Betfair Suspension of Markets

[pythonic]

The problem is: If they offer a market as "managed inplay" and then their feed becomes unreliable, then everyone who offers liquidity and doesn't have his own special feed (not TV pictures) risks getting picked off and that would undermine their credibility to manage a market inplay and ultimately kill liquidity.
They experimented with unmanaged live events before and there was no liquidity at all.
So it's a wise decision to just suspend the market if the feed becomes unreliable.
In big markets it hardly happens anyway.

[weemac]

Is it OK for them to go back on their advertised service? No, and I think they'd agree. But, like other exchanges, they cover themselves with so-called 'Terms and Conditions' and that will always let these firms off the hook. I don't think that will ever change.

[spreadbetting]

Second, I think you've got a misconception of how in play works (for football at least). It is always outsourced and always someone at the venue with a device to suspend the market. It is never something which demands an extra set of hands on Betfair's end. It's never actively managed by Betfair.

If that's the case it's no surprise they'll need a separate source than the sportsbook, the sortsbook will just receive up to date data along with many other books and actively manage their own odds/positions whereas if the guy on course is actively suspending the Betfair market you'd assume they'd be different people/devices especially as the SB is receiving data but exchange not. Maybe the BF terminal was broken who knows but it wouldn't make sense that Betfair didn't use the feed if it was available to them regardless of the amounts being matched.

Third, as per the second point it matters little that it's Finland. The service provider offers a service which includes Finland. They have to, because there might be bigger and more important matches coming up in these outskirts of Europe, so they'll need staff already hired and trained in using the device. What matters in the real world is that the home team here, RoPS, have a home match in an Europa League qual in two weeks against Aberdeen, which will surely have well beyond 3k matched pre, and the cheap service provider isn't reliable in this part of Europe. If RoPS sneak into the group stages and are drawn against Man United, it's really going to matter.

I'd imagine they'll put a bit more effort into ensuring a match against Man Utd is better managed than against IFK Mariehamn. Regardless of possible upcoming matches you're not going to get the same effort put into a game turning over £3K compared to possibly millions and you need to manage any positions accordingly. Expecting Betfair to use some games as 'loss leaders' just isn't going to happen.