I think you have to be very self centered when things like this happen - obviously taking 60% of someones winnings (without them cheating) is immoral, BUT if it doesnt effect you, well then theres not much to get hyped up about. Certainly from my point of view (and I'm sure many others) it makes no real sense to up sticks from Betfair and head to Betdaq where liquidity is low and its now highly possible that whatever market is there could be a shark tank.
I took two screen shots at the same time Saturday on the cricket, I know everyone knows this already, but theres not much competition is there:
It doesnt kick in until the 18th, so we'll only see what really happens after that I suppose, if anything.
Interestingly enough Betfair released their profits for the year this week too, and in the comments read: "But it said revenues, which increased 15.4 per cent to £393.3million, 'could have been stronger' after they were hit by declining bets on horse racing and poker and 'outages' due to technical problems on its websites." I wrote here towards the end of last year, at the time I'd had enough, was giving up the horses in a serious way and settling for a less than part-time interest, that my generation (the next generation) wont have the same interest in horse racing as the last one, and that it will only continue to go down. I didnt think it'd start happening now, the new breed of gamblers are being brought up on football, tennis, cricket, sports like that - you have less options in the market (so its easier to grasp) and less smoke and mirrors.
On another note, do you think Betfair might apply the 60% PC to the poker site? Will they fuck. The place would be empty in a matter of hours, imagine Pokerstars doing that - it'd never happen. Monopolies are no craic.
Anyway, delighted with the boxing going the distance last night, I said Monday I was happy enough taking 5/2 and then WH went 7/2, it was only 3/1 on Betfair. I see Sky Sports News are talking about a rematch, oh dear. ALTHOUGH, if you were Wladimir Klitschko and someone offered you a whole heap of cash to beat a guy youve beaten already, why wouldnt you take it? He won easily. As for toegate, erm, when I first heard him open his mouth and say it I thought "Oh no, dont say that" it sounds so bad and makes him look terrible - even if its true. You cant act like Billy Big Bollocks before a fight and then say "oh my baby toe" after youve been beaten 11-1. TOETAL FAILURE.
Small bit gutted this week with the rain in the Test match. Fancied India strongly and had worked myself into a good position:
Then the heavens opened and we lost time on all four days after (only got 25 overs on day 2), Windies finished 7 down at the end, and would have gone close themselves if it wasnt for Chanderpauls 12 off 87 balls, a SR of 13.79 (I wanted to die watching him bat), I finished with this:
Feckin' rain. Its hurricane season out there ATM so I wouldnt be overly keen being heavy against the draw for the last Test, although the carrot dangles in front of your eyes because Windies dont hang around for long batting, theyve very rarely made it past 80 overs this summer. I still end up losing on cricket this week because I've had a mare on England v Sri Lanka, lost €70 1st ODI and €300 2nd ODI - a few overs away from a flip flop with Morgan there and sure he went and it was 1.1 and goodnight.
On GAA matters, Kerry hit 1.05 (I was on Cork, oh dear) today before bouncing back to odds against - it worked out OK in the end. Hope to God Kildare dont get Cork in the qualifiers, thats if we beat Laois in Portlaoise on Saturday though, which isnt a given. Nothing really sticks out next weekend, London (11/10) v Waterford (5/4) could be of interest, I think thats maybe a slight overreaction to London winning the last game, however Waterford are no great shakes and having to travel to London means its probably beat left alone. I thought Meath (4/7) might be worth an interest to beat Galway (Galway were woeful against Mayo) but historically those games are close enough so in-running is probably the way forward in life there.
Hi Stephen,
ReplyDeleteIt seems you managed to sum up in a couple of lines what just took me 800 words.
The majority of inplay bettors will likely never move to Betdaq because liquidity is king and Betdaq at the moment simply couldn't handle all their business. Although it would be nice if they could :)
Whilst its not directly impacting on you there are more pressing issues to concern yourself with!
Curly
Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteIts hard to imagine Betdaq taking over at all because Betfair have given them any amount of chances to take customers and theyve done nothing really.
I wonder in future years will someone open a new exchange to take them on.
I'm still of the firm belief that Betdaq have done nothing because they can't do. They have two major barriers that act together - they need the infrastructure in order to support the customers but they can't afford to actually invest in it without the guarantee of the business. Also because the pool of money is limited they need the majority of it. And as I said to someone earlier if they can't handle the majority of the liquidity they won't have any of it.
ReplyDeleteI think the same problem applies across the board. I suspect a new entrant could eventually build up or close to Betdaq's size but without a significant push with the aim of either going home rich or going home fast they'll never take Betfair's position. Despite Betfair's best efforts to throw it away.