Smarkets begins closing successful accounts

[freddy]

I've never used Smarkets and the only way you will find out what happens, is to try it for real .

they are definitely leaving themselves vulnerable on occasions though, if what you see on screen is actually real takeable money .

[andyfuller]

I'd be amazed if there is a law about publishing private emails, unless you obtained the email illegally. If there were, you'd hear of people getting arrested for forwarding emails to Watchdog, or of journalists being arrested for publishing embarrassing emails!

Personally, I'd never reproduce a private email without permission, but I'd have no problem with publishing an email from a company. I take the view that companies don't generally tell members of the public things that they don't want to be in the public domain. And anyway, it's not like I've signed an agreement not to publish the email.

Jeff

Just had an email from someone working for an unrelated company and noticed at the bottom it had some stuff about reproducing the email. So I looked at an email from Betfair and noticed they say at the bottom of their emails:

The information in this e-mail and any attachment is confidential and is intended only for the named recipient(s). The e-mail may not be disclosed or used by any person other than the addressee, nor may it be copied in any way. If you are not a named recipient please notify the sender immediately and delete any copies of this message. Any unauthorised copying, disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company. Betfair ® and the BETFAIR LOGO are registered trade marks of The Sporting Exchange Limited.

Guess this is standard practice and something Smarket probably do as well. Whether it carries any weight is questionable though. I guess the only way to find out if it is illegal or not is for a test case to be brought if one hasn't already been.

[steven1976]

"Edit" Quoted wrong person
If people didn't see what I see, it means I am eather crazy or a genius...
those gaps won't be filled quickly. This is not betfair, we are talking about smarkets...quote]

I think this is a good post. I trade at the front of the queues on BF on the horses and it is not hard to set up a position to make the markets move a certain direction (against the position!) I can see how it would be possible to benefit from them gaps if the market makers are following bf on an automated basis which I guess they are. Anyway, I take it doing such a thing on smarkets wouldnt last long.

Its a difficult situation for smarkets. Im sure they dont want to block people from using their markets but if they lose the people putting the money in the markets they dont have a business.

[giulio2010]

Peter

If people didn't see what I see, it means I am eather crazy or a genius...
those gaps won't be filled quickly. This is not betfair, we are talking about smarkets...quote][/quote]
Giulio quoted that..Not Peter..
I d like to take credit sometimes for what I wrote...
If you also see what I mean, it means I am not crazy...good to know, I was starting to get worried..

[steven1976]

Yeah, sorry. I pressed the quote button and then deleted out some part of the quoted full reply and left peters name by accident

[james19]

If anyone still believed that this was about a threat to license here are some excerpts from emails with management:

Please don't close out your positions on Smarkets and green up against the market maker. I know this is a pain to ask you but we're small and I need to build the trading ecosystem in the right way for our markets to be able to mature. Feel free to give me a call (anytime) or respond to this email.

I have just spoken with the market maker. They are complaining again. We're too small right now to risk losing a market maker. It's probably best if you stick with Betdaq and Betfair for the time being. I need to get more market makers and more recreational punters on board before we can support consistently winning punters. Most of our customers are arbers.

Please put a pause on your Smarkets trading until we're able to meet.

I live too far away to meet

Put in a bank withdrawal request tonight after the matches settle and I'll send you a same day bank transfer tomorrow morning.

I know you would rather I stopped using your exchange, and I fully appreciate your position, but at the same time none of the other exchanges in the industry (Betfair, Betdaq, Macthbook, WBX, Bettor etc) have ever excluded a client for winning too much. Free market principles are supposed to apply here, so the best thing for you and your market maker to do would be to adapt to market forces. As in any zero-sum exchange mechanism it generally falls to the net losers to adapt rather than the net gainers to cease. For instance if I was losing repeatedly, I wouldn't expect you or your market makers to adapt your strategies to compensate me, but if I had any sense about me then I would adapt my own.

Account Closed

[Online Trader]

Most of our customers are arbers.

My heart is bleeding for them here, are they for real talk about cake and eating it

The silence from them is deafening, come on S Markets what are you afraid of, this looks very bad for your business going forward

[Iron]

I need to get more market makers and more recreational punters on board before we can support consistently winning punters.

'Nuff said...

So basically, Smarkets is an exchange where only losers are welcome.

Jeff

[LeTiss]

Wow, James those emails are staggering

Smarkets have really made a mess of this. They are clearly full of piss and wind. They engage with BA customers (a software package & forum to discuss TRADING!!!) then close people down who are greening up, just wanting mug punters to line the pockets of market makers who have Jason by his short & curlies.

[george]

Please don't close out your positions on Smarkets and green up against the market maker

shocking

[george]

u cant ask such a thing from ur clients when u operate a betting exchange this is totally out of order and against everything that a betting exchange represents.

[giulio2010]

It's like a poker site asking you to fold your royal flush, because their poker-props are complaining....
absolutely shoking....If james will forward a complain to LGA, what would be smarkets consequences regards their licenze?

[gutuami]

James until they come up with a premium charge model that will make you less profitable your account will remain closed. If you are a successful they should have used this as a positive publicity and maybe write an article about you to attract more customers. Instead they're risking some negative publicity if you contact someone from media. This thread alone has more than 2000 views. Don't know how many unique viewers though but the general impression of how fair smarkets are is now clear at least to me.

[LeTiss]

I'm afraid for Jason Trost, that this discussion has spread to other forums within the betting/trading community. A total PR disaster for Smarkets, James has exposed them big time. I took these from Betfair's community

They're obviously the sort of clowns who believe in the famous liquidity of the traders. Ex-city w@nkers

Banning winning traders now!
20k over a six month period is not exactly big time either

haha, bit of a joke then

If they ban someone for winning relatively small amounts, more account closures are sure to follow. An exchange they are not

[james19]

Andrew Black joins the debate

https://twitter.com/bertthebold/status/ ... 0837146624