Markets Suspended in Error

[bigtimesmallshot]

Hi All,

Very frustrated today , Betfair football markets being suspended un-neccessarily and for way too long - it makes managing a position very difficult , typically I will place a trade and take out parts of my stake as time progesses - If an event like a goal is scored I will act - wither by cashing out or placing trades in other markets , obviously it is important for the markets to be opened so I can act !!

Both Turkish matches today caused me problems - firstly they had Karagumruk Kayserispor suspended from the start earlier today , they had the Galatasaray match as "inplay" at the point and it wasnt due to start for hours !!!

I contacted them via Twitter and got the usual stock answers , in this case I hedged my position on their sportsbook and made a small profit (about 0.5% of my stake)

Then then Galatasary match was suspended after the first goal (maybe even since KO) and I couldnt access any market to either cash out or hedge , in this instance it didnt make sense to hedge on sportsbook so I was stuck - marketI was trading was BTTS and of course the other team scored while market was suspended

This seems to happen very regularly and I'm wondering how other football traders deal with it ??? - I consider myself very accepting of circumstances outside my control but I can't see how anyone could be a full time football trader with this risk hanging over them ? - I have to claw back that loss now

Has anyone any suggestions ? or indeed confirming it is a problem for me ? Is Betdaq better ? - do you all just accept or hedge in sportsbook ?

Any advice would be really appreciated

[Selmer]

Bigtimesmallshot, I feel your pain. I trade exactly the same way (just different markets) and experience the same problem from time to time. To minimise the chances of this happening, I tend to trade only the 'big' leagues. In premier league, for example, it happens very rarely compared to turkish or portuguese league. Also liquidity is better, so makes it easier to manage your position and less time needed to cash out after goal.
Another way of looking at it is that it evens out in the long run. Today you lost, but maybe next 5 matches when it happens again, the goal won`t be scored and you`ll run away with extra profit.

[ShaunWhite]

Things like this are predictable and an occupational hazzard. No tech is perfect and there's a lot of potential weak links between the ball, Betfair, the matching engine and your screen. Anything that might go wrong will go wrong if you trade enough hours. Fortunately as bigtimes said if you do enough they'll even out enough to make it an acceptable slippage. But expect the worst and mitigate it, such as not exposing your whole bank even if you only plan a small trading loss. (plus the other std stuff like having an alt backup broadband connection, a ups if you run on a pc etc)

[Derek27]

Strap the suspend monkey to an electric chair, with the ON button between the IN-PLAY and SUSPEND buttons.

[bigtimesmallshot]

Thanks very much for replies guys and I'm glad I'm not missing anything to mitigate other than not staking to big a percentage - also the point on it happening and causing an unexpected extra profit is good - I had not considered that !! - Probably my bias towards feeling losses harder than gains - Acceptance is the key I guess - When I wrote the post I was really annoyed - BF gave me €15 of a free bet to compensate which was better than nothing , got a €45 return on it (as I took a punt for a change ) - still a loss overall but no body died .

Thanks again guys