Attached is a presentation we’ve been using for the changes to the Betfair interface which are being launched this week. You may have heard some of the news in the forum, the Racing Post or other press – well here are the details. Read the notes as you go through the presentation – they relate to what is on the screen and will make more sense that way! As the presentation is in Flash and not Powerpoint, I can’t refer to Slide 4 etc. There is no alternative presentation to view, but a micro-site will become available on these changes in the next few days.
Firstly, you'll need Adobe Flash Player 9 to view this presentation. Visit
www.adobe.com to download it if required.
Make yourself familiar with the controls (in the menu atop the window) so you can flip back to go over something again if necessary. The space bar moves you onto the next step.
Sometime ago when Betfair offered to get involved in helping set the new SP from the track, the proposal was dismissed by Tom Kelly as 'nothing more than mischief-making nonsense'. We called this Project Loki after the Norse god of mischief.
The Betfair SP is the key part of the project and we sought to make it according to our principles such as fairness and choice.
The new racing bet screen has several additional features. Across the top of the screen you have check-boxes for Back and Lay, Market Depth and Betfair Starting Price. The first two options can already be seen on many Betfair markets.
Note what happens when you enable the Betfair SP. To place an SP bet, click on the respective box to back or lay it. Note that when you place an SP bet, it cannot be cancelled, as this would allow people to manipulate the SP. An SP bet is highlighted in orange to signify that it is ready to be calculated when the market suspends.
Clicking on More Options above each market now covers more of the options for the site. The key change is the Projected Odds for the SP, where there are three options - None, Projected and Display Near/Far. For this presentation, we shall only look at the Projected setting. Note the change to the betting screen.
The click to request the Market Info pop-up has moved. You now need to click on the graph icon next to the name of the runner. Research with people new to Betfair has found that they expect a click on the selection to start the bet process, as per most other bookmakers.
The Market Info box has changed a little. Note the Projected Betfair SP is shown to five decimal places (actually we calculate it to 23 so that there is absolutely no rounding and neither backers nor layers are favoured - we do not take any margin on the SP. The back price is the same as the lay price). The prices offered and traded table now has two additional columns for the SP. The £2150 at 1.01 means that £2150 of back stakes have been placed on the SP with no price restriction (they will take any price). £2500 of LIABILITY is listed at 1000 as the layers have not included a price restriction. £7800 of layer's liability sits at 8, this is the maximum price these people are prepared to take.
Note that backers place SP bets by stakes (as per normal), layers place bets by liability, not the backer's stake. Since we don't know the price until calculated, we don't know how much to take out of the layers' accounts. Thus liability is how it is taken. This also means that you cannot precisely cancel out an SP bet by laying a contrary bet - you won't know what the price is until the race has started.
The Projected SP shows a significant anomaly against the current exchange price on two horses near the top of the market - Almondillo and Grand Assault. In the example we elect to lay Grand Assault to take advantage of potentially a much lower price. We also choose a limit price - the highest price we wish to lay at, as well as the amount we want to risk. Note the minimum profit is calculated, but the punter won't know how much he stands to win until just after the race starts. Once the SP bet with a limit price has been submitted, note that there is an option to change the limit price, but only in one direction. For SP lay bets, that direction will be UP, to make the bet more likely to be taken. For SP back bets, you will only be allowed to lower your limit price. This is to stop manipulation (otherwise people could put their max lay price to 1.01, effectively cancelling their bet).
Once the SP lay bet on Grand Assault is placed, the Projected SP figure moves slightly. We expect the market to correct itself fairly quickly as arbers and traders jump in and try to cash in.
When the market goes in-play, the SP price is calculated and no more bets can be placed at SP. The P&L figures have been updated for all runners and the SP prices are confirmed under My Bets.
Onto the calculations. The Betfair SP is a combination of matched the SP backers and layers and the exchange market. Six examples are shown, with variations of what is available. The red and green figures on each side of the triangle will add up in each case. Note in example 4 where the SP is returned at 4.9, layers are matched at both 4.8 and 5 - so some layers have been matched at a lower price than the backers.
The other big change is the ability to keep an unmatched bet when a market goes in-play. In the example we place a couple of bets, and change the prices so they are returned unmatched. Note the changes - it's more obvious when a bet is unmatched (highlighted in red, go to My Bets rather than Continue at the bottom and Unmatched is in bold). But now you have a few options with what to do with your unmatched bets. On the bet confirmation slip, these are bunched together, but when you move to My Bets you can control them all individually. The default option is as per the current site - Cancel the unmatched bet when the market goes in-play. But now you will be able to Keep your bet, so that it might get matched in-play, or on racing markets, you can take the SP when the market is turned in-play.
Under My Bets, there are now three coloured sections - Red, Green and Amber reflecting unmatched, matched and SP bets.
When a racing market is turned in-play, bets will no longer be instantly cancelled, nor will you be able to cancel bets whilst the market is suspended. They will be held in the system for a split-second while the SP is calculated and money is matched into the exchange market. Only some bets will need to be cancelled, others will continue in-play or take the SP.
This means:
1. Unmatched bets carried in-play will be at the front of the queue over new bets during the event. So the mad rush to lay 1.01 etc will no longer happen the instant the market re-opens, it will now be when the market is first activated.
2. The time taken to turn a market in-play will actually be reduced. Currently the period of when a race is suspended, all unmatched bets cancelled and then the market re-opened is the biggest spike in load for our system. With the mad rush to lay short prices in-running now at the start of the market, rather than the start of the race, our testing has shown this will speed up the turning a market in-play process significantly. Huge markets (eg Grand National) will take longer than others, but along with other changes to how we manage markets, we expect the time taken to be more than halved.
3. In football, you will now be able to place a bet early, then have the trade-out bet carried in-play. BUT bets will continue no matter how many goals are scored, penalties awarded etc. If you back Arsenal at 1.8 pre-match then ask to lay them at 1.6, you will get matched when they go a goal ahead, but at completely the WRONG price. Your offer will be in there first, so the guy wants to take 1.3 will get a great price. I imagine this will become the new mad rush for bot programmes, sweeping up prices from traders. Unless you are trading the draw, I wouldn't be asking for small gaps in prices as it will be costing you money.
We've been working on this project for many months and it's probably our biggest change since we launched. The Betfair SP has the potential to bring in streams of new customers who bet the traditional way - just taking SP and not fussing about chasing a price. And it will probably annoy the bookies too. We also have a Racecard Accumulator product up and running in beta mode. You can find it via labs.betfair.com, look under projects.
As with any significant changes to a busy transactional website, there may be issues when first released, so be careful. It may also affect scripts such as the Gruss refresh and API applications, although all API vendors have been given the code and release notes in sufficient time to make changes. To continue to grow our business, we need to add new features and more capacity. This in turn means more potential customers for you to train as the barriers to joining Betfair gradually become lower, but mastering it still takes time and effort.
There was a two-page feature in the Racing Post on Nov 28 covering most of this content and more. Go to
http://www.racingpost.co.uk/news/cuttings_library.sd (free but membership required) and search for Betfair SP to read the series of articles on that day.