If the British legal betting companies offer bets on the sport, it is because there is demand for bets on the sport —and if that demand were not offered in a regulated environment, it would be filled in an unregulated one (like what we see with TradeSports-InTrade and MatchBook in the US market).
Chris F. Masse April 28th, 2008
Mark Davies of BetFair (PDF file):
International Leaders in Sport conference, Auckland, New Zealand. April 3-4th 2008.
Keynote speech, April 4th. Mark Davies, Betfair.
“New Understandings in Sports Betting”
Minister, ladies and gentlemen… Thank you very much for your kind invitation to speak to you today. I have once before been asked by sport to address it, as a member of the bookmaking industry, and it was apparent when I got there that they expected me to tell them that sport was their business, and making money out of it was ours. I can tell you that those who spoke to me afterwards said that they left the conference surprised to hear that a bookmaking operation could hold views so different from what they expected. I hope to be able to break down a few perceptions today.
A number of perceptions have grown in recent years in relation to betting and sport which I believe are completely false and misleading, the first of which is that sport suddenly has a new problem as a result of sports betting on the internet.
Betfair is at the forefront of this debate for one very good reason. When we launched the business back in 2000, we did so under the bold slogan “revolutionizing betting”. By that, we meant not just that we planned to revolutionise the experience for the customer, by allowing him better choice, better value, and - for the first time - control over what he did; but, crucially, that we were going to transform the way that betting worked with regulators, both in the sport and government sphere.
The basis of our model was the business that the founding team had come from, in the main, which was the business of finance. I used to trade bonds at JPMorgan, and I can tell you that what our customers do is exactly the same as what I used to do in my previous life, with the single exception that where I had to pore over balance sheets and income statements, they pore over form and team-sheets. It could be argued - indeed, it has been - that they will therefore know a great deal more about the underlying mechanics of their markets than I ever knew of mine; but the principles are exactly the same. You express a view of value about a given outcome or a given currently-traded market price about an outcome. The extent to which this is true was really brought home to me when I was asked to speak at the Swiss Futures and Options Association’s annual gathering at Birkenstock - you can see I get all the good gigs - which was attended by all the leading exchanges of the world: The Chicago Board of Trade; the Swedish stock exchange, whose platform powers another eleven stock exchanges worldwide, the London Clearing House and representatives of the LSE, Nasdaq, and many more. My presence there was an irritation to many: what place had a sports betting exchange at such an event, people wanted to know. But by the end, they were so ready to accept that what happens in the sports betting world and what happens in their world is actually identical that they wanted to know why we weren’t taxed on the same basis.
So we came to the sports betting market saying this: why is it so opaque? And by that, we didn’t mean just, “why is it not clear what the customer is charged?” but “why doesn’t anyone know who is betting? The City had gone through the Big Bang in 1987: the sports betting market was continuing to exist as it had done for most of its legal history: with the power in the hands of a few, and everyone else ignorant of what was going on.
We sought to change that, and at first, people welcomed it. But the more successful we became as a company, the more people - led to a large extent by our commercial competitors - started to change their tune, for a very simple reason: that with transparency came issues which people had never been able to see clearly, and so had always wanted to believe didn’t really exist.
Before I go on, I want to give you a couple of analogies.
The first is perhaps a little high-brow. In his philosophical work Being and Nothingness, the French author Jean-Paul Sartre debates whether anything actually happens if we aren’t there to see it. The example he gives is of a tree falling in a forest. How can we know, he says, that the tree actually fell, unless we saw it happen? Just by virtue of seeing it lying down rather than standing up, he says, we assume it has fallen over. It is an absurdist argument which exists to enable philosophical theorising; but everyone would accept that in reality, you don’t need to witness something to be able to acknowledge that it has happened.
The second analogy is rather closer to home. As I understand it, the speed limit in this country is 100km/h. I would imagine that it was long-suspected that people broke this limit, particularly on the main highway. People observing cars drive past would have had a perception of this, but no evidence for it. Then, one day, someone came up with the idea of a speed camera, and a number were installed. The following week, a number of cars would have been recorded as speeding. Would anyone seriously suggest that what caused the cars to speed was the camera? It is self-evident that the camera did nothing but produce the proof of an existing fact.
The reason for these analogies is this: in recent years, there has been a growing clamour from the media and from sport that there is more corruption today than there ever was, and the cause of it is betting. In same cases, they even claim that the cause of it is Betfair, on the grounds that you will find very few corruption stories in the last seven years that do not mention Betfair, which has led some to argue that if the words ‘Betfair’ and ‘corruption’ appear in the same paragraph, that must somehow be evidence of the fact that Betfair is the cause, and corruption the effect.
Betfair takes a very different view. Our view is that we are the speed camera, showing you something that you never knew was there. We are shining a light into the darkness, and people give us a hard time for having a torch.
Why do we think that? Because the level of transparency which Betfair has brought to the sports industry is unprecedented. Every single bet placed on Betfair is recorded, to the second. Every click of your mouse; every movement of funds in and out of your account - we know where it has come from, and we know where it is going. As I mentioned, we brought financial markets best practice to the sports betting market. We came into a world that was entirely opaque, and made it entirely transparent. If there was anything hiding in the murk, it can now be seen.
An interesting example of this came in August last year, when a match at the Poland Open in Sopot between Nikolai Davydenko and Martin Arguello-Vasallo raised eyebrows, when Arguello won by default after Davydenko withdrew while leading. You cannot fail to have read about this: not an article about tennis and the ATP now appears without mentioning it. It was all over the press not just for days, but for weeks; and it continues to be brought up, as the ATP’s investigation into what happens continues.
Now, there are a number of things to note about this incident. The first is how it came to light. As I mentioned, we are fully aware of all the betting details on Betfair; but what I didn’t mention is that everyone looking at the site can see bets betting placed, and can see the prices moving in a free market. The 40 or 50,000 pairs of our customers’ eyes that we have on our markets at any one time can all see exactly what is happening to the odds. And our forum allows sports punters to discuss what they can see.
Davydenko’s lawyer criticised Betfair for having sought publicity from the incident but the reality is that we were called by the media, not the other way around; and the reason for that was that what was happening was in the public domain. Everyone on our site could see that the World Number 4 had started at $1.20 and moved out by the end of the first set to $2.28, even though he won it with no apparent difficulty, and was paying $3.75 after losing the opening game of the second set on his serve. And well before he actually pulled out through injury, hundreds of people on our forum were speculating that he must be about to pull out.
I cast no aspersions here: it is entirely possible that the player was carrying an injury and some group of people were aware of the fact. There is no consistent rule across sports, as things stand, against insider trading- the rights and wrongs of which can be debated later perhaps, but it might be worth me mentioning as an aside that we don’t make the rules; we just help to enforce them once they have been made. So I am not suggesting that the match was corrupt. We, as a company, made a decision to void the bets on it, because we felt that the betting itself was not fair. It was clear to us that the betting was leading events, and not the other way around. But I would also mention here that another fallacy of this position was that it served us to do so. A number of people commented at the time that it is all very easy for a bookie to void bets when a result is going against him. But this misunderstands the whole business proposition we have: we are set up like a stock exchange, matching up supply and demand, and taking a cut in the middle. This means that we have no exposure to the result, or, to put it another way, we don’t care who wins. We make money if the event happens, regardless of the outcome, and we make no money if the event is voided. It is also worth mentioning, as an aside, that while many were crying foul about the movement in prices, we also, of course, had full access to the information as to who was betting. The complete audit trail created by our systems and our Know Your Customer checks mean that we know exactly who was behind the bets.
So, we voided the market, at a cost to us. But what happened next is perhaps the most striking of all. One after another, big players around the world came out and said that they had been approached to throw matches. One after the other, they said that they knew of players who had, or had themselves, been offered money by people who wanted them to rig the result. In several instances, these offers were made before the advent of internet-based sports betting.
Now, for me, the big question is, Why did it take a company that stands for transparency to make a stand before anyone mentioned that there was a problem? If we had not voided the bets on the match, would tennis be better or worse off? Is it helpful to know if you have a problem, or would you rather remain ignorant of it until it kills you?
The answer, with some in sport, would appear to be the latter. One sporting body, unconnected with this case, which we approached with a view to signing an information-sharing agreement, actually told us directly that they didn’t want information because they were frightened about the level of corruption it would reveal. Time and again, since the Poland Open, we have been told (although not by the ATP, I should add, who were among the first to embrace the information-sharing agreements we have pioneered) that we are causing sport a problem that didn’t previously exist. And yet, the evidence is there for all to see: we made our stand after people had been approached. Once we made our stand, people started to come out and talk about things. And yet a sizeable number of people want to return to where we were before we blew the whistle.
The reality of this point of view is that it is childish. Corruption is something that no-one here wants to see, and every one of us wishes didn’t exist. But it does exist. And, we cannot, like children confronted by a monster, hope that if we close our eyes, the monster will disappear. Even less can we credibly say that all the time we were sitting with our eyes shut, the monster that stood before us wasn’t there, and that it was only the person that told us to open our eyes that put it there.
The nature of sport is that it produces clear-cut results, and where there are clear-cut results, there is money to be made speculating on the outcome. This, again, is a basic truth. You may not like the fact that for some people, this is the sport; and I accept that for many, in a perfect world we would simply have no betting at all. Some sports bodies still struggle to accept just how great the demand for betting is. For example, I went to talk to the IOC about betting about eighteen months ago, and they, in line with many others I have met (to be fair to them) were totally incredulous that anyone would want to bet on who would win the 100metres in Beijing. Again, I accept that this is not the Olympic ideal, but it is a fact that they do, and rather than close our eyes to the fact, we should work with it. Because the reality, strange as it may seem, is that for many people, having a bet on the 100metres final retains their interest. If that hundred metres final comprises six Americans, a Jamaican and a Cuban, there will be plenty of people won’t give a monkey’s who wins it, unless they have had a bet to make them feel involved.
Again, I accept that this is not what sports bodies might want in a perfect world. But we don’t live in a perfect world. And if you want to live in the real world, you have to accept that there are plenty of people with strong opinions who want to express them through a bet. Plenty of people don’t accept this. Just this week, the coach of the Brisbane Lions AFL team, Leigh Matthews, showed that he is among those who don’t. Described as “certainly neither a wowser nor a saint, and having no intention of ever becoming either”, Matthews is a four-time premiership coach and was named Player of the 20th Century. He told a press conference just a few days ago that the Australian Football League should sever all ties with the bookmaking industry. Let me quote him: “The one thing that really annoys me is any thought that whatever we do as a game has something to do with people betting on it. I hate that,” he said. “I would prefer that nobody bet on the AFL. Then all innuendo would not exist. It’s one of the unfortunate progressions in the evolution of the world that betting agencies now bet on everything. I think that’s really unhealthy, really unsavoury and really unfortunate.”
As I say, I can understand this view in the ideal: he would rather no-one bet on the sport. But what I do not accept is that betting companies offering bets on the sport is what makes people bet on it. If the legal betting companies offer bets on the sport, it is because there is demand for bets on the sport - and if that demand were not offered in a regulated environment, it would be filled in an unregulated one. So while I do not argue with Matthews’ picture of the ideal, I struggle with the argument that he follows it up with. Again, let me quote him directly: “I think [the AFL] should say to the betting companies `you want to bet on the footy, fine, but don’t include us. Don’t ask us to have rules and regulations that pander to people who might want to bet on a game.”
For me, this view is absurd. It is essential that there are rules in place, and essential that there is a mechanism for those rules to be upheld. The AFL’s own experience of having named information of who is betting on its sport has been that it has been able to help players with addictions, and drive out a problem which could, unchecked, lead to corruption. Having no rules or no means of enforcing them is precisely what leads to problems - not just here but in any walk of life. And yet Matthews’ criticism was taken up by the press. They argue that when people were caught breaking the AFL’s rules preventing players betting as a direct result of the agreement the AFL signed, the sport was shown in a poor light. It wasn’t the fact that rules were being broken that was troubling, but the fact that it had become apparent. It should, wrote one commentator, be all about perception, rather than reality. In other words, it would be better to sweep things under the carpet.
I think, in contrast, that we should accept that the demand of people to be able to bet on a clear-cut result is a fundamental reality, and in itself is not a problem. The trouble is that where there is money to be made, there are also people who would seek to corrupt. Sadly, this, too, is a basic reality of the world we live in. So we must protect against corruption, which means having rules and regulations in place, and a proper means of policing them.
The idea that corruption must be rooted out is uncontentious. The question is simply how we do it. In my view, agreement on this is hindered because many people think that betting causes corruption. But betting in itself is not corrupt. Corrupt betting is corrupt, but corrupt betting is not really betting at all, by definition: it is merely getting guaranteed financial reward through securing a fixed outcome, which isn’t the same as backing your analysis of a given contest and speculating on the chances of a particular outcome at all. In other words, the key part of the phrase ‘corrupt betting’ is not the betting part, but the adjective that precedes it: or to put it another way, corruption is corruption, through whatever channel it happens to manifest itself.
This is an important point, because the first thing that must be done if the battle against corruption is to be won is to work out who is on whose side here, and what tools we have to fight with. At the moment, the perception exists in sport that betting is the cause, rather than on occasions (and by no means on all occasions) a facilitator, and the inevitable next step in sport’s logic is to blame the betting companies for their problems. And this means that we have a fundamental issue, because the betting companies - by which I mean the legal, regulated, and co-operative betting companies - are actually a tool in the fight.
You can accept that betting for betting’s sake is not in itself the problem, and that 99% of people who make money out of the sporting result, through betting on it, would never consider affecting that result to suit. But that still leaves us with an issue: using the money being generated by that 99% of people to make money out of a corruptly fixed result clearly is a problem. But here we must consider what added ingredient is needed to allow someone to do that - to turn betting from a pastime into a facilitator for corruption. Put simply, “How do you corrupt?”
If you or I decide we want to rig the outcome of a horserace, or a rugby match, or any other sporting event, it isn’t immediately apparent how we would do it sitting here. We can very easily have a bet right here, and right now, on almost any sporting event taking place in the world at the moment; but what we can’t do, sitting here, by ourselves, is affect the outcome. For that, we need the collaboration of the people involved.
Now, there’s a story about Winston Churchill which goes something like this. Winston Churchill, apparently a few the worse for wear - as was his wont - allegedly once approached a lady and asked her if she would be prepared to sleep with him for £1million. She thought about it for a moment, and said she would. He then asked her if she would be prepared to sleep with him for a tenner, and she was horrified. “What do you think I am?” she exclaimed. “Madam,” he replied, “we have established what you are. We are now just negotiating the price.”
As was true of Winston and his target, so is true of sportsmen and corruptors. When I talk to people about corruption in sport, and protest at the idea that internet betting in particular has increased corruption just because the sums of money involved are that much greater, I think of that story about Winston Churchill. Because as far as I am concerned, either you can be corrupted, or you can’t. If you can’t bribe a sportsman or a group of sportsmen to rig a result, then you can’t get a result fixed. And what that means is that the heart of the problem in the issue of corruption in sport is not betting, but is sportsmen willing to be bought.
I realise that pointing the finger at sport, from what appears to be the betting side of the fence, might seem somewhat inflammatory. But the most important point I want to make is that when we consider whose side of the fence is whose, we are currently getting it absolutely wrong. The betting industry doesn’t want bad apples as customers any more than the sports industry wants bad apples participating; and just as more than 99% of your participants are clean, so are more than 99% of ours. Our less than 1% can do the buying; your less than 1% can deliver the goods. The challenge for us both is to rid ourselves of the 1%, and the best way to do that is to work together.
Put another way, the simple fact of the matter is this: if we are to draw a line - not to say dig a bloody great big trench - between sport and corruption, as obviously we must, then the first and most important thing is to understand that the legal betting industry is on the same side of that line as the sports industry. And I say this not just because it serves our purpose for sport to be clean, although it does: if people don’t have confidence in the fairness of the result, they will not bet. I say it because we were set up as a business philosophically because we are lovers of sport. And, having set up something which was designed, in part, to bring complete transparency to the market; and then having set out our stall to share information with sports to help them deal with problems that exist, it has been extremely frustrating to find ourselves attacked as if we are the cause of the problems. If ever there was a case of shooting the messenger, this is it.
In fact, the finger pointing from sport to betting, and to Betfair in particular, has been so great that there are calls around the world for betting to pay sport, because sport now has to deal with integrity issues which betting has caused. Let me say straight up that Betfair has never been against paying sport on the basis of a commercial agreement which recognises that sport is putting on a show and Betfair is benefitting from that. This is not the same as saying that sport ‘owns’ the product, but it simply recognises that there ought to be a symbiotic relationship between the two industries. And we are not suddenly coming to this party under pressure: I spoke at the Sport Accord conference in Madrid in 2003 and told the 80 or so delegates there from sports bodies all round the world that the two things they should expect from a bookmaker in the 21st century were information about what betting was taking place on their matches, to allow them to police their sport better; and a financial contribution to acknowledge that they were putting on the show. But I do have a fundamental problem with betting being asked to pay to ‘clean up’ something that exists whether they are there are not. The integrity of sport is the domain of sport, whether Betfair, or Ladbrokes, or any other betting company in the world exists or not.
In fact, I would go further than that. Imagine a world where bookmaking is illegal. Take Betfair, and Ladbrokes, and William Hill, and everyone else you care to mention, and close them all down. What happens to sport’s problem then? Does it go away, stay the same, or get bigger? Clearly, it gets bigger - and if you doubt that, let me give you two reasons why.
The first is best exemplified by Hansie Cronje. No-one in New Zealand will be unaware of the scandals that affected the world of cricket in the late 1990s - an era, incidentally, which preceded internet betting, and in which cricket was not alone in experiencing problems: floodlights went off in top-flight UK football matches for reasons which at first were not apparent. Talk to the ICC about those times in cricket and they will readily acknowledge that their problems came from the Indian sub-continent, where - no surprises - bookmaking is illegal. And the source of floodlight failures, too, was eventually traced to Far Eastern illegal betting syndicates, but only because someone was eventually caught red-handed with his hands more or less on the switch.
The second reason is this: tell me why betting was legalised and regulated in the first place, if it wasn’t that it existed illegally and unregulated, and if, being illegal and unregulated, it was not seen to be causing problems which could not be dealt with? The whole basis of regulation is that regulating makes it more difficult to corrupt.
Betfair took the level of regulation a significant step further. I have already talked about our audit trail, but what I didn’t mention was that any sports regulatory body in the world can have the information gathered by that audit trail from us, free of charge. In fact, we can deliver it, via our Bet Monitor technology, in real time - as Stewards not so very far away in Victoria will tell you. In other words, we are providing, without any obligation, information which would otherwise be unknown about betting that is taking place all over the world - information which makes it easier to know what is happening, not harder. And it seems to me that asking the legal, regulated betting market to pay to clean up problems of integrity in sport is like approaching a High Street pharmacy and asking it to pay for the fight against cocaine-smuggling on the grounds that their business is in drugs. The difference between the legal, regulated market and the illegal market is the difference between chalk and cheese. And asking Betfair, or any other well-regulated, well-run global brand, to pay for problems which are seen to originate in the murky world of unregulated, illegal, bookmaking seems to me to be entirely missing the point.
To illustrate my point a little further, here’s the page from Wikipedia on match-fixing. You will see if you look at it more closely that it claims that cheating on sport started with the Ancient Olympics, and with battles between gladiators. When I once mentioned this on a radio interview, I was taken to task over it by a journalist from a British national newspaper, the Guardian, who accused me of being disingenuous. The amount of match-fixing today, he said, was of a completely different proportion, and the sums of money involved were much greater.
Even aside from my story about Winston Churchill, I would take issue with that. First of all, on what empirical grounds can anyone justifiably claim that there is more match-fixing today than there was before? Isn’t the perception that there is simply born of the fact that we can see it better today than we could a decade ago? Are there more diseases these days, or do we just diagnose them better?
To go back to my earlier analogy, are there more speeding cars, or are we now in a position to clock them? Did people start taking drugs to improve their sporting performances the week after drugs testing came in, or were they taking them before we had tests, and just doing so undetected? Was Jacques Rogge, the President of the IOC, justified when he commented during the Athens Olympic that, “Each positive test is a blessing for us because it’s eliminating the cheats and protecting the clean athletes. The more we find, the better.” I would say absolutely he was.
In truth, the basic fact is that it is simply not possible to make any judgment whatsoever on what the level of corruption in sport was before we had a means of tracking it, just as it is impossible to know how many athletes in the past used performance-enhancers to bring them medals. We might think that in a bye-gone era, the world was a nobler place; and on the whole, we might be right. But if the Chicago White Sox were throwing the World Series in 1919, and Liverpool and Manchester United were colluding over a result in 1915 - on that occasion, not for a betting return, incidentally, but to ensure survival in the top division at the expense of Chelsea, who consequently went down - and if these are scandals we happen to know about because someone happened to sing about them, then how can we possibly make a judgment about the bigger picture?
The challenge now is to take the attitude that Jacques Rogge has to drugs testing and apply it to betting, not being fearful of instances we find to occur, but to be confident that transparency is rooting out the corruption and tipping the risk/reward ratio dramatically in favour of the regulator and away from the corruptor. For that, we first need to draw on another of Mr. Rogge’s pronouncements in Greece. “You have 10,500 athletes in the Olympic village,” he told the world’s press. “You do not have 10,500 saints. You will always have cheats.” We have to acknowledge that the only people who can corrupt sport are the players, and we have to educate those players about how they will be caught and how they will lose their livelihoods and their reputations when they are. And to do that, we first need to educate sport about how they can do the catching: the only way to know whether players are corrupted is to have the names of the people behind the bets, and then use forensic analysis to make the often easy links between the bettors and the participants. Any attempts to look at the betting quantum and make judgments on it are absolutely doomed to failure, and the only people who will gain anything from doing so are the media. So sport needs to put itself in a position where it has access to named information, wherever it can get it. If it is not doing that, it is not using the tools available. I find it amazing that any sporting body would turn down named information from a betting operator willing to provide it with no strings attached, and yet, from the top down, there are plenty who do.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to suggest that sport is riddled with corruption. I am an optimist, and I hope and expect, like everyone here, that 99.9% of sport is played for the Corinthian ideal of winning. But it is clear that sports - perhaps because they are being told so by the media - now feel that they have a problem which they feel they didn’t have before. The immediate reaction is to point the finger, rather than take steps to do something to tighten regulation in a manner which perhaps should have happened years ago, and it is not difficult to see why this has happened. It is easy enough to make what appears at first a logical jump: betting has increased; corruption has become apparent; therefore betting is causing corruption. It’s like saying, “it’s raining, and I don’t have an umbrella, therefore I will inevitably get wet”.
But what if it’s pointed out that there is no reason for you to go outside? Suddenly, the argument falls apart. And what if you understand that the increase in betting has moved in parallel with the increase in transparency? Suddenly, the logic doesn’t hold there either. But that growth in transparency of betting has led people to believe that there has been a growth of corruption, and the result is that sport is setting itself against the very people it should be working with. Again, I can understand how this is happening. Many in sports regulation genuinely don’t see that this problem is not new, like a patient diagnosed with cancer who insists that he felt fine yesterday and still feels fine today. But understanding why we are where we are doesn’t mean we should continue to plough the same furrow. We have to get out of it before we dig it so deep that we’ll never be able to do so. As a first step, that means understanding that transparency is not to be feared, and the people who bring it should not be resisted and looked at suspiciously. And second - away from words and onto concrete actions - it means sport starting to use the tools provided for them by betting operators who want to work in partnership, which would make it easier to combat the problems facing them than any other measure. Use the audit trail, link betting to names, and root corruption out of sport.
Understanding this, and acting on it, would allow sport to make the most of the commercial advantages that the betting market brings. I am not talking specifically about betting companies paying them directly for commercial agreements, although that is precisely what Betfair is doing voluntarily in Australia with the AFL, NRL, and cricket among others; we have done it with British greyhounds, and Irish horseracing; and we have committed to doing it elsewhere. I am also not talking about sponsorships coming from the betting companies, although it is interesting to note that just last week, Reinhard Rauball, the President of the Bundesliga in Germany, affirmed that the ban on foreign gambling advertisements would cost German football between €100 million and €300 million every year in lost revenues. I understand that even if we got to the point where regulators and betting operators were working in partnership to stop corruption, many sports would prefer to keep at arms length from betting companies in other areas, and I fully respect that. Rather, I am referring to the notion that betting plays a significant role in helping sports to internationalise their marketplaces, and ultimately, we now all compete in the global village.
In other words, although sports today recognize that they need to embrace a modern, global audience, they spend a lot of time working against the very sorts of organizations which might help it to achieve one.
Let me give you an example. There is a racing newsletter published in Australia called BetAngel. It is dedicated to a whole new audience who, since the arrival of Betfair, trade the sports markets as if they were the financial markets. Their March edition began with the words, “Wind back nearly eight years ago, when Betfair started and I joined them, I had no idea what Cheltenham was all about” - before going on, for eleven pages, to lay out the best strategies for punting on Britain’s premier Jumps Racing festival. In a similar vein, Betfair this year had e-mails from all over the world eulogising about the up-to-the-minute coverage and ideas being distributed far and wide by Betfair Radio on that same Cheltenham Festival - from Cyprus, Belgium, India, Singapore and - yes - New Zealand. The extent to which we are broadening the appeal of British horseracing is incontestable if you look at our international audience and the 85 or so countries from which we list customers. By virtue of the mechanism by which we pay to British racing a percentage of the profits which we achieve on British racing, it is fair to say that today money is coming in from the four corners of the earth which just a few years ago was staying firmly put.
Betfair is committed to paying sports bodies a percentage of the profits achieved on betting on events run under their jurisdiction. But if the betting markets continue to be seen as a problem, then they cannot at the same time be seen as an opportunity, and sports worldwide cannot make the most of that commitment. In contrast, if we could get sports administrators to realise that we do not threaten their integrity in a regulated and open environment; if we could get them to work with us, on commercial terms, and not against us; if we could get them to understand that the utopian world of no betting on sport is exactly that - utopian - and that the sensible thing is to work with the regulated market to ensure maximum transparency and minimum outlets for those would corrupt; if we could do all these things, then it wouldn’t be a question of sport putting on the show and the betting industry benefitting. It would be a question of sport broadening and maintaining its audience; of sharing in the first derivative market which stems from it - the betting market; and of the two industries working together to ensure that every tool is used to keep both the underlying commodity and the derivative market clean.
So I am here today to try to give you a new understanding of sports betting. I want you to understand that as far as we at Betfair are concerned, the regulated betting industry today is not some backwater of corruption in smoke-filled rooms, but a modern leisure industry which engages its customers and allows them to get involved on a participatory level that enhances their enjoyment; that it is an industry which harnesses those customers, and wants to do so in partnership with sport rather than at the expense of sport; that what sport today should expect from a modern bookmaking operator, as I told Sport Accord back in 2003, is a financial return which recognises that sport is putting on the show and seeks to demonstrate the good faith that leads to partnerships that leads to everyone growing the cake; and - entirely unconnected with any commercial agreement - they should expect information on what betting is taking place on their product, and - and I cannot over-emphasize this enough - by whom, in order to allow it to fulfil its role of policing the sport.
There are plenty of issues facing sport today, as there always will be. But feeling it has to fight betting should simply not be one of them. Sport has to fight corruption, using every tool it can; and the betting companies, who also, like the sports bodies, have brand names to defend; and, in a way that sports do not, more often than not have market values and share prices to protect, have to fight it too. So in conclusion, let me say it one more time: the legal and regulated betting companies around the world want to work with sport, not against it. But they need sports to recognise that it isn’t betting that causes problems, but corruption. I hope we can fight it together.
Thank you.
Mark Davies of BetFair
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Mark Davies (Managing Director of Corporate Affairs of BetFair)
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The best text that I have ever read about sports betting.
It’s that kind of speech that the US Congress should hear.
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The Winston Churchill joke was lame.
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Took me like one hour to read it in full, but every sentence was worth my effort.
All the issues he raised were known to me, but it was fine to see them all gathered in one place.
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I’m still persuaded that the Winston Churchill joke was lame.
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- Comments(193)
It would be suitable “icing” on this particlular cake if Mr Davies were to provide assurance that following the recent “betfair skimming” incident, his company was given a clean bill of health by the Gambling Commission regarding betfair’s published insistence that as a “zero risk bookmaker” it was licenced and fully entitled to generate ( and keep) a profit from the process of it’s Customers’ attempts to secure matches for their bet offers.
That process - with incumbent dynamic market forces - is certain to produce inefficiencies which can always be exploited. That, surely, is why the supervision of a Referee of the very highest Integrity is usually deemed essential?
The key point is that if at any stage in that matching process Time itself is “frozen” whilst bet offers are offset against their mathematical inverses (lays) then abstraction of funds becomes risk-free.
In fact, unless done with stupidity, generation of such abstractions becomes inevitable! It can be fast and transparent (invisible!) to those not privvy to the activity.
In betting exchange parlance, this means that the “matching pipeline” (to ensure risk freedom for its bookmaker operator) MUST be frozen whilst calculations and cross-matches are done ( and ensuing abstractions made) - ideally at high speed so that they pass by unnoticed.
Betfair’s activities, it is said, conducted without prior disclosure to its Customers, was greeted with significant surprise, and a degree of disgust ( as heavily evidenced on betfair’s own General Betting forum threads).
The Gambling Commission seemingly had to resort to a “standard letter” response to the complaints it received from the probably much smaller percentage of the total disgruntled who actually put pen to paper. Maybe the GC will tell the Public what it said and did (or didn’t) sometime in the next decade………or maybe it will take a little Westminster politicking at Question Time to prise out the detail?
@Adonis: Thanks for your comment. Nothing smart to add at this point.
The reason for these analogies is this: in recent years, there has been a growing clamour from the media and from sport that there is more corruption today than there ever was, and the cause of it is betting. In same cases, they even claim that the cause of it is Betfair, on the grounds that you will find very few corruption stories in the last seven years that do not mention Betfair, which has led some to argue that if the words ‘Betfair’ and ‘corruption’ appear in the same paragraph, that must somehow be evidence of the fact that Betfair is the cause, and corruption the effect.
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This is one of the reasons why I don’t want any children. Continually lowering myself to their level of thinking would be quite exhausting.
I already told betfair that people tend to overreact/they will see causations where there aren’t any. This is not the problem though. Betfair’s policy, I should say betfair’s lack of policy in dealing with corruption, is what creates this perception. You reap what you sow. Now grow up and deal with it like an adult.
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Betfair takes a very different view. Our view is that we are the speed camera, showing you something that you never knew was there. We are shining a light into the darkness, and people give us a hard time for having a torch. Why do we think that? Because the level of transparency which Betfair has brought to the sports industry is unprecedented.
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We all know it’s there, but you’re not shining a light on it.
It is the cheat with an average IQ below 75 who is, and that’s still a small percentage (although you would expect it to be the majority) of all cheats.
Betfair’s clock is standing still, in fact it has been going backwards for quite a while.
The cheats on the other hand will adapt, evolve. When there is sufficient liquidity, and we are getting towards that point, an insider can become a millionaire in a matter of hours without moving the markets.
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Every single bet placed on Betfair is recorded, to the second. Every click of your mouse; every movement of funds in and out of your account - we know where it has come from, and we know where it is going. As I mentioned, we brought financial markets best practice to the sports betting market. We came into a world that was entirely opaque, and made it entirely transparent. If there was anything hiding in the murk, it can now be seen.
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Then why not make the KYC mandatory for every person who wants to place a bet ?
It’s the only way that guarantees you’ll be able to trace the cheats. (I know, the clock is slowly going forward here…) In stead, you’re planning to make the KYC mandatory for every person who wishes to post on your forum. We’re not the enemy (and you’ve got some nerve talking about who’s shooting the messenger) – you’re your own enemy.
@medemi:
QUOTE
Sports bettors are closer to stock or commodities buyers than to people who buy lottery tickets. How much difference is there, after all, between betting on the future price of wheat (an activity banned in some states in the nineteenth century) and betting on the performance of a baseball team?
UNQUOTE
James Surowiecki
http://www.newyorker.com/archi.....surowiecki
Chris, it’s a good article.
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From that article:
Furthermore, the ban on online betting is hindering the development of new markets that could predict far more important outcomes than that of the N.B.A. finals.
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It can’t be stopped, just like any other crucial development in our existence.
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Two reasons why WE (betting exchanges, its customers and the regulators) should get it right, before it all ends in tears.
If Mark Davies is reading this then I’m sorry if you find what I say offensive, but I do think that what happened on Hernandez v Brezezicki was totally out of order from Betfair. You shouldn’t be paying that out and gambling nobody notices, in the face of overwhelming disgust both on the forum and on the phone.
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If Hernandez v Brezezicki had happened 8 months ago, and Arguello v Davydenko had happened today, it would have been the Hernandez match that was voided, with you appearing on UK tv stations talking about suspicious prices and fairness in betting, and Arguello v Davydenko would be paid out no questions asked. That really is current BF policy post-Arguello/Davydenko, and its just cretinous.
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You yourself will have access to who was behind the thousands upon thousands trying to back Hernandez at odds on despite going a set, and then a further break down in the 2nd set. I can’t say it was fixed obviously (if I, erm, did, erm, happen to, erm, think that) for legal reasons, but you will know deep down that if you had to bet your life on it being fixed or not being, I think I know which of the two outcomes both you and I would choose.
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Why continue to offer Hernandez markets that week as well? I really don’t understand.
When looking at solutions that deal with the insider problem effectively in exchange markets, I can see only one at the moment. Betting activity should be restricted based on a punter’s MO, and it would have to be enforced by the regulators.
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I see an even bigger problem than you Ed. Somewhere down the road the insiders will not be moving the markets around. Another problem is that you can never be sure what moves a market, and I don’t see how a 24 hour delay in settling (in order to investigate) could be effective.
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My solution sounds drastic, but we’ll get there eventually. As usual, a couple of ships have to sink first. Maybe it will be betfair.
I’m not a fan of Mark Davies either, exactly because of his misleading statements (IMO). In fact I didn’t read beyond my previous quotations because he is wearing me out.
There’s a lot of pressure on CEO’s these days, so much that they sometimes have to cross the line of what we consider to be moral behaviour. Before you know it, it becomes a habit.
It is his job to sell the company as best as possible, and it is our responsibility as good citizens to point out where we think he’s wrong. That’s the game.
We really should be kicking the regulators actually, that’s where we can get things done, if we’re lucky.
But its against BF’s own interests to allow “suspicious” (for want of a better word, and definitely not the word ‘fixed’) matches.
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The culture at BF currently is so alien to betting fairly its ridiculous - why settle Hernandez v Brezezicki no questions asked in six minutes? The forum was in total meltdown, and the BF staff member I spoke to assured me that (yet again) he’d been flooded with calls about this match.
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This is the Gamcare forum
http://www.gamcare.org.uk/forum/index.php?f=19
Davies should spend some time on there and thinking about whether his own “Iceberg? What Iceberg?” routine on Radio 5, Channel 4 and SSN is as unethical as I think it is. There are (a few) fires burning, and there really isn’t the need to fiddle, when he has the power to put them out.
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If the British legal betting companies offer bets on the sport, it is because there is demand for bets on the sport —and if that demand were not offered in a regulated environment, it would be filled in an unregulated one
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,………. it is being filled in an unregulated one, on Betfair. Also, I don’t understand this “British legal betting companies thing”. There are plenty of legal British drugs firms, but that doesn’t mean they are allowed to supply cocaine? Same with gambling, the companies are legal, but that doesn’t mean that with a minority of their markets they should be allowed to flout UK or US law.
Can’t argue with most of your comments. I watched a video the other day - Betfair is a young and dynamic, but foolish company. Combine that with a bit of arrogance and I’m afraid there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.
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It started with “Caveat Emptor” when I first joined, and ended with silencing me.
One of the things that bugs me most, is that they act as a role model for other exchanges.
@Ed Murray: I personally agree with what Mark Davies says about sports betting, in this speech and elsewhere. That said, I accept other people’s perspectives.
Chris F. Masse - I agree with most of what Davies is saying, as you yourself do. What I don’t like, from first hand experience, is that his words, do not seem to match the reality. I was in 100% agreement with him when he went on tv to say why BF voided Arguello/Davydenko, however, the reasons he gave (that the prices were wrong) applied equally to other markets, where BF seem to have taken an extremely cynical view now, post Arguello/Davydenko. The words Davies uses are by and large absolutely fine. Its just a shame, that as ever with Davies, there’s the “yes, but hold on a second,…….” factor with them.
Chris is looking at it from a different perspective. To him, the glass is half full, to me it’s half empty. Given time, and this is what matters… the glass will end up empty.
It would make my year if Mark Davies came on here and gave an explanation of Hernandez v Brezezicki, and quite how exactly he thinks BF’s handling of that match in any way shape or form correlates with this speech. I cannot see any conceivable way in which it does.
Tennis betting was pretty much a minority activity back in 2001-2002. It has only become the third most bet sport in the world because of Betfair. Mark Davies seems to forget this.
Back in 2000-2002 if you wanted to win £50k on the Davydenko Arguello match you would have had great great difficulty. As Ed has mentioned, traditional bookmakers have an incentive to be cautious with what bets they accept and they would never have accepted such large stakes on a very low profile match in some Polish backwater. But Betfair being the so called facilitators who allow bettors to bet amongst themselves simply dont have that incentive. As far as theyre concerned the more commission the better. If that commission comes from some dodgy guy in Russia then so be it. So thats what led to Betfair allowing a Russia based account opened in a false name to oppose davydenko to the tune of $250k.
Its this insistence from Davies that sport was corrupt before Betfair that really gets my goat. In the case of Tennis it simply wasnt. Betfair has undoubtedly helped the growth of Tennis betting by allowing virtually every match played these days to be bet on in-play. I can remember the days on Betfair where only televised matches were put in-play. These days every match is available as Betfair greedily chase commission revenues. After all they arent taking the risk in the markets so why should they care if punters dont have the up to date score or are getting hoovered on match points by people betting at the venue.
So Betfair helped Tenis betting to grow and because its grown so big its now very attractive to try and fix a match. The reward in the Davydenko match was a potential £750,000. 5 Years ago the potential reward from throwing a match at that level would be barely one tenth of that.
Its up to the innocent punters who participate in these markets to flag up dodgy matches and cause a fuss. After all Betfair dont want the negative publicity, the ATP dont want the negative publicity and the fixers want to carry on fixing. The only people who are actually hurt by these fixed matches if theyre swept under the carpet are the innocent punters. Yet if Betfair flag up the match and a corruption investigation gets under way then all manner of people are going to be hurt. Its far better for Betfair to just sweep it under the carpet out of harms way and let their customers take the hit.
I
No amount of huffing and puffing will convince an experienced punter that he can’t tell when cheating is present. It need not be confined to event competitors: it can be present in the apparently mundane, daily operation of his betting process.
Cheating does not require corrupt Event competitors.
Punters can be fleeced on Events whose integrity is beyond reasonable question.
When that happens, wise punters look to the process of their betting itself.
It’s not rocket science to detect cheats: they win ultra-consistently.
All it takes is for the likes of betfair to do something really productive (instead of incessantly telling us how impeccable they feel they are!) such as to provide the GC (or maybe soon, the FSA?) with a list of all accountholders + the account details, where more than say £1,000 a week is taken out.
Such accounts will be either expert punters (eg form experts) or cheats.
It is CERTAIN (mathematically speaking) that all successful cheats will be IN THAT SMALL GROUP!
The more money consistently taken out, the more likely they are to be a cheat.
Then, start looking at their modus operandi.
As I said IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!
Talk is cheap for those who seek protect their insider knowledge of the extent of whatever is going on. Let’s see something other than studious attempts to silence and abase those who ask “awkward” questions of them….
Good post John, but it’s not just punters who’ll get hurt, even when betfair sweeps insider activity under the carpet.
Sports will suffer in a major way, eventually. When sports suffers, so will society.
Prediction markets in general will suffer, thus science will suffer (see Chris’ link).
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It’s about time someone entered betfair headquarters and gave some people a good spanking.
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I think we can move on now from the question whether betfair’s presence stimulates criminal activity, and come to some sort of solution.
It should not be possible for someone to open an account, wager 250K, and take it back home a couple of hours later. An initial maximum bet (or liability) of say 1K (and mandatory KYC for bets above 1K) for starters. From there on, based on your betting history.
If you want to open an account and bet heavily from the start, then bad luck… you’re a suspect already!
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In the world of betting people are going to have to get used to earning the priveledge of betting with high stakes. There really is no other way, you don’t want to chase insiders all over the planet hoping that one day you could sue them.
Insider activity should not be thought of lightly. Restrict them while you can.
We need PREVENTIVE measures.
Why do you need to know, you want to send them this thread?
Why does someone like Ratner lose nearly all he built up, whereas someone like Black manages to actually inflate the price he sold shares off at? The world really isn’t a fair place.
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It is when we lose everything that we come close to the true meaning of life. All the money in the world cannot determine who I am, only I can. Those who chase the sun will get burned, he who walks around in the rain might discover the shine.
According to Einstein we are not alone in this universe, we are all connected. The reward can be mind-blowing for those who get a taste of what lies beyond, before we cross over. It’s the toughest trick in the world, but hey who doesn’t need a challenge now and then.
I do not envy Black or “his kind”. If anything, I feel sorry for them.
It’s not like there is a judge who decides who goes to heaven or not. There can’t be.
There’s just a system IMO, call it God if you like. Those who live their lives in isolation, meaning those who only have attention for personal desires, will not enjoy the full benefits in the afterlife. We cannot take with us our personal possessions, only whom we have become. Multiply that by a massive number in a reciprocal way and you should get an idea of what heaven looks like. You’re ok Ed, and you will never have to feel lonely again (IMO).
Interestingly…. when you try to visualise what I just said, you may be looking at the universe itself.
Right, time for some shopping now.
My website is being monitored by the Betfair secret police
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5.
1 May
21:08
Google, Europe
6.
1 May
21:13
Road Runner, Tampa, Florida, United States
7.
1 May
23:25
Essent Kabelcom B.V. B.V., Panningen, Limburg, Netherlands, The
8.
2 May
00:52
Telewest Broadband, London, London, City of, United Kingdom
9.
2 May
09:51
The Sporting Exchange Ltd, London, London, City of, United Kingdom
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2 May
11:49
Turk Telekom, Aksaray, Nevsehir, Turkey
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Good afternoon, Hammersmith
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Please read what people have said on this thread, and ask Mark Davies to have a think about the morals of promoting this public line of “help us fight corruption”, and whether that actually tallies with BF’s current settle-suspicious-markets-immediately-no-questions-asked culture. I don’t think the two match up, and I think everything Davies has said in this speech is meaningless as a result.
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The olive branch is always there, if you want to operate within the framework of current law, and behave in professional manner. It’ll take guts to reverse the current hear-no-evil-see-no-evil silliness. Its not too late though. I imagine though the usual answer is to appease sleazy money, settle things no questions asked, and attack people who all they want to do is to bet fairly. I expect you’re already writing legal letters threatening Midas Oracle for allowing medemi, Adonis, me and others to speak honestly. In the long run, its BF that suffers because of your actions. I wish you would realise this.
I expect you’re already writing legal letters threatening Midas Oracle for allowing medemi, Adonis, me and others to speak honestly.
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hehe… this is not the UK. Should become interesting reading when Chris decides to put it on here, for all to read.
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That was not me btw, from the Netherlands. You are famous here in Holland.
@Ed Murray: “writing legal letters threatening Midas Oracle for allowing medemi, Adonis, me and others to speak honestly”
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We should avoid:
- insults
- defamation
- exposing companies’ trade secrets
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We should also:
- check our facts
- based them on rational arguments, or better, on science
- give air time to the opponents
- be positive, have a sense of progress, not destroy other people.
Complementary to this discussion, we have noted that we (in the UK at least) are relying on the newly-established Gambling Commission (about 7 months old already) to search and destroy all aspects of corruption and damage to Betting Integrity. They repeatedly promise a statement on conncerns reported to them but up to and including today’s fortnightly newsletter, we see nothing.
That said, there is one interesting item this time around!!!:
“11. Director of Monitoring and Enforcement to leave Commission in July 2008
Andrew Lyman, a Director at the Gambling Commission, will be leaving shortly to take up a senior executive role with the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB).
“Having been involved in regulation for some years, I am looking forward to joining an organisation with a broad commercial focus. This new role will provide an opportunity to develop my legal, negotiating and other skill sets in a challenging environment.” said Lyman.
Andrew will join the ABB in late July and his remaining time with the Commission will be spent on internal project work, distinct from his current regulatory role.
Gambling Commission Chief-Executive Jenny Williams said: “We are very sorry to see Andrew go but with his expertise and understanding of the Commission’s work he will continue to contribute to the promotion of socially responsible gambling in his new role at the ABB.”
So it appears that Regulatory service with the Gambling Commission is regarded by bookmakers’ club as an excellent training ground for entry into their commercial arena….
“Monitoring and Enforcement” = Chief of the GC’s Police Force????
Going over to the “other side”!??????
Poacher/gamekeeper dilemma…… all over again!!!
Gordon Brown got what was coming to him (IMHO) last night for complacently, even arrogantly ignoring public concerns.
Is the Gambling Commission following the same course he set????
Gordon Brown will be delighted with the expansion of gambling - its a low political cost/highly lucrative form of taxation.
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Its long term Betfair shareholders, and Betfair users, who are getting hurt by the cynicism of Davies and the management team’s new policy of settling suspicious matches immediately. (As well as paying spectators at these events).
One has to wonder how this will end.
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On one hand, we have Betfair, who are best served (in the short term) by covering up insider activity because they cannot endure the bad publicity.
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On the other hand, we have the GC, very young and inexperienced. Simply no match for what is to come.
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A timebomb ready to explode, I cannot see it any other way. Maybe not soon, but explode it will. And we’ve lost valuable time already.
Ed,
I agree that your suggestion would be a good short-term solution, and buys us time.
Betfair should not be afraid, and tell us what we already know.
In my opening post I pointed out what will happen to the public opinion if betfair stay on this course. They should come forward now, do the right thing and be rewarded - every punter will suddenly be on their side, ready to defend them against possible attacks from the media, if they decide to come clean and acknowledge the problem.
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Or are we really dependent, as has been suggested, on the short-term share price of this one shareholder ? Surely It can’t be…
I think that only a determined, unblinkered effort by the GC will force betfair to lead the exchanges and change their ways. I won’t be holding my breath on current form.
Problem is, right now betfair are saying (read their organ) that only UK Customers will be covered by GC Regulations. Everyone else by Malta!
How arrogantly misguided (again!)
And if a bet is matched between a UK Customer and an offshore Customer, betfair think that THEY will be allowed to nominate their choice of Regulatory Authority?
Absolutely LAUGHABLE.
Director assets and company trading rights might be frozen for lesser assumptions……or hasty transfer to an offshore location.
It’s rather like Big Brother’s(Gordon Brown’s) reckless assumption that overtaxing the poor (yep he’s a Socialist folks!) would be “OK”.
And his assumption that - like fuel tax, betting (GPT) tax, cigarette tax and Road Fund “Licence” (Tax) - his revenue stream will grow compoundly forever……. That it’s “OK” to pump $30Billion (of OUR money) into Northern rock? Give £50 Billion (of OUR money) to the banks to prop up their exhuberantly sloppy lending criteria?
Get the theme? Tax, tax, spend, fritter, tax, tax, fritter, spend……
Michael Foot must be turning in his grave to be relieved of the title of Hardest Slapped Labour Politician… Ever!
It’s not a question of IF he will go. Just a matter of Time.
I didn’t know you were anti-Brown Adonis. I took one look at this guy, it was a picture, and I thought “Oh, my God…”. Seriously.
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And as for dealing with (scientific or other) facts that should be the basis for my opinions… Fk science…
I had to rip three pages out of my final university paper because the professor thought it was “uninteresting to the reader”. It did point out the exact conditions under which my experiment was performed, and was crucial IMO for those who want to study why seemingly similar studies reveal different outcomes, which was already a fact at the time. Science, as a profession, died that day for me.
There… got it off my chest.
So… where’s the “opposition” ?
Usually when it rains the worms come crawling to the surface.
so did the russian fixers lose all the money they deposited with BF for the Davydenko match.
where did the 250K go . Where they able to withdraw it ?
I’m not aware of the facts, but why should they not be allowed to keep it ?
We’re innocent until proven guilty. And so the chasing game begins which will probably result in nothing. Which is one of the reasons why I have been focusing on long-term preventive, thus effective, measures in dealing with insider activity.
btw, you do not even have class action lawsuits in the UK, so how will I ever receive the money that was taken from me.
The interesting thing is that many betfair Customers ( at least at one time) believed the TV ads that betfair was a “person to person” betting medium. In that scenario, the exchange effectively acts as a Referee, charged with enforcing fairness and paying out on an Official Result, and then only when satisfied that no skulldugggery had occurred. The idea of the ref is to PROTECT his Clients, for a pre-agreed fee. So that he can gain nothing from being partisan.
Instead, they found that their Exchange was more concerned in “drawing a line” under any Event so that it could pay out and quickly collect its commission before anyone had time to blink. It transpired that ( covertly) it was ALSO skimming cash from inefficiencies in the process of punters making offers to each other!
Medemi, you might try complaining to the Maltese Betting Regulator? The British one seems perfectly content to leave you stewing in your own juices!
Downside is that betfair seem to prefer the Maltese Regulator as well……….
Does experience suggest that they have determined which will do best for you, or which will do best for THEM?
Adonis,
it’s not for me to complain to any regulator, I’ll leave that for others.
I’m here to reflect on and discuss the effects of insider trading. As someone who has been hit 7 times (that I know of) in the stock market, I know what it’s like. Especially because there was a lot of responsibility on my shoulders as not all of that invested money was mine.
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It is rather frustrating that those who can detect value will be hit hardest by insider trading. That sort of kills the essence of the “game”.
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But there are many many more victims, and it’s a bit different with betting exchanges. Here we have a situation where every man, woman and child will be victimized (and perceive it that way!) because when he goes to see a match (that he paid for) he could be leaving with a feeling that someone has been playing with his willy for two hours. And so the public opinion can turn against betting exchanges very rapidly.
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Not that I care much if betfair go down (or any of the other exchanges we’ve had the pleasure of engaging with), but it can be challenging to ones conscious to just sit back and watch all that damage being done by what appear to be a bunch of amateurs, just so we can boost the share price of one or two shareholders.
Can one of the BF staff (Roger Duncan/Plant/Homer J/bot/Loki Lab Rat etcetera) please come on here and defend Davies and the rest of BF management’s decision to pay out “suspicious” matches immediately? There must be someone who can defend it, and put forward a reason why they do it, other than hiding the head in the sand and trying to pretend there’s no problem (which when it was BF’s policy to do this in 2007, led to ever worsening problems on Davydenko matches, and an eventual near £1 million reported sting on BF customers on Arguello v Davydenko).
I miss bot, and he must have been silenced, like myself. Actually I saw it coming, I wonder whether he did too.
As for the others, it would be best for your career to not come on here - life can be a bitch.
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I checked out your website Mr. Sunset. You keep referring to yourself as a geek/nerd. Well, aren’t we all to some degree. The shitheads of our youth are now being bossed around. Power to the people.
Spare a thought for poor Magician on the betfair organ! Soon he’ll have no one left worth talking to….
Unless he gets gagged too?
… and you still think bot hasn’t been “silenced” ?
Hopefully I’m wrong, but I’m willing to put money on that (50/50) even if you are a professional gambler.
Who we want on here is Andrew Black, to make his case.
No reason that I can see to put other people in harm’s way.
It seems to me the usual people visiting his blog are only sucking up to him.
ok, there’s no point in sending him an invitation then.
I didn’t think he would want to participate.
The consistent aspect of all comment coming from betfair ( black, davies, whoever) is purely that: comment. They do not entertain cross-examination.
Their organ follows the same regimen: publish comment and then watch for dissent. Bar the dissenters. Wait a while. Then claim that your comment is verified by the overwhelming support of your organ, and lack of dissenters, QED!
In politics, it’s called spin merchandising.
At betfair, it seems they really do believe that Truth is merely whatever they choose to be Truth!
Their “Emperor” ALWAYS has the finest clothes!!!
At least you were given notification when banned from the forum (without being given a reason).
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With me they just cut the wire…
Something they will not be able to repeat without causing a fuss, IMO.
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As a reminder, here is the message you’ll get:
ALERT
You are not logged in. To post on the Forum you must log in to your Betfair account using the login area on the main site.
I don’t see how you could get to 80% Ed, but you must have your reasons why you think it’s a great company even when poorly run by “a few people”.
I see it differently, let’s sum it up and I’ll do it in a timely fashion, reflecting my knowledge of the company as my experience with them grew over the years.
- First I sent them an email asking whether they are involved in their own markets in any way. They denied that, saying they were matching customers bets only and taking a commission from that. Which was a misleading statement (and I’m willing to go as far as calling that a lie) because we now know they operate as a bookmaker, hence my bet is being matched with them. Not getting into why that is crucial to me.
- It was “caveat emptor” all over the place when I joined the forum, confirmed and endorsed by many people, giving me the impression that betfair take zero responsibility in trying to protect their customers.
- The platform did not provide safeguards against people self-matching, thus market manipulation was a possibility.
- Market manipulation was pretty evident on the specials forum, as you had pointed out many times yourself.
- Clock-beating, betting after the event etc. I don’t even want to get into – they speak for themselves.
- I don’t agree with the 5-second delay, giving the bet offerers an edge over the bet takers. I’m aware of the dilemma, but I still believe there are alternatives which haven’t been given the proper attention.
- Misleading statements in adverts suggesting this is a P2P-betting company when in fact they operate as a bookmaker.
- Betfair becoming more and more involved in their own markets. Betfair games, the recruitment of traders. It’s beginning to stink now…
- The skimming bot on sports markets, not offering best-execution to their customers. This one really did it for me.
- Betfair rapid, designed to give one group of customers an edge (which they will soon have to pay for) and leaving the others with a 30-second refresh-time.
- What’s next ? I don’t know, but I cannot be positive.
It does seem we’re lacking proper regulation, and it should be self-evident that betfair are not planning on taking any responsibility themselves as far as protecting their customers is concerned. You can forget about a level-playing field right now.
If they cannot be trusted to offer protection for their customers, how can we entrust them with acting responsibly towards sports/society in general ? We can’t.
Ed,
My concern for your own assessment of what pertinence or relevance is contained in any of my posts amounts to a less than a (tiny) hill of beans.
My collection of old posts from the betfair organ serves to remind me of the conclusions I made then, when you were “one of the regulars gang” and now, when you’re clearly not.
Those conclusions are unchanged…….
medemi,
So one of us was hanged, and the other seduced by Madame Guillotine……
The Executioner had his way with both.
Or, at least, that was his intention…..
@Adonis: Your comment applies to all commercial corporations —that’s why we have the (old and new) media… to get more space for all other dimensions of the truth.
The Magician is on good form on the betfair organ today….
He shows that legalities can be turned to Customer advantage in terms of compliance, and delivery of information to enforce compliance!
“……..It is time every punter that backed this horse (Musnago) asked Betfair for the identity of the layer, and we peruse him via the gambling commission for the bets to be voided. I am happy to lead the Gambling Commission appeal, so get your requests in to find out if your bet matched by the suspect layer
Musnago - 12:35 Play Golf @ Lingfield Park Selling Stakes (Class 6) (4yo+) 1m2f
You can request the ID of the person that matched your bet via the following clauses in Betfairs Terms and conditions
Clause 2.11
You will at all times act in good faith in relation to the counterparties to your bets struck through the Exchange and such counterparties will be able to enforce this duty directly against you.
Clause 3.3
In order to facilitate the enforcement of your rights pursuant to clause 2.11 we may, at our sole and absolute discretion, provide you with details of the identity of the party or parties with whom your bet(s) have been matched if we are satisfied that such party or parties have acted in breach of clause 2.11 in relation to such bet(s).
Clause 3.4
For the purpose described in clause 3.3 above you explicitly consent to the release of your personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and any other applicable laws.
Clause 3.5
You agree to indemnify us and hold us harmless in respect of the release of any personal (or other) data pursuant to the terms of this agreement.
So post up here if you matched the suspect account and I will put ina group appeal to the gambling commission……..”
If he keeps this up, he’ll be joining the “betfair expatriates”.
@Chris,
true.
Propaganda (aka spin) is one of the few budgets that seems to grow unrestrained, and by definition ( maybe?), in inverse proportion to its truth content.
Throughout history, propaganda mostly succeeds for a time - such is the purchasing power of its masters- but ( thank Heavens) it unfailingly succumbs to truth. Unfortunately, people get hurt (or worse) with most episodes.
There IS a sort of logic underpinning: “If we burn the books and silence dissent, there will be no dissent!” The same sort of logic that assures those who rhythmically bang their heads into walls that relief comes, with certainty, when they stop……
@Ed,
do give it a rest!
I have no idea what makes you think that you are the arbiter of “comfort” or relevance here or anywhere else, or why you expect anyone to comply with any/all requests you make for explanation of their intent or content.
I think you’re going to have to live with the fact that you burned all of your bridges with respect to my personal appraisal of your potential long ago.
But hey, it’s not the End Of The World if Adonis isn’t impressed with your representations!
Well, this calls for an independent observer
, and if Chris isn’t going to say anything, I will, even though I’m getting a bit fed up with this.
1) In the fight against corruption, Adonis is a valuable asset. Extremely valuable. For those who can’t see that, tough luck, I’m not going to explain to you why.
2) Ed, you decided to send this thread to SPARC and now feel responsible for it’s content. That’s fine, but you can’t expect others to play ball.
3) Ed, the arguments you use against Adonis can easily be used against you. I’m not inclined to do so, but since you’re going to ask - someone could say for instance that you should stop what seems to be evolving as a witch hunt against one or two people working for betfair. Again, this is not my opinion and I respect your views, just trying to make a point.
4)