Using Take SP

[cookyweb]

Hi There,

I’m just trying to understand Take SP fully since the big Betfair outage yesterday.

If I have a £100 Back Bet matched in the pre race and I have a £100 lay bet unmatched further down the ladder with Take SP set on it

Then, Betfair’s whole site crashes completely with no access at all until after the race ends, will the Take SP kick in and close my position?

I tried to ask Betfair this question and the answer was very vague but it sounded like they may not honour the SP bet and I’d lose my full £100 stake if the horse didn’t win

Any advice to help clear this up in my head would be very much appreciated.

Thank you

[ShaunWhite]

Then, Betfair’s whole site crashes completely with no access at all until after the race ends, will the Take SP kick in and close my position?

In theory yes, the bet has been lodged at Betfair and stands...But

And maybe why they were a bit guarded or unsure, it can depend on what time the API issue began. They don't always affect all terretories at the same time, and the definition of 'outage' is loose as it could be anything from a total out to a big slowdown to inaccessible accounts. An exchange that appeared 'up' to you may well have been impacting other users and therefore potentially assisting you. So a bet you think you've placed in good faith might not have been matched on a level playing field, and they might not even have known that at the time depending on the nature of the outage....anyway it's fuzzy, that's the nature of the beast.

When it comes to decisions about fairness, you can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

[cookyweb]

Thanks a lot for the reply, I guess it’s just one of those risks that can happen at times and you can lose big if it does catch you

[Anbell]

Thanks a lot for the reply, I guess it’s just one of those risks that can happen at times and you can lose big if it does catch you

Dallas has a file that can help, but it wont save you if the exchanges is having spasms
viewtopic.php?t=15199

[ShaunWhite]

Thanks a lot for the reply, I guess it’s just one of those risks that can happen at times and you can lose big if it does catch you

And you win big too. BSP is known to be a fair price so when you've seen enough of them in theory you'll be break even. But yes this is another way in which an exchange is different to a retail bookmaker.

It's why money management is so important. As well as setting a maximum amount you're prepared to lose per trade you also need to protect your working capital and not put large amounts of your money on the table.

[MattP]

I always thought Take SP protects you against everything except Betfair going down.

It protects you against software crashes, Internet connection issues, personal discipline, amazon parcel arriving etc.

My understanding is Take SP is only placed if Betfair set the market in-play correctly. The first signs of exchange failure this week was Betfair not setting markets in play.

I think Betfair T&Cs are fair in this instance, any bets matched prior to the official start time remain, anything else including SP bets are void. There isn't a better resolution for their failure.

Betfair never guarantee a market will be available for you to close a position.