Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for many years now yet it's only recently I've wondered just how much can this company actually make? This question 's what has compelled me to create this information. I will not get copies of the accounts from companies house, this article will probably be all conjecture based on what I've acquired while using the website over the years.

What has allowed me to ponder this question could be the transparency inside the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies including WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, what you have no idea of on any particular sporting event is exactly what has become bet in whole as well as 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 to one of the traditional bookmakers websites and backing the many horses. The outcome is repeat the second favourite winning, we have no clue whether individuals were backing the outsider or favourite, simply how much was bet, and what sort of assist the bookmaker made.

Now look at the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged for your race emerged towards the top of the page, this really is 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 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 a quick little 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races per day generating A�10,000 are all A�400,000 each day 7 days every week, that's 2.8 million pounds a week. Throw inside bigger meetings and that rounds it up to convey 3 million, 5% which is A�150,000.

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

Bear at heart that you can (the ones do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, sbobet tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, let alone gaming. I'm beginning arrived at in conclusion that they must be attracting weekly revenue within the millions, if it's only A�3 million per week, that's over 150 million a year.

I admit to getting no clue if my workings are drastically wrong here, of course, if Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a concept of what their hips, IT costs etc figure to. What I do see is that unlike traditional bookmakers the results of any sporting event doesn't have any relating their revenue.

To this end their main aim will be to just recruit as much customers as you can, which poses the question; with all the numerous online bookies around offering free introductory bets all the way to plus more than A�100, then how come Betfair offer only A�30. That could be the topic of my next article.