Min Fill Size

[jamesedwards]

I wonder how many fortunes were made during the 'funds unavailable/available during bet delay countdown' scam. Millions, surely. There's always an angle to shoot for.

I don't suppose you could give a brief overview of what happen please as I have never heard about this and would find it interesting to hear about.

(sorry for taking the thread of topic)

Not something I've heard of before but I can guess. Sounds like there was a loop-hole where you could place a trade in-running and then stop the trade from actioning before the end of the countdown by reducing your available balance to below the value of the trade. Would have been fairly easy to exploit this and make big bucks!

[megarain]

Had some back and forth with the Betfair API team.

They have not stated the abuse couldn't happen - but say they monitor/ban suspect accounts.

I have asked them to run queries on accounts that send Min Fill Size transactions - but they never gonna share the details.

Getting the historical tick trade data would provide a deal of evidence, but am not sure I can either be bothered or it
will achieve that much. The trades have to be tied into live video.

It v v hard to spot/prove as an outsider - so, they will get away with it - at least for now - till one of my trades gets swept upon an event I have live
pics on.

[Euler]

Not something I've heard of before but I can guess. Sounds like there was a loop-hole where you could place a trade in-running and then stop the trade from actioning before the end of the countdown by reducing your available balance to below the value of the trade. Would have been fairly easy to exploit this and make big bucks!

Way, way back. Betfair used to only calculate account exposure when the bet was placed, rather than before the inplay delay. This lead to people deliberately blocking the final bet placement by placing a bet somewhere else that used up funds.

To solve the problem, Betfair switched the bet exposure calculation to trigger when the bet was placed and before the inplay delay countdown.

[PDC]

Thanks for the explanations about the old exposure/balance 'scam'. Anyone know how long it lasted? Bet those in the know were cleanign up!

They have not stated the abuse couldn't happen - but say they monitor/ban suspect accounts.

That reads like they have actually banned people but I wouldn't be so sure.. I am guessing they wouldn't give any numbers and assume a freedom of information request wouldn't work?

[Seth]

Think they closed it quite quickly when it became common knowledge on the forums but had been going on for a long time.

Used to be so many loopholes in the system with betfair and flutter. Back in the day all price points were handled by javascript client side so if you knew a little coding you could send your own price increments to ensure you were always front of the queue. I remember a guy Gary getting pulled up about it and they cancelled a few of his bets but no more.

[PDC]

Feels like we need a thread: 'Historical Betfair Loop holes' where anecdotes could be posted. I hadn't heard about the set your own odds one either.

I think I must have a mug handle in my back

You can be sure there are plenty still going on now, like with most things, when stuff is changed it creates opportunities that were not thought of when designing the stuff.

[Golfer]

I think if you could absolutely prove a loophole Betfair would deal with it. Until then, they will struggle to understand the nuance.

Guys at the ground not getting filled sounds like sour grapes but if they are getting beat by a full second rather than milliseconds it sounds like an issue.

Happening on any other sports?

[ShaunWhite]

You can be sure there are plenty still going on now, like with most things, when stuff is changed it creates opportunities that were not thought of when designing the stuff.

It all shows that its worth keeping up with what others could do as well as what your software can do. The minFillsize parameter and info about how to use it has been there for years.

But why are people assuming it avoids the bet delay? References to matching instantly mean once the bet has been round the delay loop and hit the exchange, not instantly as in bypassing it.

[Golfer]

Doesn't directly avoid the bet delay but if you can fiddle the market liquidity, you can decide if that bet gets matched against your own liquidity (on a separate but controlled BF) and sweeps up anything else in the way OR you pull the extra $ and the FOK doesn't enter the market.

I don't think this what people are seeing on the cricket as the 60-100k isn't a true FOK order and the bet remains in the market for x seconds.