Betfair Customer Services 17 Oct 14:59
The directors of Betfair would like to express their regret for not notifying customers in advance of the introduction of a new technical process called “cross matching†in February of this year. Cross matching enables increased opportunities to get bets matched by taking into account betting activity on different selections within the same market. Betfair General Betting Limited (a company within the Betfair group) is licensed – and has been nominated by The Sporting Exchange Limited – to act as counterparty to bets so as to enable cross matching to occur.
Cross matching functionality remains in operation and continues to provide our customers with enhanced certainty of securing the bets they request at the same or better odds. We would like to assure our customers that, in future, they will be notified of changes such as this in advance by forum announcement, banners on the site and/or email unless our Terms & Conditions clearly permit a change to be introduced without prior notification.
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I have no idea why BetFair have issued that apology at this time. I suspect that they received a remark from the UK Gambling Commission or they received remarks from their shareholders at the recent investors’ annual assembly. I don’t know.
From a poster named “grafec”. I don’t think I can provide a link.
I’d understood that BetFair had to apologise, but actually thought they had (to the GC).
So, it’s good to see that a statement to their customers has been made eventually.
When the skimming code was introduced it was the first time (shortly followed by a second) that I submitted an email and written request to the GC, the ODPM and the FSA. The replies that I got suggested they were “investigating”. When I contacted a colleague in Westminster to see whether I was being patted on the head and they’d realised the significance of the issue, the internal reply I received encouraged me quite a bit. I posted on the BF forum that they were in a “fair bit of trouble” about this, with the Government itself insisting the GC do something to ensure that a UK firm which had millions of pounds of UK money inform their customers of material changes to bet matching code IN ADVANCE.
Looks like, eventually, the message hit home. Failure to comply would have probably meant FSA regulation for all UK exchanges sooner rather than later.
Believe me, despite their laissez faire attitude over this and subsequent retraction of the code, for a few critical days, BF were in deep ***** on this. At the highest level.