For those of you that are interested.....

Check out the betting information for Randwick Race 1 on Betfair.....
Some clown has layed the field at odds of 1,000 to 1 @$12.....

I hope it was noone from here, but there is a very happy person out there, and 1 very unhappy person......

What does that mean???

It means that somebody put an offer to back every horse in the race. He put $12 on each at odds of 1000 - 1. Somebody matched his bets, all of them......

I think there were 8 horses in the races. It cost him $96. No matter which horse wins, he will receive $12,000 in his pocket.....

I'm afraid I still don't quite understand. How could someone get 1000-1? Please forgive me, but I don't really have much of a clue about this laying thing.

I myself thought there were only 2 possible chances in the race (1 & 2) and I thought 1 was a pretty good thing.

On Betfair you can get odds of 1.01 up to 1000.

Imagine going to a bookie and saying I want to put $12 on every horse in the race and I want you to give me the odds of 1000 to 1. And then imagine him accepting your bets at those odds.....

That is what happened....

The 2 favourites were paying about $2.50 on the tote..... This guy backed them at 1000 to 1......

Well, the guy that accepted those odds was probably like me and didn't know what the heck he was doing. I think there should be some way of protecting people from making mistakes like that.

Sportz,

The usual protection is that Betfair won't let you offer a bet unless you have sufficient funds in your account.

So, for instance, if I hold only $500 in my account, Betfair will only let me back or lay to a total of $500 to lose. Because the minimum wager is $6, my maximum price to lay with that balance would be $83. If I tried to lay a horse at 100/1 or 1000/1 Betfair would immediately reject the bet without anyone else seeing it or having the opportunity to take it.

The offeror of the bet BJ mentioned must have had at least $12,000 in his/her account.

Anyone with $12,000 sitting in a non-interest-bearing account must be a fairly lively punter, and should not need any protection.

Cheers,

Filante

BJ

All is not always as it may seem.

Clowns match their own bets at ridiculously high (1000) & ridiculously low (1.01) odds. What it does is muck up the graphs for matched bets. Why they would want to do this is beyond me, but so is the writing & spreading of viruses.

On the other hand some poor ************ could be well out of pocket. We all make mistakes & when Betfair becoms "legit" here, there will be a lot of newcomers & possibly a lot of mistakes made.

probably someone swapping funds between betfair accounts ($12,000).
I do it myself sometimes.

Probably a ridiculously expensive way of transferring funds. A credit card card deposit will cost 1.5%, yet a transfer that you describe could cost up to 5%.....
Surely it would be easier and more cost effective to withdraw from 1 account and deposit into the other......

And Mark, I agree that some poor buggar could be now out of pocket. Some poor buggar with at least 12,000 dollars in their betfair account.

My personal opinion is that this mistake was made by a serious punter that was so used to the procedure that they had turned off the verification process, and made a mistake. Albeit a costly one..

People ask why there are people out there that lay horses at 1.01 and people that back at 1000.... This is why.........