RebateWager Exchange: $2,000 Beta Contest

[frizzelli]

biggest flaw in the contest - its an all in festival. thats all people do entire contest.. not much skill involved in the art of scalping or hedging.. which is what an exchange is used for a lot of times. i think that the max wager should be 500 to win. and that would make this contest all that much better. -stash

Nothing like a stiff goof complaining about a free contest.

[RiverRaid]

I played with it yesterday. Very nice clean site. I had no problems, was easy to make offers and i like how you had alternate lines like -4.5, -5.

When it becomes a real money site i will definitely put in a couple dollars in.

[Ganchrow]

biggest flaw in the contest - its an all in festival. thats all people do entire contest.. not much skill involved in the art of scalping or hedging.. which is what an exchange is used for a lot of times.

i think that the max wager should be 500 to win. and that would make this contest all that much better.

A few people have made similar suggestions and form the perspective of a contest designed to reward skill as much as possible I can't say I disagree. I know if I were competing I'd probably want that too.

But a couple of quick counter points from the standpoint of practicality.

1) The purpose of this contest is to beta test the exchange software itself. The greater the extent to which we tacked on external constraints, the greater the extent we'd be beta testing ad-hoc contest software. Monitoring core exchange performance is quite a task in and of itself ... the additional effort required to monitor and tweak ancillary software and logic located outside the exchange core would simply detract from our current primary focus.

2) Enforceability -- Could players make multiple max bets? What if they were at wildly different prizes? What if one order was placed prior to top-off and another with mere seconds left on the clock? It's pretty difficult to efficiently provide two-sided liquidity if a trader's max exposure is capped without regard to his available bankroll.

Anyway, we're all for suggestions on how to improve future contests including providing segmented prize pools. But first things first ... we've already got a contest underway.

[Ganchrow]

I'll also note that during the course of this contest we may also be offering 1 or more single-market mini-contests that reward the player with the highest pure trading P&L. Or something like that.

So stay tuned.

[Ganchrow]

Why were all my offers revoked?

I'd love to be able to help you out here but you'll have to be a bit more specific.

I'm monitoring live chat at the moment so hit me up and we can look into what's going on.

[Jonah]

Wow, very nice. thank you rebate wager.

I want to give something back in return.

Here goes; make your prizes cash, not free-play. FP, while being generous, still reeks of low rent and cheap, especially when most other contests are cash. Ultimately, this fp stuff just hurts the brand. Brand imaging, very important.

Not complaining at all, just trying to help.

Here is an example that we all might be able to relate to. Someone picks up the tab at dinner. Cool, that was very nice. Said person leaves a bad tip...unfortunately still leaves a bad taste in our mouth, even if the person was very kind.

Now with a person, we can rationalize it and get over ourselves. Not so with a brand. It is emotive, visceral. etc, which is why brand imaging is very important.

So cut the crap with the FP and good luck on the new exchange.

[Ganchrow]

This may have been discussed in the other thread. Are there any plans to give a total for all the individual bets filled for a given team/market. If one has 7 different bets on a team at -3' for various amounts and odds, will there be a way to see the sum of these and the odds based on this sum.

Actually I just remembered that I posted in another thread the following link to a JSON representation of the logged-in player's net fills:

http://www.xmexchange.com/players/net_fills

Note that this is part of a legacy JSON feed, is completely unsupported, and may change and/or disappear at any point without notice. And if you do use it, please keep your calling frequency to a minimum. It is based on legacy code after all.

With that said, Chrome automagically renders the JSON object structure in an easy to read format (by default) as does FireFox with the JSONView add-on installed.

[thadchr]

Did anyone who played in the conference tourney version of this think the experience was at all worth it?

[hhsilver]

Jonah,

I think you are being too hard on them. I miss Matchbook and eagerly await this exchange getting up and running. I hope I am speaking for others here when I say I would be helping with the testing if there were no contest. Or if maybe the prizes were only a few points.

thadchr,

Yes, the experience was worth it to me (see above). Those of us doing this will have a head start on using the site when it is for real.

[mugsey15]

I thought the contest was worth it and now I'm hooked and ready for it to open. I've only been gambling online for about a year and got started with bodog and I still play there only for the most part and never really research other books so this exchange style is new to me and I wish I would of played with one of the exchange systems before now. I think it has been very beneficial. The first contest I treated it like real money until the last game. I know not everyone did so my results up until the last game might not be 100% accurate to people using real money but I was on the right side alot until the last game.

[FourLengthsClear]

Yep, I totally see that. On the list.

As a temporary measure, however, (if you're not already aware) it's often quicker to cancel multiple orders from your "Open Orders" panel. If you open up the chosen market, it's just one click (plus an admittedly annoying confirm) instead of two to remove each order.

But does the button really have to be red?

OK, thanks.
No, it does not have to be red, nor especially big.

[FourLengthsClear]

Did anyone who played in the conference tourney version of this think the experience was at all worth it?

From the point of view of familiarisation with the interface and software, yes.

I trade every day on Betfair and have done for nearly 10 years. When I first started using Matchbook 3 years ago, the grid layout was similar but there were many features missing (compared to Betfair) and I had to find ways to get round that.

I am expecting it to be similar here.

[Keith Richard]

Wow I didn't even realize the new exchange is up and running yet.

[iceminers26]

I appreciate that. But the fact is we care about the flaws ... and quite a lot. Some flaws we're already quite aware of (and we'll have those fixed soon), but the flaws we've yet to identify won't get addressed until eventually unearthed by our own in-house testing, or until a perceptive soul such as yourself brings them to our attention. Anyway iceminers, we look forward to having you on board.

Bud there will be flaws with everything in the initial stages of operation but aside from the fact I need an exchange since MB close out the US, you seem to know what you are doing and will fix these minor errors as we get further into it. Plus Blackie seems like the most legit book owner you will come across in this industry, so I have no problem funding my account once you guys actually open up. ]

Good Luck.

[CntryBoy]

Learnin as I go on this one.. BOL all!

[TonyP]

who needs the rebate wager info?

[Igetp2s]

I agree with all the above posts, theres no point in doing anything for the contest other than going all in on every bet. No other strategy makes sense.

[Jonah]

Jonah,

I think you are being too hard on them. I miss Matchbook and eagerly await this exchange getting up and running. I hope I am speaking for others here when I say I would be helping with the testing if there were no contest. Or if maybe the prizes were only a few points.

thadchr,

Yes, the experience was worth it to me (see above). Those of us doing this will have a head start on using the site when it is for real.

You might be right. Thanks for the feedback. As a participant, I love the contest, just from a marketing standpoint, I thought there was a point to be made. Probably not enough of one tho.

[lemart5]

ganchcrow

[THEGREAT30]

seriously, you can't even make moves when you need to with this site or software.

[mugsey15]

I'm surprised with Clem WV being tied at half there isn't a bunch of bets out there

[secretstash]

been offering temple ml and spread all day.. no takers?? still in game betting with +180 odds. im giving this game away damit

-stash

[dikefale]

been offering temple ml and spread all day.. no takers?? still in game betting with +180 odds. im giving this game away damit

-stash

I took it from you,havnt seen it earlier.

[MexicanStallion]

I haven't had any issues with this so far. I never used MB, so I don't know much about the exchange processes, but everything has functioned just fine on my end.

[alienware]

very nice concept

[alienware]

i think x-markets exchange is a great site

[Dark Horse]

I'm all out of feedback (things look good and streamlined) until more sports are available. That's the next step.

[bookie]

I couldn't read "Odds," "Risking" and "To Win" in the white on gray scheme with out squinting and already knowing what they said.

Also, I wrote CS in response to this posted on the site: "For information about pricing structure and exchange membership please email us at cs@xmarketsexchange.com. Market Hours: 10AM - 4PM ET." Never heard from them. Can you share that information with us here?

Also, why is the market only opened 10-4? Do you intend to have limited hours of operation when it opens? I tried to make an offer just now and was surprised that i couldn't do it--I guess because the market isn't open? Seems like I made an offer last night.

[Ganchrow]

I couldn't read "Odds," "Risking" and "To Win" in the white on gray scheme with out squinting and already knowing what they said.

Point well taken.

Also, I wrote CS in response to this posted on the site: "For information about pricing structure and exchange membership please email us at cs@xmarketsexchange.com.

Full on mea culpa right on Ganchrow. I saw your e-mail and just have yet to respond. We're still tweaking some elements of how we how plan to handle pricing and incentives for various types of players. I'll appropriately amend the footnote.

What I will say now, however, is that the exchange will initially go live with a zero commission grace period of not insubstantial duration.

Market Hours: 10AM - 4PM ET Also, why is the market only opened 10-4? Do you intend to have limited hours of operation when it opens?

"10AM - 4PM" market hours is just the time period where in nonpathological cases you can expect someone to be available on live chat to assist with usage issues. In reality, you can expect someone to be available as long as games are going on.

During the Beta test we need the opportunity to take down the site to put in place various fixes as well as analyze the day's software and network performance. (Prior to doing so live orders are always first canceled.)

We're all working at full throttle during this period and we need to give ourselves a little wiggle room in terms of hours of operation. This is strictly a function of the beta and should by no means be taken as suggestive of future exchange policy.

Take it this way: if there aren't any more games to be played AND it's after 4PM ET, the site might need to be taken down for maintenance. As the beta progresses this should occur with decreasing frequency and for diminishing duration.

I tried to make an offer just now and was surprised that i couldn't do it--I guess because the market isn't open?

No, that wouldn't be the case. When the exchange is taken down all players are automatically logged off and would receive a down for maintenance popup when trying to log back in. And again, this shouldn't ever happen when there are games yet to be decided.

Now that said, if you tried to place an order and couldn't (and received no error message) then that's something I definitely would like to look into. If you get send me the approximate time this occurred along with any and all order details you can remember I can investigate what might have have happened.

Our primary concern here is testing the software/user interface and ensuring that our staff can ably support it. Detailed statements of policy, game-by-game rules, and "welcome to our site"-type niceties are not our immediate focus.

[Jonah]

Do the games get removed at tip-off or do they stay up?

[Ian]

Some comments so far:

1: dikefale already has over 143K in the contest!

2: The site has worked great so far so far for me. It took a short while to get used to the interface, but now that I've got the hang of it I like it a lot.

3: It would be nice if there was a way for users to create their own markets. In the scope of the contest it might be marginally useful to some people to hang a line on a pointspread not offered, but I'm thinking more along the lines of extra events when the site goes live. For example, my favorite sport to bet is boxing, and if I were to use the exchange I'd probably want to make a lot of offers on bouts that the site probably wouldn't think to create the infrastructure for themselves.

[bookie]

Now that said, if you tried to place an order and couldn't (and received no error message) then that's something I definitely would like to look into. If you get send me the approximate time this occurred along with any and all order details you can remember I can investigate what might have have happened.

I must have been doing something wrong. I went back this evening and was able to place the order that I hadn't been able to place before.

What happened earlier was that I put the amount in, but when I clicked the Buy button I didn't get a confirm screen. I guess it's possible that I wasn't logged in. If it happens again I'll pay closer attention.

[Dark Horse]

It couldn't hurt if the lettering in the top bar was larger. Blowing it up from this side means I can't use three separate columns.

[jjgold]

The key to any software is never ever settling and always making tweaks and upgrades based on performance and player suggestions

[big joe 1212]

Not open in the morning?