Betting exchanges

[46zilzal]

I would like to experiment with the greater options of a betting exchange. Can anyone, with experience on one or another, comment on a good source?

Thanks in advance.

The parimutuel director wants a REPORT for his meeting next month to see what the traditional betting is up against.

[Cangamble]

I think Betfair has a how to video available at their site. If you poke around the site, you'll be able to figure out what is happening there.

[Some_One]

From my time on Betfair, I can tell you this:

Advantages:
Lower effective takeout
fixed odds
betting horses to lose
exposing corruption as cheaters are somewhat easily discovered

Disadvantage:
exposing corruption as cheaters are somewhat easily discovered as people think this sort of thing never happens and now only does because you can bet to lose.
need liquidity to make it worthwhile, so any individual US track would be foolish to make one for themselves, and should just make a deal with Betfair.

[highnote]

need liquidity to make it worthwhile, so any individual US track would be foolish to make one for themselves, and should just make a deal with Betfair.

I agree with all your previous points and also that you need liquidity.

However, if I was a track owner I would have had a betting exchange in place for my track 10 years ago. You just have to start small and let it grow. I would keep as much money on in-house as possible and open up as many ADWs as possible.

Any track that would have done this 10 years ago would have been a leader today -- rather than a complainer about the likes of betting exchanges. Any track that starts one today, can still be a leader in 10 years. But sooner or later one track is going to wake up and start an exchange. Then every other track will jump on the bandwagon.

That said, maybe a track would find that it isn't worthwhile running an exchange and it is cost-effective to outsource the betting exchange -- sort of like the way it is done with tote systems.

But if it was my track, I'd sure has hell give it a shot.

[Great Communicator]

Betfair is not available to U.S. residents, and they will not accept money from U.S. banks.


ehorsex (offshore, www.ehorsex.com (http://www.ehorsex.com)) is the only exchange I'm familiar with available to U.S. residents, but there may be others.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

The advantage of betting exchanges is that you can bet fixed odds so you know exactly what you are getting unlike the tote. Another advantage is that the odds tend to fluctuate so while the betting exchange odds starting price or most traded price might end up the same as the tote, at some point in the betting the horse might have traded higher than this price

The disadvantage of betting exchanges is they tend to have smarter than average customers so that the odds are more efficient. So the odds you get on the real live chances for large amounts of money are not much better than tote odds anyways for some markets (I suppose this will vary from market to market)

It would probably be easier to win at the races in the USA with a tote only system even if the takeouts are 20% than if a betting exchange was operating for US customers. This is because the tote prices will start to follow the betting exchange prices after awhile so the tote prices will become more efficient too

The other thing is in the case of Betfair they have differential commission rates of between 2 to 5% depending on betting volume for average Joes. But they also have lower commission rates for other customers. The differential commission rates make it quite hard for smaller bettors on 4 or 5% commission to win long term

If you are just interested in betting for entertainment and not in winning then betting exchanges are great as your money will last longer before being lost (assuming the commission rates are set similar to Betfair and other exchanges)

[Cangamble]

Generally, I find most horses are overlays against US odds on Betfair. This makes sense because the takeout is really only around 2%. Losers don't pay commission and winners pay between 2-4.5% depending on their volume. The problem is liquidity though. I've seen many races where you could only match at ridiculous spreads because the liquidity wasn't there because there was no interest in that particular race. This usually happens when races go off close to each other. Action is usually found when there is a defined favorite over races without one, and the timing of the race is important. If Race A goes off 2 minutes before Race B, Race B is very likely to have a small pool.
Another advantage is that you can book horses who you think have no chance, even if you have to give a bit of a premium. You can book more than one horse a race as well.