I’ve been using Betfair for years now but it’s only recently I’ve wondered how much does this business actually make? This question is what has required me to write this article. I will not be getting copies of their accounts from companies house, the content will be all conjecture based on what I’ve picked up from using the site over the years.
What has allowed me to consider this question is the openness in the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies such as WilliamHill, Ladbrokes 호주야구중계 or Betfred, what you don’t know on any particular sporting event is what has been bet in total and on the particular outcome these table bets were placed.
Take a regular Friday afternoon race meeting at say Ascot. It’s the 2. 30 and 5 horses are racing; the punters are signing on to one of the traditional bookmakers websites and support the various horses. The result is say the second favourite winning, we don’t know whether individuals were support the outsider or favourite, how much was bet, and what type of profit the bookmaker made.
Now consider the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged for that race is given at the top of the page, this is typically about £200, 000 for a standard horse race. Now we know that Betfair take a commission on all earnings, and for every bet exchanged there is a winner, so they’re taking their 5% needs to be result — about £10, 000 in this case.
So now for a quick bit of ‘back of fag packet’ maths. Approximately 40 backgrounds a day generating £10, 000 each is £400, 000 a day 7 days a week, that’s 2. 8 million pounds a week. Throw in the bigger meetings and that times it up to say 3 million, 5% which is £150, 000.
Now consider the Premiership football season. At least 12 games a week generating between £200, 000 and a million pounds in exchanged table bets, take the average and work out the 5% commission and that is another £350, 000. As well as this there’s the bottom little league and foreign games that have to generate another £100, 000 in commission so we’re up to Half a million pounds a week in revenue.
Be aware that you can (and people do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, winners little league football, International sports, not to mention gaming. I’m beginning come to in conclusion that they must be getting every week revenue in the millions, and if it’s only £3 million a week, that’s over a hundred and fifty million a year.
I admit to using no idea if my ins and outs are drastically wrong here, and if Betfair actually has annual revenue of £1million or £1billion. Neither do i have a reasoning behind what their legal fees, IT costs etc total. What I really do see is that unlike traditional bookmakers the result of any sporting event has no having on their revenue.
To this end their main aim must be to just recruit as many customers as possible, which positions the question; with the numerous online bookies out there offering free starting table bets all the way to and in excess of £100, then why do Betfair only offer £30. That is the topic of my next article.