ok, it's time to talk seriously about it

[flok]

some of us already said something about it in other topics, but this time i'd like to dedicate a separate discussion to this:
who's stealing our money in the prerace markets?

as some of you know, i noticed lately the the markets react to my bets, and found myself many times in this situation:
static market, not moving at all or slowly ranging of 2-3 ticks up and down.
as soon as my lay or back are taken, the market changes completely and suddenly starts trending quickly (the opposite way, naturally) goes a certain number of ticks away from my bet, builds a support or resistance and DOESNT REMOVE IT UNTIL I TAKE MY LOSS.
then, it automatically disappears and the price goes back to the previous position.
if i try the opposite way, it goes again against me the other way.
it cant be bad luck, because even if i placed 100 random trades, some of them are supposed to be positive, they cant be all 100 negative, right?
(ok, in the theory of the large numbers yes, but practically you can try it for 10 human lives in a row and never see it)

other suspicious situations: i click to take a price and my stake is not taken, because automatically there's other money that appears together with mine. it gets matched and mine doesnt.
or, other times i click to get the money at a certain price, and when i click it automatically disappears at the same time.


i'm not the only one who noticed it lately... dont blame me of conspiracy theory and similar stuff. i'm tired to give away my money and lately the bet"fair" markets are not so fair.
today i'm at -400 euros, and NOT a single trade went in the right way, not even one.
but the question i ask myself is: how can this market-maker bots, user bots, other trader, whoever it is, how can it/he know what i'm doing?

if i click, who knows that i did it before my bet is placed?

normally would be:
1: the toy. it sends the input to betfair's api
2: my internet provider servers
3: the betfair servers (so, the market-making bots)
(pls correct me if i'm wrong)

i dont know if it's technically possible or not, but, can someone hack this system, track the IP and know the activity of traders, and configure a bot, for example, to "copy" the actions performed by the trader, or even configure the bot to play against him?

i dont know what to think anymore, normally i have an edge and i trade since 4 years. i had losing days, i made and make mistakes, but i never noticed the markets CONSTANTLY going against me in this way like it happens some days like today.

the first theory that comes to my mind is that betfair market-making bots are scalping us. they're the ones who know what we click and when, and can match their stake before ours or cancel theirs when we click to get it.
what do you think about it?

[bazbaz]

Out of interest, what stakes are you using when this happens?

Tbh it hasn't felt very manipulated to me today, though the few weeks before last felt pretty nasty

[flok]

i noticed that if i use a stake of 20-30-40 everything is normal.
if i use higher stakes, like 100-200-500 i trigger reactions against me in the markets.

edit:
other traders manipulating the markets, building fake supports and resistances, ok, i accept it and it's part of the game.
but here i'm talking about some reactions that are too fast for human reaction times

[bazbaz]

OK I'll PM u later when I've got a moment, I think I've got an idea what's happening. Might be a good idea to take a break now

[Ted]

Thought provoking, could maybe stagger the stake over 4 prices ?

[flok]

Thought provoking, could maybe stagger the stake over 4 prices ?

already tried... i tried in every possible way, but it goes against me today no matter what i do.
other days, everything normal... i was up almost 1000 for this month and i lost half of it today.
if it wasnt crazy i'd think that the betfair's bots change day by day the target user to screw.

[kawasaki]

or moving stake from price to price inplay in way less than 8 seconds. yep seen that.
though done that myself too, but that was just fun trick, nothing illegal, and i couldnt make anyone loose money by doing this. at least i think so

[Nikol]

some of us already said something about it in other topics, but this time i'd like to dedicate a separate discussion to this:
who's stealing our money in the prerace markets?

as some of you know, i noticed lately the the markets react to my bets, and found myself many times in this situation:
static market, not moving at all or slowly ranging of 2-3 ticks up and down.
as soon as my lay or back are taken, the market changes completely and suddenly starts trending quickly (the opposite way, naturally) goes a certain number of ticks away from my bet, builds a support or resistance and DOESNT REMOVE IT UNTIL I TAKE MY LOSS.
then, it automatically disappears and the price goes back to the previous position.
if i try the opposite way, it goes again against me the other way.
it cant be bad luck, because even if i placed 100 random trades, some of them are supposed to be positive, they cant be all 100 negative, right?
(ok, in the theory of the large numbers yes, but practically you can try it for 10 human lives in a row and never see it)

other suspicious situations: i click to take a price and my stake is not taken, because automatically there's other money that appears together with mine. it gets matched and mine doesnt.
or, other times i click to get the money at a certain price, and when i click it automatically disappears at the same time.


i'm not the only one who noticed it lately... dont blame me of conspiracy theory and similar stuff. i'm tired to give away my money and lately the bet"fair" markets are not so fair.
today i'm at -400 euros, and NOT a single trade went in the right way, not even one.
but the question i ask myself is: how can this market-maker bots, user bots, other trader, whoever it is, how can it/he know what i'm doing?

if i click, who knows that i did it before my bet is placed?

normally would be:
1: the toy. it sends the input to betfair's api
2: my internet provider servers
3: the betfair servers (so, the market-making bots)
(pls correct me if i'm wrong)

i dont know if it's technically possible or not, but, can someone hack this system, track the IP and know the activity of traders, and configure a bot, for example, to "copy" the actions performed by the trader, or even configure the bot to play against him?

i dont know what to think anymore, normally i have an edge and i trade since 4 years. i had losing days, i made and make mistakes, but i never noticed the markets CONSTANTLY going against me in this way like it happens some days like today.

the first theory that comes to my mind is that betfair market-making bots are scalping us. they're the ones who know what we click and when, and can match their stake before ours or cancel theirs when we click to get it.
what do you think about it?

OMG So you are this pretty amazing guy who is giving me free money all day long

[flok]

yeah... i wouldnt be surprised if someone from betfair was taking advantage of his position...
pre-race horses today for me it's like playing poker against opponents that can see your cards!
(it really happened on a poker site few years ago, if i remember well)

edit: this post was for kawasaki, the following post appeared while i was writing

[Steven1976]

There is so little real money around they will push you to the extreme.

Imagine for one minute that every single penny you see on the ladder is the same person or company. They self match your own money either through betfair allowing them to create liquidity or by using multilple accounts so that they can hedge against each other through clever spreadsheets/software to create an illusion of an active market.

The second any money other than their own reaches the market they react against it with big money (big money relevant to the time from the off) and hold the market until you either sell out or you add more thinking all that money you are seeing in support of your position will also support you until you add more and they aggresively move further against your position. This is a very short term move but if you know you have more than the rest of the market collectively, you have an edge.

The good part of it though is you can easily trade against it.

The way to do it is that you have 3-4 positions in the market at the same time for one single trade so that you can always scratch and then add to the lay so that you are in a good position. You will have to work out this part and if it ever goes against you when they jump it 5-6 ticks, just get out cos they have took on some decent money and will push it big time. Get out, get out, get, out. Dont believe for one second the 20K that was also matched as well as your money will react.

My advice to anyone would be to try to understand this is, to be active at the front of the queues and do it on very weak markets. Ausy markets, 10s, 20s etc.... If you set up positions even at 22s where it looks like the market is matchign a few quid here and there, you can use a certain position all of a sudden you see 100s pop up on the lay side to bring strenght against 2,3 quid bets put into the market in the right place. If all them little ghost bets that had previously being matched were real, the market wouldnt react like that every time. Im not saying you will make money out there but i think understanding the weaker prices can be scaled up with what happens very short term with a bit of imagination.

Scratch and add!

[Ted]

Stagger stakes both sides of the price, try a sport you don't normaly play.....

[flok]

Imagine for one minute that every single penny you see on the ladder is the same person or company. They self match your own money either through betfair allowing them to create liquidity or by using multilple accounts so that they can hedge against each other through clever spreadsheets/software to create an illusion of an active market.
The second any money other than their own reaches the market they react against it with big money (big money relevant to the time from the off) and hold the market until you either sell out.

exactly what i was thinking about, you explained very clearly

[Ted]

Steven, yeah, the racing place mkt's react like that.....maybe they're all ex poker players ?

[Steven1976]

Maybe its just a coincidence!

[flok]

The good part of it though is you can easily trade against it.

i dont agree with that, with a huge bank they can push the price further against you. i did it sometimes and got away with it, but many times the bots create more support-resistance.

i noticed some sarcasm in some posts. it's ok, everyone has a different opinion and it's perfectly normal.
and, believe it or not, my opinion is that something isn't normal in the markets lately, and someone is screwing us.
i dont say it because i lose (actually even after the big loss of today i'm in good overall profit for the month) but because i really notice something odd, regularly.