We have decided that the strategy for the U.S. is to enhance our horse racing offerings and to support our global product development initiatives and therefore, at this point, Betfair wants the U.S. horse racing and engineering teams to integrate more closely with [United Kingdom] operations. Given these changes, Gerard decided to leave the company to pursue alternative opportunities.

More info:

Stephen Burn will now run Betfair’s US horseracing business and Los Angeles office, reporting to Betfair’s UK-based managing director of exchange, Mathias Entenmann.

Ravi Keswani will continue to run the US engineering and product management teams and assume responsibility for the San Francisco office, reporting to Betfair’s London-based chief technology officer Tony McAlister.

If you wanna know what Stephen Burn looks like, here’s an old video:

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MY VIEWS: Some years ago, I e-mailed Stephen Burn (2 or 3 times) for info on BetFair (not knowing that he was not in the PR department), and he graciously forwarded each e-mail to right person at BetFair (instead of killing them, wrong recipient), and my requests got always satisfied. So, to me, the chap sounds like a nice gentleman. As for Gerard Cunningham, I was told by one betting exchange industry insider that he was not very enlightened.

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[*] Technically, David Yu is the upper boss at The Sporting Exchange USA, if I remember well. Go to http://corporate.betfair.com/ for more info. (Well, actually, you won’t find that info there. Their corporate site is quite elliptic.)

[...] From next month we’ll be giving customers the opportunity to back or lay a horse at [Starting Price]. There’ll be guaranteed matching in all but the rarest of circumstances, no stakes limits and the option to set price limits should punters wish. As an added feature, we’ll also be introducing something known internally as ‘bet persistence‘. This allows customers to have their bets automatically turned in-play if they’ve not been matched before the off.

Originally conceived as a concept for attracting new customers to Betfair, the SP facility looks like it’s also going to appeal to the savvy, more sophisticated users if the recent roadshows and customer testing sessions are any guide. There are several features to the new product that customers can opt into by clicking a series of check boxes above the market view or listed under more options. These include displaying the predicted SP on Betfair from the moment a market begins to trade right up to the off of the race. For new customers a simple interface showing ‘back only’ current odds or SP buttons will be displayed.

The new Betfair SP market will run separately from the main exchange market up until the point of reconciliation at the start of the race. At the off, the backers and layers of SP bets will be matched with each other and with exchange backers and layers to determine the accurate price of the Betfair SP. This will then be displayed within a few seconds of the off as soon as the race is turned in play. For customers wanting a high degree of detail they can have it – the SP can be returned with up to six decimal places. For the vast majority, two decimal paces will suffice and this is what will be displayed on the site.

One important feature of the SP bets to note is that once placed, they can’t be cancelled. However, price sensitive customers can set limits to their bets so they’ll only be struck if a required price has been matched. For instance, someone wanting to back a horse early in the morning before heading off to work can say they’ll take the Betfair SP as long as it is 4.5 or above, knowing it’ll only be matched if the SP is that price or bigger.

We anticipate that the returns will compare favourably with the current industry SP and from the outset the full returns for every horse will be displayed on the site.

Any customer not interested in the SP function can simply leave the tick box unticked and they’ll never see it. [...]

[...] It was a complex challenge because of the choices they wanted to make available to the widest possible range of customers. Just returning a simple version of the SP would have been easy but they were a little more ambitious than that. It would be an immense technical challenge but if they pulled it off, they knew it could once again turn the betting world on its head. [...]

There was much more information and explanations in The Guardian‘s article.

Let’s hope that Steve Burn’s next blog posts at Betting @ BetFair will be much more informative in the future.

The Betfair betting exchange will launch its starting price betting service in the middle of next month, after it received the approval of a number of the exchange’s biggest-staking clients at a series of demonstrations over the last seven days.

Betfair has spent two years developing a robust system to allow bets to be placed at its own SP. As a result, three extra columns will soon be added to its display for every win market on its British and Irish racing service: one for bets on a horse at the Betfair SP, one for “lay” bets against it at SP, and a “guide” price in the middle showing what the SP is likely to be.

The SP market and the normal exchange market will be separate, in an attempt to ensure that it is extremely difficult to manipulate the SP. Betfair also hopes to offset any reduction in overall liquidity – which is vital to any exchange – by attracting new clients.

The great majority of off-course bets are still settled at the official SP, derived from on-course betting markets, while even on the internet, around 55% of racing bets are settled at SP. The Betfair SP, derived from a market with a negligible profit margin, will allow punters to make a direct comparison between the bookmakers’ odds and those on offer on the exchange.

SP bets will have some differences from “normal” bets on Betfair. Whereas normal bets can be cancelled until the moment when a rival gambler accepts the other side of the bet, SP bets cannot be cancelled once placed. Punters can, however, specify a minimum price at which they are willing to back, and a maximum price for lay bets.

In time, SP betting is likely to extend to the exchange’s place-only markets, and to many other sports in which the SP concept has never been used before.

“This has the potential to be the most significant step forward for Betfair since the exchange was launched,” Stephen Burn, Betfair’s director of horse racing, said yesterday. “Racing is scratching the surface. In time, we hope that we will be able to add it across football, tennis and so on. We could even return an SP on the next general election.”

Niall O’Connor has more.

NEXT: More on BetFair’s Starting Prices.