How "safe" is in-play trading?

[ShaunWhite]

Not sure you're so much a Devil's Advocate , Shaun, more of a contrarian and Betfair apologist. I was told football liquidity actually rose 20% due to the fact the matches were televised and spread out.

contrarian maybe but I m not an apologist, I just know that no situation is black or white and find it comical that so many people say that they know how $6bn mega successful Paddy Power should be run when their empire doesn't extend beyond their spare room. At least I've got some relevant experience to support my position.

Footy up 20%, UK horses down 100%

[ShaunWhite]

To clarify I'm not saying Betfair are doing well or that these things aren't a massive pain. I'm just saying that you play the hand you're dealt and negativity has zero positive effect. Yeah life isn't fair and everyone is conspiring to make life harder, deal with it. And if there's a better way then I'd like to know it.

[Kai]

All I ask for

[spreadbetting]

contrarian maybe but I m not an apologist, I just know that no situation is black or white and find it comical that so many people say that they know how $6bn mega successful Paddy Power should be run when their empire doesn't extend beyond their spare room. At least I've got some relevant experience to support my position.

Once again you're the only one with the wisdom , Shaun, because no one else has worked outside their bedrooms . Plus I've yet to see anyone giving them advice on how they should be running the business other than pointing out their continual cock-ups and incompetence.

I see they put the Salisbury 17:05 in play because they were trotting down to the start The whole operation is becoming a shambles even if you can't see it .

[Kai]

How I imagine Betfair interns manage racing and football markets nowadays.

[rik]

Been doing a bit of football last few months and there really have been many instances poorly managed by betfair.
there was a huge problem on juventus game couple weeks ago, i know there is some guys on fast feeds speculating on dangerous counterattacks etc but there have been multiple clear late suspensions on smaller leagues and even italy that havent been voided, also VAR you have to be quite careful, lost big one time when they called a penalty on a situation that happened like a minute prior, which probably my own and VAR fault than betfair but feel there could be better ruling on VAR by betfair and definitely not safe bookmaking football markets without paying 100% attention can easily be „unsafe“

Opening question probably wondering more about server outages, might have been slightly more than used to but always have to expect that so never stake more than can afford to lose, however might just get lucky people make too big a deal of it
At least they improved suspending for Australian Racing which used to be consistently 4/5 seconds late which made market making „unsafe“, now they are on time so credit for that

[Selmer]

Opening question probably wondering more about server outages, might have been slightly more than used to but always have to expect that so never stake more than can afford to lose, however might just get lucky people make too big a deal of it

Yes, messy VAR suspensions don`t bother me too much because markets eventually reopen. Even if you get caught up by the wrong settling, you can expect that later they will resettle everything correctly just like they did on the Juve v Lazio game. I was on it and even though it was quite surprising to see my bets void for no reason, I knew I hadn`t placed any bets during VAR time, so I just continued trading with those bets in mind as if they hadn`t been void. For that, you just have to watch the game. But if markets remain suspended then I`m screwed. I understand that sooner or later it will happen, so I`m just trying to figure out the chances of that.

So that OP can see how unreliable Betfair can be at times if he hasn't already, he did say his exposures would get very high so his approach might be more vulnerable than most other approaches.

OP has to fully cover his bases and make sure he isn't overexposing in general compared to his profits etc, my own risk management on football was obviously crap years ago but it's a lot more sensible now and I'm okay with my exposure ratios versus profit or reward ratios, my football P&L for last month close to equaled my working 6k bank so I am okay with all the ratios, and if I'm extremely unlucky I may lose a chunk here or there due to a Betfair cockup, like I already did, so I'm okay with that being part of it although I'm probably due a win somewhere, but I do still keep a Betdaq account in reserve. Btw OP can also use the Betfair Sportsbook to close a trade if it's still up during an outage, it's not ideal but I used it once for cover.

And yeah, I'm aware of your automation perspective and that you probably don't care one bit about outages and disruptions of service because your stuff smoothly evens out, which is a good thing to have, but if OP wrecks his whole bank on one market and thus abandons his strategy there's no such thing as evening out long-term!

Kai, thank you for your post, it made me see that my risk management is quite poor. I`m definitely overexposing. It would take me about 150-200 successful trades to recover from a potential outage loss. I`m still in my first year of active trading, so there is a lot to learn. Also, I`m trying to grow my bank as quickly as possible to start getting a decent return and go full-time. It`s very tempting to be more aggressive than you should and throw your whole bank every time you trade.
I already thought about Betfair Sportsbook, but the odds they offer are awful. I remember laying 0.5 goals on the exchange with the odds 26 and the Sportsbook was offering only 14. I guess, the best options would be opening an account with Betdaq and avoiding lower league games.

[Kai]

I already thought about Betfair Sportsbook, but the odds they offer are awful. I remember laying 0.5 goals on the exchange with the odds 26 and the Sportsbook was offering only 14. I guess, the best options would be opening an account with Betdaq and avoiding lower league games.

Sportsbook does indeed suck but you can at least use the same balance to close and do it fast when in a pinch. Never placed any other bets on Sportsbook other than to close a trade, iirc the price difference cost me something like 200 but that's far better than the alternative, which was risking whatever few thousand I had exposed on a random dodgy bet.

Regarding your strategy if you're laying something high like under 0.5s maybe try and see if you can make it work from the back side instead, as you know 0-0 and under 0.5 goals is the same market so idk, try and tweak it if possible to manage risk more sensibly. If not, can always start working on other strategies.

[rik]

not limited by the sportsbook yet? betfair very soft 3 years ago, was able to bet quite large amounts especially inrunning football, where prices where 5-10% off, like 1,5 on sportsbook, 1,4 exchange, 1.8 1,7 etc and limit was up to 5000 on the big games
they might not be as soft though anymore

[Kai]

Idk, never arbed anything ever, would rather keep Sportsbook as a last resort outage option I think.

[jamesedwards]

On live video feed and with my own eyes I just watched Trap 4 win the 20:27 at Yarmouth

T4.PNG

[ShaunWhite]

On live video feed and with my own eyes I just watched Trap 4 win the 20:27 at Yarmouth

That's a classic, Tyrap Colon(4) was put in as a late reserve when Bogside Drama(4) was pulled. I think the market has been voided as you'd hope, it's not in my PL anyway.

[jamesedwards]

On live video feed and with my own eyes I just watched Trap 4 win the 20:27 at Yarmouth

That's a classic, Tyrap Colon(4) was put in as a late reserve when Bogside Drama(4) was pulled. I think the market has been voided as you'd hope, it's not in my PL anyway.

To be honest if the market has been voided for a late reserve then fair enough. I only saw it as the race was running so didn't know.