blonde poker forum

Good luck getting on with this lot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34060117 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34060117)

R.I.P Betfair :(

Was this always powers long term plan to rent out their then ceo to betfair for a couple of years with the knowledge that he was going to bring betfair back to Ireland with him and resume his ceo role for paddy.

15 years ago Betfair paraded a coffin in London announcing the end of bookmakers. Today there is news of Betfair merging with one of the biggest recreational bookmakers in the world. How did it all go so wrong?

The original idea was brilliant. Punters bet against themselves directly so the bookmaker takes no risk. Punters loved the new idea. They came in there tens of thousands to bet at bigger prices, lay horses they didn’t fancy and to trade on price movements. We all told our friends and they told their friends. We were all in it together fighting the establishment who was trying to shut Betfair down. Many customers worked for free helping Betfair build its case to stay in business. People like Andrew Black, Mark Davies and Mick Stone understood the change they were making to the world of betting. It was truly a revolution.

As the company grew liquidity grew. All was good. During the 2000s three major problems occurred. (1) Some punters were winning too quickly and (2) International expansion was stopped by increased protectionism (3) They failed to educate punters how to use the exchange.

Betfair has two options to deal with some punters winning too quickly. Either, assess who was winning and take measures to make the exchange fairer to stop them or charge the winners more money. No action was taken to make the website fairer. To this day you have in running betting on racing with a 1 second delay whereas the TV pictures can be over 5 seconds delayed. The on course players are cleaning up. The same applies in tennis. This unfairness drives the recreational punters away.

Their preferred option was the much hated Premium Charge. 40%-60% of winners’ money taxed. The result was the much loved company became hated. It was up there with the rest of them taking every last penny it could with Betfair. But nothing was done to stop the losers losing too quickly. To this day the on course players and courtsiders are still creaming off their supernormal profits. The only difference is Betfair now takes a bigger slice of those profits.

The result of the charge was a quick win for Betfair. But it started the long term decline of the stage. Figures (see ‘THE PREMIUM CHARGE MUST BE SCRAPPED’) show that non-inplay betting has been decimated by the Premium Charge. Side markets in all sports have all but disappeared. One of the unintended consequences is some bigger markets have grown due to big players churning money to avoid the charge.

Betfair have no idea how big the exchange would have been without the Premium Charge. 10%-20% annual growth in the horseracing pre-play markets stopped overnight. Without the charge would the average a race be over a million now? We will never know because they took the greedy short term choice rather than deal with the heart of the problem and making the exchange fairer.

It was natural that with the side markets gone, the exchange growth stopped, the Betfair educational department gone and other countries closing the door Betfair would go with sportsbook idea. The new CEO has done a great job for those that hired him. Share price flying and now a merger with his old firm.

But where does this leave the revolution? Those of us who have stuck with the exchange for fifteen years have been betrayed. All the founders left years ago and Betfair is now just another greedy corporation serving its shareholders and top management. The sportsbook is great for them. It brings in the mug money through bait offers like ‘best odds guaranteed’ and free bets. But no one that has a clue can place a bet. Like all the others it is not a bookmaker. It is place where losers hand over part of their pay check each week and winners are not welcome.
It was not supposed to be like this. Andrew Black set out to revolutionise betting not become a bookmaker. It was a good business making tens of millions a year in commission as an exchange. But somewhere along the line they got greedy and wanted more. They got more but the revolutionaries are now firmly part of the old establishment. There were several attempted revolutions in France before the monarchy finally fell. Will there ever be a second betting market revolution?

Great post on the bf horse racing forum which pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Since when is a 52/48 'merger' not a takeover?  Betfair is now a subsidiary of Paddy Power surely?  I think this really is the beginning of the end for betfair as we know it.  It has been happening subtly for months with their advertising all focused on the sportsbook etc etc.

All the indications so far are much more like it's a reverse takeover. Betfair seem to be the dominant party, it's their CEO and CFO taking over and them who had more answers for analysts in the calls.

But we will wait and see. My feel though is this is much more like Betfair taking over PP than the other way around and some of the announcements are just for show.

Paddy have effectively got their old CEO back from his 'loan period' at betfair.  He is now their CEO and they have the 52/48 power.  Whatever it looks like cosmetically the only thing that matters in a takeover in reality power wise is the % and this is in Paddy's favour here surely?

A takeover is specifically when one firm says to the shareholders of the other firm "we will give you £x (or £x plus y of our shares) for your shares".  Do you want to take it?  A merger is where the firms agree to join and the shareholders of the two merging companies get an agreed amount of shares in the new firm.  (The calculation being based on the agreed value of both firms shares at a certain time.)  Shareholders can reject the deal if they don't think they are getting enough of the new firm.

Great post that arb, esp for a Paddy Power Forumite. Those guys are something else, particularly the resident rofflers on the Specials Forum.

The bookmakers always win in the end. All the uproar among the Fodds boys when Betfair started up...they got there eventually.

Not if it's a reverse takeover, although to be fair they have not said it was so. They did say this:  For the purposes of the Irish Takeover Rules, Betfair is the offeror and Paddy Power is the offeree.

Like I say it's not super clear at the moment. But all the talk gives the impression this is a Betfair led deal.

That's a very odd way of looking at it too. There was no love lost when he left. They put him on 12 months gardening leave. He's now coming back as CEO and the current Paddy Power CEO is moving down to COO. I'd take the tin foil hat off if I were you :)

Wonder who is next?  Hills and 365?

Amaya to buy 365?

I would say nobody could afford 365, but then I thought that about PokerStars

How much you think 365 is worth on the open market Alun?

Excellent post arbboy.

We're waiting on results to Mar 2015 so hard to say, but based on 2014 profits and a same multiple as Amaya it would be £3.5bn. So assuming growth and maybe reducing multiple a little due to, erm, less sustainable revenue mix I think that number is probably still about right

It's not my post Keith.  I copied and pasted from the betfair forum just for clarity.

Was the headline 'Non-bookmaker take over non-exchange'?

At least there's still Betdaq. Oh, hang on, Ladbrokes took that over. A while ago now. And literally did nothing with it. It's almost like they want Betdaq to fizzle out.

A Luton pokerer sayed after the takeover that perhaps we'll see in-running terminals in Ladbrokes shop now. What a quaint idea.

Maybe PP will have Betfair IR terminals in their shops? With no PC? In place of FOBTs?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/11824630/Paddy-Power-should-have-put-a-wager-on-its-own-merger-with-Betfair.html

The growth at stars is stalling, and that isn't the case with b365. I'd probably price b365 at quite a bit more.  Betfair p/e is close to 30 for instance, albeit on the back of a takeover. You could argue b365 is at least as succesful.  They'd have no trouble selling out at 3.5bn anyway.

Yeah I broadly agree with you. And could easily see it being worth more. Sky Bet sold at around 16x historic profits.

That said 11x is a pretty good multiple for a private company with chunky unregulated revenues. There is a discount applied on those normally, and GVC trades at a much lower PE than peer group for example.

But yeah, what's it worth? £4bn or even £5bn is not unlikely or unreasonable especially if it's growing at 15-20%.

So a merged lolbrokes and joke coral are still only effectively the 4th biggest firm now in the uk?

If you mean online then yes.

With your 365 valuation, PP and bf joint market cap and hills mkt cap are they not still 4th overall not just their online business but the whole company value?  Or are they bigger combined than hills on a valuation basis?  Lads only worth £1bn (coral really worth more than £2bn) to make them bigger combined than hills?

Yeah good point. I was thinking more in terms of revenue/market share. But yeah.

Please spare the jizz fest over betfair founders.  They are responsible for the biggest ever confiscation (8 figures) of money in online gambling.  Money being taken back directly out of peoples banks etc.  The decisions came from "the very top".  As pathetic and thief like as you can get.

I had a ton more respect for paddy power than I do betfair.  They have acted with a lot more class and thought for the punters over the years.  I agree the amounts you can get on at each of the sportsbooks are pathetic.  I will say this though, at least paddy power/betfair sportsbook appear not to close accounts for being smart at sports betting.  There is quite a significant difference in being limited to very small amounts and having your account fully closed/limited to 0.00 ala stan james/coral/vc etc.

Mergers are never good for the customers and although I am reading at the moment both brands will continue to be run separately I imagine that will change a few years down the line.  Very disappointed at this news today.

I will repeat again this is not written by me.  It was copied and pasted from the betfair forum this morning.

Huge lolzzzzzzz at the bolded section of your post.  What is the difference?  I would prefer to have my account fully closed so they can't spin the pr and say 'we don't close winner's accounts' when they limit you to 43p on an odds on shot.  What do betfair and power 'close' accounts for then if it is not being smart at sports betting just out of interest?

I assume the 8 figure confiscation refers to the premium charge?

Can anyone see a new competitor in the more original betfair model, or has the market become too mature or too expensive to start-up in?

I am not privvy to how their security departments operate so I have no idea.  I do know of a few things over the years that resulted in account closures though, all of which you couldn't blame them for.

I take your point that you would rather they closed your account to make it a bit harder for them to spin PR.  They would, however, trot out the oft use line that it is "only a very small percentage of accounts" that suffer from being closed.  To me its quite a significant difference between being restricted small or closed and it changes how I feel about a company.

BBC News an hour or two ago cocked up this story bigtime.  They showed pictures of Paddy Power and...........baldy betfred shops haha

No, nor does it refer to the SNG bug that an update to the old pokerchamps software introduced.  It refers to the infamous happy hour.  They charged back winnings already paid and took money out of peoples bank accounts somehow.  They also just removed money from the thn UKGC licenced sportsbook accounts.  Many UK players have been successful in court sueing for the money.  This is all from people who played fair by their rules and did nothing wrong.  Betfair idiots.  I am of the opinion it was an attempt to raise the (then just floated) share price by increasing deposits hugely.

http://online_casino_news.hundredpercentgambling.com/2010/11/betfair-casino-and-fallout-from-online.html
http://www.rouletteonline.net/online-casino-scams/betfair/

The difference is if you don't close an account the punter can still whack off a couple of grand in the casino when he's drunk

Interesting.  I hadn't heard about that before.  They were definitely cooking the figures pre float in various ways.  I was given 150% rakeback for a month to help improve their poker product's figures pre float for example.  I played tens of thousands of 1 hand all in pre heads up stts against someone else who had >100% rakeback for that month as well.  Betfair were quite happy for us both to sit there and just iron them out for a month to get their rake figures up for the float. 

Thanks yes, I read your post before about the 150% and read your opinion it was trying to fudge figures for the share price.  I did not know about the specific offer you mentioned but I am sure you are 100% right in that and I knew that when I read the other post.

I will say this I got to see internal betfair management emails querying happy hour before it ran.  Some people realised what was going to happen.  It was over-ruled from the very top to let it go ahead and they ended up having to steal £10m back.  Ridiculous.

arbboy have you ever used the DPA on a bookmaker?

No never

Haha if theres anyone ive ever seen around the forums that absolutely should, its you.  Know your rights and use them.

SuperJez,

Why is there a massive difference to you between a bookie limiting you to small stakes and closing your account please ?

I was wondering about that too.

Coming from a complete novice.......if Betfair is not like it was, is there an alternative?

It's like anything else in life, people say "things aren't like what they were etc etc" But the masses don't seem to do something about it or start something like it used to be.

What do you mean "why is there a massive difference".  There is quite clearly a literal massive difference. 

If you are of the opinion the difference does not matter to you in reality then that's another matter entirely.  I am not having some stupid argument if you are mad you are closed/restricted everywhere for whatever reason.

There is a difference between getting restricted/getting closed.

If both situations are, in effect, the same to you then I'd say that difference was not massive (literally or otherwise).

There isn't a massive difference.  If my average get is £50 and Ladbrokes will now lay me a max of 50p then they have effectively closed me.  If you think there is a massive difference between not laying me at all and laying me to a lose a maximum of a tenner then I think it is reasonable to ask you to explain why. 

Jez why do you come across as very arsey about this subject?  Pretty sure it isn't just me thinking this?  The only difference as Camel pointed out is your ability to still do your brains on casino games if the account isn't fully closed.  If you only bet sports strictly then being restricted to £2 bets is effectively having your account closed.  Maybe you could explain why you don't agree with this and explain what the 'literal massive difference' is iyo?

thoguht it was a perfectly reasonable question Jez, and not worthy of a chippy response

apart from keeping your account open for you to do your brains on casino, not much difference is practice is there?

Oh come on, seriously.


I agree my replys have been a bit curt and limited to facts and could be interpreted as being "arsey".  I do not ever want to offend anyone but beyond that I don't really care if you listen to me or not that is up to you.  Anyone who knows me knows I am legit as a professional gambler of 20 years and I am only interested in facts.  Arbboy I respect you very much but I think it is hypocritical of you to pull me up for being arsey when you have made many valid and correct points on this board previously in an "arsey" way. 



You see here lies a problem (as it always does with gambling).  The post you cite as fact is in fact incorrect.  Is is not the only difference.  I am not expanding.  You can choose to believe me or not.


It is not effectively having your account closed. For one the difference is a factor of infinity in terms of bet size allowed.  For two being banned from somewhere and being allowed in somewhere is about as big a difference literally as you can get.  The "literal" thing is an argument over the definition of the word and I stand by my statement.

please expand. genuinely interested and i might learn something

+1

Do you really think the only  thing you can do on an average bookmaker site after getting severely limited is lose money in their casino when drunk?

I already said I am not expanding but really, it does not take more than half a brain to think of other things you can partake in.

Ok so we are all complete idiots and have no idea about anything to do with betting. Now we have admitted that, would you tell us, please?

Is it helps, I still have a Stan James account,  so I clearly genuinely do have no clue...

Pretty please.

Ok so I have a totesoort account limited to pennies since 2006. I haven't logged into it since because there is no point? This is the same for the hundreds of other accounts which have been limited to pennies. What is the difference with this account being closed and limited to pennies? Please explain.  I give away a lot of information for free on blonde and it would be nice to get something back once in a while.

Pretty sure you won't be giving away any undercover secrets telling us. This Fred and forum is about sharing information.  As a twenty year pro gambler I imagine you have taking plenty,  maybe it's time to give a little bit back.  That's how it works otherwise the Eco system dies long term as the givers stop giving as we have seen over the past year or so.

I don't get it either. I can't bet with PP and just faced an hour long debacle to withdraw, due to a rather bizarre restriction that means I couldn't change my card details as my balance was over £200. I couldn't add a withdrawal method, so I had to waste an hour of my life talking this through with support. At first I had to email off with a scan of my bank statement and by the end of the discussion, he had accepted my screenshot of my online banking and even took the liberty of telling me I needed to tell him my banks address too. I can only hope they have to pay a charge!

My PP account is limited to maybe £5 everywhere. I can perhaps bet a little bigger on main stay premier league games, or something of that nature, but I very rarely do so with a bookmaker, as they are never best price. I can only presume the above hassle with banking is some sort of ploy to get people to gamble. That is the only possible explanation I can see. This would back up the general sentiment in the thread that they only keep the accounts open in the hope that people will punt it off in the casino. I also argee with the sentiment that being limited to winning a fiver is effectively closing my account. It ofc isn't literal, but I can't even remember the last time I tried to get a bet on with them, as I know I won't be laid more than 2% of what I want.

That's not making people gamble Adam, that's just solid anti-fraud and solid AML practice. That would be the same rule if you had a clean account.

A) Can still log in to B365 and watch the Lithuanian football stream
B) Can still log into the betfair forum and row with lefties in the politics section

Anything else?

Can still use sportinglife.com to watch previous races. 

Jez very correct

Why do no other bookmakers have these rules regarding balance? I know it is fairly common practice to have to message support to change card details, but I don't understand the rules regarding balance at all. I'd also need a lot of persuasion that these rules need to be applied for a card that has an expiry date a year ago.

Whats AML (anti-money laundering)? I do get the bank address thing, I know I needed it for an international transfer once, but it simply should have been included in the initial list of things I needed to send them. It also irked me the support guy couldn't handle the issue and told me to email in until I asked further questions and at that point he suddenly found the ability to do it himself. I also don't get why they wouldn't allow paypal to be used for the withdrawal.

I'm guessing he means you can still play poker if your account is restricted, otherwise I'm confused too.

You seem to be the only one with more than half a brain then, coz I literally have no idea what you're on about either.

There is literally no difference between being restricted to pence and being shut down.

The only thing you're able to partake in is to come on to forums and shoot folk down by literally claiming to know something that nobody else does.

He may mean accas

Hey Jez, get yourself back over here!

Jez is the best troll account since BigAdz flounced off.