När Betfair erbjöd sina kunder en forumchat så lät de meddela att endast dryga 800 pund hade varit deras totala intäkt från krossmatchning.
www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk
17 October 2008 INFO 08/29
Betfair Limited (Betfair) and cross matching
The Gambling Commission has had under consideration a change to Betfair’s practices introduced on 18 February 2008 under which Betfair General Betting Limited (BGB), a company in the Betfair group, accepted customers’ bets on the Betfair Exchange in connection with a process called ‘cross matching’. Cross matching extended the bet matching process to permit matching across different selections in the same market, with BGB acting as counterparty to allow customers’ bets to be matched. Cross matching was introduced without informing customers in advance. BGB made revenues of approximately £300,000 from the inception of cross matching until the end of March 2008.
The directors of Betfair have announced today that they regret that customers were not informed of this change before it was introduced. They have given an assurance that, in future, customers will be notified of changes in practice in advance unless Betfair’s general terms and conditions clearly permit a change to be introduced without prior notification. One of the Commission’s objectives is to secure that gambling is conducted fairly and openly. Although the introduction of cross matching did not breach the terms of Betfair’s or BGB’s licence, the Commission welcomes the assurance given by Betfair in the announcement today and considers its enquiries into this matter closed.
Visserligen bröt inte introduktionen av krossmatchning mot några regler, men då Betfair hela tiden hävdat att det var för kundernas väl och inget annat så är dagens erkännande ett bevis på något helt annat. Samtliga som misstänkte Betfair för att ”skumma grädden av mjölken” hade rätt. Krossmatchning skapar obalans och ger Betfair en möjlighet att dammsuga alla feltryck, vidare att utnyttja den inkrementtrappa som systemet har. Under 2,00 så är inkrementen på 1/100, men över 2,00 så är det helt annorlunda. Det skapar möjligheter att tjäna på en skapad mellanskillnad där kunden hela tiden får någon promille sämre odds.
