Smarkets

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Stewart
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 10:49 am

In line with others I would welcome a strong alternative to Betfair and Betdaq and applaud your efforts.

There are many things that you need to address to attract the liquidity. On reading your T&C’s the following stopped me from opening an account (at the moment)

"The maximum value bet that can be placed is £2000, the minimum bet is £1."

Are you planning to remove this or up the limit?
andyfuller
Posts: 4619
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:23 pm

Cheers for clearing those points up Jason, appreciated.
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Jason - What is the source of Smarkets's liquidity?

Jeff
vide0star
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:19 pm

From T&Cs: "The maximum value bet that can be placed is £2000, the minimum bet is £1."
That will be removed from our T&Cs. The upper limit is not in effect.
vide0star
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:19 pm

Ferru123 wrote:Jason - What is the source of Smarkets's liquidity?
It's from a third party market maker. I'm in the process of signing up more market makers.
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

If the best of the best on Betfair migrate to Smarkets, then the market maker will be up against people who are pretty good at taking money out of exchanges. Might that not cause them to withdraw from Smarkets?

Jeff
vide0star wrote: It's from a third party market maker. I'm in the process of signing up more market makers.
vide0star
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:19 pm

Ferru123 wrote:Might that not cause them to withdraw from
Yes exactly which is why it's important for us to attract a mix of traders. I'll need everyone's help to build the right ecosystem.
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

That's the rub... :)

If I were a trader affected by PC2, I might think:

'Once all the super-traders and expert gamblers head over to Smarkets, the market maker won't know what hit them! And once the market maker decides they've had enough and leaves, all that will be left are the pros. So rather than lock horns with people who know what they're doing, I'll go to Betdaq and try to take some money off the casual punters!'.

Jeff
vide0star wrote:
Ferru123 wrote:Might that not cause them to withdraw from
Yes exactly which is why it's important for us to attract a mix of traders. I'll need everyone's help to build the right ecosystem.
hgodden
Posts: 1759
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:13 pm

In order to attract people, do everything that made betfair special in the first place.... Pledge some sort of cast iron guarantee that winners will always be welcome and that you'll never introduce a PC, have a forum where people can talk openly without being censored, vow to never have casino games etc on the site - keep to the core of what betfair used to do well and make sure that people know that is what you're about
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jimrobo
Posts: 1290
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:49 pm

not really Jeff. Myself and Andy trade completely differently but we both make money. If we were in the same market we wouldn't be competing against each other. Trading is about learning how prices move within a market and being able to react to that.
Iron
Posts: 6793
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:51 pm

Hi JimRobo

Trading is a sum zero game.

If you're up against the top 500 gamblers and traders, you're going to make less money than if you're also up against mug punters who bet on a horse because Templegate likes its chances! :)

Jeff
jimrobo wrote:not really Jeff. Myself and Andy trade completely differently but we both make money. If we were in the same market we wouldn't be competing against each other. Trading is about learning how prices move within a market and being able to react to that.
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jimrobo
Posts: 1290
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:49 pm

ok!! thats why I'm the professional!

Thats why vide0star said they were trying to create the right ecosystem. That applies to the market make up as well as the technology side.
freddy
Posts: 1132
Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2010 8:22 pm

I think thats the big problem with the exchange model,
it's very very hard to get the casual / losing punters / traders to use your exchange, when they have no real reason to do so .

We all know about smarkets now,
but thats only for one reason because we are looking for them and alternatives to BF.

But anyway I wish them luck and really do hope they can pull it off :D
vide0star
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:19 pm

freddy wrote:I think thats the big problem with the exchange model,
it's very very hard to get the casual / losing punters / traders to use your exchange
That's why we've spent so much time trying to think about the user experience. There's no reason an exchange can't provide the best betting proposition on the internet. We have a lot of features we're working on that we think will make Smarkets the best betting experience in the world for the casual bettor.

Another way to look at it, bookmakers are really simplisitc versions of a betting exchange. There's only one market maker, you can only bet one direction and you can't queue for a better price.
pt9091
Posts: 200
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 4:07 pm

Anyone attend the meeting today with Smarkets? If so was it a positive one?
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