Sunday 22 June 2014

Every Second Counts

In regard to my suggestion that the practice of court-siding was the main reason for Betfair's introduction of the Premium Charge, Steve comments:
Think I'd agree with you on that one, the PC was basically Betfair's annoyance that people were making plenty of money off them with relatively little efforts. Mainly down to flaws within their system they just couldn't plug as easily as the old tricks like getting in front of the queue when you could bypass Betfair's odds ladder input a hidden 0.0001 on your own odds or the trick of beating the in-play delays that were well known amongst quite a few.

I'm sure there are plenty of books in the wings waiting to come out about the 'scams' in those early days and the fortunes won through loopholes rather than skill. But whilst there's still loopholes there and money to be made I doubt we'll see the likes of the legendary racetech guy's books just yet. I'm guessing Brad Hutchins is now too well known on the circuit to earn so a book is pretty much his only option for now.
Indeed Brad Hutchins is now retired from court-siding. It appears that since 2011, the year when Danish company Enetpulse were awarded the exclusive worldwide distribution rights for ATP and WTA live scoring data, the tennis authorities are being more assertive in protecting those rights.
Enetpulse has reached an agreement with the ATP/WTA/Challenger Tours to become the Exclusive Worldwide Distributor of Tennis Live Data to the Gambling Industry. This means that Enetpulse holds the exclusive data rights by the ATP and WTA to deliver real-time scores directly from the tennis courts via their central scoring system. The ATP and WTA official live scoring is to licensed bookmakers interested in live data opportunities globally. Our official live tennis solution is unrivalled in the market both in terms of speed and coverage. It is the ideal solution for bookmakers looking for the live betting edge on Tennis.
Many of the buyers are sports-gambling websites that provide the scores for in-play betting — wagering on the match after play has begun. One site that reportedly buys the scores, Betfair, is a betting exchange that, like a stock exchange, pairs buyers and sellers for transactions when they are willing to agree to the same terms.
Except that the buyers and sellers are not agreeing to the same terms, on account of one party having information not yet available to the other. In sports betting, every second counts.

As for the "legendary racetech guy", I have no idea who that is or what makes him legendary. I'd like to know more. If he is exploiting a loophole, as the court-siders are, in my opinion Betfair should close that loophole, not tax the beneficiaries in a way that penalises others as well.

I'm pretty sure the Betfair founder's didn't envision a world where former employees were pooling resources and flying 'consultants' around the world to take advantage of inadequate countdown delays on their markets.

1 comment:

Betfair Botter said...

There were, shall we say, rumours about the racetech guys making fortunes in running from the access they had to the unencrypted course feeds in the early days. I think in the early days plenty of people made hay with the access they had to info. I knew people who received profitable advice from the Hammersmith area, I imagine things have tightened up since then.

It's little surprise that plenty of ex-Betfair staff found ways to make more betting on Betfair than working there.