Will Betfair IPO be a good short?

premium charge, what's that?

if you are consistently profitable and pay less than 20% of your gross winnings in commission, Betfair will charge you an extra commission amount so that you have paid 20% of your gross winnings in commission.  This fee is in addition to normal fee they charge.  There are some other conditions which must be met in order for them to charge this fee.

I think the key if it to rise substationally would rest in India legalising gambling (or rather opening it up as it's not completely illegal now).

There's seems to be quite a few trying to encourage them to do so, especially given they amonut illegal gambling going on over there.  If they allowed bookmakers in and Betfair access then I'm sure it would significantly increase Betfair's turnover.

IPOs do not typically perform poorly. They perform as well as they are prepared. If all IPOs resulted in shares losing value immediately, why would anyone buy on day one?

I could see Betfair going either way.  But if I were a betting man, I would bet on the short side.

When do we reckon the flotation might be ?

It depends on the price they put on the float whether or not its a short. I mean, they are actually making money unlike Ocado.

even when the prospectus is released, analysts will find it difficult to perform fundamental analysis on betfair due to a fair amount of incomplete information and uncertainty. i can see valuations being all over the place.

befair will have a lot of tough questions to answer regarding long-term growth potential, legal/political issues,  integrity and leadership changes.

more questions being asked than answers being given at the moment, which cant be good.

management are always more inclined to sell their shares when they feel they are overpriced. betfair management obviously missed the money boat a few years ago, maybe they dont want to miss it this time around.

I just think Betfair is mismanaged and management has taken a short-term view of their profitability.

Can someone explain the basics to us not share/stock minded about how this flotation actually works with the IPO ?

I notice in the RP today a BF rep commented we would have loved to have been able to give all our customers a way of participating during the IPO but legally they couldnt. So all the customers are going to have to wait until after BF is listed and then they would love them to become shareholders.

Does this mean you will be able to buy shares after BF is listed through LSE and will these be readily available ?

BF's top shareholders, who own about 75% of the company, are planning to sell about 10% of the company via their current holdings. This will be to institutional investors such as pension and hedge funds probably. Once those firms have shares and BF is listed on the LSE proper, the shares will become generally available. However, because of the relatively low proportion of the company that is being sold (a max of 35%, cos the group of small investors - probably staff old and current - have not been asked how many shares they intend to sell, it wont be 100% so assume half and you arrive at about 20% of the company being publically traded) the price may be artificially high due to demand.

The funds/firms that are offered shares directly may decide not to sell them so you might only see 10% of the firm being traded on the open market (the small holder proportion). In theory, there may be no liquidity in the BF market on the LSE due to no one selling (or wanting to sell at a reasonable price, there will always be jokers trying to sell at £500 a share :D )

In my opinion Betfair show contempt for their customers when there are issues and have continued to show this contempt in the fact that customers cannot participate in this offering! Considering the turnover the profit didn't seem that good-£18 m?? although it's profit!-I cannot see that this attitude towards customers will mean long term profitability once the monopoly is broken!

Is it possible Betfair will go into the FTSE 250 on flotation? If so, is that likely to attract sufficient buying from index tracker funds to keep the share price buoyant in the short term, given the limited free float that seems to be expected?

Another factor is that Betfair could be coming to market at the same time as merger and acquisition activity picks up in the gambling sector. Talk recently of predators circling a couple of London listed bookmakers, with some credibility to the stories given upcoming developments in some key international markets, not least the US. Again, this might help to create a favourable environment to support Betfair's share price in the short term. As others have written though, much presumably depends on the price they get the issue away at.

Is it possible Betfair will go into the FTSE 250 on flotation?

The FTSE look not at the total size of the company, but the size of the free-float.
Betfair may well be valued at £1.5bn, but if only 10% of the shares are offered for sale then the FTSE will likely regard the free-float as just £150m.
Hence they will include Betfair in the FTSE Small Cap rather than the FTSE-250

I wonder if the directors read this forum?  I bet they don't because that would be a sign of what could be deemed GOOD management. 

Sorry, how much? Let's say £50.

If that's worth you getting out of bed for. (Which I very much doubt!)