Position in queue

[pepepere]

Hi everyone, I was working on a few examples and couldn't work out how the queue works in terms of getting a bet matched.
I know this has been discussed in the forum before but still couldn't see any valid response.
I put together a few questions so far to understand this:

1 - Is it FIFO?
2 - Does the amount of the stake matter in order to get it matched?
3 - Is the position applied to all bets on a selection, regardless the amount or price? Or there is a queue per price and selection at a time?

I know there is software to estimate your position but that is just a guess based on different values, so I wouldn't help much to understand how it works.

If you can share your thoughts it would be much appreciated to understand this a little bit better. Thanks!

[jabe]

Not certain about all these, but I've used Betfair for years.

1. Yes. Not sure how it works with adjusted odds though. I assume it's still the oldest ones that get matched first.

2. I believe not.

3. No, multiple selections will be in different positions. Queue per price per selection.


I have no idea how one might predict queue position. There is always a back-lay gap of varying size. Sometimes it jumps about, sometimes it stays the same for minutes. With most events the back-lay gap slowly closes over hours, from the time the market is added until the time the event kicks off. The later it is, the sooner bets will be matched, if they are matched, as more money comes on at the end. I'm not sure if this is much use to you and it's probably what you expected. All you can really do is keep checking, see which way the price is moving, and decide whether there's enough time left for the bet to be matched. If not, maybe take a different price.

[pepepere]

Thank you Jabe, it does make sense to me.

And now I can see why there's a few thousands pounds in a matter of seconds just at the opening of the market on 1.01. People try to get a position in the queue and then change the order to the current price when they want. Clever.

For that "behaviour" that you mention about the queue I think the reason might be on the matching algorithm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bys1lu-18wo

We all tend to think that the price should move up and down when there's nothing available to match but it seems that there's more involved in the price movement. This cross matching algorithm makes everything quite complicated to predict.

[jabe]

Interesting video, thanks for that.

In fact, it goes a long way to explaining how the back and lay sides of a market stay at the right side of the 100% overround. I had assumed it was down to bots snaffling the imbalance (I have seen the odds side drop below 100% and the lay side go over now and then), but the cross-matching is more likely what causes them to stay in the right place.

I think that sometimes low odds are placed on markets in the hope of catching out someone who isn't quite awake. How good would it be to have two or more mutually exclusive outcomes laid at odds of less than evens? Kerching!

[aye robot]

....there's a few thousands pounds in a matter of seconds just at the opening of the market on 1.01. People try to get a position in the queue and then change the order to the current price when they want. Clever.

As I understand it if you change your price you go to the back of the queue for that price. The 1.01 is just people trying to get to the front of the 1.01 queue.