Betfair Customer Reviews

Betfair Betting Exchange Review

Provider: Betfair

Verdict: The Betfair betting exchange was founded in 2000 by business partners Andrew Black and Edward Wray. Since then, they have grown to be the biggest betting exchange platform in the world, with over 4 million customers, and they were the first betting exchange to float on the London Stock Exchange.

Summary

Betfair are one of the original betting exchanges and still the best. Betfair offer the widest range of betting exchange markets, the best liquidity, market depth, bet type options as well as a decent welcome offer for new punters. Betfair revolutionised the way people are able to bet on sports by allowing them to lay bets and essentially act as bookie as well as punter and win when their bet lose.

In 2016 Betfair merged with Paddy Power, and in 2018 they merged with FanDuel in America. Betfair now sits as part of Flutter Entertainment plc, an international sports betting and gaming operator.

Betfair is regulated by several regulatory bodies around the world, but predominantly by the UK Gambling Commission, and the Malta Gaming Authority.

Betfair charges a basic commission rate of 5% on all winning bets and currently has a welcome offer to claim £40 once you have bet £10.

Pros

• Best betting exchange liquidity and market depth
• Largest range of markets to bet on
• Decent welcome bet offer for new punters

Cons

• Expensive commission rates
• Platform can look a bit functional
• Site navigation in search defaults to fixed odd

• Pricing
  (3)
• Market Access
  (5)
• Online Platform
  (4.5)
• Customer Service
  (3)
• Research & Analysis
  (4.5)

Overall

4

Richard’s Review

For years I’ve wanted to revolutionise gambling, in particular the Tote, who’s exclusive British racetrack licence expired on July 2018. But I fear that it will be hard to improve on what Betfair has already done. Quite often I exchange emails with Tim Levene, one of the founding employee of Flutter and later the commercial director of Betfair about how betting could be better. He most recently said to me:

“I think it’s fair to say that over the years there have been many attempts at creating a modern version of the Tote and none have garnered much traction. Conceptually we are a nation obsessed with fixed odds, and tote based products always struggle to get to critical mass. I guess you can never rule out a game changing innovation, but I would say the bar is v high, and would need to be intuitively simple for punters to understand, and fundamentally have the potential to change behaviour quite easily…”

This couldn’t be more true. When it comes to betting when it comes to betting there is only one thing that matters and that it price.

Pricing & Commission

This is where Betfair has done so well. They did one thing and they did it really well. They gave people better odds. Odds can vary dramatically depending on when and where you bet. But Betfair’s mission was simepl, to give people the best odds all the time. And by letting punters set the odds themselves, everyone felt like a winner. Except for the loser of course.

But actually, that was another win for Betfair, because as a punter you could be both the bookie and the punter. You could lay bets and accept risk from punters. Obviously, the majoirty of bets were backs, and liquidty was provided by market markets, but that’s not the point.

Best odds, was the message and that’s how it won business and it’s how it continues to do so.

There is a downside through, because they are the biggest and the best they charge more commission than the other betting exchanges. Betfair charge up to 5% commission, where as the other all charge around 2%. Why? Well, a. because they can, and b. becuase I think they are entitled to do so.

Market Access

Best around, not much more to say.

Platform & Apps

Clunky at best, but a very functional betting exchange. Andrew Black, who founded Betfair always put the success of Betfair down to superior technology and being first to market by joining forces with Flutter who had built an exchange at the same time but had inferior technology despite having 30x the investment Betfair had.

But Andrew Dagnall, who runs BettorLogic once told me that, “Betfair succeeded because they had a very simple message that you would get a much better price, particularly, on horseracing than you’d get with a bookmaker and that was because at the time, the bookmaker margin on horseracing was 12-15%. That’s been eroded now and with promotions (BOG etc) horseracing for many is a loss leader.”

So there you go – a mix of pricing and technology wins…

Customer Service

It’s fine, if you need it.

Research & Analysis

Brilliant – lots of previews and huge coverage of pretty much every sports you need.

In summary – If you’re going to bet, Betfair…