Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for years now but it's only recently I've wondered simply how much does this company actually make? This question is exactly what has compelled me to write down this informative article. I will not receive copies with their accounts from companies house, the content will probably be all conjecture based on what I've found from using your website in the past.

What has allowed me to ponder this question is the transparency in the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies such as WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, everything you don't know on any particular sporting event is exactly what has been bet in whole and 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 to among the traditional bookmakers websites and backing the different horses. The outcome is say the second favourite winning, we've got no clue whether everyone was backing the outsider or favourite, simply how much was bet, and what are the profit the bookmaker made.

Now consider the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged for that race emerges towards the top of the page, this can be typically about A�200,000 for any standard horse race. Now we all know that Betfair take a commission on all winnings, and then for every bet exchanged there exists a winner, so they're taking their 5% regardless of the result - about A�10,000 in this case.

So now for any quick bit of 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races each day generating A�10,000 each are A�400,000 a day 1 week a week, that's 2.8 million pounds a week. Throw inside the bigger meetings knowning that rounds it up to express 3 million, 5% ones is A�150,000.

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

Bear at heart that you can (and individuals do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, sboarena tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, not to mention gaming. I'm beginning arrived at concluding that they must be pulling in weekly revenue in the millions, if it's only A�3 million per week, that's over 150 million per year.

I admit to having not a clue 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 perception of what their attorney's fees, IT costs etc amount to. What I do see is always that unlike traditional bookmakers the outcome from a sporting event doesn't have 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 out there offering free introductory bets as high as as well as in overabundance A�100, then how come Betfair only offer A�30. That may be the topic of my next article.