Smarkets begins closing successful accounts

[freddy]

Please don't close out your positions on Smarkets and green up against the market maker. I know this is a pain to ask you but we're small and I need to build the trading ecosystem in the right way for our markets to be able to mature. Feel free to give me a call (anytime) or respond to this email.

wow what a clueless bunch
I have never heard such drivel in all my life.

And to think there were posting on here after the Pc went up and trying to encourage people to use them as a valid alternative .

embarrassing, they are doomed now,
why would anyone use them.

[maycontainnuts]

james19, I think I am correct in saying you mainly bet on football according to previous posts. Can you tell us if this is inplay or before the off?

I'm sure you didn't dodge it on purpose, but can you answer my previous question.

[james19]

Pre-match, the in-play is virtually non-existent at smarkets. The market makers don't appear to offer in-play odds (they would probably get killed if they did) so without the market makers it's a ghost town.

[maycontainnuts]

Thanks for clarifying that, I thought that smarkets may be trying to stop somebody exploting the inplay delay, that was all.

[freddy]

If james will forward a complain to LGA, what would be smarkets consequences regards their licenze?

None, they are perfectly within their rights to close accounts for any reason they see fit.

The damage to Smarkets will only be from the disastrous PR that will come from closing accounts.

[james19]

Currently all trading patterns are welcomed at Smarkets, including winning accounts. However to help ensure the growth of the exchange we will, at times, try to come to arrangements that can benefit all parties involved.

While we realise that every new trader through the door may not be willing to come to a compromise we do not take this as a case for account suspension at all. Hope that clears things up.

Just re-read this.....

Basically what they appear to be saying is that if you are a consistent winner then management may approach you at their discretion to request that you adjust your trading strategy to a slightly less profitable one (which is basically what they did with me) for the sake of the overall ecosystem.

You are ostensibly well within your rights, they claim, to say no thanks i'm fine trading the way I am (which I must have repeated on about 19 separate occasions) and they will never use that as a reason to close your account.

Since no trader is ever likely to take a voluntary pay cut this statement is completely meaningless, incongruous, and smacks of unsustainability.

[maycontainnuts]

Does any body actually use smarkets? I can understand people getting upset if they were a player in the market but it seems only james has actually done anything useful there?

[freddy]

No I don't and i won't be in the future now either ,
there is no point

People are getting annoyed because they want a viable alternative to Betfair and it is not looking good for the future of sports trading at the moment.

Betfair are killing winners with the P.C

Betdaq are about to be bought out by Ladbrokes a company that will restrict your account in a heartbeat.

And now Smarkets closing winning accounts.

[Online Trader]

I have used them quite a bit for match betting and Arbing as their commission is only 2% but as others have stated a decent alternative to Betfair would be good but it doesn't look as though we are going to find that with S Markets

[daofs1]

It's difficult to make a judgement on this with both sides being coy about the exact reasons. However, I do think it is naive to expect a betting exchange - especially one trying to scale up - to tolerate courtsiding, arbing in large size and picking off errors on a routine basis without some kind of remedial action. Why should a market maker bother inputting liquidity if the only business they see is when they drop a bollock for a split second and get and instant and painful kicking? This is no different from the London Stock expecting punters with direct market access to respect traders' etiquette or get banned.
As I say, we don't have the full picture but until we do I don't think we should be to quick to condemn what may in the long run be viable alternative to Betfair

[freddy]

I would agree on some of your points,
but it does seem he's not been doing any of those things anyway.

he's said he's not an arber and does not do in-play because of lack of liquidity over there.

So that leaves taking pre kick off positions that he deems value and then trading out at some point,

he is then told not to green up his positions against the market makers which is a frankly ridiculous request on a betting exchange.

[daofs1]

Freddy
This is only a guess, but from what I've read it sounds like he was picking off stale prices after a large pre-kick-off movement elsewhere, perhaps on one of the big influential Asian bookies. This was quite a common tactic on Betfair which was able to absorb this kind of business in way that an illiquid market such as Smarkets cannot. He could then wait for the Smarkets price to align with the big players. (Remember of course that almost all football prices (exluding bookings etc) are derivatives of just two numbers:the predicted goal totals of the respective teams)
Once he has taken this stale price he could either wait for the Smarkets price to move in line with the wider market and green-up pre-kickoff, arb it against a mainstream bookie such as Pinnacle, or simply run it as a "value" bet on the reasonable assumption that the stale Smarkets price is the outlier.
My bet would be that the majority of occasions he was was simply exploiting the stake price in large size, scalping a profit every time, with the marketmaker not standing a chance as they are the only ones providing the liquidity , unlike on Betfair.
(If, on the other hand, he is such brilliant bet-picker why not simply place all of his sure fire picks at £20k a pop with the non-limiting Asian bookies or Pinnacle)
There is nothing "wrong" in any of this and I've employed similar tactics myself. But equally I understand why a betting business would want to protect itself from such behaviour, not least because it imperils the viability of the whole enterprise.
My own rather jaundiced view is that the utopian dream of a betting exchange model is ultimately doomed because it relies on a large number of fools to hand over their cash to people who are smarter faster of more willing to cheat. Eventually all the fools are broke and the only people left are those unwilling to take a risk. Hence the long term repositioning of Betfair as a regular fixed odds business. They are not charities and they have no obligation to anyone but their shareholders in my view.
As I said, I'm not making any judgement on the behaviour of either side, other than to say don't expect whole-hearted support unless you are willing to provide the full picture

Happy Christmas!

[daofs1]

Freddy
This is only a guess, but from what I've read it sounds like he was picking off stale prices after a large pre-kick-off movement elsewhere, perhaps on one of the big influential Asian bookies. This was quite a common tactic on Betfair which was able to absorb this kind of business in way that an illiquid market such as Smarkets cannot. He could then wait for the Smarkets price to align with the big players. (Remember of course that almost all football prices (exluding bookings etc) are derivatives of just two numbers:the predicted goal totals of the respective teams)
Once he has taken this stale price he could either wait for the Smarkets price to move in line with the wider market and green-up pre-kickoff, arb it against a mainstream bookie such as Pinnacle, or simply run it as a "value" bet on the reasonable assumption that the stale Smarkets price is the outlier.
My bet would be that the majority of occasions he was was simply exploiting the stake price in large size, scalping a profit every time, with the marketmaker not standing a chance as they are the only ones providing the liquidity , unlike on Betfair.
(If, on the other hand, he is such brilliant bet-picker why not simply place all of his sure fire picks at £20k a pop with the non-limiting Asian bookies or Pinnacle?)
There is nothing "wrong" in any of this and I've employed similar tactics myself. But equally I understand why a betting business would want to protect itself from such behaviour, not least because it imperils the viability of the whole enterprise.
My own rather jaundiced view is that the utopian dream of a betting exchange model is ultimately doomed because it relies on a large number of fools to hand over their cash to people who are smarter faster of more willing to cheat. Eventually all the fools are broke and the only people left are those unwilling to take a risk. Hence the long term repositioning of Betfair as a regular fixed odds business. They are not charities and they have no obligation to anyone but their shareholders in my view.
As I said, I'm not making any judgement on the behaviour of either side, other than to say don't expect whole-hearted support unless you are willing to provide the full picture

Happy Christmas!

[daofs1]

Freddy
This is only a guess, but from what I've read it sounds like he was picking off stale prices after a large pre-kick-off movement elsewhere, perhaps on one of the big influential Asian bookies. This was quite a common tactic on Betfair which was able to absorb this kind of business in way that an illiquid market such as Smarkets cannot. He could then wait for the Smarkets price to align with the big players. (Remember of course that almost all football prices (exluding bookings etc) are derivatives of just two numbers:the predicted goal totals of the respective teams)
Once he has taken this stale price he could either wait for the Smarkets price to move in line with the wider market and green-up pre-kickoff, arb it against a mainstream bookie such as Pinnacle, or simply run it as a "value" bet on the reasonable assumption that the stale Smarkets price is the outlier.
My bet would be that the majority of occasions he was was simply exploiting the stake price in large size, scalping a profit every time, with the marketmaker not standing a chance as they are the only ones providing the liquidity , unlike on Betfair.
(If, on the other hand, he is such brilliant bet-picker why not simply place all of his sure fire picks at £20k a pop with the non-limiting Asian bookies or Pinnacle?)
There is nothing "wrong" in any of this and I've employed similar tactics myself. But equally I understand why a betting business would want to protect itself from such behaviour, not least because it imperils the viability of the whole enterprise.
My own rather jaundiced view is that the utopian dream of a betting exchange model is ultimately doomed because it relies on a large number of fools to hand over their cash to people who are smarter faster of more willing to cheat. Eventually all the fools are broke and the only people left are those unwilling to take a risk. Hence the long term repositioning of Betfair as a regular fixed odds business. They are not charities and they have no obligation to anyone but their shareholders in my view.
As I said, I'm not making any judgement on the behaviour of either side, other than to say don't expect whole-hearted support unless you are willing to provide the full picture

Happy Christmas!

[freddy]

Of cause, yes they are entitled to make business decisions to protect themselves and yes i realise they are not a charity , but this imo is a very short sighted and if they are not careful they might not have a business to protect.

After the recent P.C hike on Betfair they were actively marketing themselves on here and other places as a viable alternative, but it’s clear now they are not and prob never will be.
Even Betfair have not been stupid enough to close accounts for being profitable,
the p.c is their way of doing things and although it archives the same thing in effect,
at least you know where you stand.

With regard to the exchange model then all I will say is that Betfair got very rich from taking 5% commission, the only reason this changed was because they got too greedy and like most businesses these days became obsessed with growth year on year,

But that doesn’t mean that in the future someone else will not take a different route.
imo there always has been and always will be plenty of fools to be parted form their money, just look at the stock market .

James has stated in a previous post that he has a Football Model and uses it to find value positions and to me that implies he is deriving prices from statistical analysis.
Something similar to Soccer mystic for example, that’s how I understand it anyway
But I may be wrong.

If he does have a speed advantage over the market makers as you suggested and he is cherry picking the out of line prices then I can see why they would be abit miffed,
But maybe they should be learning from him instead of taking the easy option and banning him,

If i used Smarkets, which incidentally i was going to try at some point until this week ,
Then I would be taking prices that I deemed to be short term value and then greening up,
thats what all of us traders do in effect isn’t it ?,
Obviously we all take are cues from different places
whether it be bookies odds, knowledge / stats or other,

but on smarkets you carn't do that it seems .


Happy Xmas .