We want to share an important update with our Betfair Community users.
Over the coming months, the Betfair Community platform will be winding down. The final active day for the platform will be December 21st. From December 22nd, users will no longer be able to access the platform.
Your discussions, insights, engagement, and, most importantly, feedback have helped shape the platform and guided innovation. Your feedback continues to be important to us, and we will continue to listen via our dedicated feedback channels, as well as through product testing and innovations.
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FaFH, fair point.
Perhaps, it's a deliberate strategy by BF management. Call it 'making hay while the sun shines'. |
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I think the recession has a lot to do with the amount matched going down.
However for about 5 years on the american horse the lads on the us horse racing forum including myself have all seen liquity been eroded over the years. I really have to say its a hard job getting value there now and many times its bet the fav or nothing. Many many rags are much higher in the pools nowadays and years ago all these had good liquidity and was higher prices than the pools. I think Andrew Black has done a great Job with Betfair and I will do all I can to continue to promote and help Betfair anyway I can to increase liquidity and help the site in the future ,like I have for the past 10 years. We will have to wait and see.I am hoping New Jersey usa then other states open exchange betting so we can have a whole new group of punters join the party. I am optimistic.I have a good job and for the guys who see Betfair as a job I think its going to be very difficult for you to make a decent living for at least the next 5-10 years. I think it will take time. |
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crysis...anyone?
why should it be up, when everything else is going down and the cuts are coming from everywhere even poker that had a major worldwide boom since 2003 never managed to beat the records of 2007, why in hell does Betfair have to do any better or any sport in such times, i really don't understand why people are so astonished the exchange will always survive imo, its what makes this site different from everything else there will be growth for sure but first the economic/financial world needs to figure itself out before things start to move in the right direction and general confidence increases |
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This thread prompted to check out BF's financials. BF won't let me read their IPO prospectus cos I am in Oz. Go figure?
I did see that YonY revenue growth was 13%. For an internet 'growth' company that is a dreadful number. Especially as their Australian business has grown rapidly during that period. |
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Betfair's big mistake was to copy the stock market model and make this a place where people with very limited talent are able to make a good living through cheating / copying. What should be a better deal for the average punter is mostly eroded by middlemen and cheats which is why they're continually trying to replace lost customers. "Cut out the middleman with betfair" ROFPML.
Cue the blue rinse fruit cakes with their "politics of envy" quips. |
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We will have to wait and see.I am hoping New Jersey usa then other states open exchange betting
so we can have a whole new group of punters join the party. If anywhere in USA allows exchange betting, it seems difficult to believe it'll be anything to do with Betfair. |
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Agree with that The Management. Had they not started up at a time when all the bookmakers were going offshore they would've been strangled at birth in this country too. In fact the first internet exchange (interbet) was strangled at birth as it had to charge both layers and backers 9% of their stake and when the guy tried a workaround which equated to clients only paying 9% of their profit (on every bet) he was hounded out by the customs and excise.
Betting exchanges do have a future but they'll be state run along with stock exchanges and all other forms of gambling. It's surely only a matter of time before governments get the "cut out the middleman" message. |
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I'm still trying to make sense of a £1.4 BILLION valuation and net profits of £15 MILLION.Emperor's new clothes?
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sandown, the profit number is largely irrellivant. BF invested heavily in the last 12-18 months, expect to see it rise as the investments pay off.
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Revenue growth is the number that matters, and ex-Australia and new products, revenue growth is weak. Then there is BF's exposure to regulatory risk.
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Sorry guys, but the profit number is NEVER irrelevent. It is a measure of the return on the capital value and when PE ratios are 100 then there is a very large assumption of exponential growth over a large number of years. And you are telling us pxb of the weak revenue prospects ex UK with which I agree.Until investment demonstrates that it CAN generate profits it remains exactly what it is - expenditure amortised over a number of years and described differently. In cash flow terms th e£ has gone. Only profits will recover it. It's like being asked to back heavily odds on becasue the of the potential to improve. excuse me, but that is a proposition which every day shows itslef to be unprofitable.
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ex Australia and new prods
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Sandown
Now you're sounding like a sensible, old fashioned investor. Looking for " real " earnings. Not the done thing these days apparently. |
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Having said that the float will probably be enormously successful for the underwriters and the front line investors, and everybody else will lose their shirts in due course.
Same old. |
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I cannot see where the growth areas are.
To justify its p/e, either bf has to cannibalise the client base of its bm rivals by consistently being best price (which it isn't) or move into new territories esp. the US and East Asia. It cd easily clean up in Asia, but has very tough, well-financed rivals. It looks to me as if the share price represents a heavy punt on expansion. |
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The price of a stock is determined by (projected) discounted future earnings.
For a technology company, current profit is largely meaningless, because it is too influenced by current investment. And as I pointed out early, revenue growth from diversification should be treated with caution, because companies often do poorly in their diversifications. Hence, revenue growth from the core business (In BF's case sports betting exchange) is the key number. |
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Thank you Professor pxb.
I'm sure Goldman Sachs could learn a lot from you in pricing up this issue. Just being cheeky. Don't take offence please. |
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I moved in Venture Capital circles during the dotcom bubble. I know more than most about how companies are dressed up to look good for their IPO.
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pxb
i agree with your view that the value of a company is best demonstrated through a DCF of expected future earnings. Remmber that BF is now 10 years young - not a start-up - and there comes a point when you ask if their is enough "form" to go on. 10 yrs is enough. Describing expenditure as an "Investments" suggest that money was spent wisely - Gordon Brown appplied the term to all manner of spending. Revenue growth must be turned into profit at some point. You use revenues when you have nothing else to go on. In this case we have 10 yr records. |
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So if they don't get the expansion into the US or other large markets that they're hoping for then what?
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Never totally trust a person who prefaces statements with " I know more than most---- ".
Btw having been a dotcom bubble venture capitalist is probably nothing to screamm too loudly from the rooftops about. Unless you are currently a billionaire of course. Are you perhaps? I hope so. |