Bet Exchange News February 2005

By Miguel

The fifteenth of November 2004 will always be my JFK moment in the world of betting exchanges. I'll never forget where I was when a casual chat over the phone with well known Betfair forumite and fellow football punter Sporty turned awkward as he uttered those immortal words: “By the way, I see Sporting Options went under today. You didn't have any money tied up with them, did you?!”

In fact, I was at the very computer from which I'm telling this story when I had to explain that my entire bank (the best part of four grand) was held in an account with those cowboys.

As anyone who knows Sporty will probably appreciate, he was totally distraught at the unexpected response to such an innocent remark. I guess it was like telling a bloke about the naughty antics the local barmaid got up to at the weekend, only to realise she's his wife!

In a peculiar sort of way, I think he even felt guilty because he'd played out the thankless role of messenger in breaking such bad news to the afflicted.

Not only was I one of the country's worst affected clients but, to him, I was also a friend who he'd watched (and helped) climb the punting ladder to higher stakes. No longer was I an occasional tenner or 20 quid player, he'd seen me progress into borderline semi-pro laying around half-a-dozen teams for £150 each every weekend.

And then this happens…

I mean, four grand is a lot of money to anyone but putting things into the context of a “poverty-stricken student”, it was probably more than the yearly shopping budget for my entire halls of residence!

Anyway, if Sporty's sense of responsibility was undoubtedly misplaced, I couldn't help feeling that I'd brought about my own downfall by committing the heinous crime of which all students are guilty from time to time: pinching pennies at the expense of quality. For Netto baked beans, also read Sporting Options.

When I discovered Betfair just over two years ago, I was more than happy with everything they had to offer, not least the discussion forum where I've since developed some very good friendships.

However, such is the loyalty of the sponger, I just couldn't suppress the stereotypical tax-dodging nature when I heard Sporting Options only took two per cent commission on winning bets!

It mattered little that I still spent every day on Betfair using their site to follow market progress and using their forum as a platform for debating my thoughts. Nor did I seem to care that there was a lot less liquidity with my new exchange service provider.

And therein lay my stupidity because, with hindsight, it's not like clues to highlight the ailing company's desperation were in short supply.

Needless to say, looking back at the way in which so many of my bets were matched in those final few months, I do feel very foolish for not twigging that something very fishy was going on.

For example, most of my football punting activity is to be found in the lower reaches of English football and I would often enter the market of a random Coca-Cola League Two fixture on a Friday evening with less than £200 having been matched so far and little more than that available on the board.

Now, logically speaking, someone who was looking to lay £150 on the away side wouldn't fancy their chances of getting it all matched under those circumstances but I was never deterred because regardless of the liquidity (or lack of it) I repeatedly found somebody willing to take me on.

I'd put up the £150 at, say, 2.8 and often within 20 minutes somebody would be offering to take a similar, slightly larger amount at around 2.86. Thinking little of it, I would just adjust my price accordingly to strike the bet.

This kind of thing became increasingly common as shrewder, suspicious clients gradually began to disappear and those in-the-know were being tipped off about the company's plight. Towards the very end, it was almost as if I was being followed around from game to game by an individual who was indiscriminately taking on my lays with more than a hint of desperation.

Little did I realise in my naivety, it was the company themselves who were “bringing it on” with money that effectively belonged to me! So, inevitably, the outcome was Armageddon for my betting bank and I was out of the game for the foreseeable future. Or at least I thought so…

What I hadn't reckoned with was the goodwill and generosity that exists in the developing world of the betting exchange.

Now a lot has been said about the decision of Betfair and iBetX to compensate the victims of the Sporting Options collapse and, to be fair, most of it was positive. However, those who sneered at the motives of those two firms were (in the opinion of someone who recovered almost half of his money through the rescue packages) very misguided with their views.

Of course, they were probably guaranteeing themselves a lifetime's custom in many cases and the gesture went some way to protecting the integrity of the industry but on a moral level they were far from obliged and I'd hazard a guess that not a single soul would have disappeared from the exchanges forever on the back of their losses from the defunct site.

If a sense of perspective is really necessary, do you think there's any chance on earth I'd have been pulled out of my hole had my money been tied up with a bent bookmaker?

So as I'm sure you can imagine, I was a very relieved man and consciously bearing in mind the old adage about beggars and choosers, I wasn't too downhearted by the prospect of a few weeks on the sidelines cursing the profit I could have made while the formalities of clarifying my personal details were completed by the admin departments at the headquarters of both sites.

Sporty, on the other hand, was having none of it.

The impact of my news had hit him much harder that it need have and I must admit to being more than a little touched when I read a post of his on the football forum the following morning saying he couldn't sleep for thinking about my news. It was gone 3 o'clock in the morning.

On another thread, he then offered a promise that I'd be back in business by the weekend. That, he said, was “a Sporty guarantee” and going off my impressions of the man in the 12 months or so I'd known him, I gathered his word would be as strong as anything you could possibly scribble down on paper.

And so it proved as he stood me up almost half of the bank I'd lost, no questions asked, to get straight back into business without missing so much as a single fixture in the Coca-Cola League programme.

Naturally, I tried to decline his offer on the grounds that such generosity was unnecessary but there becomes a point when basic courtesy borders on the point of causing offence and accepting with due gratitude eventually felt like the right thing to do.

Now I'm glad to say things are looking good again and it's turning out to be quite a promising season but regardless of any success I may have in terms of profit, nothing will kindle as much faith in the exchanges and the cyber community created around them as the memory of my speedy recovery from the most devastating moment in my punting life.