Smarkets public API

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weemac
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Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2013 8:16 pm

"If the erroneous bet was matched at a price of +-15% of the fair market price at the time, Smarkets reserves the right to void the bet."

A betting exchange is not a bookmaker; the very idea of erroneous pricing is erroneous.
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LeTiss
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weemac wrote:
Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:28 am
"If the erroneous bet was matched at a price of +-15% of the fair market price at the time, Smarkets reserves the right to void the bet."

A betting exchange is not a bookmaker; the very idea of erroneous pricing is erroneous.
I like the fact he was honest about this, but this policy is the reason I won't be joining them
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Naffman
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How many races has this ever been affected? I don't agree with it but if it is just once then that isn't too bad.

Do these big liquidity players use bots to determine what price they should offer relative to BF or do they do it independently?

Btw it feels like dragons den on here :lol:
spreadbetting
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Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

vide0star wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 11:54 pm
spreadbetting wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:02 pm

" If the erroneous bet was matched at a price of +-15% of the fair market price at the time, Smarkets reserves the right to void the bet."


How many punters have requested bets voided, and how many bets voided for market makers? 15% is a very small window on fluid betting markets.
I don't have that information in front of me but anecdotally I'd say it happens a handful of times per month.

A handful of times for who though? Requests from the market makers I presume?
spreadbetting
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LeTiss wrote:
Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:44 am
weemac wrote:
Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:28 am
"If the erroneous bet was matched at a price of +-15% of the fair market price at the time, Smarkets reserves the right to void the bet."

A betting exchange is not a bookmaker; the very idea of erroneous pricing is erroneous.
I like the fact he was honest about this, but this policy is the reason I won't be joining them
They're an "open kimono betting company" so you'd expect that honestly, LeTiss :)

They're obviously in a catch 22 situation having to appease their market makers with restrictions to the API and palpable bet policies in place in order to guarantee liquidity to the exchange. If they hadn't sold their soul for early liquidity it's unlikely they'd have lasted so for them it was a wise move even though it probably caps your likely growth. I guess the big payday is just around the corner if they play their cards right though.



https://youtu.be/3p-9o9EQ4OQ
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northbound
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spreadbetting wrote:
Tue Jun 05, 2018 11:33 am
They're obviously in a catch 22 situation having to appease their market makers with restrictions to the API
+1

Which is why I have doubts about them posing a serious threat to Betfair.
Trading96
Posts: 470
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2017 4:47 pm

Yeah that would be interesting to know if they void the other way (in practice), ie a customer making a mistake and the market maker benefiting.

Also if the market maker complains then the event happens and the customer loses do they void it or keep quiet.
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Dallas
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Reading between the lines I'm beginning to see it as;

If someone takes a market makers price which they deem to be 15% outside a fair market price (ie, the market maker didn't remove their money quick enough following news or they simply offered the wrong odds in the first place) then the result goes against them up to 60 mins afterwards the bets can be voided if they notify Smarkets

For a punter, this means they don't know if they have gotten a value price and will get their winnings or if its a step to much value taken from a MM and wont know if it will be voided till around 2hrs after the result
For a trader its an even bigger nightmare, you could close a position to find your opening side later voided or a closed position voided leaving a sizeable open position standing - in short, you also don't know where you're at for certain till around 2 hours after the result

So you can use Smarkets but any price you take not in line with whats available on bf at the time has a good chance of being voided if it belonged to a MM and it was far enough off the BF price or it changed suddenly and the MM was too slow?

Hope I'm wrong otherwise, it defeats the purpose of being an exchange - so some further clarification would help
vide0star
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:19 pm
Location: London

You guys are really confusing me. This isn't anywhere close to a catch 22 situation.

The erroneous trade policy is Standard Operating Procedure for any financial exchange. When I traded on NASDAQ trades got busted with some regularity. It governs how mistakes are handled, whether by a market maker or customer. From the point of view of the exchange, it doesn't matter who the counterparties are.

This policy kicks in in very very very rare circumstances. It's not a policy that anywhere near lets a market maker cherry pick and bust trades it doesn't like.

I'm happy to host a conference call if 1+ of you are interested. You can bring your best dragons den questions and I can practice for my internal townhall meetings when I get grilled by my staff :-)
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Derek27
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vide0star wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:54 pm
The erroneous trade policy is Standard Operating Procedure for any financial exchange.
This isn't a financial exchange, it's a sports betting exchange and it certainly doesn't happen on Betfair.
vide0star wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:54 pm
This policy kicks in in very very very rare circumstances.
If I can lose £5,000 because I didn't know that an opening or exit trade is going to be voided, even if it is in very very very rare circumstances, I simply wouldn't have anything to do with that exchange.
vide0star
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Derek27 wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:07 pm
vide0star wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:54 pm
The erroneous trade policy is Standard Operating Procedure for any financial exchange.
This isn't a financial exchange, it's a sports betting exchange and it certainly doesn't happen on Betfair.
vide0star wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:54 pm
This policy kicks in in very very very rare circumstances.
If I can lose £5,000 because I didn't know that an opening or exit trade is going to be voided, even if it is in very very very rare circumstances, I simply wouldn't have anything to do with that exchange.
Why isn't it a financial exchange? It trades event future contracts. Also what difference does it make sports vs finance?

Why would you "lose" £5k? This happens so rarely. It's constructed to protect customers, not injure them.
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Derek27
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vide0star wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:38 pm
Why would you "lose" £5k? This happens so rarely. It's constructed to protect customers, not injure them.
I'm sorry, I thought you would have a basic understanding of how trading works!!

Nobody wants to lose £5K AT ALL, the fact that it rarely happens is no consolation!!!

A simple example: Place a £400 back bet on a horse at 13.0. Lay the horse at 9.0 for £577.78 for a £177.78 profit.

Now, if on one of the very very rare occasions the £400 back bet was voided I could potentially lose my liability on the lay bet of £4,622.24.

Trading is all about spotting bargains - it's possible to lay a horse at half the price you backed it at for a 100% profit. 15% is a very small margin to be applying this policy.

It could be argued that any bet that loses was a mistake/error - that's the whole point of betting, taking advantage of other peoples errors.
Last edited by Derek27 on Thu Jun 07, 2018 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Trading96
Posts: 470
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You may trust your current government but what about the next one? You don't want the government having too much power even if you trust them, because of the precedent it sets.

Similar thing with exchanges.

Smarkets may have your best interests at heart, but what about Smarkets in 5 years time, or the next exchange to come along? That is fundamentally the problem, even if you trust Smarkets to use it reasonably.
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Derek27
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What about these lay bets at the bottom - do they all get voided?
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spreadbetting
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I'd imagine it depends on the outcome of the race and who backers/layers were :)
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