betfair

Betfair is the world's largest international online sports betting provider and pioneered the first successful betting exchange in 2000.

Since then, Betfair has grown to become the biggest provider of online sports betting in the world. Betfair has more than 2000 employees around the world and the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2010 with a valuation of £1.4 billion.

Betfair has betting licences in the UK, Malta, Italy and Australia. Betfair formed a joint venture partnership with TVG to be represented in the United States.

In addition to peer-to-peer exchange betting, Betfair operates Poker, Casino, Bingo and Games sites, delivering its products to 3 million customers.

BACKGROUND

The Betfair exchange was founded by Andrew Black and Ed Wray in 1999 and soon afterwards the company merged with its rival Flutter.com.

Betfair's exchange concept caught the imagination of gamblers and bookmakers alike and from 2001 Betfair grew at a phenomenal rate. Building on the popularity of in-running markets for horse racing, Betfair introduced in-play betting on football in 2001, long before it was implemented by fixed odds bookmakers.

In 2004 Betfair launched its online Poker site and in 2006 added an online Casino to the company portfolio.

In the same year, Betfair bought Timeform, the long established horse race ratings company and began operating a betting exchange in Australia.

Betfair completed the acquisition of American TV Games Network (TVG) for $50M from Macrovision in January 2009 to enable its expansion into the US market. In April 2010 Betfair announced that it had three million registered customers and in September declared its intention to list on the London's Stock Exchange.

Shares in Betfair Group plc began trading a month later, in October 2010.

OFFERS AND PROMOTIONS

Betfair's biggest selling point is that the odds available on the Exchange can be considerably higher than those available from bookmakers.

This is achieved because Betfair act as a facilitator between customers wanting to bet with each other with layers free to offer any odds they like.

For the service they provide, Betfair take a commission of the winnings from the winner of every bet placed. Betfair's commission rates start at 5% and are reduced on a sliding scale for frequent users.

When first signing up at Betfair you can choose between a £25 free bet or the option to earn between £10 and £1000 cash back on bets placed in the first 30 days of membership. You'll receive 10 points for every £1 in Betfair commission across any sports and multiple bets, earn 50,000 points to receive £1000 cashback and just 100 ponts will earn £10 cashback.

Betfair withdrew its cash back offer on 1 August 2011.

The odds available in many Betfair betting markets are often bigger that those offered from other bookmakers with the larger differences on the bigger priced selections. When commissions are taken into account, there is often little difference between Betfair odds and the best available bookmaker's odds, more so on the popular, shorter priced selections.

There can be some exceptional value found on the Betfair exchange and often markets will come close to 100% book.

Betfair has an excellent risk free bet offer for new customers and has run the occasional introductory discount offer to promote new products such as Tote betting and the introduction of horse race multiple bets.

BETTING OPPORTUNITIES

Betfair undoubtedly offer the broadest range of betting opportunities available in one location and has introduced many new markets in particular, the hugely successful "in-running" markets.

Betfair cover the major sports in much more depth than other online bookmakers and even set up markets for such diverse sporting interests as floorball and martial arts.

The success of each market lies in the liquidity or money available and it is not unusual to see Betfair markets distorted due to the lack of people prepared to offer money to back or lay.

DESIGN AND LAYOUT

Betfair has made a huge commitment to continually invest in the technology to support its site and meet the demands created by thousand of users requiring continuous real time updates. As a result Betfair can proudly boast a very fast and secure website to place financial transactions.

The basic appearance of Betfair's website has changed little since it was first launched following the standard navigation method with the side bar on the left and sub menus opening with a click.

The Betfair site can be customised in a variety of ways to suit the user's preference and speed access to favourite sports or markets and even to allow unmatched bets to be automatically offered in-play. Betfair has the site laid out in logical fashion to make it easy to follow and there are quick links to the more popular areas of the site.

NAVIGATION

Betfair has a standard navigation method using tabs and the side bar, but with such a deep site Betfair have provided some great short cuts to help find what you need quickly. Betfair users can search markets to find all the available markets fitting the search criteria very quickly.

Create your list of favourites on Betfair to store in "My Markets" or use the drop down menus to swiftly drill down to any of the vast number of markets available for each sport.

Horse racing is still very important to Betfair and the "Next Horse Race" tab is displayed prominently throughout the site.

Choose any sport and the currently active and next to start Betfair markets are at hand.

Betfair accepts payments by cheque , Bank Transfer , Moneybookers , PayPal , Western Union and from the following cards;Visa, Visa Electron, Visa Delta, MasterCard, Maestro, Solo, Laser, Mastercard (Debit). Currently Betfair accepts payments in the following currencies; UK Sterling, Danish, Krone, Norwegian Krone, Swedish Krona, Singapore Dollar, Euro, US Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar, Australian Dollar, Canadian Dollar.

MOBILE BETTING

Betfair was the first main internet gambling website to provide a dedicated iPhone application and followed up with a similar application for the iPad, both of which can be downloaded free from the iTunes store.

Betfair Mobile has a Java application that can be downloaded and used on many internet enabled mobiles and the website provides a list of compatible devices. Some Blackberry phones are supported and Android phones can access a "lite" mobile version of the site while waiting for a dedicated application to be developed.

LIVE STREAMS

Betfair offer an excellent range of live video streams which are free to watch and include European and international football, tennis and many other sports. Betfair require users to have a matched bet to the value of at least £2 to watch live UK horse racing.

AUDIO

Audio coverage is provided for horse racing which can be accessed from the market for each race.

FORM AND STATS

he Betfair site provides a wealth of news, form, results and statistics for UK horse racing including a Timeform summary for each race with additional comments and ratings available for purchase.

Betfair also provide fixtures, results, team information and flexible statistics for a wide variety of sports including football, baseball, basketball, cycling, darts, floorball and Aussie Rules Football . Live Score updates are available on the Betfair website which also features a very active forum and popular betting blogs.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Betfair provide customer support via Help and hint tabs throughout the site. Betfair have an in-depth search and FAQ facility and have an undertaking to respond to email queries in 4 hours.

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