Live Forum Chat - Tuesday 14th December

[andyfuller]

[Betfair]We'll be hosting a Q&A session on the forum on Tuesday 14th December between 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm (UK Time). We welcome questions on any topic of interest to Betfair customers.

Please send any questions you have to [email protected], and we will endeavour to answer as many as possible. You can send any questions you have from now, and responses will be posted on the night.

Unfortunately it is not possible for us to respond to each email individually but we will attempt to answer all questions raised via the live Q&A session.

[PeterLe]

Thanks for that Andy
I would be interested to hear what they have to say about the cross matching...and in particular what happens with the "Residual Profit" that is generated...

[andyfuller]

Make sure you send in your question - I am still waiting on a reply from the previous one

[mister man]

my main question to betfair is how they justify non refunds of bets that are placed on an in play market that goes off air and thus non in play. as occasionally happens in footy, most in play punters are trading positions, to just say its off air your position is fixed at the time it went off air as betfair do, is very consumer unfriendly and means youve been conned, you have bet on the proviso its in play and trading is available when its now not. to me in these cases all bets should be voided and betfairs position is very unfair and based only on the complexity and no doubt cost of voiding bets rather than good customer service.

[andyfuller]

my main question to betfair is how they justify non refunds of bets that are placed on an in play market that goes off air and thus non in play. as occasionally happens in footy, most in play punters are trading positions, to just say its off air your position is fixed at the time it went off air as betfair do, is very consumer unfriendly and means youve been conned, you have bet on the proviso its in play and trading is available when its now not. to me in these cases all bets should be voided and betfairs position is very unfair and based only on the complexity and no doubt cost of voiding bets rather than good customer service.

I can answer that one for you - save you having to wait for Betfair.

I personally think their current policy is correct. Why?

Well, there will be plenty of people who have placed bets on the market with no intention of trading or anything else, they just want a straight bet. If the market fails to go inplay or is suspended once a market has gone inplay it would be very unfair on all of the people who have placed straight bets.

The rules are there for all to see that if Betfair lose their feed the market will be suspended so you aren't being conned. If they did not state this then yes you could have a case of being conned but it is stated what will happen if the feed is lost, so you enter a trade with that knowledge that there is a chance the market may not in fact go inplay.

Yes if they vodied all bets they would miss out on commission and potentially they can earn more by not offering inplay but refunding all bets on a market is likely to affect/annoy more people than allowing bets to stand and not turning it inplay.

Also there is potential if they were to void all bets for illegal activity.

Hope that helps you understand.

[mister man]

yes i understand the stopping illegality bit, the rest of it i dont agree with, if you punt pre ko, no probs bet stands, otherwise they shouldnt. i know they wont change the policy, and tbh ive benefitted from it as much as lost through it, so its not sour grapes.
as liquidity elsewhere is so poor, its a one game in town situation, and ive no choice really. so i lump it rather than like it.

on the illegal activity problem, i dont know if you have ever seen a game where the suspend is up for 5 -10 mins after an incident with no explanation or reason for it whatsoever. (not an extra min or so but 5plus and more), i have on a number of occasions and that smacks of dodgyness on someones part, rather than someone just forgetting to turn market bk on. but like you say they are covered on the t&c's.

cheers for explaining to me though

[PeterLe]

Now that I have just read those last few posts, it has made me a little nervous...
i sometimes trade the football pre kick off, and whilst it is relatively safe, I find that to make it worthwhile you have to use 4 fig sums. (Maybe get a couple of one tick scalps)

I would hate the thought that I could be left exposed if a market was completely suspended...it would be along 90 mins!

I tend to stay away from football outside the UK and for the UK markets, I only trade the big games, so would I be right in thinking that these games are less likely to be suspended in the way described in the earlier posts??

Regards
Peter

[LeTiss]

mister man, I disagree with you. IMO Andy is right

Not everyone is trading on a market, some people are just having a punt. How do Betfair determine which people fall into either category? You can't just say a punter's bet stands, but not traders because his matched bet might have come from a trader. Also, some traders will have already made their money, so their hard work gets voided due to other traders like yourself who are flying too close to the sun

[andyfuller]

PeterLe - this could effectively happen on any market at any time. If Betfair goes down you could be left with an exposure on any market you are trading. At least with football if they can't offer it fully inplay they often will open it again at half time. In a horse race you could be left with no time to exit before the race runs.

It is important to remember when trading that you could if you are very unfortunate be left with a large exposure and you have to therefore remember to only trade using stakes you are okay to lose.

LeTiss - also they would be inundated with punters who were on the losing end of a bet claiming they would have traded out.

There basically is no way of knowing what someone would have done and as such they make it clear what will happen if a market doesn't go inplay. It is all part of the risk of trading.

[CaerMyrddin]

I agree with LeTiss and Andy. One of the biggest advantages of betfair is that they pay their punters. If I put a bet in a match, why should I care if it goes inplay or not?

[mister man]

dont see the difference in explaining to punters traders anyone whose bet on an in play event that went down, that bets are void as it was an in play market and that couldnt be fulfilled. to explaining to anyone whose bet on a market that went down that bets stand. either way you have a lot of miffed punters.
its financially driven by betfair imho
as for sailing too close to the sun, nope as i said ive benefited as much as lost from it.

i suppose as we have a lot of horseracing traders on here pre off, the equivalent would be, how would you feel if you had just put up 3 mins before the off £100 lay on a 20-1 shot to trade as movement was odds were coming in quickly, and its steaming and the market (say your phone and internet connection and betfairs interface)went down you cant trade out cos the off will be called b4 you can get your phone etc working, you are probably stuffed!!!!
i guess you'd be both praying for a miracle and be on the phone to betfair your isp, and god...asap,..... so lets get real here..

[andyfuller]

i suppose as we have a lot of horseracing traders on here pre off, the equivalent would be, how would you feel if you had just put up 3 mins before the off £100 lay on a 20-1 shot to trade as movement was odds were coming in quickly, and its steaming and the market (say your phone and internet connection and betfairs interface)went down you cant trade out cos the off will be called b4 you can get your phone etc working, you are probably stuffed!!!!
i guess you'd be both praying for a miracle and be on the phone to betfair your isp, and god...asap,..... so lets get real here..

Mate, the exact circumstances you describe for pre race traders has happened many many times. Have a look through this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=439

Or any of the other Betfair Down threads in the General Discussion section. I, Peter, Adam Heathcote and just about most other full time pre race traders will have been caught by an outage be it Betfair's fault or your own. It is a risk of trading. We know the risks and have to decide if we wish to take part.

[mister man]

drifting not steaming... dooohhhh...i cant multi task..lol

[mister man]

yes i know, risky business...good luck all

[giulio2010]

my main question to betfair is how they justify non refunds of bets that are placed on an in play market that goes off air and thus non in play. as occasionally happens in footy, most in play punters are trading positions, to just say its off air your position is fixed at the time it went off air as betfair do, is very consumer unfriendly and means youve been conned, you have bet on the proviso its in play and trading is available when its now not. to me in these cases all bets should be voided and betfairs position is very unfair and based only on the complexity and no doubt cost of voiding bets rather than good customer service.

I can answer that one for you - save you having to wait for Betfair.

I personally think their current policy is correct. Why?

Well, there will be plenty of people who have placed bets on the market with no intention of trading or anything else, they just want a straight bet. If the market fails to go inplay or is suspended once a market has gone inplay it would be very unfair on all of the people who have placed straight bets.

The rules are there for all to see that if Betfair lose their feed the market will be suspended so you aren't being conned. If they did not state this then yes you could have a case of being conned but it is stated what will happen if the feed is lost, so you enter a trade with that knowledge that there is a chance the market may not in fact go inplay.

Yes if they vodied all bets they would miss out on commission and potentially they can earn more by not offering inplay but refunding all bets on a market is likely to affect/annoy more people than allowing bets to stand and not turning it inplay.

Also there is potential if they were to void all bets for illegal activity.

Hope that helps you understand.

just a quick one on this comment..One day I had 5K stucked because of their UNFAIR suspension. I had the worse 45 minutes of my life. IF betfair stated the game is going in PLAY how fair is to suspend the game on kick off? So the punters money is fair to protect but not the traders money?IF Betfair can`t go IN PLAY because they messed up, the only FAIR thing to do is to switch the game unmanaged. Until we have people to justify their unfair behaviour, Betfair will never bother to make a fair service to every1.


This is my last day here...i wish you aLL GOOD LUCK...