We had yet another Betfair outage this week. It’s not good enough to hide behind the terms and conditions when Betfair Exchange goes down. It’s that simple.
As traders, we need better service. Betfair’s Exchange went down on Thursday and Betfair Users started getting the message when trying to place lay bets “Error In Order.”
The way the Betfair Customer Service desk dealt with this was shocking, as I explain in my latest YouTube video:
What Betfair Should Do After An Outage
Throughout my trading career over the years, I’ve experienced Betfair site outages a lot more times than I’d like! Usually, when the site goes down or starts showing signs that it could, I just down tools for the day. There’s no point taking an unnecessary risk when trading. Waiting for two hours for it to come down and then going down again is just so frustrating.
The problem with that though is nobody knows when the site crashes – it just happens – and we can all get stuck in the market. I saw on Twitter after that some customers were getting £20 back as a goodwill gesture. For me, that simply isn’t good enough.
In my opinion, Betfair should void all live bets when the site goes down, or we get messages like this. I would settle matched bets from a certain point – perhaps ten minutes before the outage and then live traders are covered.
I fully respect that there will be a lot on the other side of this who won’t like that either. The reality is there isn’t an easy fix either way – someone will end up annoyed at the situation. I just feel the fairest option is to void bets – this idea that you can have a bet in the market, the site isn’t responding for you, someone can take that, and it gets settled is totally wrong.
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
One thought on “Betfair Outage: Lay Betting on Betfair Exposed”
hello mr berry,
with interest, I started to lay wagers on the euro (futobal) on exchange (sic) betfair, even when the book has depth on two sides, the orders take forever to get filled and then we have the time delays, as a long term trader on the futures exchanges, my conclusion in making comparisions, is that betfair exchange is not public, vis a vis, money v money, it,s money v betfair, on low liquid markets betfair make the depth, but do not honour the depth, they make a market, then do not honour, so what is the point, for betfair to take more of your money by matching jessie and joe,s money at long term odds that are not profitable, that is a casino, not a public trading exchange, all smoke and mirrors, if markets have no liquidity, then so be it !, the pretence of depth is fraudulent in conception and time delays, the urban myth is that it prevents syndicates swamping the market, not logical, if big money has no liquidity, then no deals, the reality is that big money adds liquidity, betfair exchange is not an exchange, betfair is similar to ladbrokes, in the business of offfering games of chance to make profit