Smarkets site technical fault

Do you have proof that there was a technical fault? – that might help.

I’m 100% with Roly on this one… Used smarkets for their new customer offer and not been back since… Betfair are head and shoulders above market and reliability wise

That’s fucking grim @supert sorry to hear it.

Not sure what you expect them to do though as it does sound like you have just typed “50” on the end of that annoying “10” stake that they INSIST on putting in the stake box (why?!?). User error unfortunately, obviously compounded by their dodgy servers going down (again!)

Hope you get some kind of relief but can’t see it personally. Maybe @Matt can help, he seems to have a relationship with them.

Wow this is really awful for you supert, it is so easy to make a mistake like this when you are in a rush. I am not sure if Smarkets will be able to sort it out for you hopefully they will do.

I would have made similar mistakes to this on more than one occasion except I use the default setting of having to conform my bets. When I make the bet, smarkets works out the liability and then asks me if I want to confirm my bet. I then make sure the liability smarkets has worked out is the same (give or take a penny) to what my calculator has worked out. This has saved me from making mistakes similar to yours several times. The down side is that it does take a second or two longer to do this than the one click method, and sometimes the odds have changed.

Perhaps smarkets can look at your betting history and see that you are not in the habit (I assume you are not) of making lay bets of over £1000, and that their technical fault prevented you from seeing what was going on.

Regarding Smarkets vs Betfair, then yes Betfair has better liquidity, better interface more reliable etc, but it is a lot more expensive. The extra commission does add up over time. Also if you read a few forums that Betfair traders go on you will find they are far from being angels and on the side of the trader. They are a pretty sharp outfit who undertake some quite sharp practises. When I look at exchanges I see them just like bookies, they will do anything they can to get our money, and sail pretty close to the wind when it comes to rules and regulations.

@ Tony, here is one example, if you chat to experienced traders they will all have seen examples of seeing their orders being jumped ahead of in the que (not sure if I have explained that too well), so that they don’t get filled or only partially filled. This can only be done by either Betfair or market makers sanctioned by Betfair, and undermines the whole ethos of a betting exchange. I am not saying this happens all the time, but it happens often enough for it not to be a little glitch.

Here is another example, if they think you are doing something to avoid paying their premium charge (the premium charge is against the ethos of a proper exchange too, god knows how they get away with it) they will take the money in your account. The onus is on you to prove you were not doing anything against their rules (good luck with that). Most successful traders do not keep large sums in their betfair accounts for this reason.

Its a shame a proper well funded and honest betting exchange wouldn’t emerge but that would appear to be wishful thinking, I guess we have to live with what we have. At least its better than before there were any betting exchanges.

Dave Jones – need to keep things in perspective here. Experienced traders are experienced traders. Matched betting is matched betting and for this forum And the bulk of our needs , can’t see betfair being beaten By Smarkets. Can’t take to the Smarkets site even – its very very poor in comparison to betfair. Liquidity key for me so no contest – always betfair.

Matchbook so so – similar to my Smarkets views really. Have tried betdaq in the past – their odds used to be on a par with betfair – liquidity was not as good but better than Smarkets. May be worth another look.