[Ganchrow]

If you hadn't noticed, Blackie from RebateWager has been dangling carrots regarding a new exchange product for some time now.

Because the idea of improving upon the existing exchange model has been a serious interest of mine since well before I started with SBR, I took the opportunity (provided by P. Loshak) to get together with the Black-Man in order to toss around some exchange ideas.

Wouldn't you know it ... we were very much on the same page.

So shortly after our meeting (and after checking the weather in Hell -- it was in fact warm and sunny) I started working with Blackie on our exchange project.

Well, fast-forward to the present and he and I have put together a betting exchange release candidate that's primed and ready for your comments, criticism, and testing.

The exchange's name is XMarketsExchange.com, and not surprisingly you can find it at http://www.xmarketsexchange.com/. SBRforum posters are invited to sign up for test accounts through that website.

Broadly, our primary software goals are twofold:

1. Provide an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for recreational players to bet at market leading prices across a wide swath of primary and derivative singles and parlays.
2. Continuously develop, enhance, and support a technologically cutting-edge market-maker/trading framework that empowers new market makers, while maintaining a highly flexible, easily accessible, and open source platform for more advanced users.

In other words, we want our recreational players to have fair and open access to better prices than they'd find at traditional low-juice sports books, while sharing our own technological expertise and resources with market makers so they can profitably provide liquidity.

These goals are obviously highly correlated -- the further along we get with one, the more we'll see improvements in the other. The more recreational players we bring aboard, the more profit opportunity there will be for professional players. The more professional players we have adding liquidity, the more compelling and straightforward the betting environment will be for recreational players.

Now with that said, I do want people to realize that we're taking the long view here -- we want to make sure that our core exchange software works smoothly and properly and only then start to introduce features and enhancements so as to cultivate suitable Pro/Rec liquidity across covered markets. We do aim to start running some free contests within the exchange, shortly, which we'll ask SBR to announce, but we're not going to begin taking deposits before we feel completely confident in the usability, stability, and overall excellence of our product -- this won't happen until I can honestly say that I personally would play there.

Because it's still in its early stages of development and because the UI is in such flux there currently exists no comprehensive documentation on the website. As such this phase of testing is geared towards players who already have some familiarity with betting exchanges.

For the next week or so I'll probably limit the number of new accounts, increasing it slowly as I become more confident in our setup.

If you want play around with the software I recommend an up-to-date version of FireFox, Safari, or Google Chrome. In a pinch, IE7 or 8 will also work (although I'd strongly discourage the former). IE5.5 and 6 are unsupported, and although they should work for the most part, performance will be sub par with rendering unpredictable at best. I expect that Opera should work as well, although I've not tested it.

As I’ve said, we have a lot more improvements in the pipeline, but at this point my focus is on core functionality. This is early in the development cycle so there will no doubt be bugs. Please post any you might find in this thread (no PMs, please) or e-mail me at ganchrow AT xmarketsexchange DOT com. (Posting is greatly preferred.)

A bit later I'll post more about how we aim to address the goals I mentioned earlier as well as start to introduce some pf the features we have in store for upcoming releases.

But right now I'm just hoping for as much feedback as possible on core functionality as well as any suggestions for improvements to the user interface or any other reactions, comments, or criticisms that come to mind.

[DeluxeLiner]

So this is what Ganchrow has been working on. It looks like a simpler version of matchbook.

[Ace_of_Spades]

Kinda cool idea.

[patswin]

will check it out

[Shonner]

There he is....

[MadTiger]

My first impressions are that it is very good. Nice, clean user interface.

Just make sure your cashier end is great, and it will be fine. $$$

[Fishhead]

Why the bizarre name???

Also, seems like a bizarre time to be presenting this when BLACKIE has never been under more heat at SBR ever over some recent business practices.

[MadTiger]

Testing with latest Firefox on XP (SP3), by the way.

[shari91]

Looks good so far! Just made my first bet. Best of luck with the development of it all.

[shari91]

Why the bizarre name???

I was thinking this too, only because every time I look at the hyperlink all I see is 'sex' in there.

[jjgold]

Not bad, clean and quick

We definitely need another exchange and with Ganch doing all programming it should be very very good.

Some of you new guys do not know Ganch, he is a math genius and a great program writer

[shari91]

Some of you new guys do not know Ganch, he is a math genius and a great program writer

Unless you signed up at SBR in the past month or so, you'd know who Ganchrow was just from stumbling across the number of his posts that have been quoted throughout the forum numerous times. In fact, if it wasn't for his involvement here, I wouldn't have bothered to sign up at the exchange at all and definitely would not be encouraging others to do the same as I already have.

[tltaylor89]

Ganchcrow UPI sneaky badard

[Hoja Verdes]

Looks like it's time to put my otherwise useless English major to use...I've got a knack for proofreading, editing, etc.

First suggestion:

1. In the sign-up process, under the "Step 2: Contact Info" tab, it asks you to input your city and then your country, rather than your state. And your country is the last thing on that Step 2 tab. So I got confused as to why it wasn't asking me for my state, and looked up to the heading of the Step 3 tab only to see that it was titled "Additional info," so I thought to myself "well, hmm, state would be on this 'contact info' tab, not under 'additional info, so I better go ahead and put my state here next to the city name since these guys forgot to include a field for it." Then once I finished doing that and clicked on the Step 3 tab, voila, the first thing it asks for is my state...so...my completed registration process will now include the state name twice.

The easy fix for this would be to put the state field on the Step 2 tab where the country is, and move country over to the first field of Step 3 (i.e. switch state and country). This seems like the more logical progression as well relative to most 'contact info' forms people fill out on the internet. City, State, Country; not City, Country, State.

[Hoja Verdes]

One bug, which may or may not be a issue:

When you click a game for the first time, you are presented with ATS, ML, and total. Then you click your selection and are presented with the various prices in an expanded box. But I noticed that when you click a game for the 2nd time (i.e. you've clicked it before during your session), it immediately expands the box with the prices.

First thing that comes to mind, which again may be planned for as things start getting rolled out:

The beauty of Matchbook is that I can see different prices on different lines in an easy-to-compare format without any further clicking. For example: I call my local and find that he has Vanderbilt +14 -110. I then go to Matchbook and click on the Vandy game and can see the following lines/prices on one screen: Vandy +14 -104; Vandy +14.5 -109; Vandy +15 -116. I only want to risk about $100 and immediately see that this won't be a problem, as each line/price has over $500 available.

I opt for Vandy +14.5 -109 and am pleased that I was able to quickly discern that Matchbook had an additional half point more than my local guy at one cent less.

So what I'm getting at is that you want to be sure that when someone clicks on Vandy on your site, they don't then have to choose between +14, +14.5, and +15 before seeing all the available prices and liquidity at each price. You need to be able to compare the best price for each line (and amount of $ available at that price) to the best price for every other line on the same screen, rather than having to click +14, and 'short-term-memorize' the best price and how much $ is available, then click +14.5, memorize, then click +15, and then go "ok, now which one do i want to bet, crap, they're all running together in my head!"

[katstale]

API feed in tyhe works?

[jw]

I was thinking this too, only because every time I look at the hyperlink all I see is 'sex' in there.

still not quite as bas as ehorsex . com though

[pavyracer]

Good luck with the project. But X Market Sex Change sounds like a cheap porno flick made in China.

[shari91]

Good luck with the project. But X Market Sex Change sounds like a cheap porno flick made in China.

Just looked at it again and saw the Sex Change. Maybe that's part of their ultimate marketing strategy though. People Googling sex change ops will stumble across the exchange and decide to make a bet or two to try to pay for their surgery. Could work I guess.

[mmike032]

will the software be skimming nickles and dimes from the small timers?

[BeeMore]

How will this book steal money from players?

[Pokerjoe]

One of the biggest hurdles facing US sports on exchanges stems from the behavorial econ realities of having bet offers themselves change.

This is what I mean: in soccer games, 3-way bets, the offers don't change. The prices change (going from 1.5 to 1.52, etc) but the base offer (Liverpool to win) doesn't. This is also true of horse racing. And it makes a big difference to market makers.

Notice that MLB sides works very well at MB. Why? Because the offer doesn't change, the price changes around the offer.

But once pointspreads become involved, base offers (that is, the definition of the bet, the determiner of who wins) changes, often frequently.

This does two bad things. First, it dilutes the betting pools. If "the line" on a game is 5, 5', 6, the offers are distributed amongst 3 pools, instead of aggregated in one pool.

Secondly, it leaves market makers feeling exposed if the offers change frequently. Even though we know 5' points at x odds may equal 6 points at y odds, the behavioral econ reality of it is that market makers aren't comfortable with the change, and it suppresses offers.

Short version: exchanges work much better on moneyline offers than pointspread offers.
Partial solution: limit pointspread offers to one pointspread. Either take down all other pointspread offers when the line changes, or mathematically and automatically change them to the current pointspread offer.

This would entail creating an objective definer of "the line," maybe the median of Greek, Cris and Pinny.
When this line changes, take down all offers at the old line, automatically. Or, mathematically change them to their equivalent at the new spread (by a transparent formula, obv). Or include an option to do one or the other.

But what this would do is keep all offers in one pool, increasing liquidity.

Alternatively, set the line at, say, 4 hours pregame, and then don't move it, instead let the price change around it, as you would with a moneyline offer.

[Pokerjoe]

And at least you guys seem to understand what I've been saying for years and years: for an exchange to work, its interface has to be pretty much no different than any other book's interface, so that rec players feel comfortable and essentially don't know, don't care, and should't have to know or care that it's an exchange they're betting at, not a book.

Rec players think "I want to bet the Giants. Oh, here's the Giants ... click. Cool, now turn on the TV."

It has to be that simple for them. Then, you get them, sharp marketmakers will follow. Period.

What you don't want is for them to have to click, click, click, see hmmm, well, this is the Giants, but -6 -110 or -6' -105, which is better? And why does it say $52 after the -6 -110, then $109 after the -6 -112, but $212 after the -6' -105, then ... and what's this about 'back and lay' and why does it say 'offer' and ... what's the price again? how does that commission thing work again? Are they stealing from me, cause I bet $100 last game and won and they only put $99 in my account, the scumbags... and why does it say I have some money on offer, unmatched, what does that mean ... oh jeez, fug it, get me Joe at the corner bar, I just want to bet $100 on the Giants ffs.

[Flight]

Is there a concept of commission at the black market sex change?

Why do I have to refresh my balance after placing a wager?

[Boner_18]

Is the comission 1.5% rounded up to the nearest 10%?

[Fishhead]

How can this software compete with Matchbook??

[blueghost]

going to give it a try why not

[Al Masters]

If you hadn't noticed, Blackie from RebateWager has been dangling carrots regarding a new exchange product for some time now.

Because the idea of improving upon the existing exchange model has been a serious interest of mine since well before I started with SBR, I took the opportunity (provided by P. Loshak) to get together with the Black-Man in order to toss around some exchange ideas.

Wouldn't you know it ... we were very much on the same page.

So shortly after our meeting (and after checking the weather in Hell -- it was in fact warm and sunny) I started working with Blackie on our exchange project.

Well, fast-forward to the present and he and I have put together a betting exchange release candidate that's primed and ready for your comments, criticism, and testing.

The exchange's name is XMarketsExchange.com, and not surprisingly you can find it at http://www.xmarketsexchange.com/. SBRforum posters are invited to sign up for test accounts through that website.


Broadly, our primary software goals are twofold:

1. Provide an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for recreational players to bet at market leading prices across a wide swath of primary and derivative singles and parlays.
2. Continuously develop, enhance, and support a technologically cutting-edge market-maker/trading framework that empowers new market makers, while maintaining a highly flexible, easily accessible, and open source platform for more advanced users.

In other words, we want our recreational players to have fair and open access to better prices than they'd find at traditional low-juice sports books, while sharing our own technological expertise and resources with market makers so they can profitably provide liquidity.

These goals are obviously highly correlated -- the further along we get with one, the more we'll see improvements in the other. The more recreational players we bring aboard, the more profit opportunity there will be for professional players. The more professional players we have adding liquidity, the more compelling and straightforward the betting environment will be for recreational players.

Now with that said, I do want people to realize that we're taking the long view here -- we want to make sure that our core exchange software works smoothly and properly and only then start to introduce features and enhancements so as to cultivate suitable Pro/Rec liquidity across covered markets. We do aim to start running some free contests within the exchange, shortly, which we'll ask SBR to announce, but we're not going to begin taking deposits before we feel completely confident in the usability, stability, and overall excellence of our product -- this won't happen until I can honestly say that I personally would play there.

Because it's still in its early stages of development and because the UI is in such flux there currently exists no comprehensive documentation on the website. As such this phase of testing is geared towards players who already have some familiarity with betting exchanges.

For the next week or so I'll probably limit the number of new accounts, increasing it slowly as I become more confident in our setup.

If you want play around with the software I recommend an up-to-date version of FireFox, Safari, or Google Chrome. In a pinch, IE7 or 8 will also work (although I'd strongly discourage the former). IE5.5 and 6 are unsupported, and although they should work for the most part, performance will be sub par with rendering unpredictable at best. I expect that Opera should work as well, although I've not tested it.

As I’ve said, we have a lot more improvements in the pipeline, but at this point my focus is on core functionality. This is early in the development cycle so there will no doubt be bugs. Please post any you might find in this thread (no PMs, please) or e-mail me at ganchrow AT xmarketsexchange DOT com. (Posting is greatly preferred.)

A bit later I'll post more about how we aim to address the goals I mentioned earlier as well as start to introduce some pf the features we have in store for upcoming releases.

But right now I'm just hoping for as much feedback as possible on core functionality as well as any suggestions for improvements to the user interface or any other reactions, comments, or criticisms that come to mind.

Good info here,but is Blackie really a black man and if so does BEANTOWNJIM know about this.

[Doug]

Is this for real money yet ?

If so can you use your RBW account and or transfer ?

[pico]

sounds like a cool idea

[mathdotcom]

If jj starts playing there he could cut his losses by $10,000k annually

[Yi]

It's always great to have another exchange better yet a sex change .

[B1GER1C828]

ya id recommend changing name "x market sex change" isnt exactly the best name.

good luck Ganchrow and blackie.

[pavyracer]

It can also be read as Cross Market Sex Change which is even funnier.

[Ganchrow]

Yeah the sex change thing is a bit unfortunate.

We're not totally set on the name or primary URL as of yet and the site can also be accessed from http://www.xmexchange.com.