Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for a long time now yet it's only recently I've wondered the amount performs this company actually make? This question is exactly what has compelled me to create this information. I will not get copies of their accounts from companies house, this content will be all conjecture depending on what I've picked up from using the site over time.

What has allowed me to ponder this question may be the transparency in the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies including WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, that which you do not know on any particular sporting event is exactly what continues to be bet in total and so 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 onto one of several traditional bookmakers websites and backing the many horses. The outcome is repeat the second favourite winning, we have no idea whether people were backing the outsider or favourite, just how much was bet, and what kind of conserve the bookmaker made.

Now look at the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged to the race emerges at the top of the page, this really is typically about A�200,000 to get a standard horse race. Now we understand that Betfair please take a commission on all winnings, and then for every bet exchanged there is a winner, so they're taking their 5% whatever the result - about A�10,000 in this case.

So now for a quick bit of 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races every day generating A�10,000 each is A�400,000 each day 7 days weekly, that's 2.8 million pounds a week. Throw in the bigger meetings knowning that rounds it down to convey 3 million, 5% that is A�150,000.

Now look at the Premiership football season. At least 12 games weekly generating between A�200,000 as well as a million pounds in exchanged bets, make 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, golf, cricket, tennis, sboarena boxing, champions league football, International soccer, not forgetting gaming. I'm beginning to arrive at in conclusion that they must be attracting weekly revenue in the millions, and when it's only A�3 million every week, that's over 150 million 12 months.

I admit to presenting no clue if my workings are drastically wrong here, if Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a sense of what their legal fees, IT costs etc total. What I do see is the fact that unlike traditional bookmakers the end result of any sporting event has no touching on their revenue.

To this end their main aim will be to just recruit as numerous customers as is possible, which poses the question; using the numerous online bookies on the market offering free introductory bets of up to as well as in excess of A�100, then exactly why do Betfair offer only A�30. That is the topic of my next article.