Mismatch of odds between Smarkets & Betfair
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Having just read about the error by Smarkets in respect of the place odds on the 16:00 at Wincanton and the subsequent cancellation by Smarkets (see the Bad EW Races NO CHAT thread) I thought I would outline something that happened to me the other day and which now leaves me feeling I might have been lucky?
Was looking at a recent Dortmund v Leipzig match to lay Dortmund for an acca. In so doing I noticed that there was an arb on Dortmund – could back at 1.63 on Smarkets and lay at 1.56 on Betfair – makes pennies but it all adds up. As I was doing this Dortmund scored and I was then able to back Dortmund for the same odds on Smarkets – 1.63 – and lay on Betfair at 1.25. I ended up having a total of £1,050 on Dortmund with Smarkets and a corresponding sum on Betfair to gtee a profit.
Fortunately my back bet on Smarkets lost leaving £50 or so profit in Betfair but given the comments on the other thread I am wondering whether there is some risk of a winning position being overturned – especially those back bets which were taken at 1.63 for Dortmund after they had scored.
Has anyone seen similar things and if so have they taken advantage and gone on to win with no issues from the exchange subsequently coming to light?
+0October 20, 2017 at 2:55 pm
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tennispunter, yes I would say that there would have been a possibility of your bet on Dortmund being voided, according to Smarkets terms and conditions (which basically give them a free run to do whatever they want).
I have seen the odd Smarkets/Betfair arb myself but when possible I trade out of both positions, usually greening up on Smarkets. Saves on commission on both Smarkets and Betfair and avoids the risk of Smarkets palping you.
+0ted1 – yes i would agree and I think going forwards I will be a bit more careful in terms of dealing with these ‘opportunities’
Where there is a small arb e.g. 1.63 vs 1.56 then I would take the difference but in the case of when the goal was scored and the odds not moving on the Smarkets exchange then I will not be so quick to pile the money on. In fact I am going to ask the Smarkets team for their comments/thoughts on the situation that occurred in order to see what they say.
+0I’m interested to hear what they say. Doubt they’ll give you a solid answer, will probably just say that they reserve the right to exercise their discretion and cancel erroneous bets or something like that.
Would also be good to know if you had waited until smarkets odds fell down to something like 1.25 and you had greened up, would there be a chance of them cancelling your back bet at 1.63 but keeping the lay bet at 1.25.
+0They’ve got to be able to look at or void bigger errors.
That doesn’t happen and we lose traders, have no liquidity and no point of smarkets at all. If you’re a trader you don’t want to risk thousands being wiped out due to a delay registering an eventAdditionally they’d have a duty around money laundering.
It’s different but the same theory regarding arbs/palps should more or less hold true what u can get away with
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Mbpunter – most of the backs (I did them in £100 tranches just in case the Betfair odds changed) were at 1.63 vs 1.56. That said around £150 was at 1.63 vs 1.25 giving a very nice profit!
You make a good point around the layer just leaving a bet in ‘keep’ assuming that Smarkets does not automatically cancel the bet after a goal then that seems a likely scenario but why don’t Smarkets refer to this being the case in their response to me – see below?
ted1 – the response from Smarkets was as follows
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Thanks for your email. The odds that were available on this game do appear to be an error from a market maker pricing as if the goal hadn’t been scored. We have a clearly erroneous bets policy in place that is available to all users of the exchange as protection in cases of obvious and significant input error determined by being greater then 15% outside of what is considered a fair market price. In this instance no erroneous bets claim was made.You could view more on our erroneous bets policy here: https://help.smarkets.com/hc/en-gb/articles/212819049-Clearly-Erroneous-Bets-Policy
Please let us know if you had any further questions on this.
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I then responded and they further responded as follows
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Under our erroneous bets policy we do require a written request for the bet to be investigated to be received by support@smarkets.com within 60 minutes of the bet being matched and, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, this must be received before the result has been decided.With the bet in question being from last week we would not be able to review this under the policy. If you do find yourself in a position where you believe you have received an erroneous price please do contact us at the time and we can review this for you.
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RyanB – most of the time the odds are very similar – at low odds however you can find some arbs – they seldom last long – at high odds any arbs dont work because of commissionAll this does leave wondering how much we can trust the odds being offered at times – does illustrate that we need to be a little careful when seemingly being offered very favourable odds vs anor exchange!
+0That’s blown my money laundering theory if you have to claim
Suppose I could make commission off drug dealers if I lose any more accounts+0
Tennis punter – Am I correct in thinking that your response was… ‘my bet was an erroneous bet (even though it was in your favour at the time)’ and that if you’d sent that email within one hour of your bet being matched then you would have been refunded?
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Just read this thread and what is described above also happened to me a while ago, I remember. My bet wasnt made with “keep in play” active but I had a lay waiting to be matched and a goal was scored which should have cancelled the lay. However, it was matched as the market was halted (even though my lay was about 0.20 pts lower than the actual available lay at the time) and I did wonder as if it had been cancelled I could have layed at the lower odds after the market was re-opened for some profit.
+0This thread makes me think that really there are 2 ways to match bet. If I am looking to lay off bets in a popular event and a slow moving market then smarkets is the better exchange for the commission. For fast paced stuff like in play betting or the board prices before a race betfair is best for liquidity and reliability.
+0Mr Crispy – In answer to your question I am really not certain if the back bets would have been overturned. In a way I would hope that if I had challenged the result within one hour they would refuse – the whole idea of having an exchange is put at risk if these kind of scenarios are going to be subsequently overturned.
beesty2016 – my experience is that whilst sometimes there is more money on some events with Smarkets the odds between back and lay are seldom as close as those on Betfair. The back sides normally match up but there is a bigger spread on the lay side with Smarkets so all in all I would tend to agree with you albeit the extra commission being paid does hurt.
I do trade horse racing using Betdaq and the free version of Betangel, which for the most part seems to work ok in terms of liquidity and reliability. This does not however work for football with Betdaq since the liquidity is no where near as good as Betfair or for that matter Smarkets. I suppose if I really want to make the most out of the Betangel package I am going to have to pay for the software something which I am reluctant to do!
I am wondering when Smarkets will get an API link up and running for proper trading – I guess they will need to work on their reliability first.
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