1-2 tick scalpers can be easily replaced by bf's own bots and they'll draw nice attractive figures. Not a problem.Euler wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 8:08 amHere is the dilemma that Betfair face, generally speaking your Joe punter is a loser and pumps the exchange full of losing money and there (were?) a lot of them, by number. But traders provide the bulk of liquidity by far that allows the punters to get on in reasonable quantity at great prices and bets will be honoured. So who do you piss off the most?
Betfair announce end of trading then delete tweet
If you void the bet of the punter they will just go to another exchange/bookmaker whereas they know traders ain't going anywhere - I bet almost no one moves over to Betdaq even after this debacleEuler wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 8:08 amHere is the dilemma that Betfair face, generally speaking your Joe punter is a loser and pumps the exchange full of losing money and there (were?) a lot of them, by number. But traders provide the bulk of liquidity by far that allows the punters to get on in reasonable quantity at great prices and bets will be honoured. So who do you piss off the most?
So I guess when a football match suspends in-play for most of the match then all the money that was bet before the game started should be voided too?
Remember its a betting exchange not a trading exchange!
You have Betdaq to trade out with too...
What????? You're campaigning for your magnanimously provided bets with punters NOT to be honoured when there's an outage many hours after your oh-so-honourable bet was struck. And you want to fail to honour them just because you, and some other special ones, can't unwind your bets on the same exchange at the time it suits you. You're taking the mickey here Peter.
As for who'll be more pissed off....who cares? Just do the right thing. There will always be someone pissed off, whatever you do.
+1weemac wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 9:33 amWhat????? You're campaigning for your magnanimously provided bets with punters NOT to be honoured when there's an outage many hours after your oh-so-honourable bet was struck. And you want to fail to honour them just because you, and some other special ones, can't unwind your bets on the same exchange at the time it suits you. You're taking the mickey here Peter.
As for who'll be more pissed off....who cares? Just do the right thing. There will always be someone pissed off, whatever you do.
It's perfectly possible to have equally valid differences of opinion on this.
Personally, I don't think Betfair should void bets.
But if they are going to use traders to promote their site - as they do - that seems confusing. If their message is - we're a betting exhange, then fine. But stop explicitly encouraging trading.
I had never seen their position expressed as starkly as the tweet. I'm glad they did so. It will make me change my approach.
Personally, I don't think Betfair should void bets.
But if they are going to use traders to promote their site - as they do - that seems confusing. If their message is - we're a betting exhange, then fine. But stop explicitly encouraging trading.
I had never seen their position expressed as starkly as the tweet. I'm glad they did so. It will make me change my approach.
You can't expect companies to take unlimited liabilities or an ambiguous liabilities so I'd expect a catch all in most companies terms and conditions.
All traders are asking for is a bit of a definition of certainty around what actually defines a market. When does it open, close. When that rule is broken Betfair should be punished for poor service, not rewarded. Or it's a slippery slope to the sportsbook. It is an exchange afterall, so some rules and definitions around the exchange would be helpful!
Traders operate on tiny margins, so an outage decimates returns.
My angle is everybody will benefit from certainly, lack of it will erode confidence.
All traders are asking for is a bit of a definition of certainty around what actually defines a market. When does it open, close. When that rule is broken Betfair should be punished for poor service, not rewarded. Or it's a slippery slope to the sportsbook. It is an exchange afterall, so some rules and definitions around the exchange would be helpful!
Traders operate on tiny margins, so an outage decimates returns.
My angle is everybody will benefit from certainly, lack of it will erode confidence.
I suggested on the "Betfair down" thread that all bets on affected markets should be void. But I now realise there are people with non-trading, winning bets plus people perhaps with exposure on another platform that they have covered via a matched BF bet.Euler wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 10:58 amYou can't expect companies to take unlimited liabilities or an ambiguous liabilities so I'd expect a catch all in most companies terms and conditions.
All traders are asking for is a bit of a definition of certainty around what actually defines a market. When does it open, close. When that rule is broken Betfair should be punished for poor service, not rewarded. Or it's a slippery slope to the sportsbook. It is an exchange afterall, so some rules and definitions around the exchange would be helpful!
Traders operate on tiny margins, so an outage decimates returns.
These people have matched bets. They think they're covered.
I dont think it would be fair (probably even breach of contract) to void their bets.
I sympathise with traders with exposure but the original tweet kind of says it all. BF won't guarantee continuous service. And thats the crux of it.
The debate has certainly made me think how outages might affect me and how I could limit any damage.
Within the Betfair Settings it should be possible to have checkboxes to instruct BF on the course of action to take with an unexpected outage. This would remove all the ambiguity around each persons betting style and what to do. Implementaion by them of course is another thing...
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Within the Betfair Settings it should be possible to have checkboxes to instruct BF on the course of action to take with an unexpected outage. This would remove all the ambiguity around each persons betting style and what to do. Implementaion by them of course is another thing...

I've been reading some of the comments in this thread and these are all valid points (for the most part), although I couldn't help but notice that they all lacked something, like a real solution that would satisfy all types of Betfair customers. Ever since the last outage I've been working hard on the final solution for an entire week and I definitely think that I cracked it. I've added a subtle green arrow to the screenshot in case you somehow missed it. Now granted, most of the work was learning how to take a screenshot and finding the right font to fit right in, but the cunning part of the solution is that it will be turned off by default so it won't affect your below average Joe punters. In fact, they'll never even notice this tab, since they only ever use the Deposit tab anyway!