RSSCategory: Betfair

120% Premium charge!

120% Premium charge!

As premium charge payers know it’s PC day today. What a surprise then to see Betfair have double debited my account. So this week I paid 120% premium charge, ouch!

Obviously a mistake, but I suggest all premium charge payers check their account immediately and flag it to Betfair. It looks like everybody is affected. Nice timing Betfair!

[EDIT : About two hours later the duplicate charge was refunded. I imagine this is applicable to everybody, but please check, just …

21/12/2011 | By More
What are the odds?

What are the odds?

A bit of a laugh ahead of the Christmas break. Vote now!

Back when I joined Betfair, nearly 12 years ago now. They sent me a nice diary for my patronage. I didn’t generate much commission for them back then and didn’t write articles, design software for use on Betfair or anything like that. The following year I also received a small gift, and so it continued. Calendars, playing cards and the odd email with seasonal greetings.

About four or …

21/12/2011 | By More
Back to open

Back to open

It looks like we are going to have some fun and games in the market today. I’d recommend adopting a ‘back to open’ trading policy!

For more information read up on this thread: –

https://www.betangel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4934&start=240

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20/12/2011 | By More
Winding down..

Winding down..

We are well on the run in now for the Xmas break now and this are going to get a little quiter as the week rolls on. Quieter apart from at home because the kids are off school now! Racing comes to a close on Thursday and there is no racing on the Friday or Saturday.

Plenty of decent racing on the Saturday just gone and it proved a good days trading. Best result of a good bunch came from …

19/12/2011 | By More
Betfair profits up on flat growth

Betfair profits up on flat growth

See the full press announcement here: –

https://corporate.betfair.com/investor-relations/~/media/Files/B/Betfair/press-releases/2011/2011-12-14.pdf

At first glance revenue (comissions) have declined, but so has the cost of sales, producing an increase in the bottom line. Admin expenses have also fallen adding to the bottom line.

I’ll have a proper read of the full statement when I get into the office. Betfair shares are up a bit in early trading this morning.

If you want an update of content of the conference call, I’ll be tweeting updates: …

14/12/2011 | By More
Betfair results due out tomorrow

Betfair results due out tomorrow

If you can get up early tomorrow morning you will be able to see Betfair’s H1-12 results. The first since the introduction of the most recent premium charge announcement and various other factors. It will be interesting to see what impact all the news coming out of Hammersmith this year has had on the underlying business. It feels to me like growth has slowed, but that they will be able to boost the bottom line thanks to their very aggressive …

13/12/2011 | By More
Betfair maintenance this morning

Betfair maintenance this morning

Please be aware Betfair has site maintenance going on this morning around 7am UK time: –

https://community.betfair.com/service/go/thread/view/94166/28730261/planned-maintenance-wwwbetfaircom-wednesday-30th-november-2011

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30/11/2011 | By More
An ‘interesting’ Saturday

An ‘interesting’ Saturday

Well that was an interesting Saturday. I sort of got the feeling that the day may not go as planned right from the off.

Went shopping with the kids to stock up the office and got back a little late which left me no time to put the stuff away. I just had to dump it on the stairs. Sat down to the early start and immediately realised there was a problem… The Internet was at a virtual standstill. I …

28/11/2011 | By More
The fifth, five years on

The fifth, five years on

It’s the fighting fifth at Newcastle today. It’s often a small field and can be a bit tricky, but it usually contains some opportunities. Only five runners and Binocular is almost evens, that’s a tricky set up.

It’s also the Hennessy Gold Cup. I have fond memories of this race as five years ago today I traded it live at the IX Investor show for Betfair. Seeing a betting company at an investor show was a shock for many people …

26/11/2011 | By More
Quietly moving ahead..

Quietly moving ahead..

It’s interesting to see that liquidity and market conditions continue to improve on Betdaq. It’s quite possible to sqeeze someting out of most races now and thanks to the favourable commission rate it’s proving a good use of my time. We appear to have gone from waiting for perfect market conditions to a wider range of acceptable reasons to participate, which is encouraging.

I’d honestly recommend using both major exchanges as competition is good in all markets, but some of …

11/11/2011 | By More
Should Betfair be more secure?

Should Betfair be more secure?

I’ve put a poll up on whether Betfair should be more secure, read on and vote.

As you may / or not be aware, Betfair suffered a security breach not so long ago but choose not to inform customers after consulting on the risks involved in the breach. Personally I feel, whether there was a risk or not, people should have been informed.

The following was recently pointed out to me in the Betfair terms and conditions under the “limitations …

10/11/2011 | By More
That’ll do nicely

That’ll do nicely

I had a feeling Saturday would turn out to be an interesting day, so I pulled out all stops to take advantage. I did well and it was a real pleasure to net my best day ever (At least before commission).

I managed to pick up a lot of decent results from a wide spectrum of events on both exchanges. Thanks to favourable commission rates and favourable liquidity conditions on Betdaq, it meant I found it pretty easy to beat …

17/10/2011 | By More
Book%

Book%

I fielded a question from somebody recently about the book% and what information does that contain?

I’ve seen quite a few theories about what the book% can actually tell you, but here is what it tells me.

At it’s most basic level the book percentage is merely a broad measure of the market. A big number of selections will equate to a big book% and small field a small one. This is due to the spread between back and lay …

13/10/2011 | By More
Dilemma

Dilemma

It’s just gone 08:30 on Wednesday morning and I’m up over £700 on the day already. On Saturday, I sat down to do a decent days work on the exchanges. Across both I earned somewhere between £3.5-4k which was similar to last year, slightly higher as Betdaq is contributing more than it did in prior years. What’s my point?

As you are probably aware I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, have collected a ton of data and …

12/10/2011 | By More
What to do when Betfair API is down

What to do when Betfair API is down

Unfortunately Betfair suffered another outage this afternoon. Here is how I am set up to deal with such issues: –

I always have two version of Bet Angel running. One in API mode and one, with the refresh off, in non API mode (Log in via connection mode 1).

This means I can switch quickly between applications and if I am caught on one I can exit on another. We note that a site crash seems to happen in stages …

24/09/2011 | By More
Betfair AGM pt. 2

Betfair AGM pt. 2

Having been to many AGM’s in the past I didn’t expect much from Betfair’s first AGM.

I almost didn’t get in as Betfair were blocking access to people who have nominee accounts. Not many people own shares directly any longer, but I’d never been blocked access to an AGM before despite this. However, I had contacted Betfair directly before the AGM to indicate that I was going to attend; so this piece of foresight was enough to get over this …

23/09/2011 | By More
Betfair AGM

Betfair AGM

By the time you read this I should be ensconced in my position at the Betfair AGM.

When Betfair listed I took a look at the prospectus and felt the company was fairly richly valued given the outlook and nature of the IPO. I wrote for a financial magazine for three years in another life, so I was in a great position to be a judge of the IPO. I put pen to paper and detailed my rationale which was …

22/09/2011 | By More
Good old fashioned gambling

Good old fashioned gambling

Since Betfair introduced new charges for their most successful customers, me included. I’ve done a fair bit of work all over the place. Back on Betfair, no matter how easy the opportunity, I can’t tell you just how difficult it is to actually do something that you know will result in the loss of 60% of your profit, I don’t know about others, but I really struggle to do it.

So, I’ve done some additional work on Betfair by looking …

21/09/2011 | By More
Betfair revenue down 7%

Betfair revenue down 7%

Full regulatory news release available from the following link: –

https://www.investegate.co.uk/article.aspx?id=201109060700136723N&fe=1

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06/09/2011 | By More
Betfair suffer DNS hack

Betfair suffer DNS hack

Betfair and a number of popular web sites suffered when hackers changed their DNS records to redirect their visitors to their site. It’s important to note that the site itself was not hacked. For the full story read the following link: –

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/09/04/dns-hack-hits-popular-websites-telegraph-register-ups-etc/

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05/09/2011 | By More
The right connections

The right connections

First a history lesson.

A long time ago Betfair offered unfettered access to their servers. You could smash into their servers by requesting price information at will. Back then there was no API and you could only screen scrape information from Betfair. Because of this an arms race developed and Betfair considered banning the bots, but thankfully that never happened. What actually happened was an API was born and Betfair started slowly but surely changing the way their site …

26/08/2011 | By More
Eye Watering

Eye Watering

I’ve been playing around with spreadsheets and a number of other strategies recently. With the increase in commission charges levied against me, I figured it would make sense to look outside my normal activity. While it’s flattering to know you are better than 99.9% of market participants have ever been, it’s less flattering to give away the majority of your profit! By ‘normal activity’ I am talking ‘active’ participation. I now have a very big incentive to find less manual …

25/08/2011 | By More
Look, no hands…

Look, no hands…

One upshot of Betfair’s recently decision to increase their rake from more successful users like myself is that I have revisited my love of interacting on the exchanges with spreadsheets.

I have taken some time out from ‘normal’ trading to work on spreadsheets a bit more. This is to see if I can create something that works fully automatically for me where the payoff will now be particularly high as it takes none of my time to execute. When something …

19/08/2011 | By More
York Ebor meeting

York Ebor meeting

Summer racing isn’t over quite yet and today kicks of the Ebor meeting at York. I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year so I am looking for something above average this week. I’m going to give Betdaq a good go this week at York as liquidity is rising and I suspect I can get something decent out of some of these races. I’m keen to get some decent practice in. If you look at my Ebor result from …

17/08/2011 | By More
Betfair’s LMAX loses £13.2m in first year

Betfair’s LMAX loses £13.2m in first year

Betfair’s majority owned financial trading product LMAX recorded pre-tax losses of £13.2m for the year ended 30 April, Betfair’s annual report has shown. Full story: –

https://www.egrmagazine.com/news/

I think LMAX  is going to continue to be a burden for Betfair. There are already very good solutions in place in this market and despite the suggestion it’s a new way, most new users have found that the markets are heavily seeded and the fill rates poor. It’s got a long way …

15/08/2011 | By More
A sea of red

A sea of red

Fortunately this doesn’t reflect my betting exchange activity, tepid though it is this week. The title refers to the chaos in financial markets. As a lot of your know I am heavily invested in financials and it’s part of my grander plan to eventually sit on my bottom each day doing nothing. I’ve been actively investing since 1990 and messing around for longer than that. It was gambling that lead me to the great casino of the lot, the stock …

09/08/2011 | By More
Phone call from Betfair

Phone call from Betfair

A few weeks I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognise. It was Betfair telling me I was now going to pay 60% of my profit to them. Or not as it turned out!

I tagged a name to that number so if they phoned again I would know who it was. Yesterday that number rang again, right in the middle of trading, thanks. What could Betfair be doing phoning me in the middle of Goodwood? Curious …

28/07/2011 | By More
Betfair International Stakes

Betfair International Stakes

Couldn’t resist posting up this P&L on this race from yesterday. OK I got more on Betfair, a bit, but nowhere near the same when if deduct a 60% commission.

You should always do what is best for you, especially in a trading market, but look at my circumstances. It’s a strange feeling to only be able to earn 40% what others can earn by doing exactly the same thing. I can teach people how to do similar things and …

24/07/2011 | By More
Betfair – Cross matching

Betfair – Cross matching

Cross matching has slowly been implemented across many sports markets on Betfair and earlier this year on the big one, horse racing.

There are still some odd things with cross matching. Prices for the API and for the Betfair web site are different. This is because cross matching is not exposed via the API. We put the cross matching algorithm into Bet Angel, but quite a large number of API applications still show the ‘wrong’ prices. Betfair also never tell …

22/07/2011 | By More
IG Index vs Betfair

IG Index vs Betfair

IG Index released year end results yesterday and they make interesting reading when compared to Betfair. I quite like comparing IG Index and Betfair as they are both spread betting companies, moreso now than ever. Now they are both listed companies, its possible to draw some rough lines around both businesses. Comparisons to IG helped me decide that Betfair was way overvalued when they listed.

Revenues are fairly similar across both businesses but margins at IG are much higher and …

21/07/2011 | By More
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