Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for years now however it is only recently I've wondered the amount creates this change company make? This question 's what has compelled me to write down this article. I will not receive copies of the accounts from companies house, this content will be all conjecture according to what I've found by using the website over time.

What has allowed me to ponder this question could be the transparency within the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies for example WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, everything you have no idea on any particular sporting event is the thing that has become bet altogether and also on what particular outcome these bets were placed.

Take a consistent 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 the different horses. The outcome is the second favourite winning, we have no idea whether people were backing the outsider or favourite, how much was bet, and what sort of profit the bookmaker made.

Now consider the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged with the race emerged near the top of the page, this can be typically about A�200,000 for a standard horse race. Now we all know that Betfair take a commission on all winnings, as well as for every bet exchanged there's a winner, so they're taking their 5% no matter the result - about A�10,000 in such cases.

So now for any quick little 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races each day generating A�10,000 each is A�400,000 every day 1 week every week, that's 2.8 million pounds per week. Throw in the bigger meetings understanding that rounds up to convey 3 million, 5% of which is A�150,000.

Now think about the Premiership football season. At least 12 games weekly generating between A�200,000 and a million pounds in exchanged bets, make average and work out the 5% commission knowning that's another A�350,000. On top of this there's the lower league and foreign games that have to generate another A�100,000 in commission so we're up to Half a thousand pounds per week in revenue.

Bear in your mind that you could (the ones do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, not to mention gaming. I'm beginning come to the final outcome that they must be attracting weekly revenue inside the millions, and if it's only A�3 million weekly, that's over 150 million per year.

I admit to using no clue if my workings are drastically wrong here, and sbobet when Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a perception of what their hips, IT costs etc total. What I do see is that unlike traditional bookmakers the outcome of the sporting event has no bearing on their revenue.

To this end their main aim is always to just recruit as much customers as you can, which poses the question; with the numerous online bookies available offering free introductory bets up to and in overabundance A�100, then exactly why do Betfair offer only A�30. That will be the topic of my next article.