What is the rationale behind the in-play delay?

[superfrank]

I can understand it for football because they are much slower moving markets and they need time to suspend the market when a goal is scored.

But who actually benefits from an in-play delay in horse races? We all know that people are seeing the action with variable delays (track/SIS/ATR/RUK) so all it does is add another 2 seconds delay for each method.

It makes no sense to me.

I think that removing the delay would open up the market for lots more strategies and would increase turnover.

What do you think?

[davetimmins]

I agree. In play delay increases the reaction time for those without an advantage of faster pictures, in effect handing them a further advantage. In other words the person who instigates the bet knows the market will not be able to react instantly (allowing a counter trade, knowing how the market will react to the initial trade) and thus has an increased advantage. Removing the delay would level the playing field somewhat imo.

[freddy]

The delay does not stop people with fast pictures having a advantage over others i agree.
but it does / should stop people being able to bet after the event has finished, which i belive is what the gambling commsion have a issue with.

the other option i suppose would be to have no delay but suspend the race much much earlier.

[Dabbla]

Basically its so that the home player has time to cancel a bet over/court/ track/pitch side, fast pic players.
It is supposed to level the playing field,but its not always the case.
For example
If someone is at a football match with no delay.
As soon as a goal is scored they could hoover the market and take my bet .
With a delay i have time to see the goal and cancel my bet.
Pretty pointless when it comes to IP horses in all honestly. If a horse falls it will hit 1000 before i see the horse fall on my T.V. So i have no time to cancel a my bet.
So imo they would be better off increasing the delay .
The fast pic boys would still be first to the 1000, but I would have been able to cancel any bets i had lined up. Giving me back some advantage.

[superfrank]

The delay does not stop people with fast pictures having a advantage over others i agree.
but it does / should stop people being able to bet after the event has finished, which i belive is what the gambling commsion have a issue with.

the other option i suppose would be to have no delay but suspend the race much much earlier.

there are better ways to get around the problem of people betting after the event has ended.

1. Betfair could void all bets placed within the last 2 seconds before the race is suspended, or better still...

2. Betfair suspends the race and then the exact time of the end of the race is calculated and all bets placed after that time are voided.

Either could be written into the T&Cs - the outcome would be that (most sensible) people would stop placing bets in the last few seconds which is no great loss.

I think there would be a big increase in turnover during the rest of the race with no delay.

I would happily trade the numbers in-play using the delayed TV pictures as a rough guide of where we are in the race if there was no delay.

[superfrank]

So imo they would be better off increasing the delay.
The fast pic boys would still be first to the 1000, but I would have been able to cancel any bets i had lined up. Giving me back some advantage.

Increasing the delay to give home players the chance to cancel bets would require a delay of 4+ seconds which would make in-play betting unfeasible for most.

The future has to be to remove the delay and fairly manage the associated issues.

[davetimmins]

I agree with Superfrank. The current delay is of no benefit to anyone who isn't already holding an advantage (e.g.fast pictures). Removing the delay altogether would most likely encourage more in-running players, increasing liquidity (and BF profits!). Increasing the delay on Horse Racing would kill it for me and many others.