How Should Betfair Handle Bets if an Outage Occurs - Thoughts??

[Dallas]

Following yesterdays latest Betfair outage the age old question is being raised 'What should Betfair do with bets if they experience an outage'. Most including myself have been both stung and benefited from their current 'All bets stand' policy
but is there an alternative solution?

For the purposes of this discussion I think we should ignore the obvious 'Have no further outages' answer

[weemac]

There is no equitable alternative.

[Euler]

Betfair should void all markets IMHO.

Traders can get seriously stung and the ROI on trading is small in % terms so an outage is significant.

[megarain]

In online poker cash games, to reduce variance, with 2 players left in the pot and all the money committed - they can elect to run it twice (a check-box in user settings) ..so, if the situation occurs with 2 player who have checked the box - the system runs the final cards 2x, and it reduces variance

If a Betfair user was allowed an option - cash-out at middle-price etc, when the system went down // then, either between players, positions could be closed or Betfair could themselves be the counter-party -- over time, it must even out, and they always get comm, so, they might even be ahead.

I totally understand this is not going to happen - it would be admitting, their system was open to outage etc.

There has to be a better solution to the current one. I could never support voiding of previously fine trades - providing users knew that bets were matched etc. If a user has orders on the system, which were unmatched - this to me, is the most dangerous. You wouldnt know, if they had been macthed, in the secs before outage, and be totally blind.

[Dallas]

I dont think there is any solution that will please everyone but maybe a cut off point would be the place to start

So in any pre-off market all bets placed/matched during the final 15 minutes are void (no matter the actual time of the outage as long at its not past the official off)

I think this would cover the large majority of pre-off racing traders, those who are straight betting during this time would largely still be viewing a market so would most likely be aware of the outage and know if there bets about to about to be void so be able to still jump on somewhere else if they wanted to, if they placed early bets then they will be unaffected.
Those trading slower markets like football/cricket etc should have time to manage there position some other way

[Derek27]

Betfair should void all markets IMHO.

Traders can get seriously stung and the ROI on trading is small in % terms so an outage is significant.

That's what I suggested yesterday but a couple of people pointed out it's not fair on straight gamblers who backed the winner.

[Derek27]

I dont think there is any solution that will please everyone but maybe a cut off point would be the place to start

So in any pre-off market all bets placed/matched during the final 15 minutes are void (no matter the actual time of the outage as long at its not past the official off)

I think this would cover the large majority of pre-off racing traders, those who are straight betting during this time would largely still be viewing a market so would most likely be aware of the outage and know if there bets about to about to be void so be able to still jump on somewhere else if they wanted to, if they placed early bets then they will be unaffected.
Those trading slower markets like football/cricket etc should have time to manage there position some other way

There would have to be an alarm bell and traders who've opened trade before the fifteen-minute cut-off point but were unable to close trade until after would would know they're going to be buggered if an outage occurs.

[spreadbetting]

Betfair should void all markets IMHO.

Traders can get seriously stung and the ROI on trading is small in % terms so an outage is significant.

Any trader getting seriously stung is seriously overexposing themselves. Betfair hasn't been set up solely for traders and at the end of the day it's punters we all rely on to make the bulk of our profits, start driving them way with extra rules that have no benefit to them whatsoever and we all lose. Sadly there's very little that can be done if it's a full outage and you just need to be actively managing your exposure at all times if you're betting on many markets.

I didn't lose or win anything from the outage but lost a 4 figure sum when they cocked up a race earlier in the week and started voiding bets, I'd guess most of us get hit for a lot more with their suspend guy asleep at his desk than the relatively rare outages.

[LeTiss]

Betfair should void all markets IMHO.

Traders can get seriously stung and the ROI on trading is small in % terms so an outage is significant.

I totally disagree with that.

The exchanges are not full of traders - there are people on here just having a bet, and traders need these people in order to exist

It would be totally wrong to void all bets, just because there was an outage at some stage - the punters would be taking their money elsewhere, and that would be disastrous for the exchange ecosystem

[Derek27]

Any trader getting seriously stung is seriously overexposing themselves.

That's not true. I would consider loosing 10% of my capital as a serious sting, and you can't seriously trade without risking 10% or more.

[ShaunWhite]

Betfair should void all markets IMHO.

Traders can get seriously stung and the ROI on trading is small in % terms so an outage is significant.

I totally disagree with that.

The exchanges are not full of traders - there are people on here just having a bet, and traders need these people in order to exist

It would be totally wrong to void all bets, just because there was an outage at some stage - the punters would be taking their money elsewhere, and that would be disastrous for the exchange ecosystem

+1 The bookies would have something to say about it too if all that liability came back to bite them on the arse because BF had been down for 30 seconds. Allowing either party to welch on a done deal undermines the fundamental principals of a bet or a trade.

[gutuami]

I would suggest to cut all the bets into two. so if you have a winner you would be paid only 50%, for a loser you would loose 50% and in the end betfair will loose half of their commission too. Fair for everybody.

[Derek27]

I would suggest to cut all the bets into two. so if you have a winner you would be paid only 50%, for a loser you would loose 50% and in the end betfair will loose half of their commission too. Fair for everybody.

It's not fair on winners and it only solves half the problem for losers, literally.

I don't know why when a non-runner is taken out of the market, Betfair sometimes, but not always, treats 'at in-play take SP' as actual SP bets. If they didn't do this setting all trades to take SP would substantially reduce liabilities in the event of an outage.

As I was writing this I got a splash screen logging into the Betfair website putting it down to a technological improvement, which they do on a daily basis, going wrong. I clicked on it, quite stupidly expecting a link to more information but it just disappeared.

[ec0n0mist]

I liked both the suggestion and counter argument in the last two respective posts made before me. They were probably closer to my own take on the matter than any suggestions made prior.

IMHO, traders should absolutely be protected in these circumstances. Betfair is an exchange after all. The question is, why should this protection come at the expense of recreational punters at all? Betfair could (and should) compensate both demographics out of their own coffers. I.e. Winners win and losers don't lose. This restores good faith and builds excellent image value in the long haul.

Of course, whether the corporate 9-5ers will ever consider this solution feasible is a different story. As the saying goes, ''You're only as good as your last quarter.'' and for as long as this culture and attitude persists, the only mission they'll be blindly faithful to is creating the path of least resistance to handsome short term bottom lines, no matter how compelling the case for 'Doing the right thing' is.

[Jukebox]

Betfair goes down and some people got stuck with an open position they could do nothing about - the risk is always there and we can't say we aren't aware of the risk as Betfair have not been unclear in their terms.

But now we have an extra dimension as some bets were matched during the outage (I'm not meaning Keep in Play bets)- how did these get matched? Were Betfair's own traders unaffected by the outage? Who matched my open bet at 15:07 (Time recorded by Betfair as Matched Time) when all contact was lost before then? The 15:10 was off at 15:10:14 (according to Sporting Life) so it wasn't a failure to suspend and an early off.