Betfair
The British company Betfair, based in London is the operator of the world's largest online betting exchange for sports betting. The company employs approximately 1,350 people. 2010 Betfair generated income ( " Revenues " ) in the amount of approximately 300 million British pounds. In November 2010, Betfair went public and has since been listed on the London Stock Exchange. The number of registered Betfair customers worldwide is more than three million, of which approximately one million customers are considered as active customers. For German customers the betting exchange on November 9, 2012, closed because the business model of the betting exchange is with an estimated gain of 2 % is incompatible with the new sports betting tax over 5% on every application in Germany.
At Betfair, more than five million bets are settled daily. These are more daily transactions than in all European financial markets together. The technical capacity allows to process 4500 bets per second. Every minute transfer customers on average 3000 pounds sterling to their accounts on Betfair.
Betfair was England's most prestigious business award, the Queen's Award in the category " International Trade". The company was in the past sponsor of Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Manchester United and FC Barcelona.
Business creation and business model
Betfair was founded in August 1999 by Andrew Black and Edward Wray to insert the year before developed proprietary betting software commercially. The resulting online platform enables customers to bet against each other online directly, and individually to agree quotas and inserts. In this way, customers are no longer dependent when betting on conventional provider of (sports) bets that their profit margin count those into their quotas, and therefore offer lower average rates. At Betfair, however, the rates arise solely by supply and demand of customers on the so-called betting exchange (similar to the functioning of stock exchanges ). The technology used is copyrighted and registered with the UK Patent Office.
Similar to online auctions from eBay and, unlike traditional bookmakers Betfair is therefore only the infrastructure for its customers, but usually attacks not active in the bargain. Since Betfair is therefore not involved in the formation of the odds, can not - as with classical bookmakers - provide an allowance for the odds in profit margin for the company's profit. Instead, Betfair attracts a certain commission on any net profit (up to 5 % of net profit ).
Core of the business model is the sports betting exchange. In recent years, poker and casino offers have been added. Thus, Betfair has developed a comprehensive supplier in the online gambling.
Other features
Lay and back bets
The system of back and lay bets is the core of betting exchanges principle.
The term lay bets referred bets where not ON the outcome of a sporting event (or another event ) is set, but HOWEVER. On the other hand means that you look at, for example, as Bettor it determines who wins the event NOT. In this sense it is a lay bet into a kind of "mini- book maker" by the person who puts a back bet, offering a quota and paid him in case of success according to the quota and the insert. Win the lay bet, you get the use of the back- weather.
According to the betting markets are displayed in two colors on Betfair: The odds for back bets are blue, the odds for lay bets highlighted pink.
A lay bet wins you when an event arrives NOT. Example: You bet that Bayern Munich next on game does not win 2-0. The betting customer who is this belief has other customers to a quota for the 2-0 final result and sets the maximum operating altitude. There is a back- betting Ender to the offered rate, the bet will be completed online. In this case, the lay bettor wins in every game starting with the exception of a 2-0 to Munich. The back- bettor wins only if the game actually should go 2-0 for Munich.
The back bet is the traditional way of betting. Here is set to a game outcome of an event. Back bets only come when previously was offered a lay bet. The logical principle behind it: To a bet always include two parties. One party sat ON something, the other HAND.
Line bets
In a so-called line bet (English line bet ), about the overall results of a particular competition. Unlike brick and lay bets it does not matter to decide for or against the outcome of an event, but to predict whether the result will be over or under a certain value. There are two possibilities for action in line bets for this purpose: buying and selling. If you buy a line at a certain value, is given to the fact that the end result will be higher than this value. Sold to a line at a certain value, is given to the fact that the end result will be less than this value. Since line bets include fixed odds, ie, these are not designed by the participants, provided the use does not depend proportionally on the result from, but on whether you properly ge - or has sold.
The markets
Betfair customers bet primarily on the outcome of sporting events. In particular, football, tennis, Formula 1 and horse racing are popular markets. There are also inter alia Politics betting where you can bet on the outcome of elections. In addition, Betfair offers special bets which is set to the output of a social event, such as who will win the Oscar or which candidate in Germany sucht den Superstar or Schlag den Raab will be successful.
The Betfair markets generally have many participants and high turnover. It hardly that for a relevant event no bets are offered. If there is little interest in a betting market, it can happen that bets will be offered here, but found no takers and thus held no sales.
Legal situation
Betfair operates under the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act ( betting, gaming and lottery Act) of 1963. The company is owned by a bookmaker approval for England and Wales and also holds licenses in Italy, Malta, Germany, Austria and Australia. Betfair as other private betting seeks to open up the market for gambling in Germany. Betfair drawing attention, inter alia, on its good reputation in the UK and on the anticipated strong growth in state tax revenues. Betfair points out that the public providers oddset near the insignificance acts, and use the vast majority of customers for foreign sports betting online offers. 3 May 2012 Betfair was one of three vendors the first betting licenses in Germany.