Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for years now but it's only recently I've wondered the amount does this company actually make? This question 's what has compelled me to publish this article. I will not get copies of their accounts from companies house, this content will be all conjecture based on what I've picked up by using your website through the years.

What has allowed me to ponder this question could be the transparency inside Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies including WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, everything you have no idea on any particular sporting event is the thing that continues to be bet altogether and 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 different horses. The outcome is repeat the second favourite winning, we have no idea whether people were backing the outsider or favourite, how much was bet, sboarena and what sort of assist the bookmaker made.

Now consider the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged with the race is given at the top of the page, this is typically about A�200,000 for any standard horse race. Now we know that Betfair require a commission on all winnings, and then 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 the quick little bit of 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races each 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 in the bigger meetings and that rounds it down to state 3 million, 5% which is A�150,000.

Now take into account the Premiership football season. At least 12 games weekly generating between A�200,000 along with a million pounds in exchanged bets, make average and work out the 5% commission which's another A�350,000. On top of this you have 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 in mind that you could (the ones do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, let alone gaming. I'm starting to arrive at in conclusion that they must be pulling in weekly revenue inside millions, if it's only A�3 million per week, that's over 150 million a year.

I admit to presenting not a 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 figure to. What I do see is always that unlike traditional bookmakers the outcome associated with a sporting event doesn't have relating their revenue.

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