Smarkets begins closing successful accounts

[Euler]

Betfair's solution to traders that took money out of the market was to take enourmous money off of them and sideline them. Didn't close them down, but pretty much did in all but word.

[spreadbetting]

Thing is smarkets seem to be dancing to the tune of these 3 market makers rather than their own, Peter.

[james19]

I would be interested to hear from any other traders that have also been closed down by Smarkets.

Mr Trost did inform me that he has asked at least 5-6 traders to stop trading at Smarkets in the past 12 months. Presumably they complied with his request without too much fuss, but personally I felt that his request, as polite as it was, fell well outside the boundaries that exchanges are supposed to operate in.

While I don't hold any personal any personal animosity towards Mr Trost, I would still very much welcome it if he put his hands up and said that they were wrong as a nascent exchange to begin excluding winning traders, and that they would like to work more closely with the professional trading community going forward so that we might build a sustainable ecosystem that does not discriminate against successful clients.

Failing that I say we should all get together and set about building our own utopian ecosystem!

[andyfuller]

From what I can gather this banning and the others is not to do we you being successful per se but how you go about being successful.

So basically it boils down to the fact they don't like how you are winning, the amount you win seems pretty much irrelevant, obviously it has to be enough to be causing them issues though.

So what we need is as long as Smarkets have permission to discuss it, is a clear explanation from them as to what it is you are doing that is causing them to close you down.

Smarkets will need to be very sure they have to required documentation before they can discuss it though so as not to leave themselves open to any law suit or the like for disclosing private information.

So once the necessary is in place, please explain all Smarkets.

[james19]

I am still awaiting a thorough explanation myself.

This morning I received an email from Mr Trost that read:

Hi James,

We do not have a policy of closing successful traders accounts.

Your account is suspended for reasons independent of your trading activity and will not be reopened

Best,
Jason

This is all very confusing because in the 19 days preceding my account closure Mr Trost wrote to me on a daily basis to inform that his market makers "were still complaining about my trading activity". The inferred message was dumb down or be gone. Obviously no trader should ever dumb down what they do at the request of an exchange.

[LeTiss]

OK James, well it's clear they have decided to ban you permanently because of your muckspreading over the past few days, hence the line..."Your account is suspended for reasons independent of your trading activity and will not be reopened"

It's interesting though that you claim he sent emails saying market makers were still complaining about your trading activity. How the f**k would a market maker know it was YOU causing them problems, without being given that information by Jason or somebody else in Smarkets?

[james19]

You can't kick someone out for being a campaigner/whistle-blower, and any organization that does is stooping to extremely low levels IMHO.

Betfair didn't kick anyone out for threatening to sue them over the Premium Charge fiasco - of which there were a few.

[BackHighLayLow]

Agree with that one LeTiss. How would the MMs know who you were?

Perhaps they are making their own markets, the way they are using MMs are operating in breach of their license etc.

The fact Smarkets are going to such lengths to avoid answering the question suggests there may be much more to this. { They are quick enough to post if they want to blow a bit of smoke up their backside }

Still, it's a tin pot operation anyway so is it really worth all the press? { Who knows perhaps this is a clever virial orchestrated by them. }

[BackHighLayLow]

You can't kick someone out for being a campaigner/whistle-blower, and any organization that does is stooping to extremely low levels IMHO.

Betfair didn't kick anyone out for threatening to sue them over the Premium Charge fiasco - of which there were a few.

Wrong. Betfair pretty much banned every single PC protester from its forums in 2008. { Including a few of Peters if memory serves. }

[Online Trader]

You can't kick someone out for being a campaigner/whistle-blower, and any organization that does is stooping to extremely low levels IMHO.

Betfair didn't kick anyone out for threatening to sue them over the Premium Charge fiasco - of which there were a few.

Wrong. Betfair pretty much banned every single PC protester from its forums in 2008. { Including a few of Peters if memory serves. }

Being banned from a forum and losing your account is slightly different

[spreadbetting]

We have 3 independent market makers. We are looking for more; please get in touch if interested.

Betting exchanges are ecosystems and require the right mix of participation to be successful since binary options are zero sum.

We do close accounts for a variety of reasons, but being a "successful" trader is not one of them.



Jason

Does seem a ludicrous situation that their exchange userbase is so weak they're effectively being held to ransom by 3 market makers. can hardly blame the market makers for wanting to maintain this privileged position of pretty much having their own exchange without the associated costs

Smarkets seem to have gone very quiet since they've been given the authority to reveal all

[Iron]

James19

I don't suppose you could publish your email exchange with Jason Trost in the forum please (removing your and his email addresses)?

Jeff

[andyfuller]

I would make sure you get Jason's permission first. Not sure if emails are counted in a similar way as a private phone call but pretty sure you aren't allowed to publish private phone calls. I could be wrong though but I would recommend you check it out first.

[james19]

I was in private conversation with Smarkets management for a while, but the emails are not particularly interesting.

The basic theme is that the market makers complained, and management, fearing that a market maker pull-out could prove "catastrophic" passed these complaints onto me expecting me to stop trading. I ignored these requests, and management eventually decided to terminate my account "to protect their business". Note that Matchbook started in an almost identical fashion, but they never banned anyone for winning off the market makers.

Industry watchdog Sportsbookreview.com tell me in private that they may have to downgrade Smarkets review status to note that this site has a history of closing winning player accounts, although at this stage their investigation is still ongoing.

[Iron]

I'd be amazed if there is a law about publishing private emails, unless you obtained the email illegally. If there were, you'd hear of people getting arrested for forwarding emails to Watchdog, or of journalists being arrested for publishing embarrassing emails!

Personally, I'd never reproduce a private email without permission, but I'd have no problem with publishing an email from a company. I take the view that companies don't generally tell members of the public things that they don't want to be in the public domain. And anyway, it's not like I've signed an agreement not to publish the email.

Jeff

I would make sure you get Jason's permission first. Not sure if emails are counted in a similar way as a private phone call but pretty sure you aren't allowed to publish private phone calls. I could be wrong though but I would recommend you check it out first.