Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for decades now but it is only recently I've wondered how much performs this company make? This question is the thing that has compelled me to write down this informative article. I will not get copies of their accounts from companies house, the information is going to be all conjecture depending on what I've acquired while using the site in the past.

What has allowed me to ponder this question is the transparency inside the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies like WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, everything you have no idea on any particular sporting event is what has been bet in whole and also 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 the traditional bookmakers websites and backing the many horses. The outcome is repeat the second favourite winning, we've got no clue whether people were backing the outsider or favourite, the amount was bet, and what sort of conserve the bookmaker made.

Now consider the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged for your race is offered on top of the page, that is typically about A�200,000 for any standard horse race. Now we know that Betfair have a commission on all winnings, and 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 this case.

So now to get a quick little 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races every day generating A�10,000 each is A�400,000 each day 1 week every week, that's 2.8 million pounds a week. Throw in the bigger meetings understanding that rounds up to state 3 million, 5% ones is A�150,000.

Now take into account the Premiership football season. At least 12 games a week generating between A�200,000 along with a million pounds in exchanged bets, go ahead and take average and figure out the 5% commission knowning 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 millions of pounds per week in revenue.

Bear in mind that one could (and the ones do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, not forgetting gaming. I'm beginning to arrive at the final outcome that they must be attracting weekly revenue in the millions, if it's only A�3 million every week, that's over 150 million annually.

I admit to presenting no idea if my workings are drastically wrong here, and sbobet if Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a solid idea of what their hips, IT costs etc amount to. What I do see is unlike traditional bookmakers the results of any sporting event doesn't have any bearing on their revenue.

To this end their main aim will be to just recruit as many customers as you can, which poses the question; using the numerous online bookies available offering free introductory bets all the way to as well as in more than A�100, then how come Betfair offer only A�30. That could be the topic of my next article.