Betfair Warning !!!!

[AngelEyes]

In previous posts I have expressed nothing but praise about Betfair. Now I have to reluctantly issue a warning. It regards recent inconsistencies and quality of their U.S. Racing coverage.
On Friday and Saturday Aqueduct surprisingly was not offered - a rarity. Instead Charlestown was available.
Then on Sunday another curve ball - Aqueduct offered but Gulfstream suddenly not. Instead Sam Houston available.
I know for liquidity purposes Betfair offers all tracks broadcast on ATR which unfortunately tend to be the low end ones (ie. Beulah/ones mentioned above).
For some reason they limit # of U.S. tracks to 8/9 per day. What would it take for a company of their size to ensure coverage of all major U.S. tracks -they probably would only have to add 1 or 2 tracks per day to accomodate this.
Phone calls/e-mails to them regarding this frustration appears to make no difference.
Not good news for the serious bettor who invests time and money to handicap higher quality races a day or so in advance only to find out that they can not bet on them.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

The key to betting exchanges is liquidity. If Betfair cover more USA tracks then the liquidity is likely to be even more thinly spread so making the service worse. Last time I looked at Betfair for USA racing I felt they might be better off if they decreased their number of tracks.

The best thing would be if Betfair just announced they were going to follow certain circuits and that is it. Then you could just follow those circuits. I used to find Betfair annoying as they would cover a track for 2 out of 3 days but the horse you really wanted to back was running on the day Betfair were not offering coverage.

[thebeacondeacon]

iBetx offers a complete roster of U.S. tracks on a daily basis.

www.ibetx.com

[AngelEyes]

iBetx offers a complete roster of U.S. tracks on a daily basis.

www.ibetx.com (http://www.ibetx.com)


A member there already. Liquidity stinks. Ibetx handled only $100 CDN on last race at Gulfstream today -> compared to $9000 at Betfair. And they even allow U.S. citizens and their commission is quite lower. Maybe this concept of betting is either not recognized by North Americans or they are just happy to continue betting the same old way ignoring the fact that the high takeout rates give you no chance at winning.
I thought I heard on a previous thread that ehorse was going to offer exchange betting soon. Hopefully liquidity there will be better there than that of Ibetx for tracks Betfair don't carry.

[EmpowerISV]

I think it is merely a matter of liquidity, the thing you must remember here is that Betfair is catering for predominately UK based punters with this product hence the association to the roster they cover and tracks accordingly.

Once they have something in place legally to allow them to offer the same services to USA based citizens I am sure the roster will change to not only include all USA Thoroughbred tracks but most likely Harness coverage as they do for Australia aswell.

I love using Betfair when available for USA tracks but the only advantage lies around backing favorites or those very much in the market where there is high liquidity.

You may have a situation where $70K is matched on an event but $50K of that ius on the thing that has started 4/5 or 3.60 on the Tote whilst on Betfair it has been backed from 6/4 into 1/1.

At the end of the day if your wagering currently revolves around outlaying on a few specials per day that gtends to be short priced favorites on the totes with little or no value you will quickly turn this around by concentrating on Betfair on those same races.

In Australia we already have legalized fixed priced bookmakers on course wh offer set prices about runners in each race so the whole thoery associated to betting at fixed odds via a betting exchange is probably not that foreign of a concept for us here is Aus as it is for USA citizens.

[Bluenose]

Its all about liquidity and that involves the races that are shown on attheraces.
A list is available at http://www.trni.tv/schedule/schedule.php and these are the races shown on attheraces.
A new channel on Racing UK will shortly be showing live US racing from the Magna and CDSN tracks and this channel will concentrate on the better quality tracks.
New York tracks have only rarely been shown on tv in the UK.

[AngelEyes]

Thanks Bluenose. If Racing UK is planning to show the better quality tracks you would think the NYRA tracks should be included then .

[Bluenose]

The New York tracks dont want their racing to be shown on tv in the UK.

[ecaroff]

Betfair, the British betting exchange allows people to act as bookmaker or bettor. Note that on Monday Betfair announced that it has reaced a deal to allow its customers to make payments using PayPal although people in America are excluded from the deal.

Here we go again. Why do we continually let all these people whether they be race tracks, betting sites, data collectors dictate to us? Someday, we the supporters of this industry need to stand up and say "Enough is Enough" and tell them all that if they want our money then this is the way it's going to be..........

Am I wrong here?

[BIG49010]

I agree, as a horseman I hate to see them having the racing from Hawthorne, and us getting zero for it. I plan to ask the Illinois racing board how we can get our cut of the 50k that gets bet on most of our races, or shut it off!

The Carey's are either very smart or very stupid? My guess is stupid:lol: !

and don't even know what Betfair is.

[Bluenose]

Betfair, the British betting exchange allows people to act as bookmaker or bettor. Note that on Monday Betfair announced that it has reaced a deal to allow its customers to make payments using PayPal although people in America are excluded from the deal.

Here we go again. Why do we continually let all these people whether they be race tracks, betting sites, data collectors dictate to us? Someday, we the supporters of this industry need to stand up and say "Enough is Enough" and tell them all that if they want our money then this is the way it's going to be..........

Am I wrong here?


I believe people in North America are excluded because of the backward laws that still let the land of the free leaders dictate how you can spend your dollars.

[dancingbrave]

If the tracks offered a very low margin pool betting system and not try to rip of the bettors then the offshore options such as exchanges and rebates from Pinny would not exist. Everyone would bet into a strong pool and racing would be more sustainable. Maybe some of the smaller tracks would not survive but thats business.

Racing needs to understand it in the entertainment industry and needs to fund itself in various ways and needs to be competitive in the process. The argument that offshore players aren't paying their way is crazy - why should racing be any different to any other sport. You don't see the NFL and English Premiership up in arms because people are betting their sport all round the world. Basically Racing is run by amateurs whoo haven't got a clue about business and unfortunately it shows.