Betfair Down / Betfair site crash
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lilgreenback
- Posts: 211
- Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:28 am
The situation regarding site crashes and BF honouring bets continues to be unsatisfactory. The BF T/C's seem to have more loopholes and caveats than the Dodgy A Level dossier that Euan Blair wrote for his dad (allegedly).
For a level playing field the only acceptable solution has to be that if an event is suspended due to technical failure etc then all bets lay/back and settled on the event are void and the stakes are returned to individuals.
I realise how difficult this may be but BF traces each line of activity in the log so it should be perfectly possible. Whilst the winners may be disappointed initially at least everyone would know where they stood; and the resulting policy would give traders and punters more confidence in the "Provider".
Surely the object at the end of the day would be to get a fair result. The clue being in the name Bet Fair!!! I think it's time winners and losers voiced their disapproval over the current state of affairs.
I hope that those who have lost due to today's debacle manage to recoup their cash and make some green ASAP
For a level playing field the only acceptable solution has to be that if an event is suspended due to technical failure etc then all bets lay/back and settled on the event are void and the stakes are returned to individuals.
I realise how difficult this may be but BF traces each line of activity in the log so it should be perfectly possible. Whilst the winners may be disappointed initially at least everyone would know where they stood; and the resulting policy would give traders and punters more confidence in the "Provider".
Surely the object at the end of the day would be to get a fair result. The clue being in the name Bet Fair!!! I think it's time winners and losers voiced their disapproval over the current state of affairs.
I hope that those who have lost due to today's debacle manage to recoup their cash and make some green ASAP
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Green Park
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2010 7:31 pm
The current situation is a farce. Betfair decide what is fair or not and will always settle in a manner that suits them not the majority of their customers. Most money is now traded on the exchange and it should be settled in that manner. Not in a manner than is designed to increase Betfair's rake.
But It's not all about us Traders unfortuantly.
If a Punter with no interest in trading had bet on the winner of the 5:30 today and then had his bet voided then that would be completely unfair too.
So what are Betfair supposed to do ???
Betfair are not physic and people are not honest either, so how then can the punters intentions be known.
thats the problem it's an exchange and there are always winners and losers even when the site goes down,
As a trader its always been part of the game and you just have to take it on the chin and move on.
I Lost 100-00 today on the 5:30 and have lost over 1k previously when a race failed to go in-play,
so trust me i do know how annoying it is.
But really what can be done ???
If a Punter with no interest in trading had bet on the winner of the 5:30 today and then had his bet voided then that would be completely unfair too.
So what are Betfair supposed to do ???
Betfair are not physic and people are not honest either, so how then can the punters intentions be known.
thats the problem it's an exchange and there are always winners and losers even when the site goes down,
As a trader its always been part of the game and you just have to take it on the chin and move on.
I Lost 100-00 today on the 5:30 and have lost over 1k previously when a race failed to go in-play,
so trust me i do know how annoying it is.
But really what can be done ???
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lilgreenback
- Posts: 211
- Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:28 am
It may be unfair in that he would not receive his winnings but he would be getting his stake returned and I think he would consider himself lucky in getting his stake returned if his selection lost.freddy wrote:If a Punter with no interest in trading had bet on the winner of the 5:30 today and then had his bet voided then that would be completely unfair too.
I just think that there needs to be a lot more clarity so that punters and traders etc are confident of the product they are using. So if there is a problem and a tech issue happens one knows with certainty that they are going to be protected and not left to the whim of an arbitary decision that may go for you in one instance and against you during the next occasion.
The difference there though is that the winners & losers are generally decided by either luck or judgement, not a technical problem and whilst reliability of a service can't be guaranteed the problem could be addressed by BF looking more closely at the way it sorts things out.freddy wrote:thats the problem it's an exchange and there are always winners and losers even when the site goes down
Especially if as was said earlier in the thread that internet positions were held but you could still place selections via phone (was that right) that seems well dodgy the whole lot should be suspended or it could opened to abuse.
Soz to hear about your loss (1K would be head in hands for a month) I hope you make it up in quick time.
It’s very rare for me to find myself defending Betfair,
but once again what are they supposed to do ???
the only suggestion I have heard people say is to void all markets,
Of cause people are always going to talk through their pockets with these situations (me included)
but you really need to see things from both sides,
If Betfair did Void all markets then the situation would still be no different really,
there would still be winners and losers due to the outage and still some very upset people for BF to deal with.
The rules are transparent with regard this issue,
all bets pre race will always stand and the day they start voiding winning bets would be a PR disaster for them and the punters would soon go elsewhere ,
it will never ever happen imo and rightly so.
but once again what are they supposed to do ???
the only suggestion I have heard people say is to void all markets,
Of cause people are always going to talk through their pockets with these situations (me included)
but you really need to see things from both sides,
If Betfair did Void all markets then the situation would still be no different really,
there would still be winners and losers due to the outage and still some very upset people for BF to deal with.
The rules are transparent with regard this issue,
all bets pre race will always stand and the day they start voiding winning bets would be a PR disaster for them and the punters would soon go elsewhere ,
it will never ever happen imo and rightly so.
You could argue that they should really honour all winning matched bets, and reimburse people on the wrong side of those bets.
The alternative is for people to lose money because of a technical fault on Betfair's side. Betfair's position is a bit like a surgeon saying 'Sorry I botched your operation, but if you look at the small print of the form you signed, you can't sue me'.
Jeff
The alternative is for people to lose money because of a technical fault on Betfair's side. Betfair's position is a bit like a surgeon saying 'Sorry I botched your operation, but if you look at the small print of the form you signed, you can't sue me'.
Jeff
freddy wrote:It’s very rare for me to find myself defending Betfair,
but once again what are they supposed to do ???
Sound good to meFerru123 wrote:You could argue that they should really honour all winning matched bets, and reimburse people on the wrong side of those bets.
The alternative is for people to lose money because of a technical fault on Betfair's side. Betfair's position is a bit like a surgeon saying 'Sorry I botched your operation, but if you look at the small print of the form you signed, you can't sue me'.
Jeff
freddy wrote:It’s very rare for me to find myself defending Betfair,
but once again what are they supposed to do ???
but would never happen,it wouldn't be long before criminal gangs started placing huge bets and then launcing a cyber attack to kill betfair, a bet with no risk
.Fair comment - I didn't think of that.
BTW, it would be interesting to know if criminals with the intention of extorting money from Betfair were behind yesterday's crash.
Jeff
BTW, it would be interesting to know if criminals with the intention of extorting money from Betfair were behind yesterday's crash.
Jeff
freddy wrote: it wouldn't be long before criminal gangs started placing huge bets and then launcing a cyber attack to kill betfair, a bet with no risk
i doubt if that was the case. it is not that unusual for betfair to have crashes etc, although far fewer these days. it would be a convenient excuse for them though.Ferru123 wrote:Fair comment - I didn't think of that.
BTW, it would be interesting to know if criminals with the intention of extorting money from Betfair were behind yesterday's crash.
Jeff
betfair rang me last evening about their latest balls up. Usual apologies etc, etc, and as always would not be fair to void markets in the case of straight backers/layers (which like Freddy I agree with), and the usual guff about their t&c’s
What I suggested to them (and in the past) is that in these situation where someone is clearly trading, and their site crashes, they fail to put a market inplay etc, is that if they cant refund/cover the loss’s incurred by their error, why could they not as a good will gesture reduce the pc or scrap the pc charge to cover the loss that their technical problem caused in the first place. Or in the case of non pc traders, give a better commission rate for a period time.
The fella did not seem to like the suggestion, stating once again “it in the t&c, and that commission rates are fair and he can’t see any reason to alter them or pc etc, etc, etc.
Wasted my breath really. But when these things happen I believe it’s important to complain to them, even knowing it’s a forlorn hope.
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andyfuller
- Posts: 4619
- Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:23 pm
BF are unsurprisingly under constant cyber attack according to people who know a lot more about it all than me. Scott Ferguson I remember a while back commented on the measure Betfair have in place which make such attacks near impossible to bring the site down and you have to kind of think he is right given the little downtime they experience for and online business.
Several bookmakers were held to ransom a few years back during the Cheltenham festival.
As for the need for clarity I can't really see the issue to be honest. If your bet was matched before the site goes down it stands. It has always been the case and I haven't seen any evidence bar anecdotal evidence to suggest anything else has ever happened.
If people claim they had bets matched but voided later please post screen shots.
As for voiding all bets that is just plain stupid and we as a group seem to forget that this is a betting exchange and not a trading exchange. Yes we can trade using the exchange but it is fundamentally a betting exchange where people place bets. We all know if Betfair goes down when we have an open position we will not perhaps be able to close out on Betfair - there are other options, such as bookmakers and other betting exchanges.
To suggest Betfair void markets is crazy - do they void them if the outage lasts 5 seconds or does it have to be 10 minutes. Let's say we have an outage before the Grand National of 1 minute leading up to the start of the race. Are you really suggesting they should void all the bets - most people don't give a toss that we as traders would have been unable to close out and rightly so. Most people won't even know that an outage has occurred until they check their balance after the race and see their winning bet was voided through no fault of their own.
Yes it is unpleasant when you are caught out but it is the risk you take when trading - we all know what happens and if we don't you should read through the Terms and Conditions before committing a penny more to the market.
And finally as has been said - the moment you bring in such a ridiculous rule any criminal cyber gang with half a brain will start putting resources into bringing down Betfair as they can then regularly build positions and when they go against them they will try to bring down the house as they would then have their money back to try again.
The upside of voiding the market is that we as traders don't have to any longer worry about the site going down but every other user is left unsure if their bet will stand until the race is off and Betfair has remained online.
And what of the traders who arb or the bookmakers who offset on the exchange they wouldn't know where they stood until the race was off and Betfair had remained up.
I close my case your honour - we all know the situation but as traders we don't like it as it is something out of our control to an extent but if you don't like it, don't trade.
Several bookmakers were held to ransom a few years back during the Cheltenham festival.
As for the need for clarity I can't really see the issue to be honest. If your bet was matched before the site goes down it stands. It has always been the case and I haven't seen any evidence bar anecdotal evidence to suggest anything else has ever happened.
If people claim they had bets matched but voided later please post screen shots.
As for voiding all bets that is just plain stupid and we as a group seem to forget that this is a betting exchange and not a trading exchange. Yes we can trade using the exchange but it is fundamentally a betting exchange where people place bets. We all know if Betfair goes down when we have an open position we will not perhaps be able to close out on Betfair - there are other options, such as bookmakers and other betting exchanges.
To suggest Betfair void markets is crazy - do they void them if the outage lasts 5 seconds or does it have to be 10 minutes. Let's say we have an outage before the Grand National of 1 minute leading up to the start of the race. Are you really suggesting they should void all the bets - most people don't give a toss that we as traders would have been unable to close out and rightly so. Most people won't even know that an outage has occurred until they check their balance after the race and see their winning bet was voided through no fault of their own.
Yes it is unpleasant when you are caught out but it is the risk you take when trading - we all know what happens and if we don't you should read through the Terms and Conditions before committing a penny more to the market.
And finally as has been said - the moment you bring in such a ridiculous rule any criminal cyber gang with half a brain will start putting resources into bringing down Betfair as they can then regularly build positions and when they go against them they will try to bring down the house as they would then have their money back to try again.
The upside of voiding the market is that we as traders don't have to any longer worry about the site going down but every other user is left unsure if their bet will stand until the race is off and Betfair has remained online.
And what of the traders who arb or the bookmakers who offset on the exchange they wouldn't know where they stood until the race was off and Betfair had remained up.
I close my case your honour - we all know the situation but as traders we don't like it as it is something out of our control to an extent but if you don't like it, don't trade.
As far as exchange trading is concerned, Betfair more or less have a monopoly.
Therefore, they know you're unlikely to take your business elsewhere, so they're unlikely to make any concessions they don't have to.
And unless Betdaq pull their finger out or traders stage a mass migration, that's unlikely to change anytime soon...
Jeff
Therefore, they know you're unlikely to take your business elsewhere, so they're unlikely to make any concessions they don't have to.
And unless Betdaq pull their finger out or traders stage a mass migration, that's unlikely to change anytime soon...
Jeff
to75ne wrote: What I suggested to them (and in the past) is that in these situation where someone is clearly trading, and their site crashes, they fail to put a market inplay etc, is that if they cant refund/cover the loss’s incurred by their error, why could they not as a good will gesture reduce the pc or scrap the pc charge to cover the loss that their technical problem caused in the first place. Or in the case of non pc traders, give a better commission rate for a period time.
The fella did not seem to like the suggestion, stating once again “it in the t&c, and that commission rates are fair and he can’t see any reason to alter them or pc etc, etc, etc.
Wasted my breath really. But when these things happen I believe it’s important to complain to them, even knowing it’s a forlorn hope.
Well
I think to solve all this , Betfair must have one option where players have to choice between ,,i'm a trader,, or ,,i'm a punter,, if i choice ,,i'm a trader,, in case of a shutdown , all my bets must be voided or to be closed asap at what odds are now ..... is this fair or i must to go to take my pils ?
Regards
I think to solve all this , Betfair must have one option where players have to choice between ,,i'm a trader,, or ,,i'm a punter,, if i choice ,,i'm a trader,, in case of a shutdown , all my bets must be voided or to be closed asap at what odds are now ..... is this fair or i must to go to take my pils ?
Regards
