Betfair
About Betfair: (www.betfair.com)
Betfair is the world's biggest online betting community and pioneered the first successful betting exchange in 2000. Driven by cutting-edge technology, Betfair enables customers to choose their own odds and bet even after the event has started. The company now processes over six million transactions a day from more than 3 million customers around the world.
Betfair currently employs over 2,000 people, principally in the United Kingdom, Dublin, Malta, Australia and the United States. The company is a licensed betting operator in the UK, and holds further licenses in Tasmania, Austria, Italy and Malta.
What is a betting exchange?
Betfair's core product is a 'betting exchange', a concept the company pioneered in 2000. The exchange allows punters to bet at odds set by other customers rather than a traditional bookmaker.
A betting exchange is just like a stock exchange for betting, something that sets Betfair out from the crowd and results in the formation of predictions. The Betfair exchange essentially aggregates the opinions of many thousands of people betting many millions of euro against each other.
In the calendar year 2009, Betfair offered on average 24% better odds than other online gaming companies on UK horse racing and 9% better odds on matches for the top 5 European football leagues.
Not only does Betfair offer better value but it gives the consumer unprecedented choice and control. Betfair offers genuine in-play betting (betting whilst an event or match is taking place) and odds fluctuate, sometimes significantly, during the course of an event.
That is why Betfair and politics are a perfect match - events change markets and events win elections.
How does Betfair make any money?
Betfair charges between two and five percent commission on a customer's net winnings and, as a result, has no direct financial interest in the outcome of any event as the company takes no financial risk and generates revenue irrespective of the outcome.
Key Betfair statistics:
• Betfair handle more transactions than all of Europe's stock exchanges combined, an average of over six million a day.
• 99.9% of bets are successfully completed in less than one second.
• Betfair has more than 3 million registered customers worldwide, making it the world's biggest online betting community and the world's biggest online sports betting company.
• 1,500 servers in five global data-centres, many of which are designated to talk to each other in real time across different time zones.
• Employs more than 2,000 people worldwide.
• Betfair serves more than 20,000 page views and processes up to 1,500 transactions per second on the sports exchange alone. There are more than five billion page requests per week.
• €3,500 a minute is deposited on the site.
• Nearly half of page impressions to online gambling sites worldwide come to Betfair.
Click here to learn more about Betfair Mobile.