Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for years now yet it's only recently I've wondered how much can this company can certainly make? This question is exactly what has compelled me to publish this article. I will not be getting copies of their accounts from companies house, this content will likely be all conjecture depending on what I've picked up from using your website in the past.

What has allowed me to ponder this question is the transparency inside the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies like WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, whatever you have no idea of on any particular sporting event is what has been bet in whole and also on what particular outcome these bets were placed.

Take a regular Friday afternoon race meeting at say Ascot. It's the 2.30 and 5 horses are racing; the punters are logging onto one of several traditional bookmakers websites and backing the many horses. The outcome is the second favourite winning, we've got no idea whether everyone was backing the outsider or favourite, how much was bet, and what are the conserve the bookmaker made.

Now take into account the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged for that race emerged near the top of the page, this really is typically about A�200,000 for any standard horse race. Now we know that Betfair take a commission on all winnings, and for every bet exchanged you will find there's winner, so they're taking their 5% regardless of the result - about A�10,000 in such cases.

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

Now think about the Premiership football season. At least 12 games weekly generating between A�200,000 plus a million pounds in exchanged bets, go ahead and take average and work out the 5% commission understanding that's another A�350,000. On top of this there is 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 weekly in revenue.

Bear in mind that you could (and the ones do) bet on everything, sbobet golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, as well as gaming. I'm beginning arrived at the conclusion that they must be attracting 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 presenting no clue if my workings are drastically wrong here, and when Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a concept of what their legal fees, IT costs etc amount to. What I do see is that unlike traditional bookmakers the end result from a sporting event has no bearing on their revenue.

To this end their main aim must be to just recruit as numerous customers as you possibly can, which poses the question; with the numerous online bookies on the market offering free introductory bets as high as along with overabundance A�100, then exactly why do Betfair offer only A�30. That will be the topic of my next article.