Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for a long time now however it is only recently I've wondered simply how much creates this change company can certainly make? This question is exactly what has compelled me to publish this article. I will not receive copies of their accounts from companies house, the content will probably be all conjecture depending on what I've acquired by using the site in the past.

What has allowed me to ponder this question is the transparency in the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies for sboarena example WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, what you do not know on any particular sporting event is the thing that has become bet in total and on what particular outcome these bets were placed.

Take an everyday Friday afternoon race meeting at say Ascot. It's the 2.30 and 5 horses are racing; the punters are logging on to among the traditional bookmakers websites and backing various horses. The outcome is repeat the second favourite winning, we have no clue whether everyone was backing the outsider or favourite, how much was bet, and what type of conserve the bookmaker made.

Now take into account the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged to the race emerges towards the top of the page, that is typically about A�200,000 to get a standard horse race. Now we all know that Betfair have a commission on all winnings, and for every bet exchanged there's a winner, so they're taking their 5% regardless of the result - about A�10,000 in this case.

So now for a quick amount of 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races per day generating A�10,000 each are A�400,000 per day 7 days every week, that's 2.8 million pounds a week. Throw within the bigger meetings and that rounds up to say 3 million, 5% ones is A�150,000.

Now take into account the Premiership football season. At least 12 games weekly generating between A�200,000 along with a million pounds in exchanged bets, consider the average and exercise the 5% commission and that's another A�350,000. On top of this you have the lower league and foreign games that have to generate another A�100,000 in commission so we're up to Half a million pounds a week in revenue.

Bear planned that one could (and individuals do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, let alone gaming. I'm needs to come to concluding that they must be pulling in weekly revenue in the millions, and if it's only A�3 million per week, that's over 150 million 12 months.

I admit to using no idea if my workings are drastically wrong here, and if Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a concept of what their attorney's fees, IT costs etc total. What I do see is always that unlike traditional bookmakers the result of any sporting event does not have any bearing on their revenue.

To this end their main aim must be to just recruit as numerous customers as you can, which poses the question; with all the numerous online bookies available offering free introductory bets of up to plus way over A�100, then exactly why do Betfair offer only A�30. That could be the topic of my next article.