Betfair Down / Betfair site crash

[Naffman]

I was inconvenienced and redded by that outage but I also never received any email apology!

I never receive one

[greenmark]

I doubt the stock exchange has outages. But I guess they have inexhaustable resources. BF don't.

Individual channels do go down briefly. The biggest difference is that financial exchanges have downtime to do maintenance or implementations, Betfair are expected to operate 247365.

Good point. Also strikes me that exposing your functionality to fee paying customers is rather different than exposing functionality to the internet.

[Derek27]

They need someone with basic computer skills to put all their customers on a mailing list, and show them how to press the send button!

[ShaunWhite]

Good point. Also strikes me that exposing your functionality to fee paying customers is rather different than exposing functionality to the internet.

The structure is a bit different too, BF do the whole 9 yards from gathering event data to matching. The financial world has a much more devovled structure and each particpant doesn't have that much to do. Data gathering and discemination, clearing houses, custody, settlement, liquidity pools etc etc are all done by different (mutilple) companies. It sounds like a weaker chain but it keeps things simple and allows for everyone to have alternative arrangements with different providers in the event of a problem. Being a bigger industry there's been more opportunity for these specialist companies to crop up and of course nobody misses a chance to skim off a pound or two in fees at each stage of the process when the turnover is so high. If the sports exchanges turned over multi-billions there'd be 10 companies offering matching services and BF could unload some of the burden and have failsafes, but it isn't so they plough a lonely furrow.

[ShaunWhite]

They need someone with basic computer skills to put all their customers on a mailing list, and show them how to press the send button!

Definately the ones active at the time, alerting 100,000 people to something they didn't know had happened might not be such a good idea.

[greenmark]

Good point. Also strikes me that exposing your functionality to fee paying customers is rather different than exposing functionality to the internet.

The structure is a bit different too, BF do the whole 9 yards from gathering event data to matching. The financial world has a much more devovled structure and each particpant doesn't have that much to do. Data gathering and discemination, clearing houses, custody, settlement, liquidity pools etc etc are all done by different (mutilple) companies. It sounds like a weaker chain but it keeps things simple and allows for everyone to have alternative arrangements with different providers in the event of a problem. Being a bigger industry there's been more opportunity for these specialist companies to crop up and of course nobody misses a chance to skim off a pound or two in fees at each stage of the process when the turnover is so high. If the sports exchanges turned over multi-billions there'd be 10 companies offering matching services and BF could unload some of the burden and have failsafes, but it isn't so they plough a lonely furrow.

A lonely furrow indeed. It maybe not so odd that BF has survived. I've read articles that suggest the bookies actually like BF. BF soaks up the winners, presumably because of the higher odds available. The bookies can then continue to fleece the punters. When BF and PP merged my heart sank. And thats still a WIP.

[Euler]

I've always felt that Betfair should focus on the exchange and keep all other business outside, like on financials. People can compete to offer a range of solutions off the back of the exchange, while Betfair just keep things simple. Seems too complicated now and not focused on the core proposition. Would help them from a regulatory viewpoint as well.

[ShaunWhite]

I've always felt that Betfair should focus on the exchange and keep all other business outside, like on financials. People can compete to offer a range of solutions off the back of the exchange, while Betfair just keep things simple. Seems too complicated now and not focused on the core proposition. Would help them from a regulatory viewpoint as well.

Indeed, and if there was more than one customer besides Betfair I'm sure the service side would emerge to fill that space. Speed is a bit of an issue though, financials and Befair might both be able to transact in milliseconds but finacials settle at T+1 (or did) rather than instantly, not great for what we do. Keeping the whole show under the same roof might actually be the only way without major structural changes. But as soon as there's a demand I'm launching an exchange aggregation client/liquidity pool, that's where the money will be.

[Dim]

looks like new norm

[Dim]

looks like new norm, feels sticky not ok

[Kai]

Aren't those micro hiccups on the status page the new norm for the past year or two?

[Dim]

Aren't those micro hiccups on the status page the new norm for the past year or two?

Small hiccups could be a sign of bigger hiccups ...

[Kai]

Been ignoring it for the most part, seen to many minor issue reports but API was fine for me.

[The Silk Run]

Alert: 10 unsettled grey markets. LAST settled 18.48 Monmore

[Crazyskier]

My last greyhounds bet settled was 18:36 - an hour ago! Sigh..

CS