27th April 2002 - issue 14

1. Ex Flutter man to launch new betting exchange

www.backandlay.com is the excellently named site which will be launched in the near future by Ian Davies, the man credited by many as being responsible for turning around the fortunes of Flutter. The Racing Post said of him in a recent article.

“Hired in November 2000 to increase Flutter's level of trade, Davies was instrumental in transforming a modest market share of four per cent to a hefty 30 per cent in a matter of months."

Under Davies' guidance Flutter developed what many still consider to be the best betting exchange format that the market has seen so far.  Whilst not wanting to give too much away about the site he did tell Bookie Free News:

“It will take betting exchanges to the next point in their evolution with a state-of-the-art product which will include features never seen before."

Given his track record, the prospect of a brand new site being launched by Ian Davies is an exciting one and can only be good news for all of us. Watch this space for more news about the launch date.

2. Gary Wiltshire and iwageru join forces

Gary Wiltshire is a very well known bookie, respected amongst punters in the racing industry for accepting larger bets than many of his contempories. The news that he was to launch a p2p service garywiltshire.com ,  was eagerly anticipated by knowledgeable betting enthusiasts. There was however a slight sense of anti climax when the site was launched and it turned out to be no more than a partner site to ggbet/iwageru.

Of the sites battling to establish themselves in the p2p market, iwageru has much to offer, the main stumbling block being relatively low liquidity. However, as the site gets better known, and with the extra punters that Gary Wiltshire will hopefully bring in, there is every chance that the liquidity will improve. We'll have a closer look at the site in issue 15 of Bookie Free News.

3. Betfair match 12,000 bets on Tiger

Betfair reached new heights during the US Masters when they matched 12,000 individual bets on Tiger Woods at odds as long as 8.0. This is an unbelievable figure and shows once again how well Betfair have done in establishing themselves and selling the bookie free concept to an ever increasing audience. The other sites have got a huge amount of catching up to do if they ever want to challenge Betfair for the number 1 position.

4. Betdaqracing offer more sports

Betdaqracing have extended their offering beyond horse racing to include soccer and golf, with no doubt more sports on the way. This is great news as it moves to fill the gap left by Flutter. At present the site has a very attractive competition to win two tickets for the FA Cup final.

5. Bookie errors, a word of warning

A subscriber to Bookie Free News kindly emailed me, informing me of a mistake made by Paddy Power, one of the major online bookies. In the Division 2 match they were offering outrageous odds of 11-1 against Brentford to win, when the correct odds should have been evens. To take advantage of this I had to place the bet as part of a treble, therefore, I had to combine a Brentford win with all possible outcomes in two other matches. This involved a total of nine bets, ie Brentford + home win + home win, Brentford + home win + draw, Brentford + home win plus away win etc. Before the site stopped taking my bets I had staked a total of £450, giving me potential returns of between £3,000 and £8,000 should Brentford win, depending on the outcomes in the other two matches.

To cover my potential loss of £450 I offered to lay Brentford on Betfair at generous odds of 2.3, giving me a risk free return of between £2,500 and £7,500. Unfortunately, the next day Paddy Power emailed me to tell me that their rules allowed them to cancel any bets where the odds on offer were a blatant error, as they clearly were in this case. I was given the choice of letting my bet stand at Paddy Power's intended odds, or of cancelling it, which of course I did. My dreams of substantial, risk free profits had gone, but the worse thing was I still had this bet on Betfair, that I would not otherwise have considered offering. Fortunately for me, I was able to cancel most of it before it had been accepted. The end result was that I lost £10.

This was a valuable lesson learnt. What if I had placed this bet shortly before the event took place, giving the site no time to contact me and give me the opportunity to cancel it? Would they have cancelled it for me, or would it have stood at evens? Presumably either way it would not have been allowed to stand at the enhanced odds, and if I had managed to lay it all off I could have got my fingers seriously burnt. If you find a "bargain" like this it will be difficult to ignore, but proceed with extreme caution, and do not over expose yourself to the very strong likelihood that the bet will not be honoured at the advertised odds.