How about baseball? 1% commision on wins and losses is so much worse than 1% on wins only.
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QUOTE - I don't see why a scalper should get a break on commission just because he took both sides. That's rewarding people for taking minimal risk. If they would have decided to simply charge 2% on the win amount of each individual bet, completely independent of all other bets, they could have ensured their profits would remain high.
Somehow I don't think you understand. A scalper isn't getting any breaks from the old system. In fact they probably contributed as much as anyone else, which Matchbook are probably painfully finding out about now. You see when I bet both sides of the market, whether I make a personal profit or not, one of my bets had to lose. The winner on the other side paid 2% commission which was part of my contribution to the commission given to Matchbook.
Now you do the Maths. I was turning over between 20k and 30k a day before the new system began. Now in the last 3 days I have only turned over 3k total. This is definately no good for me but it is also no good for Matchbook. Of course I would not be the only person who is in the same situation. I can't see any future for me or others scalping on Matchbook as long as this ridiculous commission structure continues, then we will see how much liquidity they have.Comment -
NBA and NHL, the bets were anwhere between 1k and 5k on either side of the market per game.Comment -
I am very happy with this new commission structure, though they will have to lower the back commission to 0.5% for me to back more, as I am so far now just laying bets. (Most Americans will not understand this, so maybe Santo can come in to explain to them)
I really hope BetFair will start doing the same!Comment -
sorry, but it's hard to take this seriously since it comes from someone who also thought the Betfair premium charge was a good idea.
for some reason, a lot of people seem to have the strange assumption if all marketmakers/scalpers/sharpies/winners/arbers/etc (basically all people who are more succesfull and faster on the exchange than they are) are all taxed so much they will disappear, there will actually be a market left for you to bet at filled with some sort of fantasy image of thousands of soft offers for you to take advantage of.
there have been a significant number of exchanges without marketmakers and consequently all those others groups -> they have either failed or are completely empty. stupid money and smart money go hand in hand.Comment -
Well Said noyb. Soon these people will realise how good Matchbook is without the enormous liquidity that arbers/scalpers bring in.Comment -
It seems like nobody was betting today . Yes, they were plenty of offers, but not many takers, except when odds changed. This was the first day of the tournament and a lot of the markets seemed like a December Elon/Citadel game even though the odds were tighter. Good offers, no takers.
Things sat at , say, +107, -108 for hours in some cases without dollar amounts in the offers changing . It's hard to imagine that nobody who was willing to bet at +108 would take +107. But I saw such markets remain stagnant ( same odds, same money in the offers ) for long periods of time. But, with the new system , settling for +107 is really settling for a little worse than +105, while getting +108 as the offerer makes it a little better than +108. So everybody was offering and nobody was accepting. That's what the day seemed like to me. I could be wrong, but as a regular matchbook player , I sensed much less action, especially for a day with so many big games.Comment -
Bring on a reverse of Matchbook's ridiculous commission structure. That is exactly what I have witnessed and am sure that Matchbook must be hurting from this.Comment -
One thing they have done well is put back the start of their NBL games to match the real start times. It seemed silly of them to miss the last 15 or so mins of betting because they finished betting at the official start time.Comment -
...this move was solely done to protect the market makers from getting picked off and to increase their own profits ....like i said before the turning point for me will be to see what they do in regards to the upcoming baseball season ...last year 1% commission on wins and theyve said that they are goin to further discount baseball ....wait and see
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most scalpers as soon as they see the line move they jump on an offer imm. and just scalp out of it right away ....sometimes market makers are too slow to cancel there order and would get picked off
now a scalper will only accept something that he feels for sure will move at least 5cents thus saving the market makers from getting picked off and then adjusting where they want to offer a lineComment -
Yeah but if the other side of your bet was another scalper, MB basically made virtually no profit.
The new system is a way for them to always make 0.8% commission on every bet no matter what, guaranteed. If the reduction in liquidity ends up costing them money in the long run, I would guess they'd switch back to the old system.Comment -
That is why I said I would be happy to pay 10 or 15% on profits as long as they returned it to the old system. This new way is impossible for me. Like I said above, if I needed to get out of a position I always offered very good odds. These odds are not available anymore as no one wants to accept bets.Last edited by Mark Shark; 03-20-09, 01:19 AM.Comment -
The only good news to report is I got my balance cashed out quickly via Moneybookers, I'll keep a low balance there for testing stuff, but my money's better used elsewhere under this new structure.Comment -
Perhaps the change from them is an admission that the previous business model wasn't going to be profitable enough long-term? Betfair's annual statement shows about 25% of their profits have been from interest on client funds which must be kept separate from operating capital by UK law. Interest rates have collapsed, there goes that income stream entirely. If Matchbook want to grow - improved technology as the customer base grows, expand into more markets, territories, become legal (if and when licensing regs ever change) in certain territories, then they have to secure their future. And banks aren't going to loan them any more money right now...
If they have the capacity to go back, then they might. The reaction has certainly been far greater to Betfair's premium charge which didn't make a great dent on liquidity because BF's clients are spread throughout the world and there are plenty of syndicates/individuals out there who rely on them for a living. Matchbook doesn't have that market penetration and thus the client base can't absorb such flak.
If they steadfastly refuse to change and the liquidity trend only gets worse, then they could be in trouble.
(all opinion based on industry and market economics, no knowledge of the inner workings at Matchbook HQ)Comment -
So much for increasing liquidity.
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To focus on liquidity, expected to be down during an economic crisis, may not have been the best angle. Why not just wait out the financial crisis, while doing what you did well, and let MB's reputation continue to build its own momentum? (reputation is a great asset, that isn't necessarily helped by drastic policy changes).
The weak spot was, and is more so now, lack of clarity. In the long run improved clarity would have done its part in increasing liquidity. After their quick rise MB grew somewhat stagnant, and they could be making a mistake by coming up with a forced solution.
An alternate model is offered by Netflix, a company that sought to improve 'liquidity', and offered prize money for someone to come up with a great solution. That was a few years back. Their website has since been vastly improved upon, and their stock is holding up very well during the economic crisis. The point? The solution is out there. Netflix was humble enough to recognize that there were people, beyond their own board, who could help them.
The world of sports betting exchanges is relatively new. Growing pains are to be expected (but Tradesports already went this way).Last edited by Dark Horse; 03-20-09, 08:08 AM.Comment -
There is also a key difference between the premium charge and this new Matchbook charge. In the case of Betfair they are still only taxing winners, albeit now at a greater extent than previously, whilst at Matchbook they have completely eliminated profit-making potential for a section of their players, who now have no purpose in playing there.
It's still worth playing Betfair for pre-match and in-game traders; it's not at Matchbook -- for pre-game players we've gone over it plenty of times, for in-game players they've never proven to have enough liquidity to make it worthwhile.Comment -
The overarching impediment to Matchbook's liquidity is the difficulty US players have in depositing money there. Period. And until they get that issue resolved they'll always be a minor league operation.Comment -
I think that nails it.
I've been watching MB markets, and I see what others see, not a lot of betting. But I do see bigger offers and slightly tighter lines. Going forward this is going to be attractive to handicappers, and not as appealing to penny scalpers who never take leads.
But the scalpers seem to speak as if MB was thriving before the changes, and this new way of doing things is necessarily a big come down. For them, maybe, for MB it seems that any fair person would give them a year to see.
As to the funding issue, obviously everybody's biggest impediment is the hassle created by the UIGEA. But if you're MB you deal with how it is the best you can. That means that they need the kind of players who are willing to wire money, and stay a while. They're betting that by letting such bettors bet at -102 they'll attract enough of them to sponsor active markets.
Maybe they will or won't. They won't know until after football season. But that what they're doing is a plausible long term plan. Nobody was picking off $30,000 worth of badlines a week. --there wasn't anything remotely like that kind of off-line money flowing through Matchbook.
Bottom line we've got take the as a context for what they're doing now what the exchange was like before. And what it was like before, in terms of volume, often seems to me to be misrepresented in this thread.Comment -
Taking leads is precisely the problem, nothing gets matched so to take a lead you have to pay 1%, then again on the out side, which significantly increases the amount of time you need to be right.
"Nobody was picking off $30,000 worth of badlines a week. --there wasn't anything remotely like that kind of off-line money flowing through Matchbook."
I'd wager big money that's wrong, assuming you mean volume vs profit. I know of a few who were turning over well into 6 figures weekly, primarily on bad lines.Last edited by Santo; 03-20-09, 06:04 PM.Comment -
liquidity on NBA is poor todayComment -
who cares about matchbook.
they are so dumb.
Keep things simple is the first rule.
I signed up there 12 month ago and don´t understand how to bet at this book.
I´m a semi professional player bur I cant understand this book.
Nuff saidComment -
I like the changes. And this even though I sometimes bet both outcomes of a game to secure a guaranteed profit.
I can understand why people who mostly do spread and O/U betting ( mostly betting even odds ), feel that this is a change for the worse, as they are paying the same in commision ( when accepting offers ), and also losing the option of reducing commision by betting both outcomes.
But I mostly bet money lines, so for me the lower commision is worth losing the above mentioned option.Comment -
Matchbook can't be going too well, they are already starting to tweak their rules. Time will tell boys, we will see what happens next. Oh and 30k of badlines was easy to achieve. Sometimes it was more.Comment -
I think bookie hit it on the head. For a serious HANDICAPPER bettor, Matchbook is very good, and the new rules make it even better. Between them and my other 5 cent outs, I virtually never lay more than five percent on a game (and often I'm taking odds instead of laying) unless I decide to in essence "buy" a half point or "sell" a half point. Which the superior odds I get at MB often make worthwhile. I'd say my average juice is about 2%-3% per game, which makes it a great deal easier to turn a profit in the long run.
I understand that UIGEA fkkd everything up, but other books still have deposit options that MB has eliminated.Comment -
After several days betting both pre-game and live, I have come to the conclusion that this new commission structure is far better than the old one when it comes to the amount of trading commissions charged.
As it turns out, I average about 50/50 during live trading (50% accept orders, 50% make offers) and the commissions I am paying are FAR LESS than what I paid under the old structure.
The problem as I see it is that Matchbook's revenues have to be taking a substantial hit under this structure as less trades seem to be crossing and traders are paying less commissions under this new structure as compared to the old one.
Season long markets will definitely be more expensive to trade under this new structure but the tradeoff is certainly worth it.Comment
