Over Staking

I mentioned a few posts ago that there are some odd things that happen when trading in-play on BETDAQ.

A week ago, I wrote:

Aside from the generally low liquidity, there's another strange thing on BETDAQ which is that one minute it looks like a liquid market, with prices three deep, but the next instant, all the bids and offers vanish, and it's a ghost market.

Apparently this is nothing new to longer-time users of BETDAQ, and it has been complained about as far back as November 2007.

From the Bookmakers Review :

Multiple Betdaq customers complained about the exchange using fake amounts to make its markets look more active and attract bettors. The large amounts available on minor markets regularly disappear as soon as a real bettor tries to match a bet.

It's definitely odd, although another possible explanation could be this -

We all know BETDAQ allow bookmakers to put their prices up on the exchange - sometimes through Betdaq tools, and I honestly think some of them are quite clunky in the way the do it. If they change a price I think they remove their offers, do some kind of recalculation - and pop them back up a few minutes later.

We all know this? I can't say that I knew it, but BETDAQ's very much a secondary exchange for me although I do find myself using it more and more these days, and the balance after Sunday's NFL reached a new high, so it's fast becoming my 'lucky' exchange.

The weekend was one of my better ones, but it should have been much more. I layed the Philadelphia Phillies at 1.24 in their NLCS game v the San Francisco Giants but went in for an amount that was above my comfort level with the result that I traded out too soon at a price that was less than value. They were 2-0 up at the time, but it was far too early in the game to be backing at that kind of a price, but a four figure red does things to the brain, and the urge to protect the bank proved stronger than making the correct decision to hold on to it. Of course the Giants rallied, and won 3-2. One day I'll get the hang of this trading game.