Secrets of the Amateurs

I had Betfair open this evening as I was keeping an eye on their WSOP-E satellite. With $500 buy-in and a $200K guarantee, 5 minutes before kick-off it looked like there was a decent overlay in prospect, with about 200 players registered. Then, next time I looked at it, which must have been about 10 seconds later, there were 300. Still only 200 players in the list, but 300 in the count. The discrepancy remained until the tournament actually kicked off, when the player list jumped up to match the count at 314.

I don't know whether this was down to bad software or shenanigans on Betfair's part but just watch out for this. I asked on 2+2 whether it was just me and one person confirmed, FWIW. There was still an overlay but anyone who registered 7 minutes before because of the apparent double overlay would have cause to be annoyed. I didn't play myself as I was still umm-ing and ah-ing when this started to happen.

Update : (Completely unsubstantiated) story about this here.