How would you like to trade a market where you get large regular price swings every 10 minutes in the afternoon, seven days a week. A
market where all prices are set purely by supply and demand, few transaction costs, no middle men and you only pay commission if you win? Where you can freely act as a market maker and where you have direct market access and where you can create a spread for others to take?

Betfair has revolutionised the betting market and created an open platform for exchanging risk on sports events. This market is now viewed much more like a traditional financial risk market than an old fashioned betting market. Smart users have realised that there are huge opportunities on Betfair because they can buy and sell risk in much the same way they would in a normal financial market but without the burden of cost or the restricted access that is usually associated with traditional financial markets.

Click here to learn more

Many of you will be aware that we have been reviewing site load over the past months. The amount of bets placed on Betfair continues to rise and investment in both hardware and software solutions to meet this challenge continues. However, it is clear that a small number of users place a disproportionate load on our system, relative to the actual amount of bets that they get matched. We have therefore decided to introduce a new charging scheme for those users who place over 1000 bets in a given hour (equating to 1 bet every 4 seconds over an hour).

The details of this scheme are as follows:

For each of you, we will add up all the bets you placed or edited (whether matched, cancelled or lapsed) in excess of 1000 in each hour of the day.

For API users we will multiply this sum by 1p, for website users we will multiply this sum by 2p.

This will form the basis of the transaction charge, but we will deduct from the charge any commission you have paid us during the day.

Any remaining amount will be charged to your account on a daily basis.

We will be introducing the charge from 1st January 2006, but we will be monitoring all accounts from next week and we will be making entries on your account statements to indicate the amount that would have been charged, if the charging scheme were in operation. For further details please contact the trans@betfair.com.

Not exactly a shock? ;)

Hopefully we can see load reduced at peak times.

I sense the site is wobbling a bit, anybody else notice the same?

Been alright at my end but several reporting problems on the forum- gonna have a short break just in case

The only thing wobbling is me, laid hits only heaven @6.4 by mistake. grabbed the mouse when the confirm was switched off.

I've noticed an occasional stutter every now and then on bet angel. Fortunately Im only trading the swings on the harry market so its not causing me any real problems.

If no one else is going to ask, who is it that puts through a 1000/transactions an hour and on what markets?

Sealed

There are programs available which generate 100s/1000s of bots per hour into the betfair back/lay book to try and move (distort would be a better word) the book into the individuals desired direction. Once these bots have performed the necessary tasks they are cancelled or pulled out of the system without being filled.

They are present on most events but more so on the horse racing as its the biggest market by far.

Cheers bakko

a normal awful day for trading on a monday - scrip i think you got it right trading the pompey farce :-) - have sent you an email re betangel

gonna have a break and see what tripe Gordon Brown manages to come up this time. be interesting to see if any mention with regard to betting exchanges though from a selfish perspective im more interested as to whether he increases the take from the north sea oil cos

I know somebody that did 1.6m in a day! I think its these sort of people that Betfair are, quite rightly IMO, clamping down on.

"a normal awful day for trading on a monday"

It was a difficult day today.

Harrys on the drift after the pompey website has reported that the compensation offer to soton has been turned down.

Well the only gambling reform that appears to have been looked at in the pre budget appears to be related to bingo and gaming machines

1.6 million?!!!! Bloody hell......I must say distorting odds by thousands of bots does seem a bit cheeky..... Its a strategy though I suppose. Anyone planning to hit the liverpool chealsea tomorrow?

PSV lay 1.5 is tempting.

Good stuff Fundy-I dont think they'll touch it for a while yet.

I think it looks like they have reviewed and are not changing with regard to betting exchanges

5.111 The Government is committed to a modern and fair gambling tax system, consistent
with wider tax principles and with supporting social and economic objectives. Budget 2004
announced that the Government would review gambling taxation in light of the Gambling
Bill. This review has benefited from substantial input from stakeholders. The Government has
considered taxation arrangements within the wider context of changes to regulation,
technology and gambling markets. It has concluded that the current taxation arrangements
for gambling are generally working well at present and that maintaining stability in the overall
structure of taxation is desirable in a period of transition. In these circumstances, the
Government has therefore decided to maintain the current regimes which are working well
for betting, betting exchanges, lottery and bingo, and to retain the system of amusement
machine licence duty (AMLD), rather than move to a gross profits tax. However, the
Government will make some modifications to align the tax regime with the Gambling Act:

the definition of a gaming machine for VAT purposes will be aligned with that
of the Gambling Act, with effect from tomorrow. From Budget 2006, the AMLD
regime will also be aligned with the Gambling Act;
the Government will consider options for simplifying the administration of
AMLD and reducing compliance costs; and
following the Gambling Acts provision for remote gaming licences to be
offered in the UK, remote gaming will be brought within the scope of
gambling taxation. The rate of taxation will be set in Budget 2006.

"In these circumstances, the Government has therefore decided to maintain the current regimes which are working well for betting, betting exchanges.............."

How far did Redknapp drift this afternoon and why is he so short again?

teach me to watch the pre budget

Steve, Amazing scenes on the Rednapp odds as drifted out to 3s whilst Sanchez shortened to 3s!

Reason..... Haven't a clue but massive trading opportunities which I didn't make the most of.

Bak

reason appears to be a report on sky sports news saying that Mandaric will now have to look elsewhere