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[mugsgame]

To be in the top 500, you need to have something about you, whether it's high intelligence, dogged determination, focus, self-belief, discipline, or a combination of these and other qualities that would make you a highly effective employee.

All true Jeff, but the stuff about how effective an employee this make you is way off the mark IMHO. Why assume you have to be an employee rather than an employer.

JG & AndyF I have to agree with pretty much everything you guys said.

I have to smile when I keep reading on various forums the naysayers imput......

"It won't effect me"......
Are you sure?

"Serves the greedy b*******s right"
Why? Cos you can't work it out?

What I really cannot get my head around is if someone does not aspire to be a winner, why do they bet? I can think of 1000's of better things to do with disposable income than bet.

Maybe that's why am in the 500

One other point I'd like to make.
The markets have been behaving differently for a while now, whatever is going on I think Murdoch has a hand in it somewhere

[Zenyatta]

The PC has stirred up a shit-storm, that's for sure Why not just admit that ALL involved in gambling/trading are greedy bastards.. every man for himself, cut the other guys throats before they cut yours

Last normal Saturday and we can count on one thing: McCoy to bring in a couple of good priced winners, coming from well back In-Play...

Enjoy:

Market Rasen

2.05: Street Entertainer
3.45: Schindler's Gold

[steven1976]

Mugsgame my friend, my posting never doubted your intelligence. I believe the people that succeed on bf will tend to be intelligent people. My point was simply that in due course your intelligence will overcome your stubborness if there is no viable option whether happy or not with the charges. Whether betdaq will provide that platform only time will tell but Betfair will live on, thats a fact and without the 500 or so pushing around prices or smashing through prices out of the blue it could in fact encourage wanna be traders to stay longer and bring more new money into bf?

[freddy]

Even without the PC 3 coming in ,
i would still be looking to move away from Betfair, there are just too many odd things going on in the markets these days, and i feel very uncomfortable trading when it clear things are not as they should be.

But there is always going to be room for a good exchange and with Bf goign away from that im sure one of the others in time will provide us with what we all need.

[Euler]

Well a lot of people will be ducking out on Monday, just simply because it isn't worth it or in protest. If liquidty remains the same then that should worry you I think.

Betfair will continue for sure, but you can't help but think that all the most recent moves are leading some really poor strategic errors.

[Iron]

Is it just me, or is the liquidity already lower than it normally is?

£487 K was matched pre-off on the 14:15 at Ripon (despite the favourite being odds on) - that seems a bit low...

Jeff

[hgodden]

Is it just me, or is the liquidity already lower than it normally is?

£487 K was matched pre-off on the 14:15 at Ripon (despite the favourite being odds on) - that seems a bit low...

Jeff

There was an Irish race on the same side 5 minutes before that one, so you'd expect it to be low. Volume feels okay to me today

[Innertube]

If nothing happens after this recent change then we are all stuffed long term.

[superfrank]

It just feels different in the last week or so and the volume feels slightly lighter.

Was it just me or was there a layers strike yesterday?!

[superfrank]

I emailed Betfair arguing that they have moved away from being a true exchange by implementing the PC and XM for profit.

I made the comparison with futures exchanges (same thing really) and what the reaction would be if the exchanges started confiscating the profits of successful traders!!

Futures exchanges have grown by increasing volume (and transaction charges have gone down not up)...



y = contract trading volume (millions)

[mugsgame]

thats a fact and without the 500 or so pushing around prices or smashing through prices out of the blue it could in fact encourage wanna be traders to stay longer and bring more new money into bf?

Is that how you see it? Do you think it's the 500 that manipulate prices and make it harder for the others?
You are way off the mark. You really are missing the point here.
Betfair are the ones playing with the markets, no question. Plenty of the other pros on here have pinpointed that.
Do you think that by getting rid of the players than actually know what they are doing it will mean others will win instead? The way it works here is on each market you either win or lose. Who you bet against is not important. Having a winning strategy IS. There are lots and lots of very talented traders / bettors on Betfair who are not Pro, but could be if they choose to be. Whatever their reason. Maybe they are happy to have BF as a hobby, perhaps they lack the confidence to try full time. Perhaps their wife won't let them.

More disturbing though is Betfairs strategy here. They WANT the 500 to go, mark my words if they don't PC3 will go up even higher until they do go. Betfair will take over their position at the top of the food chain. They are doing it now as some of the guys have said. XM is one such example. There are plenty of others. I would bet money (not with BF though) that their weasels have gone through all the top winning accounts with a fine toothcomb and looked for the edges employed by them. Some are prue genius "punters" but most have found a loophole or other edge. One by one these loopholes are being closed and Bf are having the money instead.

I am not trying to be clever here, just saying how I see it and trying to get some more understanding of what is going on out into the public domain. The guys who work on the exchange 10 hours plus a day 350 days a years for 7, 8, 9 or 10 years will tell you similar I'm sure.

[mugsgame]

thats a fact and without the 500 or so pushing around prices or smashing through prices out of the blue it could in fact encourage wanna be traders to stay longer and bring more new money into bf?

Is that how you see it? Do you think it's the 500 that manipulate prices and make it harder for the others?
You are way off the mark. You really are missing the point here.
Betfair are the ones playing with the markets, no question. Plenty of the other pros on here have pinpointed that.
Do you think that by getting rid of the players than actually know what they are doing it will mean others will win instead? The way it works here is on each market you either win or lose. Who you bet against is not important. Having a winning strategy IS. There are lots and lots of very talented traders / bettors on Betfair who are not Pro, but could be if they choose to be. Whatever their reason. Maybe they are happy to have BF as a hobby, perhaps they lack the confidence to try full time. Perhaps their wife won't let them.

More disturbing though is Betfairs strategy here. They WANT the 500 to go, mark my words if they don't PC3 will go up even higher until they do go. Betfair will take over their position at the top of the food chain. They are doing it now as some of the guys have said. XM is one such example. There are plenty of others. I would bet money (not with BF though) that their weasels have gone through all the top winning accounts with a fine toothcomb and looked for the edges employed by them. Some are prue genius "punters" but most have found a loophole or other edge. One by one these loopholes are being closed and Bf are having the money instead.

I am not trying to be clever here, just saying how I see it and trying to get some more understanding of what is going on out into the public domain. The guys who work on the exchange 10 hours plus a day 350 days a years for 7, 8, 9 or 10 years will tell you similar I'm sure.

[superfrank]

mugsgame,

an interesting post, and you might well be proved right, but the alternative view is that they have made the (poor) decision to boost short-term profits to halt the slide in the share price.

I don't think we can be sure at this stage.

In many listed companies the remuneration of directors and senior management is linked to share price performance (in most cases with a caveat that if the share price falls they still get a whopping bonus anyway!). While this practice may incentivise performance, it very often leads to short-termism in decision making because the individuals want their rewards asap (human nature). A classic example is new IT directors who come in and out-source everything - slashing the headcount and reducing fixed costs looks great on the balance sheet short-term, but longer term the company may well suffer from being tied to contracts with suppliers who know that they can deliver a poor service, and steadily increase costs, and get away with it because it's very difficult and costly for the company to change suppliers. The IT director gets his bonus and, as soon as things start to look a bit dodgy, moves on to the next company to repeat the exercise. The bonus culture played a large part in causing the financial crisis - bankers were paid to do deals, they didn't care about the longer term consequences of reckless lending.

[steven1976]

I dont honestly believe there will be a PC3. For whatever reason betfair may not have been happy that 500 people were making more profit than they were overall but at 60% they will be happy if each of the top 500 contribute 100k a year to their bottom line increasing profits by 50million or double their current profits. Dont get me wrong im 100% against the charges but the argument that if you dont jump ship you have no ambition, vision, etc.... to me is just self concerning.

[Euler]

I honestly believe that if Betfair don't see a dilution of their customer base then PC3 will almost certainly be on the cards, probably sooner than we imagine. I previously said that based on getting away with PC1, PC2 would follow and I think we are facing the same situation again.

I've spoken to many customers over the last two weeks as well as Betfair, Betdaq and all the interested parties and groups and my belief is that PC2 will not work in the manner Betfair expect and that is the main reason I think PC3 is already on the cards.

The biggest issue I have with the new charge is that I am a net liquidity provider, I don't bot or manipulate the markets, or suck money out by using methods that could be deemed unusual or intended to short cut the system. I supply money at risk and take a tiny reward for risking that capital. I shouldn't be punished for that. I can teach people the exact same methods and people can replicate them for three times what I can make from that. Them seems a bit unfair and very odd!

Personally I'm not going to force anybodies hand, you should do what is best for you and if that means staying on Betfair to earn up to £250k then you should do so. But I do think that every market should have a competitive structure to best serve is customers and therefore we should all do our bit to ensure that is in place, or long term we are all doomed.