Betfair Forum Q&A – Tuesday 16th February
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andyfuller
- Posts: 4619
- Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:23 pm
Would someone be able to post the chat from tonight on the forum please - some of us more outspoken BF users are not allowed to view it
Betfair Customer Services 01 Feb 16:52
We’ll be hosting a Q&A session on the forum on Tuesday 16th February between 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm (UK Time). We’d welcome questions on any topic of interest to Betfair customers.
To help us get through as many questions as possible, any questions that you do have can be emailed in advance to [email protected]. Unfortunately it is not possible for us to respond to each email individually but we will attempt to answer all questions raised via the live Q&A session.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:06
Welcome to the forum Q&A.
We will shortly start to post answers to questions which have been emailed into us in advance. Customers who wish to ask further questions during this session can either respond in this thread, or email their questions to [email protected].
Among the Betfair representatives answering questions this evening are Tony Rigby (IT Director) and Lee Cowles (Director of our UK business).
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:10
Choppy
Often hear of events not going in-play or in-play being withdrawn because of problems with feeds.
My qeustion is do Betfair rely on live pictures or is there a representitive at the live event that you loose contact with. How do you determine when to suspend a live event?
We have an extensive range of feeds used for each sport offered. The quality and latency of all feeds is imperative for accurate in-play market coverage and is something which is monitored on an ongoing basis. If either comes into question, we reserve the right not to offer markets for the event in-play. We will only ever offer a market if we are completely satisfied the feeds we are using are in every respect suitable for managing the event itself. Unfortunately, this can on occasions mean we withdraw coverage at short notice. Whenever this does occur, a posting will be made in the ‘Markets’ section of the forum detailing the affected markets.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:12
Hi guys,
I have a question with regards to in-running betting on Australian horseracing. As you know Betfair introduced in-running betting on all Aussie metropolitan horseracing meetings last April and since then the liquidity has been building up to quite a reasonable level.
However, there is a problem with liquidity levels when there is only one, or even two meetings available during these scheduled daytime midweek meetings, particularly if there is no in-running betting from the two biggest markets in Australia - those of NSW and Victoria.
Therefore my question is why don't Betfair have additional meetings available to bet on during these designated midweek in-running betting days, especially when there is only one or two meetings scheduled? I am not advocating additional days in which to bet in-running, just additional meetings to include at least 3-4 meetings for the day, thus creating greater liquidity across the board.
In my opinion, any midweek betting day should include meetings from both NSW and Victoria as these are the biggest markets. A good example is this coming Wednesday (the 17th) when there will be in-running betting available in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth (that's fine), but no meeting from Victoria even though the meeting there will have some races with prizemoney of $100,000 and $200,000. From what I have seen over this past year betting in-running, when there are more meetings to bet on during these midweeks, then there appears to be greater liquidity in these markets.
Kind regards, Jim.
Our current approval allows us to offer all Group and metropolitan races from VIC, NSW, QLD, SA and WA but we have in exceptional circumstances offered provincial listed races in Victoria (with approval from RVL) where’s there’s been increased customer interest. For example we offered the Geelong Cup in October and we plan to offer two of the listed races tomorrow from the Mornington meet you mentioned.
There’s certainly the scope and the inclination to offer a broader number of races in-running to meet those demands – provincial cards from VIC and NSW would be the obvious additions – so long as it meets the approval of the respective racing bodies.
Hopefully we can offer you more meets in the near future.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:17
Forun name: Stevenagekid
The changes to the South African markets are great.
I really believe that you will see the full effects of the changes in the UK winter months( November to End of March) when there are only a handfull of racemeetings scheduled for each day and many many racemeetings cancelled due to inclement weather conditions.
Going on last years figures the South African markets were very liquid during the UK winter months and I expect the same if not better this year with the addition of live streaming and extra info that Betfair is now offering.
I have just one point that I would like to raise, the issue of betting in-play.
I really believe that this issue should be reviewed and the in -play betting option should be reintroduced during the months (November to end of March)
Betfair will earn a lot of extra commision during this time with the in-play option as there wil be a lot of added interest due to the minimal amount of UK racing which will also give the market operators less work to do and hence more time to concentrate on SA racing
I am an avid South African racing follower and an ex betfair employee and am very excited about all the changes but do believe that the in -play option should be revisited as do many other South African players during those months listed.
Please respond if you can
Many Thanks
The changes we have made over the past 12 months to SA racing (addition of a Tote facility, increased streaming etc) have been well received and thanks for the feedback. Whilst we stopped offering SA racing in-running in July 2009 due to apparent lack of interest, it is something we are keeping under review and may revisit that decision if we feel interest amongst customers is sufficient to justify doing so.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:18
Forum name - birch2
Dear BF,
I wish to take issue with you re the 'honesty' regarding your 1st Oct announcement re the changes to the Premium charge.
Firstly, as a business you are entitled to set out your business model/profit margins etc. as you wish and 'tweak' that model so as to gain maximum profitability as you go on. My issue is with the spin/misrepresentations you made in the above and the bad PR by taking 4 months to do this Q/A, which obviously has lead to more suspicion.
On 12th October 2009 we will be making some changes to the Premium Charge mechanism. The changes are being made following a period of review, during which we have consulted and collated feedback from over 300 customers. The changes are designed to simplify the charge and have been devised specifically to address the most consistent topics of concern expressed by customers, both those who have incurred the charge and those who haven’t.
We anticipate that the changes will reduce the number of customers affected by the charge and also the total amount of Premium Charges collected each week.
1. Do you take the view of only 300 customers (some or all could be your own employees!) - or does no-one in your company analyse the data you have? The predicted results (profit) of the new calc should be known almost instantly, in any computerised business.
2. For you to think that your new PC paying customers will swallow the line re reducing PC is naive in the extreme, the basis of which I set out below.
• Increase the 60 week calculation period to the ‘lifetime’ of each customer’s account
• Remove Transaction and Data Request Charges from the ‘total charges’ calculation
• Calculate ‘implied commission’ at a fixed 3% of losses on all markets.
3. A non PC winning customer over the last 60 weeks is highly likely to be a winning customer over a lifetime. With this change you are pulling in all the winnings between 2000 and Sept 2008 to a lower 'generated comm' % - therefore increasing the likelihood of getting non PC winning customers under the 20%
4. The transaction and data charges were the only reasonable argument for the PC - those who use more resources pay more - why change this?
5. You lowered the 'implied comm' losses from 3.3% to 3% - yet another anomaly in your claim of reducing the PC! Why?
I would like to ask you to give as much info as poss re the effects of the new PC calc, but specifically the total amount of PC collected over the last 4 months compared to the same 4 months last year
Finally, whilst obviously not happy with the PC, I acknowledge your right to use it and set it to the level you want - customers will decide to bet or not, but for a company of your stature, I thought this was very badly.
We’ve received a number of questions about the Premium Charge but this one covers just about all of the issues raised.
We apologise for the delay in organising this session. It was caused by internal logistics (we try to get different senior personnel involved at each of these sessions) rather than anything sinister. Our plan is to run these sessions 3-4 times a year and we will do our best to ensure this happens going forward.
To answer each of the questions in turn:
1. Any changes we make to our charging mechanisms are based on a vast amount of research and data modelling. In this case we collated the views of over 300 customers, identified the most consistent topics of concern, and then designed changes to the charge to address these concerns before finally modelling the impact of the proposed changes. In order to model the impact on our customers, we compared actual Premium Charge figures (total charge collected, number of customers charged etc) with hypothetical figures obtained by assuming that we had introduced the revised version of the charge from the outset. This analysis predicted that had we introduced the ‘lifetime’ version of the charge as opposed to the ’60 week’ version then fewer customers would have been charged over the same period and also that the average customer would have paid less in Premium Charges.
2. Our claim that we anticipated the changes to reduce the number of customers affected by the charge and also the total amount of Premium Charges collected each week has proven to be spot on. The number of customers hasn’t fallen by quite the amount we anticipated but, had we not made the changes we did in October, more customers would have been asked to pay Premium Charges and we would have collected more charges in total.
That said, this doesn’t mean that all customers now pay less than they would have done under the 60 week version of the charge. Customers who win most consistently, and particularly those that have been consistently successful throughout the lifetime of their account, will now pay more as a result of the removal of what was effectively a £1,000/250 markets annual allowance against the charge. The allowance, as well as the 250 market threshold and the exclusion of any single win that constitutes more than 50% of lifetime gross profits, is there to ensure that new and/or lucky customers don’t inadvertently get charged Premium Charges just because they get off to a good start or happen to have a big win.
3. Yourinitial statement here is not supported by the evidence we see. Most people don’t just come across Betfair for the first time and instantly adopt highly profitable strategies that minimise commission; they refine and optimise their strategies over time. However, even if that was not the case, when we implemented the changes in October 2009, we assumed that all customers had generated charges equal to at least 20% of their lifetime gross profits. If customers had generated less than 20% of their lifetime gross profits in commission then we applied a hypothetical ‘top-up’.
4. The removal of Transaction and Data Request Charges from the ‘total charges’ calculation means that the customers who pay these charges no longer receive any additional benefit with respect to the Premium Charge. This means that customers putting the most load on Betfair’s systems no longer get an allowance for ‘systems load’ charges, against Premium Charges that would otherwise be due.
5. The average commission rate on the Exchange is actually a little under 3%. It does vary from market to market, from sport to sport and from month to month but on average 3% is a very good approximation. We originally chose to use the actual rate that we collect commission at the settlement of each market, rather than a fixed approximation, because we concluded it would be preferable to be accurate. However, feedback from customers suggested that they consider transparency and certainty to be more important.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:20
Aussie Al
The outages (both planned and unplanned) are affecting Australian customers more than UK customers. However, all of the service (including the timing of this session) is aimed at UK customers. When will BetFair start considering its Australian customers, including scheduling a chat session at a time convenient for Australian customers.
We agree that the Q&A sessions we have run to date (including this one) have not been scheduled at times that are likely to suit Australian customers. Our plan is that the next live session will be scheduled at a more realistic time for Australians (most likely to be early morning UK time, so early evening Australian time). In terms of outages, those which are unplanned can of course happen at any time. For planned outages we accept that the burden should not be borne disproportionately and this is something we are actively considering.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:21
Aussie Al
I would like to know if you have any plans - through sponsorship of a racing channel or through flash pictures on the internet - to cut down on the picture delay for in-running bettors on horseracing? I would also like to know if you take this issue seriously as currently we have less skilled players winning over more skilled ones solely because they have a 2 second advantage. ie People in the hotel on track at Wolverhampton.
This is question we've been asked many times and, unfortunately, the response this time is no more positive than those we were able to offer in the past. We have spoken, at length, to the two UK racing channels and encouraged them to explore ways to reduce the signal delay. Both are limited in what they can do because of their relationships with Sky and for them the issue of how quickly and consistently the signal is delivered is simply not a priority.
If it were simply a matter of money then the latency problems would have been resolved by now. It is not. There are a number of technical issues that make real time picture delivery for every customer watching in every country Betfair operates in, simply impossible.
Customers who post on the forum tend to be UK based and view events from a very UK-centric view but there are also many people betting on UK racing around the world and they often see TV pictures that are even more delayed than in the UK. Those we have spoken to are aware of this and choose to bet anyway believing that their race reading skills compensate for any picture delay, or are happy to leave bets up in-running, as insurance against bets placed before the off.
Each broadcaster has a different way of making their signal available to viewers but even if they were both to agree to operate in the same way, customers would still see pictures at differing times. It is an inevitable consequence of different delivery systems that those people watching via cable, satellite, online or elsewhere will all see signals at differing times.
Those people who choose to watch a live event and hoping to taking advantage of beating any picture delay are hindered by the connectivity of their internet connections which can be slower on course than elsewhere. There are now so many people utilising what they think are faster picture service providers that the playing field for in-running betters is probably more level than it has ever been.
As well as Betfair informing customers of possible delays in 'live' pictures, in both the market information text and at the point of bet placement, some broadcasters themselves now commonly tell viewers to be mindful when betting in-running that what they are watching can sometimes be a couple of seconds or so behind real time.
If anyone has a suggestion as to how to cirumvent the various technical issues to help overcome the variance in service I am sure the broadcasters would be delighted to hear from you or you could let us know and we'll take it up directly with them.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:25
Just a quick question.
I like to watch racing on Betfair Live Video during the day.
With a back or a lay on normal win or place markets, this is fine.
However, if I have a bet on the AvB market, then click on to Live Video, it tells me I need to place a bet to view it.
Please explain why an AvB back or lay doesn't count as a bet with a view to watching the race.
Regards
John
Dear John,
It should do and that's the first I've heard of it. Can't guarantee a quick fix but will look into it and publish a response as soon as I have an update.
Best,
Lee
I’ve just been reminded that there is a known technical issue on our racing streaming that means that bets on AvB markets don’t allow you to access it. We posted the issue on our service announcements in November last year but that’s not how it’s meant to work and I’ll see if we can do anything to sort it.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:27
cabajan
I believe the core business of Betfair is still sports betting.
The numerous upgrades recently do not seem to have materially enhanced the sports betting platforms. I can only surmise that the changes have been to accomodate the various virtual gaming products.
Why can you not isolate the sports betting platform from the rest to help ensure it's reliability and stability?
Hi Brian, the vast majority of upgrades have been targeted at the sports betting platform. The upgrades have been in the main to accommodate increasing capacity demands. Yes we had to create a new site for the virtual gaming products but that is a separate site than the main sports betting platform.
The sports platform is isolated from the games products but there is a major project going on within IT to further this separation.
Tony
DStyle 16 Feb 18:28
how can you further something's separation. surely it's either separated or it isn't
You as a customer exist only once within our product suite. Therefore whilst the sports betting platform does not require the virtual gaming products to be available the virtual gaming products require the sports betting platform to be available and everything requires the customer login credentials to be available and your balance. The further separation I mentioned is intended to remove the dependency on the sports betting platform that the virtual gaming products has, and eventually to make every product from a customer login as separated from each other as possible.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:31
james from the north
why cant i cancel keep bets when the race has finished and its suspended ?
i can cancel keep bets in running why not when you suspens the race
the following message appears
Bets on Starting Price markets cannot be cancelled until the Starting Price has been determined.
yet the starting price has been determined
its a nuisance as when there is a foto finish and its obvious whats won the lay bets cant be cancelled until you reopen the market for the foto and people with the fastest api connection clean up i have lost a few quids because of this
looking forward to your reply
james
Thanks for raising this; we are looking into at the moment.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:33
taoist
Hello
I recently asked that you announce in advance which non-BAGS meetings you would be covering, and was told it would be given consideration. I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be implemented when it could be done with minimal effort and would be invaluable to anyone like myself who needs to organize themselves well in advance.
Many thanks
We apologise for the delay in getting this implemented. The weekly coverage for non BAGS meetings is now posted under the ‘Markets’ section of the forum, within announcements.
bin it 16 Feb 18:34
As a premium charge payer, I am in effect prohibited from casual bets and/or adopting any new strategies that may result in increased liquidity for you. Is there a way that premium charge players can place such bets and/or adopt new strategies in a separate account perhaps?
The Premium Charge is there to ensure that all consistently successful customers generate commission equal to at least 20% of their long term profits. If you have a casual strategy that results in consistently returning a profit whilst generating very little commission then it is true that you are likely to incur Premium Charges as a result. However, recreational bets are highly unlikely to yield consistent profits at a rate that would result in an increase in the amount of Premium Charge you are asked to pay. Unless your casual bets win more consistently than your core strategy bets, placing your casual bets with Betfair will serve to reduce the percentage of total profits you are asked to pay in Premium Charges.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:36
Innocent Bystander
Hi
With no UK broadcaster picking up the rights to the New Zealand cricket series vs Australia at the End of February / start of March, would Betfair be able to stream the matches live as they did for the Australian Big Bash 2020 cricket.?
Also the Pro20 2020 games from South Africa would be a welcome addition
Heres Hoping
Given our trial of streaming the recent KFC T20 Big Bash in Australia we are working with our “streaming” partners to see if we can improve our streaming offering around cricket and both of the matches you mentioned are on our “wish-list” of events. As soon as we have more information we will update the live video schedule on the site and also the relevant forum. If there are particular events you would like to see more of via on our live video service then please let us know via our helpdesk and we will try our best to acquire the rights for them.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:42
laptop larry
Hi, Can you tell me why Betfair Rapid has performed so badly lately that it has been rendered virtually un-usable.As a full time everyday user of Betfair this has been very frustrating to put it mildly. I know the site keeps saying API server problem, but what exactly is an API server and why is it taking so long for the Tech guys to get this problem sorted out. Also I have e-mailed Info@betfair and rapid@betfair asking for an update/explanation on this ongoing problem but haven't even had a reply. An explanation and an assurance that Rapid is now, and will continue to work at its best would be most welcome.
We have had a number of issues with our API recently and Betfair Rapid is one of the interfaces which uses our API. This is the reason why you will have had an interrupted service. We have since addressed these API issues and Betfair Rapid should continue to work in the way it should. ‘API’ stands for Application Programming Interface and our exchange operates through an array of ‘web’ and ‘API’ servers which all serve the same data but to different interfaces. If you would like more information on our API then please contact the Betfair Developers Program team at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to talk through this in more detail.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:45
Hi,
For the past couple of months I have noticed a lot of the photo
finishes on Irish Racing are not having the markets reopened?
Is this a permanent change?
If a photo finish is called, our intention is always to reopen the market to allow betting until a result is called. In some cases, despite what appears to be a very close finish, the Judge may call the result and not resort to a photo. I wonder have you been seeing close finishes and assuming that a photo has been called when it may not have been, but in any event thanks for raising and I will take it up with the relevant people in our horseracing team.
...In fact I have just been told that in some cases where there is a very close finish in Ireland, a photo finish may not necessarily announced, despite there being a delay in the actual result being announced.
Lee
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:46
Feck N. Eejit
Hi, if betfair intend to start basing the pc on account lifetime profit would it not restore a bit of goodwill (primarily among those who were unjustly hit by the pc because of result sequences) if you backdated this to the original pc introduction date and refunded that which would not have been paid? You might also have avoided the loss of some business if you had declared such a backdate
The changes we made to the Premium Charge in October last year were designed to improve the charge by making it simpler to understand and fairer for those customers that experience volatility in the longer-term. That said, the fact that we have made changes does not mean we believe that the original charging mechanism was broken or unjust.
If we halved our commission rates overnight we would be unlikely to simultaneously announce that we were going to make reimbursements for 50% of commission levied since Betfair was launched.
Jack Bauer '24' 16 Feb 18:49
With regard to Flash pictures for horse racing markets, why is it not possible for Betfair to negotiate a deal with the individual racecourses and the rights holders to transmit the live track feed via Flash to all Betfair customers?
Betfair could charge a reasonable daily fee for access and the profits could be shared amongst the various parties. We would then have as close to a level playing field as reasonably possible.
Many thanks.
Wherever we can, we will bring you the quickest, best quality streamed content available and regularly negotiate with rights owners to try and improve our content. We do have flash for some of our streamed racing, but even flash is subject to some transmission delays. The position around rights ownership is complex and we have limited control over how it is streamed but will push as hard as we can to improve it.
Because the tracks have agreed to bundle their rights together and sell them collectively, they cannot deal with us on an individual basis. In the UK, roughly half are sold via Racing UK and the rest through Attheraces. Betfair can only therefore purchase the packaged rights from these two broadcasters, and only on the basis they decide to offer them.
Lee
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:50
Alexey
Hi,
The 3 seconds horse racing in-play delay seems to be too large. Is it possible to make it, say, 2 seconds at most?
To my knowledge, our countdown delay on in-running racing delay is set at 1 second, so you shouldn’t be seeing a 3 second delay. Could you be more specific about what you’re experiencing?
Best regards,
Lee
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:55
Marcel
Due to the introduction of Keep-bets, it has become difficult to distinguish a Suspended with a goal from a Suspended without a goal. Before the introduction of Keep bets, a market was cleared completely in case of a goal. Today the Keep-bets are remaining in the market. Is it possible to add an X to the Suspended message in case of a goal? Example: in case it appears a goal has been scored, the message is still: "Suspended" and the market is frozen. When the goal is confirmed by the referee, the message changes to "Suspended X" and all the normal bets are cancelled.
This is possible, but will need be prioritized against other potential enhancements that are currently in the pipeline.
During API-problems, such as the last week or one year ago, sometimes the CANCEL-command from the API is no longer working. Besides that the P&L for a single market is sometimes not reflected properly (zero's instead of the actual values). This creates an extreme risk for betting by the API, since the staking goes unlimited (only maximised by my bankroll..). To reduce this risk it would be optimal when it would be possible to maximize the total stakes to a certain amount, for any single market in the account settings.
We don’t have any plans to introduce this functionality but believe that you may be able to manage this situation within your software. Please contact the Betfair Developers Program via [email protected] so we can talk through this in more detail.
Gerbs 16 Feb 19:05
why was the commission paid removed from the betfair premium portal
is it because most PC players would have seen a big difference between what they have paid and what they have been credited by the comm generated fig
No. We removed the commission paid figure from the portal because it was causing confusion given that is irrelevant when it comes to calculating the Premium Charge.
Potential Premium Charges are offset against commission generated because it is fairest way to value the Exchange activity of our customers. Commission generated allocates each pound of commission collected equally between both the winning and losing counterparty.
Doyler1987 16 Feb 19:09
As a marketing student I try to keep a keen eye on advertising campaigns. Recently, you said that the funds from the "Premium Charge" would go towards new adverts to try and find new customers for the exchange. Myself and friends have been only consistently emailed about your Casino, Arcade and Exchange games, but nothing about the main sport site. Why do you choose to put these games before the main site?
If youve run out of ideas you can give me a ring. "20% better odds" and "bet person v person" dont seem to work anymore do they.
I've also noticed recently that Betfair SP has been returning up to 115% on some races. Could you explain why that is? I know the market ultimately governs the prices but I was under the allusion that the Betfair SP software would return the market to the overound it wanted? ie 100% or as close as possible.
As a business we have been doing loads of acquisition marketing, including TV advertising and sponsorship of Manchester United and FC Barcelona – that helps to keep Betfair growing and improve the range and liquidity of markets on offer. We’ve also increased the amount of offers aimed at existing customers and now run at least 8 different sports promos a week (usually one a day on racing and 3 a week on football/other sports depending on the season). We’ve found that people seem to really like offers that compensate for near misses, like our “multiples madness” promos that pay out if you miss out on one leg of a multiple and will be trying to offer more like this in future. Always happy to hear new ideas though!
On the Betfair SP question, it does happen very occasionally but on average the returns are very steady around the 99-101% range. If there were a systematic bias, it would create an opportunity for either backers or layers, which would pull in money and correct the imbalance.
As a business we have been doing loads of acquisition marketing, including TV advertising and sponsorship of Manchester United and FC Barcelona – that helps to keep Betfair growing and improve the range and liquidity of markets on offer. We’ve also increased the amount of offers aimed at existing customers and now run at least 8 different sports promos a week (usually one a day on racing and 3 a week on football/other sports depending on the season). We’ve found that people seem to really like offers that compensate for near misses, like our “multiples madness” promos that pay out if you miss out on one leg of a multiple and will be trying to offer more like this in future. Always happy to hear new ideas though!
On the Betfair SP question, it does happen very occasionally but on average the returns are very steady around the 99-101% range. If there were a systematic bias, it would create an opportunity for either backers or layers, which would pull in money and correct the imbalance.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 19:11
Marcel
1) Currently Betfair added the livescores of In Play soccer matches on the coupon.
a) Is it possible to display also the exact minute of play? I suppose Betfair has this information because you are managing the matches to let them go Suspended.
The live scores offering is part of our ongoing commitment to improve the content across all sports on the Betfair site. The exact minute of play along with a whole range of additional features are set for the next phase of launch which we anticipate in the next few months.
b) Is it possible to integrate the score-feed into the API?
This is not possible at the moment, but we are undertaking some major work which will allow us to provide additional data services (e.g. results, live scores) across a number of channels, including the Betfair API.
Pagan_born 16 Feb 19:12
Hi! Regarding Choppy message, at the top of this post, my question is: don't you think it would be fair to void all bets in case match is retracted from going in-play?! Sometimes I place bet early, just to find out half of the hour before kick-off that match will not go in-play; if I knew that, I wouldn't place a bet! Possible solution is to separate same market in two - in one of them, all bets would be void if match is retracted from going in-play (so, traders like me would use that market), while the other one would be "normal", like now, so traders who don't mind if it will go in-play or no would use that one.
Thanks!
I think offering 2 markets for every event as you suggest would be confusing for (at least some) customers and would split liquidity, which is obviously not to anyone’s benefit. We completely understand the frustrations of customers who place a bet with the intention of trading out of that bet, but are denied the opportunity to do so due to an event not being offered in-play (or due to technical failure). However, if we voided bets in the circumstances you described, it would seem to us to be even more unfair on customers who have placed a bet on an event (then perhaps logged off to watch the event), and had those bets voided due to an entirely unrelated failure of subsequent technology or data feed.
ged 16 Feb 19:14
Hi
Can you explain why some jockeys colours are sometimes missing from your race card for Horse Racing? It seems to be particularly evident on Saturdays, so is presumably a performance issue? Yet despite having recently carried out extensive performance upgrades, this problem is still as bad, and annoying, as ever.
Thanks.
We are aware that sometimes silks don’t appear for any runners (or for some runners) in a given market. Typically this is an issue caused by a problem with our data feed, as we receive the silks/jockey data from a third party supplier. It is something we hope to improve, but inevitably there will still be cases where the silks do not appear for all/some runners.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 19:19
Marcel
The account is currently only protected by a password. Is it possible to add a token (for interested users against payment) such as tokens for normal bankaccounts?
This is something Betfair has been researching for the past year. We are currently in discussion with a number of companies and considering options, such as physical tokens and mobile phone applications. The issue is getting this onto our technology roadmap where it juggles for position with other new products and services. Assuming we can get the dedicated resources we should be in a position to trial (and maybe even roll-out) something this year.
Initially we would commence issuing such an application to a sample of customers, before rolling out to the mass market.
Currently it is quiet easy to add other bankaccounts to the Betfair account. Is it possible to restrict the Betfair accounts to one single contra bank account?
I don’t quite follow the question you have here, but we will follow up with you separately on this.
Thanks
Lee
[x] These checkboxes suck 16 Feb 19:20
Hello
Why are there so few promotions targeted at greyhound markets? We've had horse racing promotions (i.e cashback on multiples and tote bets), we've had football promotions, yet greyhound punters do not receive much in the way of promotions. Hopefully by running a few greyhound promotions, you would be giving customers an added incentive to try and explore the brilliant betting medium that are BAGS races.
Thanks
Fair point – we tend to target promotions based on hitting the biggest audience so that pushes us towards horseracing and football. I’ll have a look at the greyhounds and see what we can do.
Best,
Lee
Jack Bauer '24' 16 Feb 19:25
Will Tote Flexi betting be made available on UK Tote bets, particularly the Scoop6, Jackpot and Placepot, and if so when is this likely to happen?
Many thanks.
To my knowledge, the UK Tote itself is not yet offering flexi betting (though it has certainly been mooted). If and when the Tote does make flexi betting available, we would hope to be able to allow customers to use it. As always however, there may be development work required by us to facilitate this, but I will follow up with our horseracing team internally.
richpeers 16 Feb 19:35
You say the issue with the API is sorted after maintenance but tonight as soon as the football started it became very jumpy and the repsonse time was very erratic,It seems to be like this every time the football is on especially on saturdays afternoons
We have just checked our systems and there appears nothing erratic that we can see. Our average bet placement time today through the API is 47ms, and no bet has taken a second or more.
One of our specialists will contact you tomorrow to see if we can help improve your experience.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 19:44
Thanks very much for all your questions – we hope that we’ve done a fair job of answering them and will try and follow up where we’ve said we will. We’ll also try and make this a regular fixture and will get a couple in the diary in future. Having had a number of questions about timing, especially from Australia, we may look to do one at an earlier time in the day
We’ll be hosting a Q&A session on the forum on Tuesday 16th February between 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm (UK Time). We’d welcome questions on any topic of interest to Betfair customers.
To help us get through as many questions as possible, any questions that you do have can be emailed in advance to [email protected]. Unfortunately it is not possible for us to respond to each email individually but we will attempt to answer all questions raised via the live Q&A session.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:06
Welcome to the forum Q&A.
We will shortly start to post answers to questions which have been emailed into us in advance. Customers who wish to ask further questions during this session can either respond in this thread, or email their questions to [email protected].
Among the Betfair representatives answering questions this evening are Tony Rigby (IT Director) and Lee Cowles (Director of our UK business).
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:10
Choppy
Often hear of events not going in-play or in-play being withdrawn because of problems with feeds.
My qeustion is do Betfair rely on live pictures or is there a representitive at the live event that you loose contact with. How do you determine when to suspend a live event?
We have an extensive range of feeds used for each sport offered. The quality and latency of all feeds is imperative for accurate in-play market coverage and is something which is monitored on an ongoing basis. If either comes into question, we reserve the right not to offer markets for the event in-play. We will only ever offer a market if we are completely satisfied the feeds we are using are in every respect suitable for managing the event itself. Unfortunately, this can on occasions mean we withdraw coverage at short notice. Whenever this does occur, a posting will be made in the ‘Markets’ section of the forum detailing the affected markets.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:12
Hi guys,
I have a question with regards to in-running betting on Australian horseracing. As you know Betfair introduced in-running betting on all Aussie metropolitan horseracing meetings last April and since then the liquidity has been building up to quite a reasonable level.
However, there is a problem with liquidity levels when there is only one, or even two meetings available during these scheduled daytime midweek meetings, particularly if there is no in-running betting from the two biggest markets in Australia - those of NSW and Victoria.
Therefore my question is why don't Betfair have additional meetings available to bet on during these designated midweek in-running betting days, especially when there is only one or two meetings scheduled? I am not advocating additional days in which to bet in-running, just additional meetings to include at least 3-4 meetings for the day, thus creating greater liquidity across the board.
In my opinion, any midweek betting day should include meetings from both NSW and Victoria as these are the biggest markets. A good example is this coming Wednesday (the 17th) when there will be in-running betting available in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth (that's fine), but no meeting from Victoria even though the meeting there will have some races with prizemoney of $100,000 and $200,000. From what I have seen over this past year betting in-running, when there are more meetings to bet on during these midweeks, then there appears to be greater liquidity in these markets.
Kind regards, Jim.
Our current approval allows us to offer all Group and metropolitan races from VIC, NSW, QLD, SA and WA but we have in exceptional circumstances offered provincial listed races in Victoria (with approval from RVL) where’s there’s been increased customer interest. For example we offered the Geelong Cup in October and we plan to offer two of the listed races tomorrow from the Mornington meet you mentioned.
There’s certainly the scope and the inclination to offer a broader number of races in-running to meet those demands – provincial cards from VIC and NSW would be the obvious additions – so long as it meets the approval of the respective racing bodies.
Hopefully we can offer you more meets in the near future.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:17
Forun name: Stevenagekid
The changes to the South African markets are great.
I really believe that you will see the full effects of the changes in the UK winter months( November to End of March) when there are only a handfull of racemeetings scheduled for each day and many many racemeetings cancelled due to inclement weather conditions.
Going on last years figures the South African markets were very liquid during the UK winter months and I expect the same if not better this year with the addition of live streaming and extra info that Betfair is now offering.
I have just one point that I would like to raise, the issue of betting in-play.
I really believe that this issue should be reviewed and the in -play betting option should be reintroduced during the months (November to end of March)
Betfair will earn a lot of extra commision during this time with the in-play option as there wil be a lot of added interest due to the minimal amount of UK racing which will also give the market operators less work to do and hence more time to concentrate on SA racing
I am an avid South African racing follower and an ex betfair employee and am very excited about all the changes but do believe that the in -play option should be revisited as do many other South African players during those months listed.
Please respond if you can
Many Thanks
The changes we have made over the past 12 months to SA racing (addition of a Tote facility, increased streaming etc) have been well received and thanks for the feedback. Whilst we stopped offering SA racing in-running in July 2009 due to apparent lack of interest, it is something we are keeping under review and may revisit that decision if we feel interest amongst customers is sufficient to justify doing so.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:18
Forum name - birch2
Dear BF,
I wish to take issue with you re the 'honesty' regarding your 1st Oct announcement re the changes to the Premium charge.
Firstly, as a business you are entitled to set out your business model/profit margins etc. as you wish and 'tweak' that model so as to gain maximum profitability as you go on. My issue is with the spin/misrepresentations you made in the above and the bad PR by taking 4 months to do this Q/A, which obviously has lead to more suspicion.
On 12th October 2009 we will be making some changes to the Premium Charge mechanism. The changes are being made following a period of review, during which we have consulted and collated feedback from over 300 customers. The changes are designed to simplify the charge and have been devised specifically to address the most consistent topics of concern expressed by customers, both those who have incurred the charge and those who haven’t.
We anticipate that the changes will reduce the number of customers affected by the charge and also the total amount of Premium Charges collected each week.
1. Do you take the view of only 300 customers (some or all could be your own employees!) - or does no-one in your company analyse the data you have? The predicted results (profit) of the new calc should be known almost instantly, in any computerised business.
2. For you to think that your new PC paying customers will swallow the line re reducing PC is naive in the extreme, the basis of which I set out below.
• Increase the 60 week calculation period to the ‘lifetime’ of each customer’s account
• Remove Transaction and Data Request Charges from the ‘total charges’ calculation
• Calculate ‘implied commission’ at a fixed 3% of losses on all markets.
3. A non PC winning customer over the last 60 weeks is highly likely to be a winning customer over a lifetime. With this change you are pulling in all the winnings between 2000 and Sept 2008 to a lower 'generated comm' % - therefore increasing the likelihood of getting non PC winning customers under the 20%
4. The transaction and data charges were the only reasonable argument for the PC - those who use more resources pay more - why change this?
5. You lowered the 'implied comm' losses from 3.3% to 3% - yet another anomaly in your claim of reducing the PC! Why?
I would like to ask you to give as much info as poss re the effects of the new PC calc, but specifically the total amount of PC collected over the last 4 months compared to the same 4 months last year
Finally, whilst obviously not happy with the PC, I acknowledge your right to use it and set it to the level you want - customers will decide to bet or not, but for a company of your stature, I thought this was very badly.
We’ve received a number of questions about the Premium Charge but this one covers just about all of the issues raised.
We apologise for the delay in organising this session. It was caused by internal logistics (we try to get different senior personnel involved at each of these sessions) rather than anything sinister. Our plan is to run these sessions 3-4 times a year and we will do our best to ensure this happens going forward.
To answer each of the questions in turn:
1. Any changes we make to our charging mechanisms are based on a vast amount of research and data modelling. In this case we collated the views of over 300 customers, identified the most consistent topics of concern, and then designed changes to the charge to address these concerns before finally modelling the impact of the proposed changes. In order to model the impact on our customers, we compared actual Premium Charge figures (total charge collected, number of customers charged etc) with hypothetical figures obtained by assuming that we had introduced the revised version of the charge from the outset. This analysis predicted that had we introduced the ‘lifetime’ version of the charge as opposed to the ’60 week’ version then fewer customers would have been charged over the same period and also that the average customer would have paid less in Premium Charges.
2. Our claim that we anticipated the changes to reduce the number of customers affected by the charge and also the total amount of Premium Charges collected each week has proven to be spot on. The number of customers hasn’t fallen by quite the amount we anticipated but, had we not made the changes we did in October, more customers would have been asked to pay Premium Charges and we would have collected more charges in total.
That said, this doesn’t mean that all customers now pay less than they would have done under the 60 week version of the charge. Customers who win most consistently, and particularly those that have been consistently successful throughout the lifetime of their account, will now pay more as a result of the removal of what was effectively a £1,000/250 markets annual allowance against the charge. The allowance, as well as the 250 market threshold and the exclusion of any single win that constitutes more than 50% of lifetime gross profits, is there to ensure that new and/or lucky customers don’t inadvertently get charged Premium Charges just because they get off to a good start or happen to have a big win.
3. Yourinitial statement here is not supported by the evidence we see. Most people don’t just come across Betfair for the first time and instantly adopt highly profitable strategies that minimise commission; they refine and optimise their strategies over time. However, even if that was not the case, when we implemented the changes in October 2009, we assumed that all customers had generated charges equal to at least 20% of their lifetime gross profits. If customers had generated less than 20% of their lifetime gross profits in commission then we applied a hypothetical ‘top-up’.
4. The removal of Transaction and Data Request Charges from the ‘total charges’ calculation means that the customers who pay these charges no longer receive any additional benefit with respect to the Premium Charge. This means that customers putting the most load on Betfair’s systems no longer get an allowance for ‘systems load’ charges, against Premium Charges that would otherwise be due.
5. The average commission rate on the Exchange is actually a little under 3%. It does vary from market to market, from sport to sport and from month to month but on average 3% is a very good approximation. We originally chose to use the actual rate that we collect commission at the settlement of each market, rather than a fixed approximation, because we concluded it would be preferable to be accurate. However, feedback from customers suggested that they consider transparency and certainty to be more important.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:20
Aussie Al
The outages (both planned and unplanned) are affecting Australian customers more than UK customers. However, all of the service (including the timing of this session) is aimed at UK customers. When will BetFair start considering its Australian customers, including scheduling a chat session at a time convenient for Australian customers.
We agree that the Q&A sessions we have run to date (including this one) have not been scheduled at times that are likely to suit Australian customers. Our plan is that the next live session will be scheduled at a more realistic time for Australians (most likely to be early morning UK time, so early evening Australian time). In terms of outages, those which are unplanned can of course happen at any time. For planned outages we accept that the burden should not be borne disproportionately and this is something we are actively considering.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:21
Aussie Al
I would like to know if you have any plans - through sponsorship of a racing channel or through flash pictures on the internet - to cut down on the picture delay for in-running bettors on horseracing? I would also like to know if you take this issue seriously as currently we have less skilled players winning over more skilled ones solely because they have a 2 second advantage. ie People in the hotel on track at Wolverhampton.
This is question we've been asked many times and, unfortunately, the response this time is no more positive than those we were able to offer in the past. We have spoken, at length, to the two UK racing channels and encouraged them to explore ways to reduce the signal delay. Both are limited in what they can do because of their relationships with Sky and for them the issue of how quickly and consistently the signal is delivered is simply not a priority.
If it were simply a matter of money then the latency problems would have been resolved by now. It is not. There are a number of technical issues that make real time picture delivery for every customer watching in every country Betfair operates in, simply impossible.
Customers who post on the forum tend to be UK based and view events from a very UK-centric view but there are also many people betting on UK racing around the world and they often see TV pictures that are even more delayed than in the UK. Those we have spoken to are aware of this and choose to bet anyway believing that their race reading skills compensate for any picture delay, or are happy to leave bets up in-running, as insurance against bets placed before the off.
Each broadcaster has a different way of making their signal available to viewers but even if they were both to agree to operate in the same way, customers would still see pictures at differing times. It is an inevitable consequence of different delivery systems that those people watching via cable, satellite, online or elsewhere will all see signals at differing times.
Those people who choose to watch a live event and hoping to taking advantage of beating any picture delay are hindered by the connectivity of their internet connections which can be slower on course than elsewhere. There are now so many people utilising what they think are faster picture service providers that the playing field for in-running betters is probably more level than it has ever been.
As well as Betfair informing customers of possible delays in 'live' pictures, in both the market information text and at the point of bet placement, some broadcasters themselves now commonly tell viewers to be mindful when betting in-running that what they are watching can sometimes be a couple of seconds or so behind real time.
If anyone has a suggestion as to how to cirumvent the various technical issues to help overcome the variance in service I am sure the broadcasters would be delighted to hear from you or you could let us know and we'll take it up directly with them.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:25
Just a quick question.
I like to watch racing on Betfair Live Video during the day.
With a back or a lay on normal win or place markets, this is fine.
However, if I have a bet on the AvB market, then click on to Live Video, it tells me I need to place a bet to view it.
Please explain why an AvB back or lay doesn't count as a bet with a view to watching the race.
Regards
John
Dear John,
It should do and that's the first I've heard of it. Can't guarantee a quick fix but will look into it and publish a response as soon as I have an update.
Best,
Lee
I’ve just been reminded that there is a known technical issue on our racing streaming that means that bets on AvB markets don’t allow you to access it. We posted the issue on our service announcements in November last year but that’s not how it’s meant to work and I’ll see if we can do anything to sort it.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:27
cabajan
I believe the core business of Betfair is still sports betting.
The numerous upgrades recently do not seem to have materially enhanced the sports betting platforms. I can only surmise that the changes have been to accomodate the various virtual gaming products.
Why can you not isolate the sports betting platform from the rest to help ensure it's reliability and stability?
Hi Brian, the vast majority of upgrades have been targeted at the sports betting platform. The upgrades have been in the main to accommodate increasing capacity demands. Yes we had to create a new site for the virtual gaming products but that is a separate site than the main sports betting platform.
The sports platform is isolated from the games products but there is a major project going on within IT to further this separation.
Tony
DStyle 16 Feb 18:28
how can you further something's separation. surely it's either separated or it isn't
You as a customer exist only once within our product suite. Therefore whilst the sports betting platform does not require the virtual gaming products to be available the virtual gaming products require the sports betting platform to be available and everything requires the customer login credentials to be available and your balance. The further separation I mentioned is intended to remove the dependency on the sports betting platform that the virtual gaming products has, and eventually to make every product from a customer login as separated from each other as possible.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:31
james from the north
why cant i cancel keep bets when the race has finished and its suspended ?
i can cancel keep bets in running why not when you suspens the race
the following message appears
Bets on Starting Price markets cannot be cancelled until the Starting Price has been determined.
yet the starting price has been determined
its a nuisance as when there is a foto finish and its obvious whats won the lay bets cant be cancelled until you reopen the market for the foto and people with the fastest api connection clean up i have lost a few quids because of this
looking forward to your reply
james
Thanks for raising this; we are looking into at the moment.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:33
taoist
Hello
I recently asked that you announce in advance which non-BAGS meetings you would be covering, and was told it would be given consideration. I don't see any reason why this shouldn't be implemented when it could be done with minimal effort and would be invaluable to anyone like myself who needs to organize themselves well in advance.
Many thanks
We apologise for the delay in getting this implemented. The weekly coverage for non BAGS meetings is now posted under the ‘Markets’ section of the forum, within announcements.
bin it 16 Feb 18:34
As a premium charge payer, I am in effect prohibited from casual bets and/or adopting any new strategies that may result in increased liquidity for you. Is there a way that premium charge players can place such bets and/or adopt new strategies in a separate account perhaps?
The Premium Charge is there to ensure that all consistently successful customers generate commission equal to at least 20% of their long term profits. If you have a casual strategy that results in consistently returning a profit whilst generating very little commission then it is true that you are likely to incur Premium Charges as a result. However, recreational bets are highly unlikely to yield consistent profits at a rate that would result in an increase in the amount of Premium Charge you are asked to pay. Unless your casual bets win more consistently than your core strategy bets, placing your casual bets with Betfair will serve to reduce the percentage of total profits you are asked to pay in Premium Charges.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:36
Innocent Bystander
Hi
With no UK broadcaster picking up the rights to the New Zealand cricket series vs Australia at the End of February / start of March, would Betfair be able to stream the matches live as they did for the Australian Big Bash 2020 cricket.?
Also the Pro20 2020 games from South Africa would be a welcome addition
Heres Hoping
Given our trial of streaming the recent KFC T20 Big Bash in Australia we are working with our “streaming” partners to see if we can improve our streaming offering around cricket and both of the matches you mentioned are on our “wish-list” of events. As soon as we have more information we will update the live video schedule on the site and also the relevant forum. If there are particular events you would like to see more of via on our live video service then please let us know via our helpdesk and we will try our best to acquire the rights for them.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:42
laptop larry
Hi, Can you tell me why Betfair Rapid has performed so badly lately that it has been rendered virtually un-usable.As a full time everyday user of Betfair this has been very frustrating to put it mildly. I know the site keeps saying API server problem, but what exactly is an API server and why is it taking so long for the Tech guys to get this problem sorted out. Also I have e-mailed Info@betfair and rapid@betfair asking for an update/explanation on this ongoing problem but haven't even had a reply. An explanation and an assurance that Rapid is now, and will continue to work at its best would be most welcome.
We have had a number of issues with our API recently and Betfair Rapid is one of the interfaces which uses our API. This is the reason why you will have had an interrupted service. We have since addressed these API issues and Betfair Rapid should continue to work in the way it should. ‘API’ stands for Application Programming Interface and our exchange operates through an array of ‘web’ and ‘API’ servers which all serve the same data but to different interfaces. If you would like more information on our API then please contact the Betfair Developers Program team at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to talk through this in more detail.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:45
Hi,
For the past couple of months I have noticed a lot of the photo
finishes on Irish Racing are not having the markets reopened?
Is this a permanent change?
If a photo finish is called, our intention is always to reopen the market to allow betting until a result is called. In some cases, despite what appears to be a very close finish, the Judge may call the result and not resort to a photo. I wonder have you been seeing close finishes and assuming that a photo has been called when it may not have been, but in any event thanks for raising and I will take it up with the relevant people in our horseracing team.
...In fact I have just been told that in some cases where there is a very close finish in Ireland, a photo finish may not necessarily announced, despite there being a delay in the actual result being announced.
Lee
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:46
Feck N. Eejit
Hi, if betfair intend to start basing the pc on account lifetime profit would it not restore a bit of goodwill (primarily among those who were unjustly hit by the pc because of result sequences) if you backdated this to the original pc introduction date and refunded that which would not have been paid? You might also have avoided the loss of some business if you had declared such a backdate
The changes we made to the Premium Charge in October last year were designed to improve the charge by making it simpler to understand and fairer for those customers that experience volatility in the longer-term. That said, the fact that we have made changes does not mean we believe that the original charging mechanism was broken or unjust.
If we halved our commission rates overnight we would be unlikely to simultaneously announce that we were going to make reimbursements for 50% of commission levied since Betfair was launched.
Jack Bauer '24' 16 Feb 18:49
With regard to Flash pictures for horse racing markets, why is it not possible for Betfair to negotiate a deal with the individual racecourses and the rights holders to transmit the live track feed via Flash to all Betfair customers?
Betfair could charge a reasonable daily fee for access and the profits could be shared amongst the various parties. We would then have as close to a level playing field as reasonably possible.
Many thanks.
Wherever we can, we will bring you the quickest, best quality streamed content available and regularly negotiate with rights owners to try and improve our content. We do have flash for some of our streamed racing, but even flash is subject to some transmission delays. The position around rights ownership is complex and we have limited control over how it is streamed but will push as hard as we can to improve it.
Because the tracks have agreed to bundle their rights together and sell them collectively, they cannot deal with us on an individual basis. In the UK, roughly half are sold via Racing UK and the rest through Attheraces. Betfair can only therefore purchase the packaged rights from these two broadcasters, and only on the basis they decide to offer them.
Lee
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:50
Alexey
Hi,
The 3 seconds horse racing in-play delay seems to be too large. Is it possible to make it, say, 2 seconds at most?
To my knowledge, our countdown delay on in-running racing delay is set at 1 second, so you shouldn’t be seeing a 3 second delay. Could you be more specific about what you’re experiencing?
Best regards,
Lee
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:55
Marcel
Due to the introduction of Keep-bets, it has become difficult to distinguish a Suspended with a goal from a Suspended without a goal. Before the introduction of Keep bets, a market was cleared completely in case of a goal. Today the Keep-bets are remaining in the market. Is it possible to add an X to the Suspended message in case of a goal? Example: in case it appears a goal has been scored, the message is still: "Suspended" and the market is frozen. When the goal is confirmed by the referee, the message changes to "Suspended X" and all the normal bets are cancelled.
This is possible, but will need be prioritized against other potential enhancements that are currently in the pipeline.
During API-problems, such as the last week or one year ago, sometimes the CANCEL-command from the API is no longer working. Besides that the P&L for a single market is sometimes not reflected properly (zero's instead of the actual values). This creates an extreme risk for betting by the API, since the staking goes unlimited (only maximised by my bankroll..). To reduce this risk it would be optimal when it would be possible to maximize the total stakes to a certain amount, for any single market in the account settings.
We don’t have any plans to introduce this functionality but believe that you may be able to manage this situation within your software. Please contact the Betfair Developers Program via [email protected] so we can talk through this in more detail.
Gerbs 16 Feb 19:05
why was the commission paid removed from the betfair premium portal
is it because most PC players would have seen a big difference between what they have paid and what they have been credited by the comm generated fig
No. We removed the commission paid figure from the portal because it was causing confusion given that is irrelevant when it comes to calculating the Premium Charge.
Potential Premium Charges are offset against commission generated because it is fairest way to value the Exchange activity of our customers. Commission generated allocates each pound of commission collected equally between both the winning and losing counterparty.
Doyler1987 16 Feb 19:09
As a marketing student I try to keep a keen eye on advertising campaigns. Recently, you said that the funds from the "Premium Charge" would go towards new adverts to try and find new customers for the exchange. Myself and friends have been only consistently emailed about your Casino, Arcade and Exchange games, but nothing about the main sport site. Why do you choose to put these games before the main site?
If youve run out of ideas you can give me a ring. "20% better odds" and "bet person v person" dont seem to work anymore do they.
I've also noticed recently that Betfair SP has been returning up to 115% on some races. Could you explain why that is? I know the market ultimately governs the prices but I was under the allusion that the Betfair SP software would return the market to the overound it wanted? ie 100% or as close as possible.
As a business we have been doing loads of acquisition marketing, including TV advertising and sponsorship of Manchester United and FC Barcelona – that helps to keep Betfair growing and improve the range and liquidity of markets on offer. We’ve also increased the amount of offers aimed at existing customers and now run at least 8 different sports promos a week (usually one a day on racing and 3 a week on football/other sports depending on the season). We’ve found that people seem to really like offers that compensate for near misses, like our “multiples madness” promos that pay out if you miss out on one leg of a multiple and will be trying to offer more like this in future. Always happy to hear new ideas though!
On the Betfair SP question, it does happen very occasionally but on average the returns are very steady around the 99-101% range. If there were a systematic bias, it would create an opportunity for either backers or layers, which would pull in money and correct the imbalance.
As a business we have been doing loads of acquisition marketing, including TV advertising and sponsorship of Manchester United and FC Barcelona – that helps to keep Betfair growing and improve the range and liquidity of markets on offer. We’ve also increased the amount of offers aimed at existing customers and now run at least 8 different sports promos a week (usually one a day on racing and 3 a week on football/other sports depending on the season). We’ve found that people seem to really like offers that compensate for near misses, like our “multiples madness” promos that pay out if you miss out on one leg of a multiple and will be trying to offer more like this in future. Always happy to hear new ideas though!
On the Betfair SP question, it does happen very occasionally but on average the returns are very steady around the 99-101% range. If there were a systematic bias, it would create an opportunity for either backers or layers, which would pull in money and correct the imbalance.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 19:11
Marcel
1) Currently Betfair added the livescores of In Play soccer matches on the coupon.
a) Is it possible to display also the exact minute of play? I suppose Betfair has this information because you are managing the matches to let them go Suspended.
The live scores offering is part of our ongoing commitment to improve the content across all sports on the Betfair site. The exact minute of play along with a whole range of additional features are set for the next phase of launch which we anticipate in the next few months.
b) Is it possible to integrate the score-feed into the API?
This is not possible at the moment, but we are undertaking some major work which will allow us to provide additional data services (e.g. results, live scores) across a number of channels, including the Betfair API.
Pagan_born 16 Feb 19:12
Hi! Regarding Choppy message, at the top of this post, my question is: don't you think it would be fair to void all bets in case match is retracted from going in-play?! Sometimes I place bet early, just to find out half of the hour before kick-off that match will not go in-play; if I knew that, I wouldn't place a bet! Possible solution is to separate same market in two - in one of them, all bets would be void if match is retracted from going in-play (so, traders like me would use that market), while the other one would be "normal", like now, so traders who don't mind if it will go in-play or no would use that one.
Thanks!
I think offering 2 markets for every event as you suggest would be confusing for (at least some) customers and would split liquidity, which is obviously not to anyone’s benefit. We completely understand the frustrations of customers who place a bet with the intention of trading out of that bet, but are denied the opportunity to do so due to an event not being offered in-play (or due to technical failure). However, if we voided bets in the circumstances you described, it would seem to us to be even more unfair on customers who have placed a bet on an event (then perhaps logged off to watch the event), and had those bets voided due to an entirely unrelated failure of subsequent technology or data feed.
ged 16 Feb 19:14
Hi
Can you explain why some jockeys colours are sometimes missing from your race card for Horse Racing? It seems to be particularly evident on Saturdays, so is presumably a performance issue? Yet despite having recently carried out extensive performance upgrades, this problem is still as bad, and annoying, as ever.
Thanks.
We are aware that sometimes silks don’t appear for any runners (or for some runners) in a given market. Typically this is an issue caused by a problem with our data feed, as we receive the silks/jockey data from a third party supplier. It is something we hope to improve, but inevitably there will still be cases where the silks do not appear for all/some runners.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 19:19
Marcel
The account is currently only protected by a password. Is it possible to add a token (for interested users against payment) such as tokens for normal bankaccounts?
This is something Betfair has been researching for the past year. We are currently in discussion with a number of companies and considering options, such as physical tokens and mobile phone applications. The issue is getting this onto our technology roadmap where it juggles for position with other new products and services. Assuming we can get the dedicated resources we should be in a position to trial (and maybe even roll-out) something this year.
Initially we would commence issuing such an application to a sample of customers, before rolling out to the mass market.
Currently it is quiet easy to add other bankaccounts to the Betfair account. Is it possible to restrict the Betfair accounts to one single contra bank account?
I don’t quite follow the question you have here, but we will follow up with you separately on this.
Thanks
Lee
[x] These checkboxes suck 16 Feb 19:20
Hello
Why are there so few promotions targeted at greyhound markets? We've had horse racing promotions (i.e cashback on multiples and tote bets), we've had football promotions, yet greyhound punters do not receive much in the way of promotions. Hopefully by running a few greyhound promotions, you would be giving customers an added incentive to try and explore the brilliant betting medium that are BAGS races.
Thanks
Fair point – we tend to target promotions based on hitting the biggest audience so that pushes us towards horseracing and football. I’ll have a look at the greyhounds and see what we can do.
Best,
Lee
Jack Bauer '24' 16 Feb 19:25
Will Tote Flexi betting be made available on UK Tote bets, particularly the Scoop6, Jackpot and Placepot, and if so when is this likely to happen?
Many thanks.
To my knowledge, the UK Tote itself is not yet offering flexi betting (though it has certainly been mooted). If and when the Tote does make flexi betting available, we would hope to be able to allow customers to use it. As always however, there may be development work required by us to facilitate this, but I will follow up with our horseracing team internally.
richpeers 16 Feb 19:35
You say the issue with the API is sorted after maintenance but tonight as soon as the football started it became very jumpy and the repsonse time was very erratic,It seems to be like this every time the football is on especially on saturdays afternoons
We have just checked our systems and there appears nothing erratic that we can see. Our average bet placement time today through the API is 47ms, and no bet has taken a second or more.
One of our specialists will contact you tomorrow to see if we can help improve your experience.
Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 19:44
Thanks very much for all your questions – we hope that we’ve done a fair job of answering them and will try and follow up where we’ve said we will. We’ll also try and make this a regular fixture and will get a couple in the diary in future. Having had a number of questions about timing, especially from Australia, we may look to do one at an earlier time in the day
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andyfuller
- Posts: 4619
- Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:23 pm
Many thanks for that - I will be interested to hear Mark Davies explanation as to why they can not provide a transcript seeing as they will not let users like myself see the event live let alone take part in it.
As ever I had several questions that I think would have been of interest but as ever I was told I could not take part
As ever I had several questions that I think would have been of interest but as ever I was told I could not take part
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andyfuller
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- Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:23 pm
I am surprised only 28 questions were asked by the entire Betfair Customer user base of over 2 million and only 24 individual users asked questions 
(they do say they received more on the PC though)
I guess others don't have questions for them? I wish I could get an answer to two of my current inquiries, one of which they have just now ignored and the other they keep answering some other question which I am not asking.
(they do say they received more on the PC though)
I guess others don't have questions for them? I wish I could get an answer to two of my current inquiries, one of which they have just now ignored and the other they keep answering some other question which I am not asking.
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racingferret
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:36 pm
Just noticed this customers nameBet Angel wrote: Betfair Customer Services 16 Feb 18:46
Feck N. Eejit
Hi, if betfair intend to start basing...
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andyfuller
- Posts: 4619
- Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:23 pm
Very pleasing to see Mark is going to see about opening up future chats to everyone not only to read but also to participate. Hopefully a step in the right direction in improving communications.andyfuller wrote:I will be interested to hear Mark Davies explanation as to why they can not provide a transcript seeing as they will not let users like myself see the event live let alone take part in it.
Andy - what are you questions??andyfuller wrote:I am surprised only 28 questions were asked by the entire Betfair Customer user base of over 2 million and only 24 individual users asked questions
(they do say they received more on the PC though)
I guess others don't have questions for them? I wish I could get an answer to two of my current inquiries, one of which they have just now ignored and the other they keep answering some other question which I am not asking.
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andyfuller
- Posts: 4619
- Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:23 pm
One of them they have now answered and that was with regards to the Betfair SP and how they manage it when certain circumstances occur.
Others are based around the US racing that they offer and covers several aspects of this.
Others were with regards to their communications during the recent outages.
Others are based around the US racing that they offer and covers several aspects of this.
Others were with regards to their communications during the recent outages.