Betfair Shares

Everyone's a winner on Betfair.

Betfair lost for 67.5 to 918p on continued concerns about its Italian operations. The world’s largest betting exchange, whose shares have been among the losers for the last three days, is thought to have lost its challenge against Italian regulators who pulled the plug on its exchange.

bleak

they'll have to dream up some way of getting into Berlusconi's good books

anyone got any ideas?

gus 27 Jan 11 22:19
they'll have to dream up some way of getting into Berlusconi's good books

anyone got any ideas?



Topless models on the homepage?

........
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/8242077/Morgan-Stanley-cuts-Betfair-shares.html

"For a bank to cut its outlook on a client's shares so soon after leading its listing is unusual, particularly given the bank's role in marketing the shares to investors".

Will Morgan Stanley then return its fat fees to launch Betfair or compensate punters buying the launch stock and stupid enough to lose £0.39 Billion since October and now expect earnings to be 21 % than they were told less than 3 months ago?  Who will rid us of these financial ...kers once and for all?

Topless models on the homepage?


In fairness Burlusconi's such a sex maniac Paul Nicholls in his open neck shirt probably matches these requirements.

How about a free £20 bet for the casino?

The value of shares can go up as well as down, buyer beware :)

Interesting reading that link I wonder what % of BFs business IS horse racing and so how much the fluctuations in that one sport, be it weather or a decline, affect BFs profits and so share price? I'm not into horse racing so I'd not really considered the fact that may be the major player, despite obviously large amounts of cash going into other markets.

I wonder if Betfair will consider some change in commission structure because it appears they are going to keep getting the blame for funding shortfalls in horseracing jurisdictions. Maybe they will need to contribute more (or we will I mean) to get/keep their foot in the door?

yeah
i really think the future is bleak
and im usually an overly optimistic type

The Management has got you under his spell LMansini

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-01/betfair-plans-web-betting-on-horses...

Anyone want to confess to buying them at the initial £15?

My original post ...did anybody else go short on the spread !Laugh

I think the valuation at £1.5b is a total joke, this company's true valuation in my opinion is significantly lower than this maybe closer to the £300m mark and that is only because they have about £150m cash in the bag. Consider the fact that their core business is still illegal in many parts of the world and their payroll is close to 2,000. Also there seems to be a big drive away from the core business of an exchange which would indicate to me that they are worried about obtaining new exchange customers.

In any event this flotation is only to allow existing shareholders to cash out...!!!! with no new shares being issued, hence no money goes into the Company.  Is there some internal pressure here I wonder !!. Why would they not do a part trade sale to buy out existing shareholders rather than the listing with all the headaches that will bring in the future re reporting etc.  Maybe they tried that but got no takers.

In any event anybody buying out existing equity at this type of valuation, in my opinion needs their heads examined...so as the old adage goes..BUYER BEWARE !

..I think this company could get into serious financial trouble soon

Get into trouble : Why - if they are in profit? Profits being less than expected isn't the same as making a loss.

Ok  guys  just read the thread . zips take on this .. its all  ups and downs ..  if  there  more downs   invest .. if there more ups  sell

One minute everyone is complaining that all the money in British horseracing goes to Betfair and now the doom and gloom merchants are out.

Imo, BF can still grow but im not convinced they get their message across well enough. A lot of people havent embraced the 'lay' side of things on here.

Same with in running, the general perception is that it is best left to the 'sharks' therefore less people participate.


What I meant above was not that they shd increase charges to increase profits, but that they might have to consider increasing charges and giving the 'extra' money to the authorities.

I wonder if that is feasible because otherwise they are seen as taking too much out and not giving enough back?

Still sponsoring Man U and Barca - where did it all go wrong [;)]

What the Management describes is only the potential effect of KNOWN negatives which is bad enough.

Throw in the possibility of UNKNOWN negatives (Black Swans) and I would be decidely bearish.

Before you throw "doom and gloom" merchant at me it is well to recall what has happened in the financial markets where all the PhD's in the world couldn't foresee the cliff edge looming despite the roaring success that the financial sector experienced for 10 years.

And just 15 yrs ago or so the collapse of Long Term Capital Management (despite early resounding success) was the precursor to the current situation which everyone conveniently forgot about. Despite being set-up by a couple of Nobel prize winners who invented the Black Scholes formula still used today to manage risk, it went from boom to bust in no time becasue of a Black swan and had to be bailed out by the US govt. So BF is small beer and its model is not immune to threats.

I thought Scholes was white.

any serious user of this site would have known not to get involved at that price, we have seen it all on here and the investors look like they were not as clued up as the users on here

I reckon long term BF might be decent shares to buy though? I've not bought any but at the right price, I certainly wouldn't be scared to consider them.

I always quote Paradise Poker in these threads, and am going to again.

They were clearly the completely unassailable Poker site in 2001, it was ludicrous to suggest any other site would ever surpass their 2500 simultaneous users.

Then Party rolled up with their intelligent and agressive marketing scheme

Lori, Liquidity is BFs key. It's a cycle in there business model that's to an extent unique.
You don't care buying a printer online how many OTHER customers that business has, however you certainly do care how many BF has as it's them that you need to make it work.

Of course, once a competitor reaches a certain critical mass, you might be right. You don't care about liquidity once it reaches 'enough'. Will it ever happen?

I'm sure the BF management and their competitors management have given the above a great deal of thought :)

Poker sites had the same issue for many years, hence the example. These were the days when you waited for 15 minutes on the busiest site on the planet for a ten table tourney to fill up.

I think the doom/gloom for Betfair will happen if/when the USA ever open their doors to online gambling. At that point the competition will be too much for them I suspect.

*Ten player.

Yes I considered that as I typed, I don't play much online poker, used to for fun, but I know what you mean, it's a bit like what happens with an online game. Err... Which poker is :)

The thing about poker or any such games is as long as you can get 10 people or whatever the table is that's all you need, and once they're involved that's them locked in for the duration, job done.

A betting exchange .. actually it'd be interesting to know figures of people versus liquidity. It's probably quite wierd in that in a big game, one person in one lay/bet often sticks on more than the entire traded on a market of a small game.

I mean how many people are involved I wonder in an blue square premier game that can have surprising amounts of money, and how much of that is bookies using BF to make the sums right?

There's also the option, say, of a major Vegas casino seeding their own exchange (or a million other similar doom scenarios)

Betfair seem to have lost their way a bit. They have a lot of good stuff in place though so such a battle might be good for customers all around.

The ideal world for customers would surely be two+ competitors that are both profitable and with sufficient liquidity to keep each other on their toes. Yes BF have good stuff, my only gripe really is when things go 'wrong', it's our real money in there swinging in the air after all. I accept there will be the odd hiccup but they could handle some of it better. Like an inplay market that genuinely can't go inplay, opening an unmanaged parallel market for example or something to allow managing the position.

JC, I've been hoping a continent like america or asia would buy something like **** and then launch it in their continent to get the critical initial liquidity, two massive exchanges and the punter able to choose the best deal, betfair of course are desperately trying to get world domination so they can do like they have in the uk and bring in things like the pc charge and players have little realistic alternative, will be interesting to see it a big rival exchange emerges in time...

Well they have had nearly 11 years and nothing has arrived yet...lol

gaming laws in the us have only just changed to allow internet gambling, that may make a difference jimmy, imho

It will be good news for everyone when there is a viable alternative. Abusing their monopoly position is the only way they have got away with the rip of premium tax.

And the shares are still 50% or so overpriced.

I wouldn't buy their shares at tuppence.

PS  That is for The Management.

Any new exchanges will have learned from betfair's mistakes. The probability of one implimenting betfair's earlier commission scheme, which allowed the customers who contributed the least a free lunch, is zero imo.

today's site outage wont help boost the share price.

Maybe they're trying to earn a reputating as the Ryanair of the Betting world .

*reputation.