Friday 15 July 2011

Competition

In a discussion on the merits, or otherwise, of Smarkets, a poster by the name of Get On Massive had this to say:

Betfair are killing off p2p. They want to suffocate the winners and bet into their own markets with bookie like margins. The exchange concept has been born and Betfair won't kill it off, if they abuse their position then someone will take their place sooner or later. It might not be next week or next year but Betfair in the future will have lost all ties to it's original concept and some other company will have taken its place.
Betfair in the future will still probably exist and will be the market leader in virtual racing and 'Deal Or No Deal' but it will lose it's exchange business at some point. Their model for p2p exchange betting is unsustainable. Do you really think in 20 years time people will be paying up to 60%?
Rather well said. and as I have said myself before, the exchange betting genie is out of the bottle, and while customers may continue to do business with Betfair for the moment, they have lost a lot of goodwill and there will be no loyalty to them when a viable alternative comes along.

It is interesting how liquid the Smarkets markets (sorry, had to do it) are relative to BETDAQ, (who incidentally have all of £9 currently matched on the Women's World Cup Final!) at least for some events, and while the former's turnover is still relatively small, once that ball is rolling, (pun intended), market conditions can change fast.

Smarkets may be little known for now, but they are fast gaining attention and a reputation for responding to the customer. As the poster above said, "Do you really think in 20 years time people will be paying up to 60%?" No, they won't, not when Betfair ceases to be a monopoly, a day that is one day nearer than it was yesterday, and nowhere near 20 years away.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you paying 60 percent on your winnings. Is it not 5% that is paid? I am quite new to sports trading so excuse my ignorance.

Jimboo said...

Hi Former Degenerate,

to make it easy, type "betfair premium charge" into google. Also take a look here: http://community.betfair.com/general_betting
Then you'll know why a lot of customers are pissed off by this company. There are some issues: LMAX, Betfair Live, Cross Matching, plattform stability and so on...

Anonymous said...

No one in their right mind will pay 40-60%. I used to pay 20% - BF decided that wasn’t enough and now I have to pay 50%, like we’re equal partners in the risk-taking.

I really hope they crash and burn. There’s a lot of misinformation spread about how much people earn, but 250k over 10 years isn’t that much. To think all the people I recommended use BF - it’s insulting to be called a ‘break even’ customer at 20%, and an even greater insult to be expected to pay 50%. It’s just utter madness.

I informed the person that phoned me that I won’t be using BF anymore. I hope more and more people realise the mess that is Betfair. If you’re paying 20% I would urge you to move to another site or stop using BF. There is no future for you. If they get their way, soon you’ll be paying more. Their only plan for expansion is to royally shaft their customers and then replace them with an inferior product. Great business plan guys! Let’s slowly destroy the only thing that makes us different and become just another bookmaker!

Funny thing is, LMAX can’t seem to do enough to attract me to their service with 0% commission offers. I’ll be closing that account too.