Betfair Down / Betfair site crash

[Euler]

Crap day yesterday, I have just scraped the 'down' threads (there are two of them), here is a quick graph of posts per day:

Screenshot 2019-05-19 at 09.19.26.png

I will do some further analysis later but 2019 is looking bad with 40 distinct days of posts (average has been 59 per year)

And what we all suspected, distinct days where there are posts:

Screenshot 2019-05-19 at 09.22.54.png

Good stuff, the first thing that stood out for me was that Paddy Power "merged" with Betfair in 2015, pretty much the low point of outages. It's got worse since then.

[Ethanol]

And what we all suspected, distinct days where there are posts:

Screenshot 2019-05-19 at 09.22.54.png

Two thoughts:

1. Would it be that far-fetched to suggest someone knows what to do in order to crash the exchange, and uses it as a strategy?

2. It might not actually be a server load issue. It might just be that there's a specific software trigger (that creates some sort of race condition), and the more trades that are being placed through the exchange, the more likely the condition is to trigger.

[spreadbetting]

It'd be interesting to see how often these outages occur after scheduled maintenance. It's usually when they've tinkered with the exchange and not done any proper stress testing that the problems arise rather than anyone crashing the exchange.

[Derek27]

And what we all suspected, distinct days where there are posts:

Screenshot 2019-05-19 at 09.22.54.png

Two thoughts:

1. Would it be that far-fetched to suggest someone knows what to do in order to crash the exchange, and uses it as a strategy?

2. It might not actually be a server load issue. It might just be that there's a specific software trigger (that creates some sort of race condition), and the more trades that are being placed through the exchange, the more likely the condition is to trigger.

I think it would be far-fetched in all honesty. It's hard to see how a hacker could find a way through without inside information and I'd guess it would be quite difficult for a programmer working in a large team to get his own code into the software without anyone else seeing it. I suspect if anyone did know how to crash the exchange it would be down all the time.

[ShaunWhite]

I don't understand why any trader working a market that has take sp wants to trade bare positions. Every trade I make is automatically paired and then maintainance bets go in anytime my estimate of bsp changes. So far in the outages I've lost no more than the cost of a poor trade, because in the time between the comms outage to start time the price has moved a lot. Obviously inplay is still risky but that's why I never do it on a Saturday. I could have maybe lost a day's wages in the outage a few days ago but talk of whole banks or a week's wages, wow.

You can ride the fluctuations if you're a big-time trader but I personally couldn't be doing with a run of bad outcomes. Part-timers are especially vulnerable as they don't see enough outages for them to be a wash, and they take no precautions over THE largest and pretty much the only risk we face. Everyone knows BF goes down, to not try and mitigate that risk to at least some extent with locked-in accepted closing bets just seems Ike complacency or blind faith in somehow never having a comms problem.

[ShaunWhite]

And what we all suspected, distinct days where there are posts:

Screenshot 2019-05-19 at 09.22.54.png

Are there more outages on Saturdays or just more people around to comment on them?

[LinusP]

And what we all suspected, distinct days where there are posts:

Screenshot 2019-05-19 at 09.22.54.png

Are there more outages on Saturdays or just more people around to comment on them?

It’s not post count, it’s a count of the number of Saturday’s where there has been a post. Lots of assumptions here and I will improve it by confirming a ‘down’ or ‘crash’ is mentioned, I also want to do some sentiment analysis when I get a chance.

[eightbo]

I'd imagine there's a fair amount of [local] network issues from people to dismiss too.

[Euler]

True, but I'd imagine it captures the 'essence' of the outages.

[ShaunWhite]

I can't believe there isn't a Stato out there who's got the details Some people appear to record what every horse had for breakfast so surely.......

[Derek27]

Might be an idea to have a thread dedicated to listing the precise start and finish time of each outage. Or perhaps a spreadsheet that forum members can edit and post back?

[Derek27]

21:51 Sunray Park very late suspension.

[Euler]

Here is another reference site for total outages: -

https://downdetector.co.uk/problems/betfair/archive

[Grinderman]

I don't understand why any trader working a market that has take sp wants to trade bare positions. Every trade I make is automatically paired and then maintainance bets go in anytime my estimate of bsp changes. So far in the outages I've lost no more than the cost of a poor trade, because in the time between the comms outage to start time the price has moved a lot. Obviously inplay is still risky but that's why I never do it on a Saturday. I could have maybe lost a day's wages in the outage a few days ago but talk of whole banks or a week's wages, wow.

You can ride the fluctuations if you're a big-time trader but I personally couldn't be doing with a run of bad outcomes. Part-timers are especially vulnerable as they don't see enough outages for them to be a wash, and they take no precautions over THE largest and pretty much the only risk we face. Everyone knows BF goes down, to not try and mitigate that risk to at least some extent with locked-in accepted closing bets just seems Ike complacency or blind faith in somehow never having a comms problem.

It depends on how you trade. Personally, I start by backing (or laying) early in the day with a view to trade out several hours later. That makes me very susceptible to an outage. You guys on here who wait until 10 minutes before the off to start trading will have minimal exposure.

[Derek27]

I don't understand why any trader working a market that has take sp wants to trade bare positions. Every trade I make is automatically paired and then maintainance bets go in anytime my estimate of bsp changes. So far in the outages I've lost no more than the cost of a poor trade, because in the time between the comms outage to start time the price has moved a lot. Obviously inplay is still risky but that's why I never do it on a Saturday. I could have maybe lost a day's wages in the outage a few days ago but talk of whole banks or a week's wages, wow.

You can ride the fluctuations if you're a big-time trader but I personally couldn't be doing with a run of bad outcomes. Part-timers are especially vulnerable as they don't see enough outages for them to be a wash, and they take no precautions over THE largest and pretty much the only risk we face. Everyone knows BF goes down, to not try and mitigate that risk to at least some extent with locked-in accepted closing bets just seems Ike complacency or blind faith in somehow never having a comms problem.

It depends on how you trade. Personally, I start by backing (or laying) early in the day with a view to trade out several hours later. That makes me very susceptible to an outage. You guys on here who wait until 10 minutes before the off to start trading will have minimal exposure.

The amount of exposure depends on how much you have invested in the market, not how long before the race you start trading. Traders who trade 10 minutes before a race will often be trading all day so we are all equally susceptible to outages.