Category: Betfair
Germany set to backtrack on Gambling laws
Recently the Germany state of Schleswig-Holstein, to much fanfare, announced the licensing of three operators in it’s territory, myBet, Betfair and Nordwest Lotto. Three weeks later, operators Bwin, Bet365, BetAtHome and Tipico were also approved with their gaming licenses.
However the state recently announced a shock decision to return to German’s Interstate Gambling Treaty. Ralf Stegner had the following to say according to EGR:
“We are beginning to clear the minefield in the German gambling legislation left by our predecessors …
Betfair implement new turnover charge
News from Australia this morning that Betfair are to implement a turnover charge on customers, full details: –
https://betfair.com.au/turnovercharge/
In case you were not aware, a high court ruling this year in Australia has switched the law from a gross profits tax to a turnover based revenue fee for racing. This doesn’t affect the well established and politically well oiledl, but slightly ancient and backward thinking, incumbents in Australia; but does have a significant impact on the new entrants like …
Judicial Review rules in favour of Betfair
Full press release here: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2012.aspx
Basically William Hill have lost their case, which was arguing that an undefined group of Betfair customers should paying levy on profits. This premise carefully ignored the fact that Betfair customers already pay levy via Betfair by proxy and brushed over a number of other contradictory issues. From my view point and that of the friend of mine who is in the legal profession, it looked more like a competitive action than a legal …
Cyprus legislates against Betfair
The Cypriot government announced on Friday legislation that aims to restricts products that gambling operators can offer in the country. Product restrictions included processes that are “designed to facilitate the receipt or acceptance of bets between players”.
Betfair announced this morning that they intended to challenge the decision as “the company believes that the legislation contains serious flaws and, in certain areas, is inconsistent with European Union law. “
Betfair also announced that Cyprus “generated approximately 4% of revenue from …
Betfair revenue down, profits up
Betfair have released their FY12 results this morning and it shows top line revenue down 1% but underlying earnings up 46%. ‘Underlying’ figures are a bit different though, but until we see the presentation it’s difficult to know the exact detail behind the figures or how it was generated. Full result annoucement here: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2012/29-06-2012.aspx
Generally speaking, ‘Revenue’ is commision earned from customers, so that appears to have fallen or on an ‘underlying basis’ not grown much. From what I …
Royal Ascot trading review
This was an interesting year at Royal Ascot. The obvious highlights were Frankel’s win and Black Caviar’s close call. I thought the Duke of Edinburgh presenting his wife with a trophy was also a moment to remember, surprised to see no caption competitions on that!
Overall, according to Betfair’s statistics, £92.6m was traded before the off, up from £73m the year before. However, that included to races at incredibly short prices. If you strip those out and add back average …
Betfair fixed odds sportsbook launched
I’ve just seen a promo banner appear on Betfair which gave details on how the sportsbook will look and work. You can find out more details here: –
https://promotions.betfair.com/fixed-odds-uk
It looks like we finally have the launch of the sportsbook. Clicking into Euro 2012 football market provides the option to view both fixed odds and exchange odds. Exchanges odds are way better than the fixed odds. I can’t see any value add to a customer on placing a fixed odds …
Now Spain says yes and no to Betfair
Betfair confirmed today that thier exchange will be unavailable in Spain from early June upon receipt of a new gaming license.
It seems Betfair have been granted a licence for a sportsbook and will ‘transfer’ exchange customers to the sportsbook. But the exchange will be shut down while, “Betfair continues its constructive dialogue with the Spanish regulatory authorities and looks forward to working with them in the near future on the licensing of betting exchanges.”
Full details here: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2012/23-05-2012.aspx…
Goldman Sachs sells off entire Betfair LMAX stake
Missed this the first time around but thought it was of interest.
INVESTMENT bank Goldman Sachs has sold out its investment in LMAX, the online trading platform owned by Betfair. The bank’s exit comes as the platform struggles to live up to its earlier expectations. Its chief executive left last year as trading volumes failed to live up to hopes. Betfair said that its decision to invest a further £10m in LMAX diluted Goldman’s 12.5 per cent shareholding to less …
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 …
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 – https://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. …
Betfair continues squeeze on users
Full management statement here: –
https://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 …
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