Betfair Markets

Regular Betfair users were thrown into confusion last Thursday afternoon with the sudden appearance of a big player on the exchange.I was only looking at markets at Ballarat and Hawksbury so I don't know if markets elsewhere were also affected.Five figure bets are not common on Betfair's provincial and country markets except on very short favourites so what happened on Thursday was very unusual.
I first noticed it in Race 5 at Ballarat  when there was around a $30,000 back bet for the favourite Bea Diamond-most of it matched at odds marginally under what the corporates were offering.Having laid Bea Diamond at 2.50 expecting her to SP around 2.80 I was surprised at the money coming to back her at a shorter quote.She went down narrowly,conceding first run to the winner.
In Race 6 there was a $29,000 lay for the resuming Dark Sun who finished a well held fourth.
Race 7 was a F&M's 0-58 event so you wouldn't normally expect a lot of action there.There were 3 plays here a large lay on the resuming Chacella who finished third and $30,000 bets on the front two in the market Back Red And Black (weak in betting and all 30,000 matched at well under SP) and Manor Lady (30,000 all matched I think but a lot of it again marginally below what was on offer elsewhere).The well backed Manor Lady was the winner with the drifter Back Red And Black back in the ruck.
In the last race a $25,000 lay on the favourite Benenden (mostly unmatched) forced her out to around 3.46 before the big lay dropped of the screen to be quickly replaced by $25,000 back bet for the same horse.The action in this race looked a clear trading stratergy (force the price out,get on what you can at the overs then force it back down and lay of your liability) and it worked a treat.It also managed to wrong foot some seasoned operators including me.Benenden won easily.
There was also some unusual activity in the markets at Hawksbury that afternoon but I was concentrating on Ballarat so I cannot accurately report on what happened there.
I wonder if he/she/they will be back this week?Let's hope so-anything that increases the action on the exchange and spices up the markets has to be good thing overall I think.