Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for years now however it is only recently I've wondered just how much can this company can even make? This question is what has compelled me to write down this information. I will not receive copies of these accounts from companies house, the information is going to be all conjecture based on what I've grabbed by using the web page through the years.

What has allowed me to ponder this question is the transparency within the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies for example WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, what you don't know on any particular sporting event 's what has become bet as a 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 to one of several traditional bookmakers websites and backing the different horses. The outcome is repeat the second favourite winning, we've got no idea whether individuals were backing the outsider or favourite, how much was bet, and what type of conserve the bookmaker made.

Now look at the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged with the race is given at the top of the page, that is typically about A�200,000 for sboarena the standard horse race. Now we realize that Betfair have a commission on all winnings, as well as every bet exchanged you will find there's winner, so they're taking their 5% whatever the result - about A�10,000 in cases like this.

So now to get a 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 weekly. Throw inside bigger meetings which rounds it down to state 3 million, 5% ones is A�150,000.

Now take into account the Premiership football season. At least 12 games every week generating between A�200,000 along with a million pounds in exchanged bets, consider the average and exercise 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 one million pounds per week in revenue.

Bear at heart that you could (and the ones do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, not to mention gaming. I'm beginning to arrive at the conclusion that they must be pulling in weekly revenue in the millions, if it's only A�3 million a week, that's over 150 million 12 months.

I admit to presenting 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 legal fees, IT costs etc figure to. What I do see is the fact that unlike traditional bookmakers the end result associated with a sporting event doesn't have any bearing on their revenue.

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