British man arrested at Australian Open

[MarkRussell]

See http://ind.pn/1dQmWFz

[wizardofmann]

Very interesting and well done Graham Ashton and his team but..........what about teams who do the same thing at all the UK/Irish races and many others around the world?

[doris_day]

How on earth can this be described as a 'scam' and being engaged in "conduct that would corrupt a betting outcome” ?

All the guy is doing is going to an event and betting in-play as offered by bookies.

Is the guy next door to the Betfair servers and betting with TV pictures involved in a 'scam' just because his latency is less than mine ?

This is not the way to deal with courtsiders.

[wizardofmann]

How on earth can this be described as a 'scam' and being engaged in "conduct that would corrupt a betting outcome” ?

All the guy is doing is going to an event and betting in-play as offered by bookies.

Is the guy next door to the Betfair servers and betting with TV pictures involved in a 'scam' just because his latency is less than mine ?

This is not the way to deal with courtsiders

1. It is taking money out of winning punters pockets by an unfair advantage.
2. Since when did Bookies offer in-play?
3. The guy next door to the Betfair servers would see the same delay as you and possibly a fraction later.

So how do you propose coutsiders should be treated? With open arm's, a cup of tea and biscuits perhaps, while they pick our pockets!

[doris_day]

[/quote]

1. It is taking money out of winning punters pockets by an unfair advantage.
2. Since when did Bookies offer in-play?
3. The guy next door to the Betfair servers would see the same delay as you and possibly a fraction later.

So how do you propose coutsiders should be treated? With open arm's, a cup of tea and biscuits perhaps, while they pick our pockets![/quote]

1. How do you define 'unfair advantage' ?
2. Bookies have offered in-play for a few years and by bookies I really meant Betfair.
3. Not true, and again, I didn't actually mean 'next door' literally, I meant he had his system one hop from the Betfair servers. There is a big advantage potentially and exactly why some stock market operators pay millions of dollars to have their trading servers close to the exchanges.

No single market is a level playing field and never will be. There are many ways I can gain an advantage over you and I don't need to list all the methods.

Get rid of courtsiders, what about the OB unit crew as next in line ? Stop them betting and what the TV studio crew ? Stop them and what about the audience local to the event who get pictures earlier than you ? Stop them too ? Why not carry on stopping everyone except all those that have exactly the same time advantage as you ? You just can't do it.

You have to weigh up the pros and cons of in-play betting if you want to get involved and if you don't think you can gain any advantage, don't bet.

[mrprobit]

Whatever the arguments are about wether courtsiding is a legitmate activity or not. I think people should be more perturbed by the fact that the (ex) head of trading at betfair is behind this.

betfair is the only company in this industry that let their staff bet with themselves.

I'll let people dig themselves, you wont like what you find.

[wizardofmann]

Any clues please, as after doing a bit of 'digging,' I am none-the-wiser

[mrprobit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... staff.html

[mrprobit]

Not sure what the status quo is as I've not done any work for the betfair trading team for quite a while. But one of these guys still has family working at betfair I beleive.

[doris_day]

Thanks for the link. Still can't understand what they appear to have done wrong.

I've done the same in both the US and Dubai with horse racing. As it happens the Dubai gap was less than many UK races but in the US for the Belmont Stakes it was about 6 secs. Great stuff. If anyone can give me a legitimate reason for the illegality, I'll look at it closely. As I've said in a previous post, where do you draw the line when you'retalking about in play betting ? Over 50% of trading on the stock market is based on latency advantages. It's churlish to say 'I'm not going to take advantage of a time differences because its just not fair on the others in the market'. Life aint fair. Get over it.

[austingrd]

Nice one. This was never aired on Fox! Hats off on those who bet on Wawrinka.

[xraymitch]

Still can't understand what they appear to have done wrong.

Like you Doris I don't understand either.

Does this mean that when using my ipad at Towcester Races to make my bets I am doing something illegal...

[doris_day]

I think its nonsense. Funny coincidence as I was just reading a piece on Gizmodo about city traders now installing laser data transmission systems in order to get faster data for their high frequency trades.

Is that illegal too or should the city impose a delay on their markets ? Come to that, I wonder if their successful traders have to pay a premium charge

[gaza]

What about all the skuldugerry with horse racing pictures? Is that acceptable?

[johnenla]

With open arm's, a cup of tea and biscuits perhaps, while they pick our pockets!