Category: Betfair
How bookmakers make money
Back when, ‘I was but lad’, I stumbled into the world of bookmakers.
I arrived there via the football pools and thought I’d apply similar techniques at the bookmakers. But I soon realised there were a few problems doing this.
Problems
The first problem I had was getting the bet on, I couldn’t really bet in the size I wanted without being limited. Secondly, I could only do plain old vanilla betting. If I tried something more complex I’d often …
The Oak’s Betfair’s first ever market
So today we reach the Oaks and tomorrow the Derby when the summer racing really starts to step up a gear. The start of June means Royal Ascot is just around the corner.
If you are a Betfair newbie you may not know that the Oaks at Epsom was Betfair’s first market way back when they started in June 2000. But it was a little later that year, on June 11th. Mark Davis reminisced on his blog about it. I …
The Bet Angel trading forum & community
As regular Bet Angel forum users will be aware last month the forum was upgraded and moved to a better, faster server. The simple reason for this – to handle the increased flow of traffic which has been steadily building for some time now.
Philosophy
We have a simple philosophy for the forum, that has helped it grow steadily over time. It’s viewed very much as a collective effort, the sum of all participants, not just Bet Angel users, and …
There is Light at the End of the Tunnel!
We are now in the middle of February which is historically the poorest and hardest trading month of the year on the pre-race horse racing markets, typically there will only be around £450m traded this month which is around 40% less than the amounts expected as we hit peak season where the monthly volume will of increased to around £750m.
How does this effect thing from a trading perspective?
When trading any market liquidity is key none more so than …
Do Betfair markets reflect true opinion?
OK, for years the exchange mechanism has provided a very useful pricing mechanism. A careful aggregation of demand between people competing on a level playing field and it has provided a beautiful insight into the way free markets can work to mysteriously, accurately, price an event – in this case the prediction that something will win a sports event.
Changes
But we have been watching closely as the market has gradually decoupled from it’s long established core. What do we …
Betfair exchange advertising
Great news, Betfair are going to start pushing the exchange again. I can’t remember the last time I saw an exchange advert so it was a delight to discover they are going to give it a push this weekend!
Here is one of the adverts posted on their You Tube channel: –
Betfair shock market with Paddy Power merger
It’s not often you get a full blown WTF moment, but we got one this morning with news that former Paddy Power COO, Breon Corcoran, who is now Betfair CEO. Has agreed to a takeover / merger with Paddy Power.
It is being positioned as a merger, but the simple fact is that Betfair will be a minority in the new partnership only holding a 48% stake of the company, Paddy Power would hold a 52% stake. Paddy Power are …
Will models like Augur replace Betfair?
Back during the dot-com boom in the year 2000 disintermediation was a keyword that was floating around.
If you used word disintermediation in a sentence along with the words dot-com, it was highly likely that you’d be able to secure funding for your project the matter how much money you asked for, or how stupid the idea was. Disintermediation was the posh word for what is now known to become as peer-to-peer engagement. Basically two people trading services or goods …
Numis issue sell note on Betfair
A few days old but worthy of note. Numis have issued a sell note on Betfair.
I respect Ivor Jones’s opinion on Betfair because he often asks very good questions during the conference calls and has a better handle on the business than most analysts. He also can be objective and I can’t! So it’s worth noting his comments.
“It is not, in our view, on track for the market dominance which merits “unicorn” status and which appears to us …
Best of a bad job
Well that was an interesting day. I knew it was going to be a case of doing the best I could in tricky circumstances. Despite being tired it all worked out roughly in the end. But it didn’t feel like a successful day!
First up, the run-away leader in the US Masters made this a particularly tricky Masters this year around. I wanted a record result, I desperately wanted to break a four figure sum but it looks like that …
Betfair results send share price rocketing
Betfair announced a glowing set of results this morning: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2015/05-03-2015.aspx
Since Breon Corcoran came to power we have seen a shift from the exchange very much to the sportsbook on Betfair and it seems to be working, for them. I haven’t seen any advertising for the exchange for probably two years now. The rationale for this is that it’s easier to get customers onto the sportbook. Number of active customers are up 35% to 760,000, so that is true!…
The day somebody with £1k caused a £600m error
Three years ago today we were treated to a day of spectacular proportions. It seems to have slipped into the history books a bit so I thought I would reprise it for your enjoyment and delight.
On this this day at the Christmas hurdle at Leopardstown something went very, very wrong. Voler La Vedette ran home to take that race, but for most of the race £21m was available to back at good odds. Nobody it seemed was able to …
Regulator gets tough on Spoofing
It would be nice if this were a statement related to Betfair, but hey, such is life.
This actually is a statement from regulators in financial markets. Spoofing there is consider a form of market manipulation and therefore is illegal. The deal in financial markets is if you manipulate a market to profit it’s wrong. The rationale behind this is that you are tricking people out of their money. This doesn’t add any value to the market and is a …
Time to book your Betfair holiday
For the larger commission payers amongst you, this is a reminder to make sure you examine whether its worth booking your Betfair holiday before Sunday for the next week or two
When you generate commission you get credited with Betfair points. The more points you have the lower commission you pay. But each week Betfair decay a big chunk of your points which you would then top up with more activity.
Next week is a short week, especially if you …
Betfair Australia to focus on exchange business
Many thanks to posted on this thread on the forum for pointing out the news that is coming from Australia.
Basically Betfair sold their operations to Crown and Crown has done a deal to split off the Sportsbook business to BetEasy and retain the Exchange as a brand in its own right and to allow that to gain it’s own focus. It’s a complete volta-face from the situation in the Uk and is worth watching. You couldn’t have two more …
How Betfair’s new API is an opportunity
Nobody seems to like change, but I’ve learnt over many years that change tends to bring opportunity along with it. Change is a fact of life and therefore opportunity is too!
API NG
Just over a year ago Betfair announced the cut off date for API 6 and the switch over took place in early November this year. When Bet Angel was first developed there wasn’t even an API, the fact the old API was called API 6 tells you …
Mexico 1 – 0 USA
I’ve written about this sort of stuff before on the blog, but given my location at the moment it’s worth visiting it again. I’ve added a video at the bottom to bring home the point a bit more this time.
I would like to trade this week, but I’m going to move location to do it. I’ve shifted out of LA and down the coast to cross the border. It’s only a couple of hours from LA and from San …
Betfair US – California HQ
As you know I’m in la la land at the moment and it’s not the first time I’ve been here. Having worked for a couple of US companies in my time and thanks to my interest in Warren Buffet et al, I’ve often popped over here to do something or another most years since the early 90’s.
When Betfair started taking off in the UK I was quite interested in seeing how legislation would play out over here. To give …
Betfair to broaden cross matching in football markets
I’ve been aware for some time, but now it’s official; Betfair are widening the cross matching net to crossover into related markets.
What exactly does this mean?
Betfair have coined the development ‘Cross market liquidity pooling’ and it’s taking place on football. It’s not due till November and will roll out if everything goes ok.
The bottom line is if you place a bet in one market it will appear in another and vice versa. This will have the effect …
Betfair exits Australia, but doesn’t
After months of speculation and a ducked question on the last conference call, Betfair confirmed this morning that they have exited Australia, but not entirely.
In a press release issued first thing this morning Betfair stated: –
BETFAIR GROUP PLC (“Betfair”) today announces that it has sold its 50% stake in Betfair Australasia Pty Limited (“Betfair Australia”) to joint-venture partner Crown Resorts Limited (“Crown”, ASX: CWN).
Betfair has concurrently entered into an agreement with Crown to continue to provide its …
Betfair exhibit sense of humour
Just took this screen shot to use at the course I’m presenting on Tuesday. Take a look at the top left of the screen!
Betfair full year results in a nutshell
To save you from reading the entire report and listening to the hour long presentation here is a summary:-
Revenue up 2% to £393m, profit before tax up 61% to £61m
Sportsbook has grown as has customer acquisition to the sports book. Exchange is revenue is down. In the future guidance will not be given on the individual aspects so we will lose any insight as to how the exchange is performing vs. the sportsbook.
US business is performing well …
The Oaks – Betfair’s first ever market
So today we reach the Oaks and tomorrow the Derby, when the summer racing really starts to step up a gear. The start of June means Royal Ascot is just around the corner.
If you are a Betfair newbie you may not know that the Oaks at Epsom was Betfair’s first market way back when they started in June 2000. But it was a little later that year, on June 11th. Mark Davis reminisced on his blog about it. I …
Questions appear over Betfair Australia
Discussions are ongoing on the Bet Angel forum around speculation that Betfair may exit Australia: –
https://www.betangel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=9077
It would be a real blow to Betfair IMHO if they did consider exiting this territory. At their IPO it seemed like they were ready to take on the world and I distinctly remember part of the pitch being that being a listed company would give them more credibility in new territories. But instead, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy etc. etc. etc. etc. …
Key points from Betfair results
Top line numbers
- Revenue up 5%. Underlying earnings growth is difficult to asses because of previous adjustments, so I wont attempt to interpret that.
- Underlying exchange revenue was +1%, but bear in mind there have been a range of price rises so this hints at declining underlying business. The sportsbook has gained £2m in revenue over the past year, the exchange £400k and Betfair US is up £2m, still quite small in the scheme of things but growing much faster.
Betfair link Sportsbook to the exchange
In a positive move for exchange liquidity Betfair have finally linked up the Sportsbook front end to the exchange mechanism.
In only appears to be on Football markets at the moment but no doubt more markets will follow. As it now stands anybody placing a bet on the Sportsbook will automatically see their bet ‘referred’ to the exchange. If the exchange price (less 5% commission) is better than the sports book price, then the bet is placed via the exchange …
Betfair ‘ask the MD session’
In case you were not aware Betfair are holding a ‘Ask the MD’ session this week. It’s a great opportunity to ask Betfair’s senior management about any burning issues you have.
There is often a lot of debate on various forums and social media about Betfair’s strategy and what they are doing and why so this event this week presents you with the opportunity to ask those questions directly to Betfair and to carefully digest the resulting explanations. Too good …
Ladbrokes WILL feed bets to Betdaq to boost liquidity
Discussion on the Ladbrokes exchange is the hot topic at the moment. How will it look, how will it work etc. etc?
Today we received official confirmation that Ladbrokes on-line clients, who are being teased with a ‘coming soon’ tab on their home page, will feed liquidity directly into BETDAQ. Visiting BETDAQ’s home page today saw them send a clear message on the benefits of the Ladbrokes integration to all users. I’ve reproduced the graphic for you on the blog.…
Ladbrokes ready exchange for launch
Activity picking up on Ladbrokes on what appears to be a launch, ahead of schedule, of the exchange that was touted at their results as I documented a little while ago.
A quick browse of the Ladbrokes website shows that the tab has already been added to the site ahead of the launch. So what do we expect to see?
Well, you may or not know, that Betdaq is actually intertwined with the ‘Global betting exchange’. The concept being …
Betfair set to launch in New Jersey
My industry antennae picked up this new website recently: –
Betfair appear to be readying for a launch in New Jersey, but unfortunately it’s just casino and gaming. Hardly ground breaking stuff. But interesting nonetheless.
The choice of imagery just above the subscription form is interesting. A London backdrop?
Anyhow, I’ll keep you updated when things mature a bit.
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