Betfair's "Integrated Exchange and Sportsbook product"

"allow us to capture a greater share of wallet from customers." Now that's a reason to riot!

It has certainly been widely dismissed here if not really widely discussed.
I think one of the more prescient remarks was that maybe such a book will be quite limited in scope, if and when it eventuates.

iirc, somewhere they said they were going to develop it "incrementally" - which is interesting in itself.

will be interesting to see which new IP markets appear, and also whether they're existing markets that currently suspend or totally new ones.

"capture a greater share of wallet"

Don't you just hate all these new management-speak pharases?

tbf, wallet's a specific bf term. but generally yes.

BF already runs a sportsbook called MULTIPLES , and even though its a pure sportsbook they also charge commission from the winning bets , which is completely ridiculous and the reason why I never use it ; niiiiiiiiiiiii

Think Chronicle, think 32Red, think Virgin Bets, think White Label brands, think tried tested and failed, (Virgin Bets is the one I can recall but others have started and quickly departed doing the same thing) think automated Betfair arbing into the exchange, think no early prices, think no non derivative priced markets, don't think choice, don't think value and don't think versatility.

I can't see anything more than a second rate bookmaking service, which will leech off the brand and established customer base, but will damage the brand at the same time.  Credit to the stockbrokers for getting it right.

The product hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of standing on its own 2 feet which is the real test of whether something is any good.

Wsex/matchbook and Mansion also did similar.

Imagine NatWest opening another bank right next door to an existing bank, and calling itself the NatWestB bank.  At the new branch everything you can buy is a little bit more expensive than at the bank next door, the only difference is less products are avaliable at the new branch and the prices are in a different font.

Sounds like a winning idea to me

*fewer* products :)

But the new branch opens at 8am sharp with a full range of products available, while the existing one often doesn't have stock on the shelves until the afternoon.

sounds like an extension of multiples

You are wrong longbridge.  The new shop only gets stocked after the old one, since by definition all it is doing is copying the prices and adding a percentage.  It's not going to be offering it's own prices.

Let's hope it fails miserably, otherwise bf might get the idea to kill the exchange altogether, albeit 'incrementally'.

Don't see how it can be stocked after the old one and still satisfy (from Annual Report - my emphasis):

We are developing an integrated Exchange and sportsbook product that will allow us to provide more in-play markets as well as giving customers guaranteed execution in less liquid markets.

I read that as (eg) making a morning book on the afternoon's horse races, when the Exchange markets are still too illiquid to get a sensible bet on.  How did you read it?

There will be no morning prices on horse racing markets (except a slightly worse mirror image of what's available on the exchange)..that's a 1.01 shot imo. 

What they mean by guaranteed execution in less liquid markets is akin to this: if there is a strong correct score market and no liquidity on the next goal market they will offer liquidity on there being no next goal in a next goal market which they will then arb off simultaneously against the current score on the correct score market.

yes,this cold be Longbride...if betfair is making a morning book, then betfair doesn't want to many shape minds betting into betfair morning line

they may be outsourcing to Betting Promotion. the blurb on their website states  -



Betting Promotion is a Market Maker for Betting Exchanges and Bookmakers. With our proprietary trading software we provide odds and liquidity to our customers. Betting Promotion is all about odds. From different trading strategies we create crude odds. On top of the crude odds we add our margin to create market making odds

At the exchanges we act as market makers. For bookmakers we manage the whole or parts of their sports book.

Our customers market themselves to different geographical areas and different kind of players. On top of our market making odds the customers decide what margin they want to have on sports and leagues all dependent on their own marketing strategy.

Betting Promotion trading is characterized by high turnover and low margin. Expected profit margin is less than 1% on turnover. This enables our customers to have very competitive prices.

well,if there's one entity with the historical data to create profitable books, it's surely BF.

@clydebank

You mean they're aren't people doing that already?  In which case I really do need to look into this bot-writing game.

There are people doing it already, but firstly, they cant cross match in real time in running unlike Betfair, secondly they have to pay commission unlike Betfair, and thirdly, we are talking about dead markets with virtually no casual interest.

I agree there will be no early prices on horses.................or if there are BF will get raped unless they offer miniscule liquidity on each horse.