Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for decades now but it's only recently I've wondered simply how much can this company make? This question is exactly what has compelled me to write down this informative article. I will not be getting copies of these accounts from companies house, the information is going to be all conjecture based on what I've acquired by using the website over time.

What has allowed me to ponder this question may be the transparency inside Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies like WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, what you don't know on any particular sporting event is what has become bet in total as well as 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 one of several traditional bookmakers websites and backing the many horses. The outcome is say the second favourite winning, we have no idea whether individuals were backing the outsider or favourite, just how much was bet, and what sort of assist the bookmaker made.

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

So now for the quick bit of 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races each day generating A�10,000 are all A�400,000 a day seven days every week, that's 2.8 million pounds every week. Throw within the bigger meetings which rounds up to state 3 million, 5% of which is A�150,000.

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

Bear at heart that one could (and people do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, not forgetting gaming. I'm beginning to visit the final outcome that they must be getting weekly revenue inside the millions, of course, if it's only A�3 million per week, that's over 150 million per year.

I admit to presenting 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 legal fees, IT costs etc figure to. What I do see is the fact that unlike traditional bookmakers the end result of the sporting event does not have any effect on their revenue.

To this end their main aim will be to just recruit as numerous customers as possible, which poses the question; while using numerous online bookies available offering free introductory bets all the way to plus overabundance A�100, sboarena then so why do Betfair offer only A�30. That will be the topic of my next article.