21st June 2001 - issue 5

Play2match is the person to person off shoot of Corals Eurobet and is the first sign of a mainstream bookie dipping their toes into the waters of the bookie free revolution. Play2match is quite radical in its format, using a patented system with a completely different style from the other p2p sites.

1. The betting pit

All betting activity takes place in the betting pit. This is essentially a notice board where members accept bets or advertise the bets they wish to place. Every single bet which is placed on Play2match has a total value of £10. (If you wish to bet more you simply place or lay more bets, but it will always be in total increments of £10.) All that varies is the amount that each player contributes to the £10. If you offer £2 on your team winning, you are asking your opponent to stake £8 against the outcome which means that you are getting odds of 4-1. Calculating the odds in this example is very straight forward, but a calculator is definitely required for bets where the figures are not so tidy. On first impressions the betting pit can be a bit daunting but you soon get used to it. For a full explanation of how the betting pit works go to the site.  The graph which is the focus point of the betting pit charts the movement of the price from the time at which the market opened to the last bet matched. This is a very interesting and useful record for anyone hoping to guarantee themselves a profit by backing high and laying low. The following features can all be accessed from the betting pit and give the player access to the following information:

My wagers simply lists any matched bets that you have on this event.

My position details all of your bets which are still open (offers) and those which have been accepted (wagers). It details the average price at which your bets have been matched and details what your losses or profits will be in both outcome scenarios. It even displays your current profit or loss if you were to effectively cancel out the effect of your bets by backing the outcomes that you had previously laid. If the market has moved in your direction this will be a profit, if it has stayed still or moved against you will be showing a loss.

Status all money summarises the overall total value of all bets which have been matched so far on the event in question.

Closed bet history this is a historical record of the betting price movement on every event covered by Play2match. This is a very valuable tool for members wishing to research the odds that have been matched on previous events and to assess the movement of the price in these events. It is also a valuable resource if you want to place an early bet on other sites, before the bookie's prices are available to use as a guideline. For anyone interested by live in running betting this offers a unique record of the prices during the events on which live betting was available. For a couple of dramatic examples of how the market can move during the match look at the records for the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Liverpool, and the UEFA Cup Final between Liverpool and Alaves.

2. Commission

At present there are conflicting messages about the level of commission you should expect to pay. Various messages on the site tell you that the site is currently operating on a special discounted rate of 5p per bet which is confirmed by the Play2match help desk. However in the joining instructions the commission rate is said to be 10p, which is the rate I was charged when I placed a bet. This confusion clearly needs resolving. At a rate of 5p this means that on an evens bet when you and your opponent are both staking £5, you are paying just 1% commission which is the best value offered by p2p sites to established members at present. If however you are backing a red hot favourite and you are staking £9.50 against your opponent's 50p your commission at 5p works out to be a less attractive 10% of your potential winnings. Unusually, on Play2match it is only the loser who pays commission. If you win the bet you retain the whole of the £10.

I was told by the help desk that the 5p commission will continue to apply throughout the remainder of the "soft launch" phase of Play2match at which point the commission will return to the real rate of 25p per bet. However, for members intending to be heavy users of the service there will be the option of paying a monthly subscription fee in exchange for reduced or zero commission rates. This could be a very attractive option for members wishing to do a lot of betting on the site and it will be interesting to see if the other sites respond with anything similar. If Play2match do revert to a 25p commission per bet scenario, this will be very similar to the commission structure with which Flutter started but then had to change, because it made offering long odds unviable. In the red hot favourite example above the player will be paying 25p out of potential profits of 50p, a commission rate for that member of 50%. Hopefully, Play2match will take the experience of Flutter into account and charge commission as a % of winnings rather than as a flat fee.

3. Variety of bets

The events on which Play2match open a wager pit are very selective, for example in football it appears to just be live televised matches. Furthermore, there are none of the wide variety of bets that we have come to expect from p2p sites, the only betting option on each match being to lay or back the home (red) team. The only bet you can place on the away team is that they will avoid defeat, you cannot bet on the away team to win and you cannot bet on the draw. On F1, the only options you have are whether to lay or back Michael Schumacher.

The narrow range of bets available on Play2match would seem to be a weakness of the site and certainly from our point of view it makes profitable betting more difficult than on some of the other sites. On the positive side it could however be argued that by sacrificing variety they are only losing the peripheral bets for which there is only marginal interest. This means that by focussing all activity through a relatively small number of bets it ensures that there is a really strong market in all cases resulting in very competitive odds on all featured events. This approach could be vindicated by the £29,070 that has been matched on the Ireland Portugal match as I write, with an extremely competitive 2-1 available on Ireland . The site also seems to attract big punters, with some members offering the same bet 100 times or more.

4.  Making profits on Play2match

Play2match is a unique system which is a complete departure from the structures of the other sites. It creates a different challenge to the other sites and has already attracted a loyal following. The important question to bookie free bettors is can we make money from it?

With any bookie free site your chances of enjoying a long term profit are infinitely greater than on a conventional bookies, but some sites give you a better chance than others. In order to make a long term profit on p2p you need to consistently place bets which give you a statistical advantage. You achieve this when you are able to place a bet which has a higher perceived value to your opponent than your research shows to be the case. Generally speaking the more people that bet on a given event, the more closely the odds reflect the probability of the outcome, making a statistical advantage less likely. Given the large amount of activity on the small amount of bets available on Play2match it can be difficult to get a statistical advantage. The tactics I recommend that you use on this site to give yourself the best chance of a long term advantage are as follows:

1. Unless the price on offer appears exceptional do not accept it, always submit your own offer. There is the risk that your bet will not be accepted, but it does ensure that for all bets that are matched you will be on the right side of the spread which will improve your chances of showing a long term profit. This is a basic rule that applies to all p2p sites.

2. Look at the possibility of placing bets early on forthcoming events before the market has settled down and perhaps before the bookies have published their odds on the event. To be successful in this you will have to have a really good feel of where the market is likely to end up. You can do this by researching past events on Play2match.

3. Consider participating in live in running betting. The speed at which things change gives plenty of opportunities for anyone armed with the right information and a cool head. I will cover the subject of in running betting in more detail in a subsequent article, however at this stage I will just say that you need to be totally prepared, having researched the likelihood of as many eventualities as you can foresee, so that you have information at your fingertips available for whatever the event throws up. This will enable you to submit an offer or accept a bet safe in the knowledge that the price gives you the statistical advantage over your opponent.

An alternative approach would be to focus less on the outcome of an event and more on understanding and predicting the movements in the betting pit. There are probably a significant proportion of Play2match customers who are less interested in predicting the outcome and more interested in buying low and selling high and thereby guaranteeing themselves a profit regardless of the outcome. Whilst there is nothing to stop you from doing this on Betfair for example, this is a key feature of Play2match and the historical betting pit graphs are there to help you with this process. Furthermore, if you get into a situation when you are guaranteed a profit regardless of the outcome, Play2match credits you with your profits straight away, which is a very good feature as it frees up your funds, enabling you to put them to profitable use elsewhere. This is a completely different betting experience, in many ways being closer to buying and selling stocks and shares than sports betting.

5.  Conclusion

Given the links of Play2match to Eurobet it is not in their interests to offer a service which directly competes with their mainstream betting site. They have achieved this by creating an innovative and interesting variation on the bookie free theme. It offers the same benefits of minimising the effect of the middle man and therefore gives the punter superior value to that offered by a conventional bookie, on the markets offered, however they have ensured that there is still a place for Eurobet with the wide range of bets which Play2match does not currently offer. By having a firm toe hold in the p2p market Eurobet/Play2match are in a good position to expand this side of their operation if it becomes necessary.

At present I feel that the huge variety of bets available elsewhere probably gives us a better chance of finding bets which offer us a statistical advantage and a good chance of making profits. However, that is certainly not to say that Play2match should be discounted. The challenge presented by the betting pit will undoubtedly appeal to some of you and if you are able to master this process the potential rewards could be substantial. For the rest of us the excellent odds often available on Play2match gives us a great place to lay off bets placed elsewhere, and could offer great betting arbitrage opportunities.