[jwhidbey]

This press release has been submitted to Reuters, the Press Association, and a selection of journalists at national papers and industry publications.
It makes worrying reading.

There have been some shocking revelations about changes to the Betfair systems in the last few days.

Check out the thread 'Curious about some odd activity at Betfair' in General Betting on the Betfair forums for the latest.

Apologies for this apparently being a first post, I have taken this measure to protect my identity.

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Betfair To Profit From Punter’s Mistakes

Betfair, undisputed leaders of the highly profitable online betting exchange market, have shocked customers by releasing a computer system which profits from mistakes. In certain circumstances, the new system will give the customer a worse bet than is currently on offer, leaving the betting giant to profit from the difference.

Adding to their outrage, Betfair customers only recently discovered the change by chance, after the betting company altered their systems without announcement in mid February.

One angry user explained “Asking for a bet against Federer winning at 2/1 for £100 can become a bet for 21/1 with a single wrong keystroke, giving the customer a potential loss of £2100 rather than £200. Previously, if I entered an obvious mistake in a market like this, I would have a grace period of five seconds to cancel. Under the new system, the bet would be accepted in the blink of an eye by Betfair, and for their own profit. This is a big change in the way they do business with their customers, and we only found out for ourselves by losing money.”

But more fundamental to some bettor’s concerns than unfortunate typos, is the questions it raises about the impartiality of Betfair as market facilitators.

As one punter put it “Imagine the London Stock Exchange trying to explain to the banks that they were going to start taking profit out of their own markets, and altering their systems to give themselves an advantage. Now imagine that they started doing it on the sly without explaining it to anyone. They would be explaining it to the FSA and then the criminal courts before long.”

One Betfair insider defended the change, suggesting that it was done to make the site more efficient, and process customer requests more quickly. But as the world’s biggest online betting exchange, most punters aren’t complaining about not being able to place a bet. With over £50 million of customer money passing through the exchange every week, they might have something to say about its fairness.

“Betfair have crossed the line. You can’t take part in the market you operate, and remain impartial. Ultimately it’s the customers that make or break a betting exchange. If Betfair don’t understand that, we will find a betting exchange that does.”

08 March 2008
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