Blue Si O.B said:
cbeebies is poo said:
I have read through this thread and have no idea still.. Who bet 22 mil did he win or lose,? What should he have won? What is a lay? Is that a bet?
I think this bet fair you can bet whilst the race is on? Then some mare is romping it and it said the odds was 28/1 ? Then everyone placed a bet? Is this what has happened?
this, can someone explain this in english please
I'll have a go. Firstly, Betfair isn't like a normal bookie. It's basically like having a bet with an individual rather than a company. Say you think City will win the league and your mate disgarees and you have a tenner on it. Betfair just facilitaties that difference of opinion online, and they take a percentage of the profit for doing so, that's how they make their money. So, if William Hill are offering a horse at 2/1, but I think it stands no chance of winning, I could offer 3/1 on Betfair, and anyone wanting to back it might choose to take my better odds. Take the position of something not winning is called laying.
Now, as Betfair don't stump up any money themselves, there has to be someone out there with enough funds to cover the bet you want to make. Say you want to stick £500,000 on city to win at Sunderland at even money. You can only do it if there's one or more people who think city won't win at Sunderland and are preapred to stake the £500,000 needed to match you bet. Obviously, with horses this gets more serious, if you want to stick £1000 on a horse at 100/1 then there has to be someone willing to stake £100,000 that it won't win in order to take your grand from you.
Just a quick thing about decimal odds. It's pretty simply, 28/1 becomes 29.00 because it represents how much you'd get back per £ bet. On betfair, the lowest odds available are 1.01, which is essentially 1/100. The maximum odds are 1000 (999/1).
On betfair, betting is allowed on horses during the race itself. Naturally, the prices fluctuate depending on how likely the horse is to win. The markets stay active right up to the point where the winner passes the line. So, let's say that Horse A is 20 lengths clear of the field with 5 yards to go to the finish line, you could still back it to win, but you'd only get odds of 1.01. People are prepared to offer this because occasionally horses get disqualified at if that happens they're quids in.
The horse today was 2.96 before the off, which is slightly less than 2/1. Shortly after the race starter, the price had gone all the way out to 29.00. Fluctations this large can happen, for example if a horse hits the first fence, or misses the start and is suddenly 30 lengths behind, but in this instance there was nothing obvious to justify the price. The more unusual thing was how much was available from the layer. As I said earlier, Betfair doesn't stump up any cash itself, so if you want to back something there has to be someone on the other side of the fence with enough money to lay it. In this instance, there was £24,000,000 available from the "layer" which could have left them with a liability of £600 million. However, only £1.6 million of their £24million was actually matched, so the layers liability was less (around £29million).
The horse travelled well trhoughout the race and jumped the last hurdle with a big lead, even at this point, instead of being 1.01, it was still 29.00 because the layer hadn't withdrawn the bet.
An increasing number of professional gamblers employ computer programmes ("bots") to automatically seek arbitration in markets, much like bankers do. Regular high-stakes Betfair customers are also strongly rumoured to have limitless credit accounts. Something has gone wrong here, because no one could have £600 million in there account, but the big issue is that if the horse hadn't won, the account holder would have won £800k. As it lost, he/she is not being asked to pay the liability.
There is precedent. A few years ago a guy accidentally offered 1000 on a favourite as it left the starting stalls, it was matched and he lost £250k. Betfair said it was his error and the bets stand.
Hope that helps
