Betfair Down / Betfair site crash

[jamesedwards]

Went on to chat after a disastrous loss on this one. I had actually kept some bets that would have greened up for a small profit but ended up nearly £700 down. Being fairly new i think I panicked and tried to exit multiple times and as others have noticed all the bets flooded in at the end. Anyway, this is what chat said:

Hey Simon, thanks for waiting. It seems this is a known issue that our product teams are investigating. Unfortunately, we do not have any information on the next steps forward on this, but we are closely monitoring the situation to be able to mitigate major negative effects on our customers.

I have taken note of your account and we will keep in touch via email as soon as we have an update.

I have kept my Bet Angel log and also downloaded the bets recorded at BetFair. Anyone know what the usual outcome is with these type of issues?? I am hoping they will just scratch all the trades on that race... but fearing the worse and I'll just have to suck it up.

In my fairly limited experience of issues like this I'm afraid you're not likely to get any recourse except perhaps a £10 free bet.

[jamesedwards]

Looks like the site has returned to normal. But I'm being super cautious for a while, the main pinch point on the week is 3pm on a Saturday.

Could there not be some sort of safety setting/rule on Guardian that kicks in when there is an interruption of Betfair data flow and/or a trade fails to appear on Betfair when expected?

Not a Betfair error, but similar issue - I lost a four-figure sum a few weeks back when my internet connection went down mid-trade and Guardian kept firing multiple bets into the market when it should have stopped. It could have been averted if there was a way to automatically block trades when no Betfair data flow is detected.

[Derek27]

Went on to chat after a disastrous loss on this one. I had actually kept some bets that would have greened up for a small profit but ended up nearly £700 down. Being fairly new i think I panicked and tried to exit multiple times and as others have noticed all the bets flooded in at the end. Anyway, this is what chat said:

Hey Simon, thanks for waiting. It seems this is a known issue that our product teams are investigating. Unfortunately, we do not have any information on the next steps forward on this, but we are closely monitoring the situation to be able to mitigate major negative effects on our customers.

I have taken note of your account and we will keep in touch via email as soon as we have an update.

I have kept my Bet Angel log and also downloaded the bets recorded at BetFair. Anyone know what the usual outcome is with these type of issues?? I am hoping they will just scratch all the trades on that race... but fearing the worse and I'll just have to suck it up.

It's been a while since I've had contact with them, but usually when they say they'll be in touch, that's the last you hear from them.

I'm not sure what they mean by closely monitoring the situation - it's happened and now history! Nor what they mean by mitigating major negative effects on customers. They're either going to compensate you out of their own pocket or they're not.

At least when the exchange goes down outright they could argue that 100% availability is beyond their control. But placing a bet out of your account that you wanted placed two days ago is outright theft!

[lotora]

Looks like the site has returned to normal. But I'm being super cautious for a while, the main pinch point on the week is 3pm on a Saturday.

Could there not be some sort of safety setting/rule on Guardian that kicks in when there is an interruption of Betfair data flow and/or a trade fails to appear on Betfair when expected?

Not a Betfair error, but similar issue - I lost a four-figure sum a few weeks back when my internet connection went down mid-trade and Guardian kept firing multiple bets into the market when it should have stopped. It could have been averted if there was a way to automatically block trades when no Betfair data flow is detected.

After automatically (trying to) greening up six times, I also lost a shit ton of money. Anyway, I view it as a learning opportunity. in my case, after two attempts of greening up some money will always have been matched if no technical issues. Therefore, I would like to have a "stop mechanism" if that doesn't happen...by use of Stored Values?

[Derek27]

Looks like the site has returned to normal. But I'm being super cautious for a while, the main pinch point on the week is 3pm on a Saturday.

Could there not be some sort of safety setting/rule on Guardian that kicks in when there is an interruption of Betfair data flow and/or a trade fails to appear on Betfair when expected?

Not a Betfair error, but similar issue - I lost a four-figure sum a few weeks back when my internet connection went down mid-trade and Guardian kept firing multiple bets into the market when it should have stopped. It could have been averted if there was a way to automatically block trades when no Betfair data flow is detected.

How did your automation fire bets into the market while your internet connection was down?

It's possible, yesterday at least, the API stream was working and appeared normal from our end but bets weren't getting placed at Bumfair's end.

All my automation contains safety rules/code that stops trading and greens up if I have an unexpected liability and continues to watch my P/L in case of VAR-voided bets. But that's futile if bets placed enter the market one or two minutes later. My bot would endlessly fire greenup bets, to greenup greenup bets, that were fired to greenup previous greenup bets.

In my opinion we are completely fucked until Bumfair can sort this out. I'd much rather the exchange went down altogether. At least then there might be a bit of entertainment amongst the Twitter abuse, but long-delayed bets, I'm surprised so few people complain.

[sionascaig]

I was getting BF exception errors in the log - can't process request. If BA could pick up BF exceptions in automation maybe possible to at least stop bots automatically. Will still leave a position though.

I don't use the BA api features (yet) - can BF exceptions be picked up there?

edit - just noticed your post James. +1 from me if possible...

[foleyst]

Just had an email from Betfair and £697 has been refunded into my account. To say I am both surprised and delighted is an understatement.

Fair play to them for owning up to their system error on this one.

Email copied below. Worth hoping onto chat if you were impacted at the 1330 at Haydock.



Hi Simon,

Hope this email finds you well!

I am writing in regards to your query about the bets on 13:30 Haydock. This was raised over to the traders who have now credited your account back with the losses of 697.71 GBP. Apologies for any inconvenience caused to you.

[Derek27]

Just had an email from Betfair and £697 has been refunded into my account. To say I am both surprised and delighted is an understatement.

Fair play to them for owning up to their system error on this one.

Email copied below. Worth hoping onto chat if you were impacted at the 1330 at Haydock.



Hi Simon,

Hope this email finds you well!

I am writing in regards to your query about the bets on 13:30 Haydock. This was raised over to the traders who have now credited your account back with the losses of 697.71 GBP. Apologies for any inconvenience caused to you.

I'm pleased to hear that. It must be an expensive error for them if they refund everyone affected.

[foleyst]

I assume they were able to check the bet history and see the delay on the in play green ups which caused the issue.

[Derek27]

Disappearing bets again!!

[jamesedwards]

How did your automation fire bets into the market while your internet connection was down?

It's possible, yesterday at least, the API stream was working and appeared normal from our end but bets weren't getting placed at Bumfair's end.

All my automation contains safety rules/code that stops trading and greens up if I have an unexpected liability and continues to watch my P/L in case of VAR-voided bets. But that's futile if bets placed enter the market one or two minutes later. My bot would endlessly fire greenup bets, to greenup greenup bets, that were fired to greenup previous greenup bets.

In my opinion we are completely fucked until Bumfair can sort this out. I'd much rather the exchange went down altogether. At least then there might be a bit of entertainment amongst the Twitter abuse, but long-delayed bets, I'm surprised so few people complain.

Bet Angel will send a bet placement request with a timeout of about a minute from the initial trigger. My internet connection happened to go down just as my automation was triggering a balancing trade which meant it kept repeating the same instruction. Then when my connection returned about a minute's worth of bets all hit the market at the same time and the market had moved meaning none of then matched.

For now I've built in something that checks there has been a very recent change in market volume before triggering, but this is far from ideal. Would be much better if there was a way to check against Betfair data flow.

[jamesedwards]

Just had an email from Betfair and £697 has been refunded into my account. To say I am both surprised and delighted is an understatement.

Fair play to them for owning up to their system error on this one.

Email copied below. Worth hoping onto chat if you were impacted at the 1330 at Haydock.

I am amazed! Good on them for at least taking some responsibility for their issue.

[holfaxe]

Betfair seems very slow today. Takes 10 sec to place a simple back bet. I have not used betAngel for a while and thinks the problem is at betfair. Their scores on matches are also not updated. Betangle are quicker to respond compared to the betfair website. Somebody must be on vacation Or is it just on my end ?

[Derek27]

Betfair seems very slow today. Takes 10 sec to place a simple back bet. I have not used betAngel for a while and thinks the problem is at betfair. Their scores on matches are also not updated. Betangle are quicker to respond compared to the betfair website. Somebody must be on vacation Or is it just on my end ?

I had a couple of bet placement delays but it went back to normal after that.

[lotora]

Looks like the site has returned to normal. But I'm being super cautious for a while, the main pinch point on the week is 3pm on a Saturday.

Could there not be some sort of safety setting/rule on Guardian that kicks in when there is an interruption of Betfair data flow and/or a trade fails to appear on Betfair when expected?

Not a Betfair error, but similar issue - I lost a four-figure sum a few weeks back when my internet connection went down mid-trade and Guardian kept firing multiple bets into the market when it should have stopped. It could have been averted if there was a way to automatically block trades when no Betfair data flow is detected.

After automatically (trying to) greening up six times, I also lost a shit ton of money. Anyway, I view it as a learning opportunity. in my case, after two attempts of greening up some money will always have been matched if no technical issues. Therefore, I would like to have a "stop mechanism" if that doesn't happen...by use of Stored Values?

Any advice about how it could be done by use of SV?