Today's Horse Racing

[jamesedwards]

Pretty crap one today... one horse races, non runners, terrible! When does the horse racing generally pick up?

This is probably as bad as it gets. Cheltenham next week. Flat season around the corner.

[Emtaxx]

As a new comer, but with previous stock market experience, all seems quite the struggle to get the numbers up... would be great if the American markets had liquidity, but there's barely anything for those!

Anyway, like you say flats soon, hopefully we get 50 races in a day +. 25 is crap !

[ForFolksSake]

Kempton 20:30
Almoshher (Burj Khalifa)

[Naffman]

Kempton 20:30
Almoshher (Burj Khalifa)

The live feed for that race was absolutely appalling.

[ruthlessimon]

So the Expert Fee has done nothing to stop the slide? I think it needed a lot of a bigger change to get people back and even if people wanted to return they’re not going to hand over bank statements and payslips to get £500 in.

I don't think it's been going long enough to tell, and I haven't got comparable stats for other sports so I don't know how's it's affected them.

Betfair can't do anything about the proof of income checks, that's an industry wide issue caused by the GC.

Most sports and down, apart from Cricket. So I don't think you should any decline as a Racing specific issue. But that does have it's own unique problems.

If Betfair is serious about increasing liquidity, they should drop the charges for all 1-second data. Google provides endless financial data for free, why can’t Betfair? Give punters/traders a chance of being as informed as possible, then they might stick around.

Charging £69 a month is ridiclous. A 5-year backtest is a £4k outlay with no guarantee of success. Meanwhile, people can look back decades on the S&P 500 for free (though with some survivorship bias issues, but it still provides a solid general picture). Even delisted data typically costs only a few hundred quid.

[ShaunWhite]

If Betfair is serious about increasing liquidity, they should drop the charges for all 1-second data. Google provides endless financial data for free, why can’t Betfair? Give punters/traders a chance of being as informed as possible, then they might stick around.

Bingo and casinos seem to be doing OK without giving customers data. What Betfair need is a killer app with bonus prizes to gamify what's essentially either boring, or overcomplicated. It'll take more than a few geeks looking at spreadsheets to save the industry.

[ruthlessimon]

Bingo and casinos seem to be doing OK without giving customers data.

Is it a fair comparison? I’d argue a casino doesn’t require liquidity, but an exchange does. Therefore it’s in Betfair’s interest to remove any unnecessary barriers. More informed traders = better pricing = more attractive to casual bettors.

Who do I need to lobby to get this done

That said though, yeah, a couple of extra nerds won’t turn the tide, but it could be a start.

[sionascaig]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... dApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... rse-racing

"The Gambling Commission (GC) has been urged to investigate the extent to which the Tote is a player in its own Placepot pools by a punter and racing fan who has analysed the liquidity involved over the past two years, and believes that the operator’s own money now accounts for up to 60% of the cash invested in them"

"The Tote enjoys a “significant information advantage” over its punters in terms of its overall view of the market, particularly in the two-to-three minute period immediately before the “off”."

"The Placepot pools at both Southwell and Carlisle on Monday followed the same pattern. From 20 minutes before the start of the first race at both meetings, the pool size increased by between 1% and 2% per minute, before a big spike in the pool size – 39% at Southwell and 55% at Carlisle – between three and two minutes before the off."

[Revenant]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... dApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... rse-racing

"The Gambling Commission (GC) has been urged to investigate the extent to which the Tote is a player in its own Placepot pools by a punter and racing fan who has analysed the liquidity involved over the past two years, and believes that the operator’s own money now accounts for up to 60% of the cash invested in them"

"The Tote enjoys a “significant information advantage” over its punters in terms of its overall view of the market, particularly in the two-to-three minute period immediately before the “off”."

"The Placepot pools at both Southwell and Carlisle on Monday followed the same pattern. From 20 minutes before the start of the first race at both meetings, the pool size increased by between 1% and 2% per minute, before a big spike in the pool size – 39% at Southwell and 55% at Carlisle – between three and two minutes before the off."

No different to how Betfair use cross matching and their BSP to profit from punters money

[jamesedwards]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... dApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... rse-racing

"The Gambling Commission (GC) has been urged to investigate the extent to which the Tote is a player in its own Placepot pools by a punter and racing fan who has analysed the liquidity involved over the past two years, and believes that the operator’s own money now accounts for up to 60% of the cash invested in them"

"The Tote enjoys a “significant information advantage” over its punters in terms of its overall view of the market, particularly in the two-to-three minute period immediately before the “off”."

"The Placepot pools at both Southwell and Carlisle on Monday followed the same pattern. From 20 minutes before the start of the first race at both meetings, the pool size increased by between 1% and 2% per minute, before a big spike in the pool size – 39% at Southwell and 55% at Carlisle – between three and two minutes before the off."

No different to how Betfair use cross matching and their BSP to profit from punters money

It depends what the Tote are doing. If they are simply extrapolating existing positions to meet guaranteed pot sizes then I've no problem with it. But If they are using inside info to identify underutilised positions compared to available odds then it's very dodgy ground.

[jamesedwards]

Does anyone use any clever methods to alert you to a stewards enquiry announcement? I can get BA to sound an alert if Betfair reopen the same market after a race, but these days they often open a new one under Specials instead.

[sionascaig]

It depends what the Tote are doing. If they are simply extrapolating existing positions to meet guaranteed pot sizes then I've no problem with it. But If they are using inside info to identify underutilised positions compared to available odds then it's very dodgy ground.

I think that nails it...

As part of the companies undertakings with shareholders they "do not take p and l positions".

So would be in pretty hot water if they did so...

[ANGELS15]

Nearly 20 minutes after the race ended the 21:10 Oaklawn park market still live? Not suspended?

[Euler]

It depends what the Tote are doing. If they are simply extrapolating existing positions to meet guaranteed pot sizes then I've no problem with it. But If they are using inside info to identify underutilised positions compared to available odds then it's very dodgy ground.

I think that nails it...

As part of the companies undertakings with shareholders they "do not take p and l positions".

So would be in pretty hot water if they did so...

Lots of companies seed markets to some extent to get the markets up and running. Betfair often provide the structure of an early market in horse racing, but don't profit from it.

But companies like Smarkets are directly trading against you and do profit. Which is a big conflict of interest.

[arbitrage16]

Anyone else getting an error on betfair pics ‘error 103 invalid match ID’