Midas Oracle .ORG » Software

BetFair App for the iPhone and the iPad –> BetFair Rattle

Chris F. Masse — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:17:26 +0000

As I understand it, BetFair has one iPhone App for the British bettors (only).

And they’ve just released a new one (BetFair Rattle), also only for the UK Apple App Store.

BetFair:

BETFAIR LAUNCHES FREE IPHONE APP FOR FOOTBALL FANS

BETFAIR, the world’s biggest online sports betting company, has released a nifty new application for football fans to compete against each other in order to make their club the most supported on the iPhone.

The ‘app-tly’ named Betfair Rattle provides a quick and easy interface for fans to check fixtures and then turn their phone into a rattle with which to back their side. Support for a particular team increases according to how much fans shake their phones before the match kicks-off.

In time, Betfair hopes to release a Betfair Rattle league table, so if you’re sitting bottom of the Premier League and have lost 10 in a row your team can still get three points at the weekend if you get your rattle out. For instance, Portsmouth fans will be glad to know they got three points at Anfield last night, even if they don’t have the bragging rights in real life.

Betfair’s Mobile Manager Richard Hewitt said: “First and foremost we wanted to create something where fans compete against each other to show support for their teams, but we also wanted to provide something that was genuinely useful by making sure it was the most simple way of checking upcoming fixtures on the iPhone.

“So many apps are slow and clunky when all a user wants is the information there and then, and that’s what this app provides.

“Above all else though, it’s a bit of fun and we hope football fans across the country will be seen shaking their iPhones at stadiums around the country come 2:55pm every Saturday.”

To download the app go to:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/betfair-rattle/id360162909?mt=8

http://iphone.betfair.com/

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CrowdCast + SAP

Chris F. Masse — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:47:55 +0000

Business Objects + Prediction Markets

Dear MO reader: Why you should try Predictalot

David Pennock — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:21:49 +0000

Why should you try Predictalot?

Gamers: Make almost any prediction you can think of about March Madness, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Sports fans: Check the crowd’s odds: Is St. Mary’s the next Cinderella?
Economists: Play with a true combinatorial prediction market with 9.2 quintillion outcomes and a single pool of liquidity, unlike almost any other of today’s financial and prediction markets.
Geeks: Ponder some of the interesting computer science challenges, including approximating #P-hard problems and an eerily similar sampling problem as faced by physicists.
Everybody’s doing it.
Barack Obama might do it, according to VentureBeat on NYTimes.com: “President Barack Obama will likely be busy this week [but]… maybe he’ll be able to sneak a peek at Predictalot on his BlackBerry between meetings.”

Smarkets better than BetFair and InTrade

Chris F. Masse — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:39:56 +0000

Smarkets now allows you to set your own odds in the format of your choice — percentages, fractions, decimals, or American odds.

External Link: Smarkets

BetFair apologizes to Niall O’Connor… and the other traders affected by the site outage.

Chris F. Masse — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:53:07 +0000

BetFair Forum:

Betfair would like to apologise for the unplanned site outage that occurred earlier this afternoon [Monday, January 25, 2010]. The cause of this problem is currently being investigated by our technical team. A list of affected markets will be posted shortly [here].

Once again please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Will it be enough for Niall?

Betfair’s Liability in relation to its software failing

Niall O'Connor — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:53:54 +0000

As somebody who likes to “back and lay” on UK horse racing, I was more than annoyed, when having placed a bet on a UK horse race, Betfair’s software malfunctioned, meaning that I was unable to lay off my bet as was my intention.

To those of us that engage in backing and laying, the result of the race is irrelevant; we are trading on price movements and price movements alone. It was my belief (mistaken) that the contract that I had entered into with Betfair, would ensure that at all times Betfair would provide me with the means to back and lay, and that where it was unable to do so, the company would rule that as a proper market had not been formed on the race, my bet would be declared void, and my stake monies would be returned.

Alas, this was not so, as the following reply from Betfair makes clear;

“As the site was not available to any customers between 2 – 4pm, no bets were placed during this time and as this was due to matters beyond our control, our terms and conditions (11.3) state that:

We are not liable for the failure of any equipment or software howsoever caused, wherever located or administered, or whether under our direct control or not, that may prevent the operation of our betting services, impede the placing of orders for bets or the matching of bets, or prevent you from being able to contact us. In particular you should be aware that if you place a bet with the intention of subsequently placing a separate bet to reduce the liability incurred by the initial bet, there can never be a guarantee that the Exchange will be available at the point you wish to place the subsequent bet.”

As it happens, the race concerned was the 2.45 at Fontwell, which somewhat contradicts Betfair’s statement that; “As the site was not available to any customers between 2 – 4pm, no bets were placed during this time.”

That aside it would seem that I have been snared by Betfair’s all encompassing exclusion clause, to the effect that;

“In particular you should be aware that if you place a bet with the intention of subsequently placing a separate bet to reduce the liability incurred by the initial bet, there can never be a guarantee that the Exchange will be available at the point you wish to place the subsequent bet.”

I do not accept that this exclusion clause is fair or equitable, and accordingly I shall seek legal advice as to its efficacy. In the meantime, I will no longer use my Betfair account.

Betfair are rumoured to be lining up for a 1.5bn flotation; it is a disgrace that they do not have back up servers to prevent their site from crashing. When such an occurrence does take place, it is in Betfair’s interest to return all bets. Betfair, the revolutionary betting company, have much to learn about the concept of goodwill.

How the iPredict market maker works

Chris F. Masse — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:50:07 +0000

How the iPredict market maker works

Algorithms that execute thousands of trades per second

Chris F. Masse — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:15:48 +0000

Automated transactions executed at lightning speed

Time-Series Forecasting

Chris F. Masse — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:00:27 +0000

- The different kinds of forecasting software —including time-series forecasting.

- Some forecasting startups make use of the open source and/or SaaS models. I need your feedback on all this. Please, comment below, e-mail me, wave me, or tweet me.

- Lokad – (concurrent time-series forecasting) – Video

- Data Applied – (neural network algorithm)

External Links: Lokad – Data Applied

InfoSurv’s prediction market software

Chris F. Masse — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:19:48 +0000

InfoSurv:

Infosurv Launches v2.0 of the iCE Prediction Market System

New prediction market technology allows marketers to leverage employees, customers, or targeted consumer groups to accurately predict new product success

Atlanta, GA – Infosurv, Inc., a global leader in online market research, has recently launched version 2.0 of its patent-pending iCE (Infosurv Concept Exchange) prediction market system. The new release allows iCE clients to quickly and inexpensively collect feedback from employees, customers, or virtually any consumer group to accurately predict consumer preference for new product or marketing concepts.

What separates iCE 2.0 from other prediction market products is that it functions much like a survey, but with the actual buying of “virtual shares” in the new product, design or marketing concepts that are being tested. Just like in a stock market, concept share prices rise or fall with each trade. By examining how share prices move over time, iCE can accurately predict that concepts that customers will prefer in the real-world.

Though Infosurv is a full-service market research conducting hundreds of survey projects a year, they launched a prediction market product that competes head-on with online concept screening surveys.

“It’s our goal to obsolesce ourselves before a competitor does,” says Jared Heyman, Infosurv’s Founder & President. “Prediction markets have been proven to have higher predictive validity than surveys for many applications, at a lower cost and greater speed. Market research buyers are demanding innovative new technologies that enhance the accuracy, speed, and cost-effectiveness of their research. The iCE prediction market is exactly such a technology.”

To test and validate their new iCE 2.0 system, Infosurv partnered with a major consumer packaged goods (CPG) company specializing in health and beauty products. The test was a great success, with iCE accurately predicting the market acceptance of 9 new product concepts in 2 separate product categories.

“What our client found most compelling about iCE,” says Mr. Heyman, “was the cost savings. Using this tool, they can cut their concept screening budget in half without any sacrifice of accuracy or speed. Further, respondent engagement is enhanced since iCE traders find the experience more fun, interesting, and challenging than responding to an online survey.”

Prediction markets have been used for years to accurately predict other real-world outcomes. The Iowa Electronic Market (IEM) has been used since the early-1990’s to predict political election outcomes more accurately than surveys or polls. The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) is a popular prediction market designed to predict movie box office receipts, and has been doing so with great precision for over a decade.

iCE is the first prediction market designed to predict outcomes of interest to market researchers, such as new product or marketing concept success.