning walks so. Yeah that's the level you go to if you're gonna start using serious money in the market and the, bigger mistakes, that you're using the more redundancy you try and set up so, it's important, to have all of that sort of stuff in place so. Yeah I try and mitigate all of the risk that I can possibly think about and anything that I can't think about that comes out of the blue I couldn't. Think about so why worry about it yes you can't control it so, you just have to deal with what you can control, and that's important. But the important. Thing I want to make here is that you, know my, money is on this on the line the same as yours as well and that's always been importance to me and if it ever changes I will be sure to let you know but. You can tell that as well from what, happened on the day because, at 2:00 o'clock on. That particular day just after 2:00 I'll find the tweak and bring it up on here I. Spotted. That loads of football markets were. Suspended. Which is obviously not normal so. It, could be a loss of feed where, they can't get the scores or data from the matches, and. That's quite often a cause but basically you know it, got me alerted, to the fact that there could be a problem because if there was a fundamental. Issue with the exchange, and maybe, you. Know that it, could come off of that that could be one of the ways that it shows itself so, as soon as I spotted that I sent out a tweet and alerted everybody to the fact that that was happening and. Then went and posted on the forum as well and when. We post on the forum lots of people come in and discuss that because if you go oh I've got a problem with my connection, and everybody so goes well I haven't and, you know it's you yeah but, if ever the people go yet I can see that - and there is a problem then, we then up your awareness level goes up a notch so, just after 2 o'clock I was sort of you. Know thinking. That it's perhaps I need to be a little bit more careful than I normally would do and my, eyes were very firmly. Focused on any little bumps, or ripples that I could see within the market so he kept an eye on the football matches, and this, this problem was not getting resolved, so the longer that went on the, more nervous I became so around 2:30, I was having discussions, internally about you. Know do we trust this is this normal, do we think that there's a bigger issue here can we start looking really. Really seriously for this issue and then as we approached a race at Thirsk at quarter, to three. Betfair. Failed to turn the market in play and at that point that was the first moment, that I was absolutely convinced, that there was a massive issue, that was about to unfold, so. I immediately went and tweeted and if you look at the tweet it basically says, it. Follows on from the previous tree this. Is what's happening stop, everything. On the exchange do not go any further and you, know I was basically saying until I tell you to until I feel comfortable because I was not comforted at that point and I stopped at that point I wasn't going to carry on why say that I was we, were still putting orders into the market because we wanted to see how the market responded.
And. Basically. All my automation, went off at that point and. I just thought I'm not carrying on at this particular moment of time there's a serious issue here we, need to work out what's going on and. What the issue is. But. And then I mean less than 3/4, of an hour later things. Were beginning to deteriorate even more and then. The feature, race at Newbury which I was really looking forward to trade because it had about half a million in prize money as a massive, race and I typically, pull out a big result on that was, suspended, 15, 20 minutes out and never returned and then eventually the site collapsed. Into complete, chaos and, away. I went from there but. Yeah you know if, you watch my. Timeline. I, have to be actively trading but of course on a Saturday typically I'm actively trading or if not I'll let you know if I'm not and. That. You know, that. Gives you an idea as to what's going on the thread on the forum is a good place to look as well for information about what's going on because, you, know I've learnt when. There's a major outage I'll quickly scan around to see what other people are saying and typically, you hear nothing so you know. But. You know because we're active and the forum is, full of full time traders who are also active, through, one of those two sources you will figure out if there's a problem and, you can always ask it. On the on the forum thread if you think there's an issue and people will respond and, let you know if there is an issue or if you get no responses, there properly isn't an issue at all anyhow. So. Yeah you. Know it was disappointing, to see the site go down but there had been problems through, the week and I, think that that was sort of making us nervous anyway. But. When we started seeing those problems on Saturday was like oh no you know here we go again and one. Of the problems that you have with the exchange model in the way that it is at the moment is that. No. Company will, have an open-ended liability. That's. Just a, fact of things people limit their liabilities, because otherwise you. Know you legally. You just have to limit your liability some way or another you otherwise, you know there's, there's.
No Point in continuing in business if you have unlimited liability you. Know if you Limited companies and look at the government act for. Limited liability, companies and learn about the history of that you'll begin to understand that but I'm not going to go into that in a video maybe I'll do a separate video at some point but, that's investment-related but. Yeah. So when, you place a trading position in the market. You've, got this prospect, that if there is an outage you may not be able to close it and that's obviously a big issue and, you. Know there are lots of people that were outraged, by, their first stance on this but it's always been in the terms and conditions it's always been part of the risk that you accept when. Doing. This type of activity, on the market and you have to trust Betfair, to, be able to do the honorable thing or. Have, the site's maintained, in such a way that it's not going to be an issue however it is an issue and I. Have, stated my view on this before which I'll cover in a second but, don't be shocked if. Betfair, tell you that you know you had opened a position that you're going to close at some particular point in the future and they say well you. Know we, can only see that side of it and that's what starts because, that's the way that it works if, you look at my lifetime, history. With. All of the outages that I've had over the best part of 20 years which is a lot. Typically. It's averaged itself out so sometimes. The site, benefits. Me and sometimes it works against me on, Saturday, I was well prepared for it so I had very little liability, in the market anyway but, of the two bots that I was still running at that particular moment in time one. One and one lost and they more or less netted each other out that's that's more or less what's happen over a long period of time there was a funny conversation I was happening with somebody where he's saying well maybe this actually crashed more often because then it will even out a lot quicker. Which. I thought was quite funny a very, interesting logic, underway. There but, if you look at my worst ever loss it came because of a site outage I lost seven and a half grand and I'm pretty sure camera, board zero as it was at the cambridgeshire meeting which is a big, field. Handicap, it's a massive cavalry, charge down new market, I had, a big position committed, to the market and the site crashed and I couldn't exit my position and I. Was stuffed. I was gonna say another word then but I was absolutely, totally. Stuffed. And that was, intensely. Painful, however. I was still up on the, end of the week and also it, wouldn't be fair to mention my biggest loss without mentioning my biggest gain. Which was about four and a half grand but, you noticed there is a mismatch there but over time they, all sort of net each other out I've repaired a time and incidentally you'll, be interested to know that.
My Biggest, ever. Win. On any individual, market, is far in excess of four and a half grand so let's put that into context, there because, the context, is dictated, by your expectation. Of a payoff so, I you know I'm likely to get big wins and losses during an outage they average out over time but, in fact I'm still playing with something, that's manageable, but. Nonetheless you know what, should bet fair's policy, B and I. Have a. View. That I've held right from day one on this that. Is that if, you turn a trade into a bet you are not paying a lot more Commission on it and therefore, Betfair. Benefit. When there is an outage they. Benefit much more winners now touch than when there isn't because if you are able to trade out of the position you pay much less commission, and. Therefore. You. Know it's sort of pays for Betfair to have an outage now I'm not for a minute suggesting, that the outages are done on purpose I'm sure somebody will suggest that but. I. Think there's an unfair. Liability. On people, using the exchange it is causing an exchange, by. The way, when. There's, an outage so, why not remove, that incentive. Or that, reward. For, being an outage and turn it into a punishment to improve. Or. Reduce. The likelihood that there, will be an outage and prove the stability. Of the exchange because I think the, wait should happen when there's an outage is you avoid, all affected, markets, all bets all trades, everything, gets, voided, because. If you void absolutely, everything nobody, gains there are no exceptional, winners no exceptional, losers Betfair don't get paid massive. Incentive, to, improve stability so. That's my view is that you should void all markets. Because. Then, nobody. Gets any payoff there is no incentive to, maintain. Bad service, there's a huge incentive to. Improve the surface and get this site running up and stable as quickly as possible so, yeah. You know I think that that's the case you know you you often see people saying oh let's let's boycott them for a week or whatever but the problem with that is if you walk away from the table somebody, else will sit at your table it's like a busy restaurant people are fighting for seats and if. You decide to get up and walk away in protest it's. Gonna have no particular impact, but. You know when. When. These situations occur, there. Has to be I think some sort of form of punishment, as it were to, improve future behavior to focus. Minds on making sure that it doesn't go wrong. Again at some party coins so I think voiding markets is one thing I think if you move your business elsewhere. Temporarily. That's probably not going to work because other people will just come in and fill the gap effectively. That you left behind however. If you see what I did on Saturday. This. Is the response that you should have I, immediately. Turned over to about deck and started trading on there, so. As you know I trade on Betfair and bet dad can I have done for a number of years I think it's important, to do that because I think that you. Know first of all there is an opportunity on both, so you may as well take advantage of it but also you. Know I want to show that that is possible, that you can do it and, that it's only.
Imagination. That separates, you from having a successful strategies. Trading, is sort. Of a combination. Of, strategies and you decide which one to deploy so, wind yourself back to when I first joined Betfair, there, was no liquidity there was nothing, there at all the very first market ever was about 1,300. Pounds in turnover, most of that was people that bet fair but everything else was absolutely, devoid of liquidity. In, play markets, never had, even been invented so there was nothing there and then, look where we are now so everything, starts, from a low level and then gradually builds and gradually building gets bigger and bigger again, and. It's the same with everything else now, I suppose. I was somewhat fortunate that I was around in the era of low, liquidity or no liquidity, because. I had to figure out what to do so, if. I when. Betfair goes down you. See the volume drop off on a exchanges some more than others, but, the reason that I like switching Tibet deck is that bed stag have, a relay a commercial relationship with Oncourse bookmakers, so bookmakers, hedge on course in Tibet, stag so, it's not as though a switch has being turned off and everything vanishes, you. Tend to find that Betfair. Is linked to other exchanges, and bookmakers, they take their pricing from Betfair and as, a consequence. Those. Exchanges, mimic the bet fair prices, and the same sort of activity, however. There is a disconnect, between that, what. Occurs on on bets Decker because, they've got this on course market, so it up and all, of the bookmakers, who are on coarser pricing, up the market and then, actually. Hedging, their position onto the exchange, well I say that some some of them hedge, permanently, some of them are real proper old traditional, bookmakers, who will have an opinion on a market they would have priced it done their homework and, we'll be offering prices, out and just taking money but. Nonetheless there is that stream that goes in to bet stag and you. Know look at what happens to me on the Saturday I wanted. To demonstrate that it was perfectly, possible to trade on that deck even when there was a drop in liquidity after, bed preparer went off you, know you'll probably find it was BOTS are being or doing other things related to that but, if you, look at many many years ago it was impossible to do that now as you can see from the pianos that I posted on Saturday posted up - one was manual one was automated. They. Both got similar totals, it's, perfectly possible all that I did was just turn my attention change. The strategy that I was using and, off I went and I, think that that's more terrifying. To an. Established, and. It get exchanged that you can do that than, just walking away from the table so you, know I've always said that competition, is healthy and it's useful to have active, competitors, competing for your business and I think the more that occurs the. More interesting, the market is and the better you and I will be treated and the, better deal that were guess in all of those sort of things so it's just something that's natural, for me to do I don't think there's really any excuse, that you can have for not giving it a try ok it's different it feels different but. Nonetheless. You. Know that will teach you things about the market that you probably don't know if you can't trade in a liquid market or you're not aware of how to do that if you, put, that into your toolkit, then, it opens up a whole range of other markets for you as well because there are illiquid markets, on Betfair, I trade, those as well so, yeah having all of that skill set is.
Quite Useful on. Itself, and okay you're not going to do particularly well to start with but if you if you work hard at, it then you'll get better and better and then really end up in a place similar to where I am which is I can just switch modes I can, trade both exchanges, I can trade either or if one of them is down it, makes no difference to me trading. Strategies, work your. Role as a trader is to slide the strategy that you think is appropriate into the market and then maximize that opportunity from, there so. Yeah you know I've. Sort of meanders, across many different topics here you, know if you've got views on the outage or what you think should be done and what bet. There should do, and. Stuff, like that then comment below let me know what your thoughts are but those. Are my thoughts I think that when. There is an outage on an exchange, it's. Not unreasonable to expect that there will be one now and again we don't want them frequently and certainly. I think an incentive, to improve, the stability of the exchange would would, be for there to be a financial punishment. If the. Exchange started, to fall over not a reward for when they exchanged fell over, make. Sure that you're prepared as best as you possibly can but. Also you. Know take. A leaf out of my book. You. Know learn to, trade other markets, in different ways with. Different levels of liquidity with, different strategies because it works I've just shown you that it works and, what. You know years ago there was nothing there, it's. A lot busier now than it ever has been and. I expect that to continue to, improve so. There, are opportunities there I summarized. It on a tweet where I sort of said you know negative, Minds find problems, positive, Minds find opportunities, I've mentioned, this in videos before but it's true you know depending upon how you frame or look at, a situation depends. What you'll get out of it but. Anyhow there are all my thoughts about what happened this weekend, new videos will be up again, after. This particular issue but. If you've got some views on it then comment. Below or. Come in to the forum and join, the chat that's going on there because we're having a very broad ranging, discussion there, about, what. We, think about it and people are analyzing, the, details, of the out as well to figure out you know what, we're actually looking at is it getting better worse or the frequency of them and stuff like that because. I will go to that phone and present them where that information I spoke to Betfair during. The outage on Saturday and. I'll follow up with them this week and, we're gonna get some data and throw it at them and see what they say I think their PR is not very good I think, they could do a much better job of dealing with these sort of situations and explaining them that's one of the problems that people have as nobody understands, why they're happening but. Yeah those are my thoughts give me your thoughts below, and, hopefully we can have a nice period now where, we have no issues whatsoever, but yeah give me a thoughts let me know what, your views are on better, outages what you do about them and what you think Betfair should do about them. You.
2019-05-21 20:33
Good video Peter but more info on why the outage occurred would help traders and the betting public understand why it happened at a technical level. I am an ex techincal director so the technical side interests me greatly. Why do Betfair not have automatic failover to other servers this will allow faster recovery times? A 2 hour outage is a long time with this sort of revenue being lost. I think it's one of 3 things that probably caused this 1). Software release/patch went wrong. 2). Traffic spike or overload on the servers database, middle tier etc. 3). Database server corrupt or down. In my opinion the outage time is not acceptable as I have worked in high volume transactional server industries. It makes me wonder are they hitting scaling problems. These are just my opinions. Thanks
BF already will suffer from reduced commissions, for most events the volume tends to be concentrated towards the end, I'll wager that BF's commissions taken on Saturday were significantly lower than other Saturdays, not higher. (where I believe they benefit is from punters who switch to sportsbook and pay much higher margins). Voiding all bets on the market being suspended is probably more risky for the platform long term. The bettor that the exchange absolutely depends upon is a retail user that places a bet there rather than with a bookie. If they've put a bet on and they come to collect the next day and get told their bet was voided because betfair had problems that would be far more damaging.
This is why I got out of matched betting and focus more on trading.
Just curious as to whether any of these outages might be caused by malware attacks? With the huge amounts of dosh sloshing around in the markets I'd hazard a guess that Betfair would be a prime target for criminal hackers all over the world.
I cant use betdaq im.australian lucky i had nothing on sat lol
Ur tweet said inlay did u mean in play lol
Not sure if I understand. So bookmakers hedge their liabilities into the Betdaq ? Thought they had done it into the Betfair ... And why would they use betdaq to do that instead of betfair ? Because of commission ? Agree about voiding all bets when there is an outage. It is the EXCHANGE, not a sportsbook ! Great video, thank you !
Forget Betdaq as the substitute for Betfair, Matchbook is the best alternative
Spot on peter...bet fair are fucking idiot's.
Void ALL bets , to affected markets , that’s the only fair way to go
Betfair sees what we do as Gambling, speak to anybody online or over the telephone and they will refer to your matched stake as a BET. They don't recognise that this is the opening position for a trade. It's fucking infuriating speaking to the imbeciles. They should cancel all TRADE POSITIONS or 'Matched stakes' if you wish, on EVERY market that their outage is live for, regardless of the time it was matched. For people who complain about their £50 win placed at 4.0 3 hours before the race, they should all receive a notification via their phones of the cancellation of their BET. As for their T&C's....fucking change them. Something is going on in the background that we don't know about because they don't give a fuck when an outage occurs and therefore must not be losing any money when it happens. One day a new exchange will be created and everybody can stop using Betfair and use the new one. I dont know who owns Betdaq (Ladbrokes maybe) but it is obviously being held back by them. Betfair don't give a fuck about anybody but themselves and their share price.
On another point, it does feel like a lot of the more recent outages follow Betfair maintenance. It's almost like they're open beta testing the site.
Head over to Betdaq.com which only takes a 2% commission instead of a hefty 5%!
I think void all bets is the best idea. When was the last time Betdaq had an outage?
Spoken to Betfair many times about this and they give the same answer we are safe to trade with! Well Not really can you imagine if you had finacial trading platform that once you have actually after year became consistent then every now and then you can't close a position and lose 30 % of your bank they would lose there licence and imagine if you did get profitable dodged all the outages then you had to pay ridiculous premium charges!! Betfair say get good but when you do we are taking it all back! They are laughing at us
If you really want to get Betfair to buck their ideas up and create a stable platform then you could just void all losing bets but keep the winning ones. Though that's never going to happen and would also be open to huge amounts of abuse anyway, like another DDOS attack. Personally I'm not a fan of voiding all markets. It's just not a fair response to those who want a straight bet at the best price that is available.
I don't see how what you say about it 'paying' for betfair to have an outage is true. Yes you personally or the individual trading would technically pay more commission if they end up with a big win from an outage, because they haven't laid the bet off, but that's extremely relative. At the end of the day betfair takes it's commission from the market as a whole, based on how much is traded, now if someone has traded in an out of a position they may personally pay less commission as they stand to win less, but overall collectively the market pays commission to betfair based on how much is traded in the market, it is not to betfairs advantage at all that the site go down. In fact they're losing out on volume traded and so commission. I just don't get your logic there. I mean big traders may not be able to trade out of their positions but when they do trade out they are simply passing the commission liability onto other traders or bettors, it makes no difference to betfair at all, aside from the lost volume. Maybe I am missing the point here I jsut don't see your logic
However, I do agree that the fairest route would be to simply void all affected markets. But then where do you draw the line? All markets ending that day? All markets ending in the next few minutes, hours? All in-play at that moment? What would be the criteria deciding markets to void.
Please never retire Peter, PLEASE! What do Traders hang up when they retire? Boxers hang up their gloves, footballers hang up their boots, so what do Traders hang up?
Graham Beyer their balls?
It would be good if they voided markets, but how do you decide when to stop as you could argue for example the Premier League winner market could be effected if an outage happened on a Saturday mid march, even if it doesn't settle for months. As it is I would settle for them doing even the basic thing of winding the market back to how it was at the off time, at present this is only partly done and I am surprised you haven't picked up on this. If you had a closing order in the market that was unmatched and set to take SP at the off in that Thirsk market and it was matched after the off due to Betfair not turning the market inplay as they should they still void that order leaving you exposed on one side of the trade. You have said before that setting orders to take SP is a safety but that wouldn't have worked at Thirsk on Saturday as the market remained open for the entirety of the race as a pre race market. It is scandalous that Betfair are not forced to fully roll a market back to it event starting state. This ability is common place in financial markets. It would be good if you could put this to Betfair and provide feedback. Also what are your views on this, is it not something you think should have been done ever since Betfair introduced the Betfair SP?
Peter, is there any chance your team could improve the Guardian automation on Bet Angel for Betdaq? The Betfair version is easily up to the complex bots I like to write, but the Betdaq really isn't! Do you have a roadmap? Please could you consider this?
I've got the same LED bulbs, P. Aren't they just lifechanging?
The exchange was made for trading as well as straight betting. If they didn't want you to trade then they should have made it so if you back then you can't lay Visa versa, so its hard luck to them if you put £500 in a market then trade out for £50 profit. Betfair can't have the stance where they do not want trading as that would make them almost fascists. It is a multi billion pound company, they have a sports book and they charge a super rate of commission on big time traders, so I do not feel sorry for them in any way, especially when other exchanges run on much less profit margins than this giant does.
Peter were is the link to the specific thread on the forum then? You said you'd put it in the description.
Thanks for that Peter. I totally agree with your comments, although I don't suppose Betfair will change their position unfortunately.
When you put it like that it does make perfect sense. I personally didn't really have much of an opinion on the topic, I know I was trolling around on the forum today with that silly edited screenshot but I do agree with you in terms of incentive. Simply comparing the amount of times that the Exchange went down compared to the Sportsbook says it all really. Who cares if they take a bit of flak from the trading minority when they fill their boots every time on commission when there's an outage.
My view is, that I can choose who I do business with. And right now, I am enjoying the challenge of learning to trade on different software on a different exchange, and I won't be paying Betfair any commission for the foreseeable future.
Excellent and honest stuff, Peter. No guarantees exist in this endeavour, we must remain wide-awake and cope with unexpected circumstance. Real life ain't easy and Betfair is not a train that runs on rails. Come on, people. we're all grown-ups!
Fascinating insight Peter. I have watched many, many of your videos and continue to watch them over again as I strive to educate myself and gain a better understanding of the nuances of trading. Some money lost last Saturday, but I'll probably just put that down as 'tuition fees' and move on from there...thanks for your continued 'sageness'
Peter, how many outages has Betdaq had over the years?
Virtually none, but I'd imagine the load on their servers is lower TBF.
Isn't the BF benefit of having trades turned into bets during an outage offset by the lost turnover during the outage?
At the time of the outage I was using the majority of my bank, needless to say I lost virtually everything, (lesson 1). I had no BetDaq account to offset my losses( lesson 2), for some reason it hadn't even crossed my mind it would be a problem. Even if I had a BetDaq account, I could not find out if Betfair would void all bets for that race, or honour them. Best I could do is reduce my losses by 50% and cover both outcomes. This trading game is one big lesson. lol
I'm not for one minute saying that £10 changes a thing But BF used to give £10 as a "sorry" if you complained about this Now, it's like "there are other exchanges", was one reply I had Their attitude has certainly got worse I've had unlayed arbs many times during these outages and never know quite what to do in those instances
I agree, there is no empathy. I contacted them during the outlook and did get a quite response from somebody senior. I've given them a window to follow up but heard nothing. I told them they had a PR issue, but they seem oblivious to it.
In my opinion, The only two problems you might have with voiding all the bets is , a person might have there lay bets matched off with bookmakers. Also, a person might have already just had a really successful trade. I am sure if they came back later and saw their bets were refunded they would probably be very upset about it.
+betangeltv Oh, I agree, they shouldn’t be profiting from it for sure! It’s a difficult issue to solve. I suppose Betfair doesn’t need to care much about people that have matched up trades using bookmakers. That’s not their concern. Maybe a compensation system should be created. But it would be tough to police
But can you see where I am coming from? If they are punish with no revenue and annoying everybody during an outage then that will hit their bottom line and force them to think a bit harder.
+betangeltv I spent 20 years in the high transational areana and there is so much pressure for new releases and agile methodologies. Plus throw in I.T. outsourcing and you have one volatile mix. I do not miss it now I left this at 50 years old.. Life is not worth the headache, their is too much cost cutting in the I.T. industry now to please share holders who want their pound of flesh. What amazes me is the salaries I.T. staff get paid now they are a disgrace. I letf university in the 1980's with a computer science degree and my first salary was £14K I look at equivalent now £25K How on earth can people live of this. Living costs have rocketed. Sorry I went on a bit their.
A few years ago I had a really good relationship with their ops director and he felt really on top of things and would explain to me on each blip what was happening. I don't even get scheduled maintenance notices now!
+betangeltv when i say platform i mean exchanges in general. for that ecosystem to make money we need retail gamblers switching from sportbooks to exchanges not the reverse. as you correctly alluded to in the video, because the outages are not correlated to outcomes in the markets, the expectation of outages is not negative, it is just an increase of variance for traders (who should be able to cope with them as a cost of doing business, rather than expect retail punters to take the variance instead). imo what we really should want is the exchange business spun out of betfair paddypower and the same for betdaq from ladbrokes, the exchanges are a direct competition to their higher margin sportsbook offerings and I won't be surprised if they slowly kill them off.
Which is more or less the point I was making. Some people suffer, some don't but it should be Betfair that suffer and pay a price IMHO.
A long time ago they were subject to DDOS attacks, but quite some time ago they put processes and systems in place to halt that. So that's not it.
Bloody autocorrect I'm afraid!
+betangeltv Sounds like there might be some opportunities there based on that knowledge :)
No, Betfair decided that if bookmakers used the exchange they should pay an additional commercial fee, so they all switched too Betdaq. Betfair profile and ban accounts that look like they have a 'commercial profile'.
+betangeltv what about smarket....
I disagree, most of the emerging exchanges heavily seed their markets so they are not 'pure' by other standards. As a shrewdie they are not very interested in my business. Most emergent exchange need net losers to fund the winning accounts and get a commission. So it's tricky for them to build a stable business without killing it.
Can you explain why? Cheers.
Y, the thread on the forum seems to indicate a correlation, but as Betfair don't tell us what is going wrong we can only guess as to the real cause.
I can't remember. I guess if they had a slug of new business we may find out how much capacity they really have, but I only see a migration as gradual.
Betfair have heavy DDOS protection in place already. I think it's not about fairness it's about making sure Betfair suffer when there is an outage rather than their customers. If they piss off everybody they may build a more stable platform.
I guess they would have to classify it as markets they would have settled while the outage was underway + a bit. Or that day's markets.
Great reply
Old traders never die, their events just get suspended.
Its simple. void everything. Too much of the turnover from which the exchange benefits is from traders to use "the exchange is for betters strapline" The exchange is advertised as the ultimate "cash out" tool, if you cant offer that option then you cant hold the cash in the markets.
I thought they did void everything if this occurred obviously not
+chunkymonkey55555 Exactly, voiding all bets benefits some customers but seriously hurts others (arbers and straight punters). The solution is not to shift the burden from one segment of customers to the other. At the end of the day, a bet is a legal contract and voiding it because of IT outages sets a dangerous precedent. Prepare for all the events and stop trading if the exchange looks like it's about to crash, that's all there can be done realistically. If these outages occur frequently, the customers will vote with their feet and the free market will be the judge.
I agree with all trades being voided if an outage occurs. Glad you made this video, very interesting.
They voided the one trade I had on . Not going to moan because, pro rata, it has happened a handful of times over past two decades I have been doing this. These things happen. Your name came up at the excellent day I had at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday for the Sports Betting Community football champs. TU :)
Can I just put a couple of extra points on Betfair tech failures out there for people. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR BETFAIR STATEMENTS! What you see on the green up / cash out screen is NOT always the amount that gets processed due to somebody being able to bypass aggregation and using thousands of 0.01 bets on the fractional side of markets. You can be hit for pounds in false accounting. Betfair does not pick it up. You have to spot it and pester for months for your refund. They refuse to answer my point about warning customers to watch out for this and they have no solution yet.Been going on for at least a year. I have had greened up profits processed as net losses. Please watch out for Betfair soccer matches flagged as ''In Play' games NOT going in play. Predominantly small matches. A few get to within five minutes of kick off and get permanently suspended. Explanations vary from failed feed (everybody else's always OK) and the simple ''Dealers discretion'' to the bizarre ''The trader confirms that the market is suspended because it's an in play market'' Often they get switched on at half time (by which time you will probably be stuffed) As it took 43 minutes of argument last time, I suspect that may be the main reason. BE WARY OF TRADING NEAR KICK OFF UNLESS YOU CAN HEDGE ON BETDAQ OR BET365 etc
Now betfair outage again
Not good, two Saturdays in a row. At least it was at a non peak time.
And only a week later it's down again. I notice they put up some sort of apology message when you logged in earlier this week (Monday or Tuesday) but they never, never, explain why it's happening.
Sir i am from india Sir i was played cricket in Betfair But last 3 month Betfair closed in all over india . Sir can you please provide me 1 verified account of Betfair and 1 Skrill account also .
@chunkymonkey55555 Exactly, voiding all bets benefits some customers but seriously hurts others (arbers and straight punters). The solution is not to shift the burden from one segment of customers to the other. At the end of the day, a bet is a legal contract and voiding it because of IT outages sets a dangerous precedent. Prepare for all the events and stop trading if the exchange looks like it's about to crash, that's all there can be done realistically. If these outages occur frequently, the customers will vote with their feet and the free market will be the judge.
@betangeltv Oh, I agree, they shouldn’t be profiting from it for sure! It’s a difficult issue to solve. I suppose Betfair doesn’t need to care much about people that have matched up trades using bookmakers. That’s not their concern. Maybe a compensation system should be created. But it would be tough to police
@betangeltv I spent 20 years in the high transational areana and there is so much pressure for new releases and agile methodologies. Plus throw in I.T. outsourcing and you have one volatile mix. I do not miss it now I left this at 50 years old.. Life is not worth the headache, their is too much cost cutting in the I.T. industry now to please share holders who want their pound of flesh. What amazes me is the salaries I.T. staff get paid now they are a disgrace. I letf university in the 1980's with a computer science degree and my first salary was £14K I look at equivalent now £25K How on earth can people live of this. Living costs have rocketed. Sorry I went on a bit their.
@betangeltv when i say platform i mean exchanges in general. for that ecosystem to make money we need retail gamblers switching from sportbooks to exchanges not the reverse. as you correctly alluded to in the video, because the outages are not correlated to outcomes in the markets, the expectation of outages is not negative, it is just an increase of variance for traders (who should be able to cope with them as a cost of doing business, rather than expect retail punters to take the variance instead). imo what we really should want is the exchange business spun out of betfair paddypower and the same for betdaq from ladbrokes, the exchanges are a direct competition to their higher margin sportsbook offerings and I won't be surprised if they slowly kill them off.
@betangeltv Sounds like there might be some opportunities there based on that knowledge :)
@betangeltv what about smarket....
I totally agree. Voiding all affected markets is the right thing to do. That way, users are put back in the position they were in immediately before the outage occurred. This is fair and I can't understand why it doesn't already happen.
Why won't betfair void all bets affected? Is it pure greed and they want all the commission from bets affected? Is something more malicious going on? ... Are people or groups of people doing something to cause these outages for their gain? I've noticed it happens when there is a lot of volume/action/activity whatever you want to call it.
I heard it happened again yesterday
Not everyone has funds to offset these bets on an alternative exchange when this happens. I know I didn't when it happened to me.
This is why they refuse to budge, money.
I took this approach with purple but it didnt work out for me. No where near enough real money in the markets. I often kept not being able to get orders filled until betfair price was smashed. If you wanted to close a trade in running on a horse and you want to get out at 3 for instance.. What I found was you won't get it filled til it's smashed into 2.6 on betfair.
I use to have up to 15 bets waiting to be matched every morning and i would lay any that were matched and had moved in nearer race time and on average i would have 3 or 4 bets matched and would lay them off, on a couple of occasions when betfair went down every bet was matched both times and the bets were not kept in play, that in itself tells you someone is taking advantage of everyones bets when the site goes down, its prob the staff at betfair getting their yearly bonus
Wholeheartedly agree that Betfair should void all affected markets on the exchange. If people just want to bet they'd be on the sportsbook and, as you say, there would be an incentive to improve on BetFair's part. It's not a good look when your customers suffer but you benefit from a problem that you are responsible for.