Blackie, Ganchrow, and a Betting Exchange

[BigDaddy]

i have no doubt that with ganchrow involved this will have a great shot at being a success.

[Doug]

It's hard to have an opinion on this without any real offers there.

[Ganchrow]

It's hard to have an opinion on this without any real offers there.

I hear you, Doug, I'm still just trying to gauge software/network performance.

In the mean time, if you see any pricing gaps out there try placing an offer ... there's likely to be some sort of prize for the player-tester with the highest bankroll after MNF.

[jordan_gt_99]

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.

[jjgold]

i have no doubt that with ganchrow involved this will have a great shot at being a success.

[Doug]

will the exchange be seeded by RBW when this starts for real ?

seems like it might have to be at first.

[Doug]

What is the commission structure being planned ?

[sneak-a-peak]

Looks pretty cool

It was simple for me to place wagers on selected prices very easily

[Grandmaster B]

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.

sharp post fish

[katstale]

API feature coming?

[SPECULATOR 13]

i have no doubt that with ganchrow involved this will have a great shot at being a success.

Right on big dady!!!

This is great news indeed,i have been totally depress over the news at M.casino in vegas,they are less and less good places for a serious sports speculator to go too.

That exchange is going to be a absolute,unbridled and total success
GANCH is the reincarnation of Einstein ,seriously!!!
BLAKIE is making all the right moves

[eidolon]

easy to use.
very clean.
A+++
Always an amazing job with Ganch involved

[Ganchrow]

Thanks for the kind words BigDaddy, JJ, Spec, eid, sneak, shari, and others. Appreciate it.

Good comments pokerjoe and Hoja. I'm going to rejigger the sign-up wizard to make the ordering more intuitive. For the life of me I can't recall why I set it up this way in the first place.

Just as Hoja pointed out, only one live market can currently be viewed at a time. This is partially haven't-got-to-that-part-of-the-interface-yet issue, and partially a result of my desire to be parsimonious with bandwidth and processing power in the earliest stages.

But make no mistake about it -- this is simply the current state of web front-end and will be changing with a later release. As the interface matures, users will be able to have several live markets open and autorefreshing simultaneously, dragging and dropping them into desired positions.

pokerjoe, I'll get to some of your points in a later post.

kat, yes we do have big plans for a multilevel API and in-house plug-in/widget/interface/trading tool laboratory. I view this as a core part of our business model and consider among our very highest priorities,

I'll be providing a little more detail on our API and our commission structure in a post about our business goals and operating philosophy later tonight.

[Ganchrow]

What I will say now with respect to commission structure is that we're looking at this as a long-term venture. Our short-term goal is not to be cash-flow positive but rather to build up liquidity and interest in the exchange while fostering a greater understanding among recreational players of how the exchange works and how it might be of benefit in general.

We don't need to make money on the exchange this year or next ... but we would like to make money on the exchange 3 years from now.

In furtherance of this the exchange has sufficient financial backing such that we most likely won't be charging any fees or commissions for the first year of operation. (Of course you shouldn't get too accustomed to this -- we're not communists, after all.) There are also existing infrastructural synergies with Blackie's existing core business that we'll be able to leverage in order to keep costs and expenditures as reasonable as possible.

So we haven't completely decided on how exactly our fee structure will look come 2011. But what I can say is that whatever structure we ultimately do put in place it will not only be straightforward and transparent enough for even the greenest of recreational player to feel comfortable with and fully comprehend but also serve to encourage liquidity provision on the part of professional players and market makers.

[durito]

Nice work Ganch.

[katstale]

Ganch i am sitting here drooling. Thnx and i will have my tech guy working with you i am sure on hooking me up with API. i will be a loyal user for sure.

[Saab]

Ganchrow, I like how this looks and I would like to be a part of any sort of beta testing you have for any backend API / market making platforms.

PM me with contact details and we can discuss further, I am targeting a number of exchanges for high amounts of liquidity and we might be able to add this one...

-Saab

[Sam Odom]

Fishhead , Nicky & JJ will provide all the liquidity needed. I'm sure

[Ganchrow]

Nice work Ganch.

Ganch i am sitting here drooling. Thnx and i will have my tech guy working with you i am sure on hooking me up with API. i will be a loyal user for sure.

Ganchrow, I like how this looks and I would like to be a part of any sort of beta testing you have for any backend API / market making platforms.

PM me with contact details and we can discuss further, I am targeting a number of exchanges for high amounts of liquidity and we might be able to add this one...

Thanks guys.

An integral part of our business plan includes providing dedicated technical and quantitative support to our market makers and professional players.

Call it enlightened self-interest -- without liquidity providers there won't be an exchange and we want to do everything we possibly can to support and encourage those individuals and syndicates who are effectively our partners in this endeavor.

[Ganchrow]

Because MadTiger finished the weekend with the highest bankroll of all testers ($14,243.35), he wins a $100 free play courtesy of RebateWager. Just shoot them an e-mail with your account info.

Finishing closely behind MadTiger (good for nothing more than honorable mention, I'm afraid) were Doug, Cookie, and durito.

And a big gracias to everyone who participated in our very first conTEST.

[AMBlai01]

Fishhead , Nicky & JJ will provide all the liquidity needed. I'm sure

Best joke I have heard all week...

[jjgold]

Fishhead , Nicky & JJ will provide all the liquidity needed. I'm sure

Sorry Sammy I do not play at exchanges

I have outs that deal low jjuice and $50,000 max bets and paid in 3 days

[Pinkstripe]

Cool! I'll take a look....Best of luck Ganchrow

[Pokerjoe]

A couple of other points:

College sports pose a real challenge for exchanges. There are just so many games that the interest and offers are too diluted to be of much use. Big CFB games can get some decent liquidity, but otherwise, generally, no. And CBB is a disaster. No bettor can read the many offers, and no market maker can keep up with them.

It might make more sense to only post major games. I have no idea what metric might be used to determine "major" games, but probably "nationally televised" would suffice. This would especially make CBB more viable. MB is virtually worthless for most CBB games. I don't even check them. But if they only offered pools on at most 20 or so games on a CBB Saturday, it might sufficiently compress the interest for bettors and marketmakers. As I'm sure you know, the key challenge with exchanges is critical mass, and it's so far been impossible for MB to hit the tipping point with college sports.

Another idea: a really user-friendly market-maker's interface built into the site, or available for download. MB right now is a nightmare to work with from a marketmaker's side if you're dealing with multiple offers. I know privately available software exists to make Betfair more useful. Maybe be a step ahead on that and make the best interface possible in advance. Obv, getting live ones involved by having a seamless bettor's interface is a big first step, but making things easier to make and, more importantly, track multiple offers adds up, too. Ideally, a MM at home should have a screen no different from that a bookie has in front of him at a sportsbook because, ideally, a MM should be able to be a bookie through the exchange, obv.


Now a controversial (very) idea I'm just throwing out there: IF an independent, objective line-definer is developed, such that we can say "the line is ..." then we could also say that all offers accepted within a certain time-frame of a line change are nullified. Insane sounding, I'm sure, but by far the biggest fear MM's have is of only having offers accepted by steam chasers (or the suspicions people have that Pinny itself picks off offers at MB just before it moves it's own line). But if an offer is accepted, then within say 60 seconds the line moves at Pinny (which is the fear) if that bet was then nullified, then the fear would dissipate.

For the rec player, it would simply mean almost nothing more than that there was a 60-sec delay on finding out whether a bet was taken (although bets <$200 or so could be exempted from this altogether, to really keep rec players out of the picture, because their bets aren't the problem, and if they only coincidentally bet steam, no one cares).

Alternatively, track accounts with x% of bets objectively defined as steam, and boot them (yeah, that'll make me popular around here, LOL). The point is, no one wants to make offers that are only accepted by steam chasers.


Final crazy idea: one of the reasons online poker has gained popularity is that it's more personal. People get known by their screen names, and they like that. They like the idea of playing against, or following the career, of Durrrrr or OMGClayAiken, or whomever.

Maybe have bets made by screen name. Personalize it. So we can see "JJ Gold posted an offer on the Cowboys that SBRJohn took." Instead of only seeing that someone made an offer on the Cowboys that someone took.

And attach a forum to it. Personalize it. Increase the drama. Allow for chat, insults, success tracking, etc.

Good luck, anyway.

[jjgold]

WOW!!!!

I think we just got a great review there

[MadTiger]

PokerJoe has some excellent insight into this. Particularly the idea of personalization.

And thank you for the gift for my exchange participation, Ganchrow. I will contact RW with my e-mail, etc. in a few.

[Ganchrow]

My apologies for not having posted any updates to this thread, I've just been rather busy with some rather unfun business development work.

I really do want to address some of the thoughtful comments made, as well, as post a bit more info regarding some of the features we're working on for the next release. (Trust me ... it's going to look a whole hell of a lot different by then).


In the mean time, I would like to congratulate poster saahil for having added $6,537 to his bankroll last NFL week.

$100 Free Play courtesy of RebateWager is yours is you want it. Just shoot their CS an e-mail either from your account address (or just reference it in your message).

Appreciate everyone's comments ... keep them coming.

[scott235]

bump
any updates?

[Ganchrow]

Our initial public testing of the software went quite well and we received a number of excellent suggestions, mostly with respect to the user interface (which to be fair was only intended to serve as proof of concept for the back end end).

Currently the site is down for a bit of reconstructive surgery as we retool everything interface related.

We aim to have the site up and running some free contests in time for the NCAA Tournament if not the Super Bowl.

[CatPulp]

Ganchrow, could you please let everyone know when the site is back up? I am very eager to test it.

[katstale]

This is like stealth testing? Didn't even know it was up and running.

[Hoja Verdes]

Now a controversial (very) idea I'm just throwing out there: IF an independent, objective line-definer is developed, such that we can say "the line is ..." then we could also say that all offers accepted within a certain time-frame of a line change are nullified. Insane sounding, I'm sure, but by far the biggest fear MM's have is of only having offers accepted by steam chasers (or the suspicions people have that Pinny itself picks off offers at MB just before it moves it's own line). But if an offer is accepted, then within say 60 seconds the line moves at Pinny (which is the fear) if that bet was then nullified, then the fear would dissipate.

For the rec player, it would simply mean almost nothing more than that there was a 60-sec delay on finding out whether a bet was taken (although bets <$200 or so could be exempted from this altogether, to really keep rec players out of the picture, because their bets aren't the problem, and if they only coincidentally bet steam, no one cares).

Alternatively, track accounts with x% of bets objectively defined as steam, and boot them (yeah, that'll make me popular around here, LOL). The point is, no one wants to make offers that are only accepted by steam chasers.

I agree with you in principle. I certainly feel like it's pointless to make an offer at MB more than hour before kickoff most of the time because it will only get accepted if the line moves against me. On some rare occasions I'm ok with that because I'll take that risk if I have a pretty good feel for which way the public will push a line/price throughout the week.

However...what you've described above completely defeats the purpose of a free market exchange. If people associated with Pinny are picking off numbers before they move them, it will be obvious to the software guys/admins that it's happening and who is behind it. They can make it difficult for those folks to continue doing that, just like some books limit people for simply popping their off market numbers.

At the end of the day, I'd be willing to put my money there and accept that liquidity may be low sometimes as long as one CARDINAL RULE governs the owners of the exchange: DO NOT OFFER CREDIT TO ANYONE. This is the only thing that makes me nervous about Matchbook, and you must realize that risking the entire business model is not worth an increase in liquidity offered by credit players.

[CatPulp]

Yo Ganchrow!
Where did you disappear to? I was so thrilled to see you posting again. From your earlier, classical period of Ganchrow posts, I surmise you live in Manhattan. Being an American, how do you propose to get around the UIGEA?

[Ganchrow]

I'll tell you guys ... starting an exchange is hard work.

As I've said, We're not looking to do this half heartedly and doing it right means making certain that our technology will be ready to handle the workload.

We;re looking to put up some free contests, hopefully for the Super Bowl, and definitely for March Madness.

Stay tuned.


CatPulp: I've been living in Costa Rica for the past two years now, Manhattan is but a cherished memory.

[jjgold]

Gancher you should be unique and let the player have the ability to close the bet before the final score and make a profit or loss like real stock trading. I am sure it is possible because there was a book called tradesports that let you do it out of Ireland, they closed up for various reasons but was a good exchange.