Smarkets begins closing successful accounts
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spreadbetting
- Posts: 3140
- Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm
They've got themselves in a ridiculous situation effectively being run for the benefit of three market makers, god knows how binding and beneficial those terms are. They should at least get a rush of MM's wanting to sign up especially when you can ask smarkets to ban anyone taking money off you.
But what's the alternative?freddy wrote:Personally i think that's completely the wrong approach for them Jeff.
If Smarkets were to say 'We will never close or restrict anyone's account for being successful', then the successful punters and traders would cause the market makers to flee, and Smarkets would be screwed. A low liquidity betting exchange that Joe Public hasn't heard of is a dead duck...
Jeff
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spreadbetting
- Posts: 3140
- Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm
But all you're proposing is they act as a front end for their market makers, Jeff. I'm sure the MM's would be more than happy with that but they're not gonna get get rich supplying an endless stream of mugs off possibly the 0.5% comms they may be charging their MM's and they certainly don't have the knowledge or cash to seed their own markets.
Exchange markets are fragile eco systems and will find their own level, trying to create false liquidity or giving the mm's free reign is more likely to be stifling that growth if all the prices are already filled.
Exchange markets are fragile eco systems and will find their own level, trying to create false liquidity or giving the mm's free reign is more likely to be stifling that growth if all the prices are already filled.
As the lead dispute analyst at sportsbookreview.com said to me, banning clients is really not the correct way to handle this. Instead their market makers should have gone away and redesigned their market making models in accordance with their own tolerance for risk.
If I am losing repeatedly on Betfair, I don't expect the market to go easy on me. I must instead go away and rethink my own approach. The same should go for the market makers, but sadly they seem to have Smarkets management wrapped around their finger.
Anyway it's really Smarkets job to come up with a viable solution. All we can do as a trading community is wait and see what they come up with. Since I am seemingly excluded from all of this, and future evolutions of the Smarket platform, the best I can personally hope for is for a new challenger to come along who will welcome the £104,000 a year commission I currently pay to Betfair.
If I am losing repeatedly on Betfair, I don't expect the market to go easy on me. I must instead go away and rethink my own approach. The same should go for the market makers, but sadly they seem to have Smarkets management wrapped around their finger.
Anyway it's really Smarkets job to come up with a viable solution. All we can do as a trading community is wait and see what they come up with. Since I am seemingly excluded from all of this, and future evolutions of the Smarket platform, the best I can personally hope for is for a new challenger to come along who will welcome the £104,000 a year commission I currently pay to Betfair.
Spreadbetting
You may well be right.
But let's imagine that the market makers were to pull out of Smarkets. IMHO, the exchange's betting turnover would be miniscule, possibly unsustainably so. Unlike WBX, they don't even have a price column on Oddschecker. OK, Betfair also started out small, but Betfair didn't have a competitor with millions of customers and a huge marketing budget. So all in all, I think that Smarkets are screwed if the market makers leave.
They may be screwed even if they adopt the approach I've outlined, but it may be their best chance of survival.
I don't know about you guys, but I won't be buying any shares in Smarkets...
Jeff
You may well be right.
But let's imagine that the market makers were to pull out of Smarkets. IMHO, the exchange's betting turnover would be miniscule, possibly unsustainably so. Unlike WBX, they don't even have a price column on Oddschecker. OK, Betfair also started out small, but Betfair didn't have a competitor with millions of customers and a huge marketing budget. So all in all, I think that Smarkets are screwed if the market makers leave.
They may be screwed even if they adopt the approach I've outlined, but it may be their best chance of survival.
I don't know about you guys, but I won't be buying any shares in Smarkets...
Jeff
If you're a market maker, you're going to find it tough to make money against punters and traders with a long-term edge. If there are plenty of mug punters in the marketplace to balance things out, you'll be fine, but I doubt that's the case with Smarkets. You're more likely to be up mainly against big hitters who see an opportunity to aviod the Premium Charge, rather than guys putting a tenner on the Mirror's nap of the day...james19 wrote:Instead their market makers should have gone away and redesigned their market making models in accordance with their own tolerance for risk.
Jeff
I don't know what the answer is, maybe there isn't one and the original exchange model is always doomed to fail.
In a few years time maybe no one will be allowed to make it pay long term, just like before the days of betfair.
However my argument has always been that Betfair got very rich just by taking 5% comm and advertising themselves as a place that winners were welcome,
so there must be some hope at least someone else can do the same.
they just need to know their place and what they are doing and why they are doing it and it's pretty clear that smarkets don't at this time, this is a disaster for them and without making some drastic decisions soon i see no future for them.
In a few years time maybe no one will be allowed to make it pay long term, just like before the days of betfair.
However my argument has always been that Betfair got very rich just by taking 5% comm and advertising themselves as a place that winners were welcome,
so there must be some hope at least someone else can do the same.
they just need to know their place and what they are doing and why they are doing it and it's pretty clear that smarkets don't at this time, this is a disaster for them and without making some drastic decisions soon i see no future for them.
Anyway I still feel like my account was closed without fair reason, and would appreciate it if Smarkets gave an unabiguous and categorical reason in this forum.
As I see it there are only two possible reasons:
A) My account was closed because it was unprofitable to the market makers (something Smarkets have already come out to categorically deny)
or
B) My account was closed for stating that I would complain to the LGA if my account was closed because as an exchange operator you are supposed to be impartial.
A simple A or B answer will suffice, or you always have option C open to you, which is that you really didn't have any valid or moral grounds for closure, and this whole episode has been a bit of a PR disaster, and as a gesture of goodwill you will reinstate my account.
If Smarkets fail to address this question directly and in public then I would recommend that the rest of you give them a wide berth, as they will have shown themselves to be neither the fair or transparent exchange that they are trying to present themselves as.
As I see it there are only two possible reasons:
A) My account was closed because it was unprofitable to the market makers (something Smarkets have already come out to categorically deny)
or
B) My account was closed for stating that I would complain to the LGA if my account was closed because as an exchange operator you are supposed to be impartial.
A simple A or B answer will suffice, or you always have option C open to you, which is that you really didn't have any valid or moral grounds for closure, and this whole episode has been a bit of a PR disaster, and as a gesture of goodwill you will reinstate my account.
If Smarkets fail to address this question directly and in public then I would recommend that the rest of you give them a wide berth, as they will have shown themselves to be neither the fair or transparent exchange that they are trying to present themselves as.
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giulio2010
- Posts: 962
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2010 9:11 am
I checked the smarkets odds since james19 showed an issue with this trading platform. Now I ask smarkets, isn't more right to send these market makers to a trading course and teach them how to position their money in the queue properly?. It 'obvious that these people are incompetent and a professional trader with a nice bankroll immediately understand where to go and take their money. Their bets are disproportionate in comparison with the true potential of the current site ... if any of you have noticed the same thing, smarkets will close within a month or 2...
Hi G,giulio2010 wrote:I checked the smarkets odds since james19 showed an issue with this trading platform. Now I ask smarkets, isn't more right to send these market makers to a trading course and teach them how to position their money in the queue properly?. It 'obvious that these people are incompetent and a professional trader with a nice bankroll immediately understand where to go and take their money. Their bets are disproportionate in comparison with the true potential of the current site ... if any of you have noticed the same thing, smarkets will close within a month or 2...
Can you just give us an example of a market that is current (ie over the next couple of days) so we can see what you mean??
Thanks
Peter
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giulio2010
- Posts: 962
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2010 9:11 am
Graph number1 is smarkets..PeterLe wrote:Hi G,
Can you just give us an example of a market that is current (ie over the next couple of days) so we can see what you mean??
Thanks
the market makers are making sure to provide the same odds of betfair but with a couple issues...
OFC I can't tell you how to sneak money out of it but I can tell you that the amount waiting the queue are disproportionate in comparison with the true potential of the site..They don't show the money matched but we can guess really what that may be..
It's hard to say I am absolutely right because i need to try first, but when I find the same scenario on Betfair on early markets, it's not difficult to sneak some little money, but because the bets are proportionate rightly, we are not talking about a lot of money. Here there is good money waiting and you could earn a lot against those who have entered the money in the queue 1st..
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Thanks G
I would imagine that those gaps would fill very quickly if the price was to move towards them..however if you had money already waiting at those prices and were first in the que..I can see what you mean..
Thanks for posting
regards
Peter
I would imagine that those gaps would fill very quickly if the price was to move towards them..however if you had money already waiting at those prices and were first in the que..I can see what you mean..
Thanks for posting
regards
Peter
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maycontainnuts
- Posts: 90
- Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:58 pm
james19, I think I am correct in saying you mainly bet on football according to previous posts. Can you tell us if this is inplay or before the off?
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giulio2010
- Posts: 962
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2010 9:11 am
If people didn't see what I see, it means I am eather crazy or a genius...PeterLe wrote:Thanks G
I would imagine that those gaps would fill very quickly if the price was to move towards them..however if you had money already waiting at those prices and were first in the que..I can see what you mean..
Thanks for posting
regards
Peter
those gaps won't be filled quickly. This is not betfair, we are talking about smarkets...They are just pretending to have the same money available of betfair. It's like I open a site 2morrow and pretend the market is as good as betfair by showing you good sums of money on the queue while in reality I don't want that money being matched and perhaps some of it is not even real money...Traders with big bankroll can cause them serious problems and perhaps the market makers are not even real, perhaps it's smarkets money at risk, that's why they are so kneen to get rid of succesfull traders...
Betfair has 3,8M customers, but only 500-1000 are succesfull, so now, I ask my self, how many customers have smarkets if they stated here, in this forum, that they have many succesfull traders operating within their site and are very welcome to continue even if succesfull?