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Overview of Betfair, the World’s Largest Internet Betting Exchange

With five million transactions a day and more than 300 bets a second, Betfair is the world’s largest Internet betting exchange. Its unique selling point is that it allows punters to bet at odds set by fellow punters rather than at odds set by the bookie. In this way, it eliminates the role of the bookie, or passes it to its punters. For example, punters at Betfair can bet on whether an outcome will or won’t happen. When you ‘back’ a selection, be it an individual, a horse, or a dog, you are betting on it winning, which is the same as betting with a conventional bookie. However, when you ‘lay’ a selection, you are doing the opposite: betting against it winning. So if you’re betting in a market on which football team is going to win the Premiership and you ‘lay’ Chelsea, then you bet against that team winning and offer odds to other punters who want to back Chelsea to win. If Chelsea doesn’t win, you pick up the backer’s stake, if they do, you pay out. Betting in this way means you essentially take on the role of a conventional bookie. You never know whom you’re betting against either, as privacy and confidentiality is maintained by Betfair’s security. Betfair always knows who’s on either side of a bet, though (a fact it used in its defence when accused by the traditional bookmakers of being partly to blame for the corruption in sports such as horse racing given that it’s easier to ensure a horse will lose a race than win it, reasoned the big bookmakers).

Such controversy has done little to dent Betfair’s success, however. It has annual revenues exceeding £180m, and was awarded the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in 2002 in the ‘Innovation’ category, which is quite an accolade given that the Queen’s Awards are the UK’s most prestigious awards for business performance.

Betfair charges commission on net winnings, although if you place more than 1000 bets in an hour you may also be charged a transaction fee. Customers who bet regularly with Betfair are entitled to a discount which is determined by the number of Betfair points they accrue on their account (the more you bet, the more points you accrue, the greater your discount).

At Betfair you can bet on sports including football, cricket, tennis, snooker, horse racing, and greyhound racing. There’s a casino market where you can play blackjack and roulette, and Betfair’s extras include live football and tennis action as well as details of its current ideas in development. And given Betfair’s success to day, most of them are almost certainly worth a punt!

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Written by: JD
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