Would it be possible to have a separate thread on the forum just for Peter or another member of the BA team to issue warnings when they felt it was no longer advisable to use the exchange?
All my trading is automated and I set it up each day before going to work. A few days ago I subscribed to the ‘Betfair down / Betfair site crash’ thread, my plan being that if a post appeared on there by Peter advising people to stop trading then I would remotely access my home pc and close everything down. However the way the email notifications work means that this isn't so straightforward. I get a notification whenever a new post is made, but the notifications don’t show a preview of the post, although they do show the author. I can’t just ignore notifications about posts from anyone other than Peter since the notifications will automatically stop if you don’t log in and view the topic after each one. A couple of days ago there were 11 posts in the topic during the day, which meant that I had to log in and view the forum 11 times just to keep getting the notifications. I’m quite often driving in the day so this isn’t ideal, and I would guess that there are other users around for whom it’s also impractical for various reasons. As far as I can see there’s no way to configure the notifications to get around this.
The existing thread is great for giving a detailed picture of what’s going on, but an additional thread that was only used for ‘official’ warnings might be really helpful for people who just need to know when to turn the bots off.
Betfair crash warnings?
Has Peter ever advised on this forum to stop trading?Johnedale wrote: ↑Wed Jan 01, 2020 8:36 pmWould it be possible to have a separate thread on the forum just for Peter or another member of the BA team to issue warnings when they felt it was no longer advisable to use the exchange?
All my trading is automated and I set it up each day before going to work. A few days ago I subscribed to the ‘Betfair down / Betfair site crash’ thread, my plan being that if a post appeared on there by Peter advising people to stop trading then I would remotely access my home pc and close everything down. However the way the email notifications work means that this isn't so straightforward. I get a notification whenever a new post is made, but the notifications don’t show a preview of the post, although they do show the author. I can’t just ignore notifications about posts from anyone other than Peter since the notifications will automatically stop if you don’t log in and view the topic after each one. A couple of days ago there were 11 posts in the topic during the day, which meant that I had to log in and view the forum 11 times just to keep getting the notifications. I’m quite often driving in the day so this isn’t ideal, and I would guess that there are other users around for whom it’s also impractical for various reasons. As far as I can see there’s no way to configure the notifications to get around this.
The existing thread is great for giving a detailed picture of what’s going on, but an additional thread that was only used for ‘official’ warnings might be really helpful for people who just need to know when to turn the bots off.
I can't imagine him ever doing so because stopping trading is a personal decision that depends on individual circumstances. Some people have rigid backup plans including other exchanges and some don't. Some will have large percentages of their bank at risk, other's won't, depending on trading style. The Betfair down thread enables forum members to share information about what they are experiencing to help you make an informed decision but nobody is likely to, or in a position to, advise not to use the exchange.
I thought Peter had advised people to avoid the exchange in the past during major outages, but I may be wrong.Derek27 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:13 pmHas Peter ever advised on this forum to stop trading?
I can't imagine him ever doing so because stopping trading is a personal decision that depends on individual circumstances. Some people have rigid backup plans including other exchanges and some don't. Some will have large percentages of their bank at risk, other's won't, depending on trading style. The Betfair down thread enables forum members to share information about what they are experiencing to help you make an informed decision but nobody is likely to, or in a position to, advise not to use the exchange.
Certainly nobody can tell anyone else not to use the exchange, but advice is just advice, people can take it or leave it.
If you’re a full time trader then I imagine you have the chance to look through the posts on the thread and come to an informed decision about what to do. But if you’re at work and need to quickly decide whether to pull the plug then straightforward advice from an experienced trader would be pretty useful.
I understand your situation, what I'm saying is nobody, no matter how experienced they are, can give "straightforward advice" on pulling the plug without knowing how many tons of water is above the plughole and what's underneath it.
For example, I'm quick to quit trading when API issues occur when trading UK racing but for UAE meetings I might happily take my chances and let bets run. How could an experienced trader help me without having a conversation about what I'm trading? Nobody could give advice without knowing the level of risk.
I somewhat understand the reasoning behind your suggestion but it sounds like a big can of worms honestly, don't think the BA staff would want to be held responsible for such things when/if they inevitably go wrong at some point. I fully agree with Derek, when it comes to such risk one size does not fit all, it's best you work out your own contingency plans based solely on your own trading activities and not become reliant on someone else's, but do make sure that you actually need one in the first place.
There's an overkill of advice in the main thread along with a couple of outage guides around so putting a plan together shouldn't be too difficult a task. Since you clearly seem overly worried about it you can always err on the side of caution, can't do much wrong with that approach.
You've just reminded me of a link on the Paddy Power site 10+ years ago labelled BOSS - LOOK BUSY!
You click on the link and the web page was filled with an image of a spreadsheet with a sales pie chart. Not much use if you have a job as a receptionist or wasn't using Excel but I loved the PP humour.
I’m actually not too worried just yet as I’m still using fairly small stakes, but crashes are on my list of problems that I want to have clear plans for dealing with before I consider moving up to bigger stakes.Kai wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:54 am
I somewhat understand the reasoning behind your suggestion but it sounds like a big can of worms honestly, don't think the BA staff would want to be held responsible for such things when/if they inevitably go wrong at some point. I fully agree with Derek, when it comes to such risk one size does not fit all, it's best you work out your own contingency plans based solely on your own trading activities and not become reliant on someone else's, but do make sure that you actually need one in the first place.
There's an overkill of advice in the main thread along with a couple of outage guides around so putting a plan together shouldn't be too difficult a task. Since you clearly seem overly worried about it you can always err on the side of caution, can't do much wrong with that approach.
From your own and Dereks advice it looks like my suggestion isn’t realistic so I’ll have another look around the forum and see what other strategies I can find
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ShaunWhite
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Being prepared is a good idea and you have a certain amount of control over basics such as using a UPS and readily available options if you lose your own connection via hotspot connection from yor phone etc. But comms that are reliant on 3rd parties such as BF will always have outages, they're part and parcel of the business i'm afraid. The saving grace is that you're dealing with markets that are for all intents and purposes efficient, you can basically pull the plug at anytime and at any place, and over enough incidents you'll break even give or take a little extra commision.
Being mindful of the consequences of what you can't control is essential though, and you'll often find new people carrying way too much exposure for the returns they might get. It should never be the case that a large percentage of your working capital is exposed or that a single outage (if it goes against you) should wipe out months of profit. This sort of thing falls under the general cataegory of money management and the saying about not having all your eggs in one basket isn't a concept that's peculiar to sports trading. If you need to expose yourself to uncomfortably large amounts of risk to make a crust, you simply don't have a big enough edge, and that's true of any business.
When you say you're not worried too much because you're on small stakes, that's because it's just a matter of proportion. As your bank, stakes and profitablity grow then hopefully you'll carry that lack of concern with you. The natural ups and downs caused by outages will get bigger in absolute figures, but as a proportion of your overall operation they should stay manageable and ultimately inconsequential.
A couple of practical bits of advice:
1.When you're working out if you can make money trading, budget for a few shocking outcomes a year. If they happen then live with it and if they don't that's your xmas bonus.
2.Keep your open positions covered with closing trades at 1000 or 1.01 with TakeSP set (Excel/Guardian can help with this?) That way if the api goes down you've hopefully got your closing trades securely lodged with BF and they wil be honoured.
3.Don't skimp on learning the Ts&Cs on outages, sometimes bets are cancelled, sometimes they aren't. You can easliy make things worse by hurriedly entering closes on Betdaq only to find your BF bets have been cancelled anyway.
I posted this a while ago to comfort a guy who'd had a bad one...
Hopefully the first outage you hit on big stakes will turn out to be a winner, that way you'll have a nice cushion for when it doesn't go so well. Whatever you do don't spend a big lucky win, I'll put money on you having to give it back one day.
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That shows the distribution of your results if I am understanding correctly. But don't you also need to account for a random distribution of the people getting a return either +'ve or -'ve or combination of them due to the BF mess ups. It seems you are about bang in the middle of the bell curve but there will be others who only ever 'seem' to benefit from the outages, others will only ever lose and everything in between.ShaunWhite wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 5:47 pm
I posted this a while ago to comfort a guy who'd had a bad one...Screenshot_1.png
Hopefully the first outage you hit on big stakes will turn out to be a winner, that way you'll have a nice cushion for when it doesn't go so well. Whatever you do don't spend a big lucky win, I'll put money on you having to give it back one day.
So all users taken as a whole, it averages out and as collective we don't lose out but for the individual you could fall anywhere on the bell curve.
I have commented elsewhere about people saying it will all level up so don't worry about the losses. I personally don't agree with that, I think for most it won't level out due to various factors.
Thanks Shaun, there are certainly a few points there that hadn’t occurred to me.
I think my trading can withstand an occasional worst case scenario. I’ve already had one or two oversized wins and losses due to coding mistakes and connection problems. Luckily I’m ahead so far but if things had gone the other way it wouldn’t have wiped me out.
I think my trading can withstand an occasional worst case scenario. I’ve already had one or two oversized wins and losses due to coding mistakes and connection problems. Luckily I’m ahead so far but if things had gone the other way it wouldn’t have wiped me out.
When there are signs of exchange issues I've saw him post on Twitter advising to stop trading or be cautious a few times (probably one of the best platforms to get live updates). One of the reasons I assume is to try and publicly get the attention of BF to recognise the issue and improve their reliability otherwise lose out on customersHas Peter ever advised on this forum to stop trading?
Have you got a link to where he categorically said: "stop trading"?alexmr2 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:33 amWhen there are signs of exchange issues I've saw him post on Twitter advising to stop trading or be cautious a few times (probably one of the best platforms to get live updates). One of the reasons I assume is to try and publicly get the attention of BF to recognise the issue and improve their reliability otherwise lose out on customersHas Peter ever advised on this forum to stop trading?
I've often advised being cautious. So has anyone who's had API problems - the first thing you do is warn others to be cautious. Advice to stop trading is another entity. Not everybody is trading a race that starts in 5 minutes. You could be trading a future event.
As someone who is down 4 figures from outages and extremely lucky not to be in the 5 figure club, this is definitely true for certain traders and their respective trading approaches, but some approaches are simply more vulnerable to outages than others and would take forever to even out in the long run as many banks have to be burned through.
I think that's exactly the core issue but easier said than done, because most people aren't prepared to lose their stakes, let alone their liabilities, which are two different things, so to fully cover it all I'd rather say "don't risk what you can't lose in the first place". Since "don't stake" can sound a bit misleading, a lay stake of 200 can have a 4 figure liability and a lot of people are NOT okay with risking that.