To get to the new page, click the ‘active bets‘ link from the bet slip at the top right of your screen. From the new active bets screen you can see the position you have bet on (with your profit and loss as usual), and if you click the ‘show all’ link, you can also see the full market. This means you can place bets on multiple events without having to switch between tabs or open new windows.

We’d love to know what you think of the feature, so either comment below or get in touch.

As you can see, when you open the betting window you can now toggle between ‘stake’ and ‘backer stake’ and your liability is shown in the same window.

You can set ‘backer stake’ to appear by default in your account settings but if you have any questions (and more feature requests) get in touch.

We look quite different from the old days (there’s a lot more to bet on, that’s for sure) and we still have lots to build before our second birthday!

No one likes receiving email they didn’t approve, and I’ve been wincing every time we send out an email to our customers because many didn’t explicitly approve the contact. Well, that’s all changed.

We now have a check box on the sign-up screen to ask permission for us to contact you, and a new setting in communication settings which allows you to opt in/out at any time.

Don’t worry, we won’t be increasing the number of emails we send, it’s just good to know that now our members can easily set their preference.

Here’s a short video about market depth. You can learn more about market depth (and watch some of our other videos) in the help and FAQs

Rather than over complicate our standard interface, at the top of every market you’ll see a link to ‘show market depth’. This will take you to a new, more advanced layout. The market depth view is a way of seeing exactly where the money is in the market so you can see exactly how much will be matched. We’ll be putting together a video to explain the market depth view in more detail once we’ve ironed out any kinks.

We’re showing three levels of depth for both bids and offers (‘for’ and ‘against’ in Smarkets terminology) and, differing from other market-based betting sites, we show the amount of money you need to place to match the bet. We’re also showing your profit and loss for each market so you can see exactly which positions you have and how much you’d stand to win/lose depending on different outcomes.

We hope you find this view useful and, as ever, we’d love to hear your feedback.

We’re now focussing on market depth (we’ve sent some concepts to members to see what they think about what we’re planning) and we’re about to massively expand the number of events we cover and the number of markets within each event.

Our new bonus and refer-a-friend schemes have gone down well but we’re going to continue to experiment with the best scheme to attract members who actually want to bet rather than people who are only in it for the bonus!

Feedback is really important (I know every company says that, but we mean it!) so we’ll be running more surveys, emailing members with concepts and thoughts and conducting tests of new functionality. Please get in touch with us and let us know what we could be doing better.

And the lucky fellow to be picked out of the hat to win a £100 risk free bonus was Robert W. from London. Congratulations!

How does it work?

The Smarkets boffins put together a formula to calculate your score based on both your return on investment and the variety of markets you’ve successfully dabbled in over the last 30 days. We’ve designed it so you are comparing your predicting skills between your friends and not the amount of money you bet.

The leaderboard is then shown on your profile page with your current and best ever scores. Bragging rights abound!

Why are we doing it?

Well, we love comparing our winning streaks and best return between each other in the office and we wanted a way to do something similar between our friends. We’ll be extending the concept to create a leaderboard for all Smarkets members and we will be running competitions around custom leaderboards in the future. Find out who’s the ‘most accurate West Ham fan’ or the ‘most accurate bettor at Wimbledon’. But all that’s for the near future. At the moment it’s just a bit of fun between you and your friends.

Not keen on being on a leaderboard?

Don’t worry, you can opt out in your account settings and we only automatically added the people who already shared their visibility. So if you are set as ‘private’ we’ll never include you in new social features.

We’d love to hear what you think about features like this, so please get in touch either directly, or via the comments.