Leopardstown - 14:00 - Christmas Hurdle - Voler la vedette

[superfrank]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the "what shall we tell them" meeting...

[Iron]

Just came across this tweet:

geoffwhite247 Geoff White
Were you affected by the #betfair Voler La Vedette issue? If so, #c4news would love to hear from you....
20 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Jeff

[mugsgame]

i would be very reluctant to get involved with the circus that is the media. I have had the Leveson Inquiry on with the live feed on my PC over the last few weeks. The media are the real scum of the earth.

They will manipulate whatever info they get to serve their own agenda (whatever that is).

Just look at the SSN interviews that McCricick was giving after the race. Completely clueless. If anyone with a informed opinion is wheeled out by the press. (When I say informed, I mean someone who completely understands the markets and how Betfair operates) it will go straight above the lay persons head and appear bollocks.

The media have a sniff of a scandal here and want to F*** over Betfair.
Even though BF really jerk my chain on a regular basis, the old expression "don't bite the hand that feeds you" springs to mind.

[Iron]

Betfair's share price is still dropping:

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=B ... ff;source=;

Jeff

[geoffwhite]

Anyone Betfair customers fancy speaking to Channel 4 News about this? We'll be covering it for tonight's programme...

[payuppal]

Even though BF really jerk my chain on a regular basis, the old expression "don't bite the hand that feeds you" springs to mind.

It annoys me when Betfair is given lots of stick.

Yes, it is sometimes justified.

But so many people have absolutely no idea what it was like before Betfair, running around betting shops, driving for hours to get to meetings.

Tax free income, from home, doing something you like, when you like, what's not to like...

[Iron]

I don't think anyone here disputes that Betfair has brought massive benefits to punters.

People's complaints lie with things like:

- Betfair's poor communication with customers

- Site failures

- Betfair suspending people's accounts and then keeping them in the dark

- Applying a 'supertax' on successful punters

As regards the tax-free income argument, let's not forget that the exchange is a sum-zero game, funded by losers...

Jeff

It annoys me when Betfair is given lots of stick.

[Iron]

PS I forgot to include:

- Security issues, with Betfair neither refunding clients whose money has been stolen nor providing advanced security measures

Have I missed anything else out?

Jeff

[Innertube]

The reason people are so ready to stick the knife into Betfair is because they keep doing it to their customers

[pdupre1961]

2pm at Leopardstown on 28th December: An apology and an explanation from Stephen Morana

On Wednesday 28th December we had a major issue with our Exchange. We know how frustrating this is for our customers and again we offer our sincere apologies to all affected.
This note summarises all that we know of the issue, with all of the facts laid open.
The race in question was of course the 2pm at Leopardstown on 28th December, won by Voler La Vedette. The race went off on time and there were no issues with the bets struck on the race before the start.

During the race, one bet was placed, and allowed onto the Exchange, laying Voler La Vedette for £21,474,836 at odds of 29. This would have left the customer with a maximum liability of close to £600m.

This bet was placed by one of our UK customers trading the race via our API or Application Programming Interface (bdp.betfair.com/) using an automated program (a “bot”). Their bot had developed a fault causing it to try and place a very large number of bets on the Exchange. These bets were large in size and mispriced. As you know, the Betfair system is designed to prevent customers betting unless they have the funds to cover their maximum liability. In this case, the customer had less than £1,000 in their account so none of these bets should have been accepted.

However, due to a technical glitch within the core exchange database, one of the bets evaded the prevention system and was shown on the site. This was an issue that was triggered because of a unique sequence of events that had never happened before.
The race continued and Voler La Vedette won. £822,614 of backers’ stakes were matched of the customer’s bet, resulting in a potential liability to the customer of £23m. Once the race was completed, the market remained suspended such that no bets were settled and an investigation started.

We identified that this was an isolated incident specific to one account, which we immediately suspended. There were no further issues reported on any other markets on site and the site therefore remained open for business as usual.

At 4.41pm on the 28th of December, we announced that the in-play markets associated with this race would be voided due to technological failure in accordance with our terms and conditions. This is similar to the “palpable error” rule enforced by other bookmakers in the past.

We had to void both the win and place markets and, to be clear, we would have voided the race regardless of who had won and whether or not we had suspended these markets sooner. This is because the bet in question had significantly impacted both markets. We did not void those bets placed before the off because they had not been affected by the bet.
The Betfair technical teams continued to investigate the details of the fault and, having identified the issue, worked on putting a fix in place which was applied at 10.15pm on December 28th.

Following extensive testing, we can confirm that there have been no subsequent occurrences of this fault and we’ve taken steps to prevent its reoccurrence in the future.
We have been criticised for not having suspended the market earlier but in reality, while our market operations team did realise that something had gone awry, the procedures they had in place dictated that specific checks needed to be made prior to suspending the market; hence the delay in suspension.

Again, I would like to clarify that the account in question has no commercial relationship with Betfair other than being a customer. Our reputation has been built on integrity and we have been pioneers in the industry in ensuring that betting is carried out in a fair and transparent manner. By making the voiding decision, I can assure you that this decision was not taken lightly and that we have implemented what we believe to be the fairest solution in these truly exceptional circumstances.

Since Betfair began, we have matched nearly half a trillion bets for our customers that have provided greater value than offered by the established bookmakers. This is the first time that we have ever experienced anything like this in all of that time which goes to show how robust and resilient the bet matching engine is and will continue to be.
Lessons have been learnt in terms of how quickly we need to respond, and how we need to communicate with our customers. We will continue to strive to deliver the consistently high standards that you have come to expect over the years.

I was personally devastated when this event occurred and would again like to take this opportunity to apologise for the regrettable customer and betting experience in this market.

[Euler]

That's weird, the post has gone from the site?

[Euler]

No, it's back, with better formatting!

[Euler]

Can you imagine how the guy felt who had less than £1000 in his account. Suddenly seeing £20m+ red!

[LeTiss]

I'd love it if that customer owned up to it!

They mention it was an API bot, perhaps somebody trying out BA's great new automation feature

[Iron]

I don't see why Betfair couldn't have said all that yesterday, preventing lots of the 'What are they hiding?' speculation.

Betfair's position is plausible and reasonable IMHO. However, I'd like to know why they needed to cancel all in-play bets, and not just those placed after the ghost money entered the market...

Jeff