Posts Tagged outage
Betfair down, again!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 16th, 2011
Just two days before Betfair are due to impose massive increases in costs on their users, they face yet another major outage on their site.
You just can’t really believe it’s possible to get much worse PR for Betfair, but somehow they manage to pull another shocker out of the hat. It’s really quite incredible. You think the least they could do was quickly put a message up on their service page.
Betfair clarify outage policy
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on May 5th, 2011
A positive move from Betfair to help people out when the site goes down, credit to Betfair for addressing these long held concerns. For the full detail of the statement click on the following link: -
https://promotions.betfair.com/customer … -update-uk
Betfair have also clarified what constitutes an outage: -
“In the event of an unplanned Sports Exchange outage, we will disable the betting functionality across all channels, ensuring a level playing field. However, should Betfair Mobile and/or our API go down, you will be able to continue betting on the Sports Exchange and this will not constitute an outage.”
This is a big plus for Bet Angel users as Bet Angel can still work via it’s unique connection mode concept even if the API is down. This feature alone can save you a tidy sum by allowing you to exit a bad position in the event of an API problem, of which there have been a fair few already this year.
Well done Betfair for bringing some clarity to the outage issue. There are still some potential issues here, but at least there is a clear policy to be adhered to. Most people didn’t have a clue what the status was in previous outages. At least we now know what it should be.
Betfair offer an explanation
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on March 13th, 2011
Betfair have offered an explanation of the significant outage yesterday, to view it click on the following link: -
https://promotions.betfair.com/explanation
They have promised to attempt to do any further work on the site for the whole of next week.
What a joke!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on March 12th, 2011
Just two days before Cheltenham we find ourselves facing another Betfair outage. Not just that, but this is the second day in a row that the site has been offline. This is the worst period for reliability I can remember on Betfair.
Some years ago Betfair used to boast about how many transactions they did per day, but that took a back seat when the focus turned to reducing the load on the system, which no doubt reduced costs also. All high volume users took this on board and adjusted the way they interact with Betfair to help achieve a system that should have been more stable. But we now find ourselves with a system that is clearly struggling to fulfill normal functioning.
Just months after they came to the stock market with a very high valution it must be very embarrasing for Betfair to face such issues. Given the re-appraisal of the market valuation of Betfair, I doubt whether all these recent issues is going to help credibility with new shareholders.
If you want to trade today, it seems the volumes are holding up well on Betdaq so I suggest you head over there if your fingers are itchy, I just had a really good experiance on the feature race at Sandown where the race had matched bet turnover of £1,037,385 at the off.
To download the Betdaq version of Bet Angel visit www.betdaqangel.com
Not again!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on February 20th, 2011
Got back to my desk on Sunday evening to see that Betfair had been offline again on Sunday afternoon. My commiserations for anybody that was caught out. I had some spreadsheets running but, fortunately, they were not completely caught out; only a minor hit. I am relatively inactive at the moment as the February is a good period to take time out with the family. I work very hard in the Summer, so this time of the year is when I can take time off, forget about emails and the markets and do so without too much impact on the bottom line. I’ll often take some time off this month and prepare for peak season and get ready to kick off some new projects.
I’m surprised to see Betfair down on a quiet Sunday, it is very unexpected. I just wish we had some better explanation of what is going on. Till we can have a week without problems, I’ll need to put a new key on the keyboard.
Where Angel’s don’t fear to tread
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on February 8th, 2011
Just over a week ago we had the Betfair upgrade and first outage.
Betfair has a chequered history of outage’s, but have been much better in recent years. Because Bet Angel was around before the API was created, we have always maintained a dual mode of operation. You can connect to Betfair via non API (The website) or API modes.
I tend to connect by the API but I have both available at all times, just in case there is a problem at Betfair’s end. One of the characteristics that we saw last week was that Betfair had a tendancy to bring the website back up first after an outage. Therefore Bet Angel users were able to get online quicker than others. At moments like this timing can be critical, especially if you have an open position. This capability in Bet Angel pretty much pays for itself alone, in this mode Bet Angel becomes an insurance policy. I traded where others didn’t last Monday and that paid good dividends on what was a tough week in general.
The other side effect from last week is that I gathered data on how the market acted when the API was down. By doing this we could ‘see’ what effect knocking out the API had on the market and its participants. It was a unique opportunity to get under the skin of the market. So, there you have it. While it created some problems, it was also an opportunity.
Let’s hope things are back to normal now and we can settle into a ‘normal’ pattern again. Only thirty five days to Cheltenham!
The market was very different last Monday afternoon
Down, Down
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on February 5th, 2011
I would like to give you an update as to how February is going, I’ll let you know when I can log into Betfair!
It’s been the worst week for Betfair for some time. If Betfair would like to offer up some more detailed explanation I am sure we can all make a better judgement as to why the site is less stable than ever recently. In the absence of that we will have to speculate why a company that recently floated for over £1.5bn, can’t keep their shop open for business.
Over the last few years we have accepted more general charges, transaction charges, data usage charges, premium charges and variations on terms that we felt were there to support the infrastructure and investment. That this doesn’t seem to be happening, is a little perplexing; perhaps even worrying. But hell, at least I can play on some arcade games or fund some poker promotion.
February is traditionally the time of year that I take a fair bit of time off. When my father passed away I took most of February off and as it’s a quiet time of the year anyhow, I’ve slipped into this modus operandi. It’s good and a worthwhile exercise to do anyhow. You can lay down some plans for the rest of the year and contemplate the last year, while enjoying some hard earn rest. I think it may be well timed this year!
Let’s hope we get a return to the expected status quo soon. Speaking of which (Showing my age): -
More Betfair problems today
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 31st, 2010
Last night there was a significant site outage, followed by issues for international customers. At 11am this morning the API went offline again.
It’s been a terrible week for Betfair. I know that due to the measures Betfair have taken in recent years the stress on their servers much be much lower on a like for like basis than in years gone by. So I am not sure why these issues have been occurring on such a frequent basis this year? While possible, it seems unlikely that all these issues occurred in isolation without some fundamental underlying, more general issue? I am aware that Betfair face many technical challenges, but I think it would be good if they came forward with a detailed explanation of what is behind all these problems to help restore confidence.
Just a reminder that you can still use Bet Angel even without the API. A small investment at less than 41p a day to have access if you are not a Bet Angel user already.