We could use a US Gambling And Betting Commission, but the best would be to have prediction exchanges (modeled after BetFair) that alert the sports bodies about any suspicions.
Chris F. Masse May 24th, 2008
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“Insider trading is a bigger deal in sports than in the financial markets,” said Justin Wolfers, a professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, who studies gambling. “We have the Securities and Exchange Commission here. Why not the same for what is a multibillion-dollar sports gambling market?”
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Previously: BetFair’s Mark Davies on sports betting and the fight against corruption
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- Betting , Regulations
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I find the suggestion that a prediction exchange modelled after Betfair could be superior to an independent commission fairly alarming, but I will try to explain why.
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Davydenko v Arguello was the match BF voided, because, as Mark Davies claimed across multiple news channels, the “betting wasn’t fair in Betfair’s view”. The result of this was that money was returned to the people who had lost on the market, who were betting fairly according to the prices on offer, and the state of play of the match (e.g. Davydenko winning the first set easily 6-2).
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Since then, no match has been voided, but there are a number of matches with identical betting patterns. As BF have said to Midas Oracle, their new policy is to settle these markets, but freeze money being paid to winning accounts, and alert the authorities.
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Voiding an unfair market (where the people betting fairly and in good faith got their money back), is in my opinion better than letting the market stand.
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What is happening is that tennis bettors have little to no faith in the markets, and there is a culture of “fix following” that has sprung up. The tennis markets have become carnage, where when there is suspicious prices, people more and more are steaming in to back the player who seemingly has ridiculously poor odds. If you get it right, you get paid out instantly. I saw VERY suspicious prices on Tathian Garbin vs (Roberta?) Vinci last year, and made a couple of hundred dollars “following the fix”, which I gave to a UK Big Brother contestants’ charity appeal for an animal charity in the UK, on this page following.
http://www.justgiving.com/michellebass
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I wasn’t “betting fairly”, I could see there was something badly wrong, yet I was paid out immediately, despite deliberately taking poor odds. I have no faith that other accounts, the ones who aren’t just “following the fix”, but who are actively privy to inside information/corruption, are all being successfully stopped.
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Overall, prediction markets should be run where people getting fairly get a run for their money. It isn’t actually that much to ask for. The Gunn-Rees report identified 45 suspicious matches, of which only one saw people who used the prediction markets fairly get their money back. There is an economic incentive to put up as many markets as possible, settle them as quickly as possible, and put fresh ones up immediately with the same players. This is what seems to be happening with BF - they have never refunded any prediction market user to my knowledge other than on Davydenko v Arguello, and in my opinion, they should have done. Its just not healthy to encourage paranoia and paying out matches immediately no matter how many people are seriously alarmed at suspicious prices.
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A US Gambling and Betting commission has the negatives that it could be prone to politics/protectionism, favouring US providers of markets over foreign ones, and being overzealous towards foreign providers due to a mix of protectionism and xenophobia. But give me that every day of the week over an exchange where anyone who bets fairly on one of these markets automatically loses, and has only once in history got a refund on the tennis markets, despite there being 45 named examples of suspicious matches from the Gunn-Rees report. That just isn’t fair, or right.
Ed,
I watched the price on a soccer team drop from 4.0 to 2.2 once. High volume.
If I remember correctly, that was because a number of players had been signalled in a nightclub the night before the match. At least this was the rumor. That is information in the public domain, and a punter aware of this should not have his bets voided by betfair.
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My point is, you never know for certain what moves a price, neither do betfair. Betfair can detect suspicious activity, but they can never know for sure whether we’re dealing with inside information.
I do not agree with Adonis’ suggestion that betfair should act as a referee. The only referee IMO will be the Gambling Commission and the rules from betfair’s T&C’s. We have to be able to rely on those.
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The way forward, for me, is what we talked about earlier. Restrict fresh accounts and have people earn the right to bet large. You will solve most problems this way, and only this way IMO.
@Ed Murray:
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Reminder:
- Please don’t defame BetFair.
- Publish verified facts, only.
“Playing to win as much money as possible with the aid of a marketing offer is not fraud”
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Chris - is that a quote from me? I’m a little bit lost - apologies - the thread about the marketing offer (the casino bonus?) is a different one to this one? Sorry for being confused.
Medemi- restricting brand new accounts is the way forward initially, but in the long run this will fail as well, because the subset of people who are putting liquidity into the gambling markets, will inevitably start to overlap with the subset of people who can influence the outcomes of sporting contests. That Hansie Cronje documentary showed just how casually and easily bookmakers were able to influence not only Cronje, but other cricketers too. One of the bookmakers involved was openly boasting about his influence.
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In the long run, betting has to be as close to fair as possible, and in the end, a human judgement call will have to be made to turn down certain types of accounts/betting behaviour.
@Ed Murray: Sorry, it was Sandracer:
http://www.midasoracle.org/200.....ment-19034
@Chris F. Masse: But my warming was to Ed Murray, not to SandRacer.
Ed,
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interesting comment, because I’m only interested in solutions which are
- efficient
- effective
- and sustainable
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Medemi- restricting brand new accounts is the way forward initially, but in the long run this will fail as well, because the subset of people who are putting liquidity into the gambling markets, will inevitably start to overlap with the subset of people who can influence the outcomes of sporting contests.
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The best we can ask for is to prevent an explosion of insider trading and keep it contained (with minimal effort and costs).
My primary target group are the potential insiders. Those who get hold of inside information on occasion or accidentally, and sports men and women playing a match with little or nothing to play for.
This group does not have an account with any bookmaker (and account for at least 99% of the world’s population), and I want to remove the opportunity for them to make a lot of money by rebalancing the risk reward ratio so that every one of them will make the right decision and refrain from insider trading.
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For the die hard cheats out there, you may have a point Ed. But they are still going to have to invest a lot of time (maybe even money) to make a killing financially, dependent on how it is implemented of course, which is a different discussion.
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In the long run, betting has to be as close to fair as possible, and in the end, a human judgement call will have to be made to turn down certain types of accounts/betting behaviour.
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One does not exclude the other, but I would say this type of activity would be limited when the primary solution (ours) is the right one.
So I would say, overall, it is a sustainable strategy when dealing with insiders.
Bookie cries foul over BBC goal betting
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Sam Jones The Guardian, Thursday June 5 2008
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Match of the Day is the latest programme to find itself under scrutiny after a bookmaker closed betting on a competition on the BBC’s flagship football show after noticing some suspicious punting.
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Goal of the Season - in which viewers trying to guess which one of the 10 best goals of the season a panel of Match of the Day presenters will judge the finest - is one of the most popular elements of the show. The winner receives a pair of tickets to a Premiership game.
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But Blue Square decided to suspend betting on Tuesday after £10,000 was put on Emmanuel Adebayor’s goal against Spurs at White Hart Lane over the course of just four hours.
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The company would normally expect to take around £5,000 in a week for a “novelty” bet such as the Goal of the Season. Its suspicions were further aroused when it found that a host of internet accounts had been opened for the purpose of betting on the competition. The Arsenal striker’s goal had been 9-2 third favourite to win, but odds plummeted to 1-5 after 400 bets were placed on him on Tuesday.
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The BBC said it was taking the concerns very seriously. “We are talking to Blue Square and if there’s enough evidence we will investigate,” said a spokeswoman.
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A Blue Square spokesman said: “We’re not saying any of the Match of the Day team are responsible, but the market seems to suggest that the goal of the season result has been leaked somewhere.”
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He said the number of bets placed on Adebayor was comparable to the amount taken on the Champions League final.
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“It was crazy. Even when we cut his odds to 1-5, people were still betting on him. In our experience, punters only bet like that when they know the result,” he told the Evening Standard.
@Medemi:
1. Where is the link?
2. Be careful of not stealing a publication’s copyright.
Chris,
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I quoted a post from the WBX forum (public domain). If anyone has a problem with it they should contact Cold Dog (chief moderator at WBX).
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http://forum.wbx.com/viewtopic.php?t=33362
@Medemi: That’s OK.
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I thought it was from a newspaper or magazine.