Category: Betfair
Betfair awarded licence in Germany
Hot off the news wires, the man from Schleswig Holstein says Jawohl: -
BETFAIR GROUP (“Betfair”) has today been awarded a licence to operate its betting exchange in the German state of Schleswig Holstein.
Following the receipt of the licence for sports betting, Betfair intends to pay 20% of Gross Gaming Revenue derived from Germany to Schleswig Holstein. Based on current revenue run-rates it is envisaged that this payment will reduce Core Betfair’s gross margin by approximately one percentage point.…
Betfair to continue with Racing in Australia
Reports coming in that despite their loss in the recent high profile court case, Betfair appear to have made the decision to continue to offer racing to Australian customers. Here is a copy of the correspondence.
Dear *****,
Many of you will be aware of a recent decision by the High Court of Australia which upheld Racing NSW’s decision to impose a turnover based fee on wagering operators.
Due to the additional cost to Betfair associated with this decision …
Short Betfair!
Page seven of the business section in the Evening Standard today. Thought you may want to see it.
Basically they are saying short because of the GC stuff, which we know is not an issue anyhow, so a poor piece of journalism there. But also because the share buyback has supported the price and that is about to end. I’d say that was a better piece of insight.
Overall, It is going to be a big sporting year so I …
Grand National 2004 style
Interested in seeing what Betfair looked like in 2004?
While busy preparing for this year’s Grand National I went back through the archives. In it I found a few screenshots that I had taken from way back in 2004, I thought I would share them with you. It was around 2004 that I started doing detailed archives of my work.
It’s interesting to see how some things have changed but some haven’t. I haven’t made a note of when these …
Great start at Aintree meeting
Well that went well.
No matter how experienced you are you can never be sure exactly sure what lies ahead each day. You will always be at the mercy of the market. So it’s nice when you find yourself on the right side of that. It’s a bit of a confidence boost for the weekend. The best result of the day we saw on Betfair, came on the first. The best on Betdaq on the last. But both were useful results.…
Betfair miss the chance for some great customer service
First off, on the plus side, the start of the flat turf season was a success, so that was a big positive.
On the downside; how would you feel if minutes into a game of football the match stopped and the team you just backed, decided to field a reserve team instead? Would you like your bet to stand? Thought not!
Yesterday at Meydan the Dubai Gold Cup had to be stopped mid race due to a fatal injury to …
Betfair loses key Australian court case
Racing officials in New South Wales are rejoicing after a years-long challenge to their race fields legislation was this morning thrown out by the High Court.
Read more here – http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-30/racing-nsw-wins-court-battle/3922762/?site=melbourne
Betfair Australasia chief executive Giles Thompson says he respects the court’s decision but says it will reduce the competitiveness of wagering on racing in NSW. “A turnover fee will place extreme pressure on our ability to continue to offer our customers what we believe is the best product in …
Fraud on client funds again?
WorldSpreads recently entered special administration after the company said in a statement that as at close of business on Friday 16 March, the board of directors believed there was a shortfall of some £13m in clients’ money. I offer my sympathy if you have been affected.
Basically it looks like they have been trading using clients funds, though official information is always a big foggy in these cases. If so, it would not the first time a company has done …
Cheltenham day two
That was an OK start to Cheltenham. I’d rank it on the better side of the line. OK because I didn’t break any upside records, but OK because I didn’t do so on the downside either!
Volumes waiting to be matched are higher than last year, they are running at around ten times normal week day levels. The rate at which those orders are filling are only six times normal level so there is quite a big gap in the …
Nightmare
I have a little diary next to my desk. In it I scribble notes on the markets and what happened and any mitigating circumstances. I also keep a spreadsheet where I track what sort of activity I have been up to.
Both are key pointers for me to look at and to set expectations from. If I look on the spreadsheet and see a really good, or really poor day. I’ll flip to the diary to see what actually happened. I …
Betfair continues squeeze on users
Full management statement here: -
http://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2012/06-03-2012.aspx
Having been an active investor for over 20 years, here is my take on the management statement. Management statements always focus on the positive and you have to read a bit deeper than the headlines.
Core revenues up 11%, but no mention of non core revenues, other than ‘they are in line with expectations’. The games products are no longer working and despite being pushed in-front of all users, which personally I find very …
How to avoid Betfair API problems
Unfortunately Betfair suffered two more problems on the API yesterday, adding to the number that have occured on a regular basis recently.
This post is a reminder for everybody that Bet Angel can run in an alternative (non API) mode if you experiance an issue. Using this mode can completely save your bacon if there is an API glitch. It’s a feature that pays for itself, even if it’s just in terms of your peace of mind! You must …
Betfair API problems
Only fair to balance posts out with a note that Betfair experianced API problems this morning!
This was particulary a pain as there are a number of events on this morning that were disrupted.
…
Betfair exits South Africa
With regulatory tangles ongoing in many territories Betfair has hit another bump in South Africa. This is a real shame as South Africa is on the same time zone as the UK. Betfair has already sent out emails to affected customers. Here is an extract of the key elements of the email: -
“We’re writing to inform you that following the recent ruling by the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, Betfair has decided that as of 00:01 GMT on …
Friday 13th unlucky for Betfair
Just days after their latest ‘upgrade’, the Betfair site crashed again. How incredibly frustrating! I’ve lost count of how many times the site has been down over the last year and each time the site is upgraded it seem almost certain now that a major crash follows.
If you want to trade today, why not give Betdaq at go. BetDaqAngel is the same Bet Angel platform you are familiar with but it’s compatible with Betdaq. Best of all its 100% …
Betfair market anomalies
An interesting couple of days so far this week in the markets. Interesting for an anomaly that we have seen. It’s only a couple of days old, so I can’t draw any conclusions just yet, but it is unusual so I thought I’d post about it.
We monitor the markets cloesly and ‘felt’ that matched bet volume on occasion was much higher than we would expect. We noticed this because, in the latter stages of a racing market just before …
Betfair to compensate Leopardstown losers
Hot off the press, just received this email from Betfair: -
“Dear Peter,
Since the 2.00pm race at Leopardstown on 28 December 2011, we’ve looked in detail at all the circumstances surrounding the technology failure and the anomaly it created. In addition, we provided our Gibraltar regulator, the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner (GGC), with a detailed technical and operational report on the incident and the GGC made a number of recommendations. We have also consulted with customers and taken their feedback …
£1k account caused £600m Betfair error
Betfair have issued a statement this afternoon outlining the error that caused the exchange to misfire. The full statement is here: -
But here are some bullet points:-
“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 …
How to lay £600m worth of bets on Betfair?
That has to be the #1 question after yesterdays debacle in one of the feature races at Leopardstown.
To summarise, a mysterious lay bet appeared and stayed on the winning favourite at 29′s right up to the finish of the race. The ‘layer’ offered up £21m at 29′s creating a £600m liability. Betfair voided the in-running market.
Betfair have come out officially and ruled out that it was them or any account controlled by them or that they had a …
Biggest ever loss on Betfair?
One of those remarkable events happened today on Betfair when, in the Christmas hurdle at Leopardstown, Voler La Vedette was offered up in-running for massive money at massive prices despite the fact it won.
Seemingly, over £21m was offered and held in-running to get filled at HUGE prices. £1,642,094 was matched at 29′s meaning the loser would have to pay out £44.8m on their bet at 29′s. In order to be able to just place the bet the user would …
Satisfying chaos
OK, yesterday didn’t seem that chaotic in the end, just a bit frustrating. I had to wait ages to find races that really set themselves up nicely, but eventually I did and they were OK. But it was a little dull overall.
Kauto Star lit up the day when I took a few races off to watch the King George VI produce a bit of history. What a great horse we have been treated to and it looks like we …
120% Premium charge!
As premium charge payers know it’s PC day today. What a surprise then to see Betfair have double debited my account. So this week I paid 120% premium charge, ouch!
Obviously a mistake, but I suggest all premium charge payers check their account immediately and flag it to Betfair. It looks like everybody is affected. Nice timing Betfair!
[EDIT : About two hours later the duplicate charge was refunded. I imagine this is applicable to everybody, but please check, just …
What are the odds?
A bit of a laugh ahead of the Christmas break. Vote now!
Back when I joined Betfair, nearly 12 years ago now. They sent me a nice diary for my patronage. I didn’t generate much commission for them back then and didn’t write articles, design software for use on Betfair or anything like that. The following year I also received a small gift, and so it continued. Calendars, playing cards and the odd email with seasonal greetings.
About four or …
Back to open
It looks like we are going to have some fun and games in the market today. I’d recommend adopting a ‘back to open’ trading policy!
For more information read up on this thread: -
http://www.betangel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4934&start=240…
Winding down..
We are well on the run in now for the Xmas break now and this are going to get a little quiter as the week rolls on. Quieter apart from at home because the kids are off school now! Racing comes to a close on Thursday and there is no racing on the Friday or Saturday.
Plenty of decent racing on the Saturday just gone and it proved a good days trading. Best result of a good bunch came from …
Betfair profits up on flat growth
See the full press announcement here: -
At first glance revenue (comissions) have declined, but so has the cost of sales, producing an increase in the bottom line. Admin expenses have also fallen adding to the bottom line.
I’ll have a proper read of the full statement when I get into the office. Betfair shares are up a bit in early trading this morning.
If you want an update of content of the conference call, I’ll be tweeting updates: …
Betfair results due out tomorrow
If you can get up early tomorrow morning you will be able to see Betfair’s H1-12 results. The first since the introduction of the most recent premium charge announcement and various other factors. It will be interesting to see what impact all the news coming out of Hammersmith this year has had on the underlying business. It feels to me like growth has slowed, but that they will be able to boost the bottom line thanks to their very aggressive …
Betfair maintenance this morning
Please be aware Betfair has site maintenance going on this morning around 7am UK time: -
An ‘interesting’ Saturday
Well that was an interesting Saturday. I sort of got the feeling that the day may not go as planned right from the off.
Went shopping with the kids to stock up the office and got back a little late which left me no time to put the stuff away. I just had to dump it on the stairs. Sat down to the early start and immediately realised there was a problem… The Internet was at a virtual standstill. I …
The fifth, five years on
It’s the fighting fifth at Newcastle today. It’s often a small field and can be a bit tricky, but it usually contains some opportunities. Only five runners and Binocular is almost evens, that’s a tricky set up.
It’s also the Hennessy Gold Cup. I have fond memories of this race as five years ago today I traded it live at the IX Investor show for Betfair. Seeing a betting company at an investor show was a shock for many people …
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