Betfair shares

Its envisaged that the shares will commence trading on the LSE at the end of Octber.

You will be able to buy shares in the normal way by dealing with a stockbroker. Howeever, only a relatively small % of the shares on the company are being made available in the float, so depending on how many shares you are interested in buying it could be tricky.

if i make a profit trading them is there a premium charge as well as capital gains tax?

Good buy or Bad? what do you think? personally I think its a bit of a gamble. If the BHA have their way betfair users could have to stump up more commission, this would have obvious effects. But on the other hand if Betfair crack America this would have a huge impact on profits. tho I suspect many people in the states are already using Betfair. I assume they are only selling a small portion of the shares because a big float would look like they are bailing out. any views?

The BHA are clueless though so they might have a long wait for that to happen....just look at the way Harry Findlay's lawyer took them to bits.

I've paid out £300 total on premium charges. How many shares do I need to buy to make that much back?

You cant buy shares. Only really good clients will get a chance to do that. £300 is a pittence anyway..

Price on Gray Market - £12.75/£13.00  Buy or sell?

"if i make a profit trading them is there a premium charge as well as capital gains tax?"

betfair shares look overvalued, better punt woulf be laddies, debt has been trimmed, good yield, a p/e of around 9 and new CEO determined to make the company more customer focused. Avoid IPO's with a bargepole imo.

1380 betfair share price down from highs of 1610

I can't believe that their one idea of expansion is in the financial markets. That area is already saturated with companies that have far more experience than them.

took a bit of a hammering yesterday after one analyst valued the shares at about £4.50

freefall

under £12

1150 now shock for share holders.

probably shareholders selling them off after realising what they bought into

The BHA honcho who founded his own investment house is very "shrood" imo...

Doing his nuts [nap]

i guess the guys at goldman sachs who bought 10% of lmax and invested in the betfair ipo are all clueless compared to some investec analyst :-D. can someone point out where i can buy investec shares?

I wouldn't trust GS'ers to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide.

Pleasing news that their nuts are currently being done.

oi oi

Company  Exchange  Symbol  Last price   Quote change  Market cap   
Betfair Group Ltd  LON  BET  1,040.00   -141.00 (-11.94%)

possibly over reaction


Day's Range:    985.00 - 1,180.00

great time to buy as they are 25% cheaper than issue price

or maybe they were 25% or even 40% over-valued, which is probably the case

Company  Exchange  Symbol  Last price   Quote change  Market cap   
Betfair Group Ltd  LON  BET  990.00   -191.00 (-16.17%)

"They showed underlying profit before tax 49% higher for the six months to October than for the same period last year at £16.9m"

Call that £34 mill a year profits.

Current Market cap is £1.063 billion.

That is a P/E ratio of 31 times.

Way overhyped, overvalued, and the only way is down.

£5 would probably be a fair price per share.

Short.

Betfair now has the arguably highest fees since it implimented the premium charge.  It opened the door for competitors and it should have a pretty low growth rate going forward.  Betfair thought they would take advantage of their monopoly, but the barriers to entry are low in online betting.  Why would liquidity providers choose to put markets on Betfair where their expenses will be significantly higher?

i dont know about the charges. but trust me, the barriers to entry for others are massive. you underestimate the value of the brand ( else why think small and not try to set up another ebay, for example ?)
you need to invest 10yrs and throw some serious money into it..
betfair with very high charges make 30-50million per year. what would be the bottomline if the charges were 1% lower? would the business become loss making? and who s going to enter a market that to be competitive becomes loss making?
on top, betfair is worth 1 billion pound, and enjoy a 90% quasi monopoly. ie the whole market segment is worth 1 billion. who do you think will want to invest hundreds of millions into something that if it becomes successful and becomes a proper altenative to betfair - will be worth in 10yrs 500million ( assuming a 50/50 split of the market)?
the fact is, the lower the share price, the less likely that directly or indirectly the charges will go down. the latest share drop is been bad news for customers, thats why i dont understand the gloating.

the Italian government is creating an exchange platform. I am sure the Chinese one will do the same if they decide to legalise gambling. The US will never open up to foreign exchange companies. Where is the prospect of growth?

Betfair's management should be commended on being the biggest exchange.  I have not agreed with a lot of their recent policies and think the drop in share price is partially a result of these policies.

One of the main reasons for the share price drop is reported to be problems with the poker site since they switched to Ongame.

As a regular player at the old site it was only too apparent that the switch has been a disaster. Many of the regulars have left in disgust.

I have been battling on but will probably quit for good now after getting an earful of abuse in a 'Community Tournament' as a result of winning with the best hand. Betfair's customer service is never any help in such situations, or during frequent technical breakdowns which result in loss of entry fees/winnings.

Company  Exchange  Symbol  Last price   Quote change  Market cap   
Betfair Group Ltd  LON  BET  972.00   -3.00 (-0.31%)

The whole point of a stock flotation is to let the original shareholders cash out at the expense of joe public.. who are left holding the baby.

Believe me, my time in the City was not wasted [:x]

sub £9

Betfair Group Ltd  LON  BET  898.50   -39.00 (-4.16%)

Do you think all the hoo-haa with the poker and casino platforms will affect the share price? Slightly surprised they went up over the last couple of days.

It looks like Betfair's share price is going to climb back to over 10.00.It is nice to see the price making a partial recover from it's floatation price.

9.46 .. down on news Germany wants to impose a turnover tax, on sports betting.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eb4364a6-60e7-11e0-8899-00144feab49a.html#axzz1IpBYoMtg

Price did climb to over 1064.I hope that you filled your boots - I know I did.

Betfair's share price is now 778.  Why is it down so much?  Looks like Betfair management picked a good to IPO.

Betfair's share price is now 778.  Why is it down so much?  Looks like Betfair management picked a good to IPO.

Because reality is finally hitting home to the mugs who bought them? It's still overpriced, but now only by 50% as opposed to the 200% at the start.

Johnny Walker's post is very shrewd.

If you don't like Betfair, and you want a competitor, then you need Betfair's shares to rise. You need evidence that a betting exchange is an attractive prospect in which to invest.

If Betfair's shares fall, then the signal to potential competitors is that betting exchanges are not a sector in which to invest.

I think you are missing the point. A company making £50 million profit with no chance of growth can never, EVER, be valued at anything close to what they are at the moment, regardless of weather they have no competitors or not.

"If Betfair's shares fall, then the signal to potential competitors is that betting exchanges are not a sector in which to invest"

No, all it means is that anyone stupid enough to pay £15 for something worth a third of that deserves all they get. It's got absolutely nothing to do with the viability of a potential competitior whatsoever.

It's no different to backing man city to win the league at a fraction of what their true price should be. Same principles exactly. You are giving away a collosal amount in EV.

Eh? I'm not interested in whether the share price is right or wrong.

I'm just repeating johnnie walker's point that a low share price for Betfair discourages competitors from entering the betting-exchange market.

So if, as a punter who uses Betfair, you want to see a competitor to Betfair, then you need a healthy share price for Betfair. Unless the Betfair share price is healthy, nobody is going to invest the millions needed to start up a competitor.

To put it another way, Betfair IS the entire betting exchange sector.

If the share price values Betfair (and hence the entire exchange sector) at, say, £1.5 billion, then a potential competitor may consider investing millions to start up a new company, because there appears to be a lot of money around to compete for.

But if the share price values Betfair at, say £0.5 billion, then there is not enough money around to make the risk/reward ratio attractive for a competitor.

To repeat, I couldn't give a fig whether Betfair's share price is right or wrong or a good or bad investment. My only concern is as a user of a betting exchange.

But who says the correct price of £5 is a "low" one? The only reason you or jw seems to have to justify it is that the original price was 3 times that. So what - I really don't understand the point you make. Any would be competitor who wanted to start up from scratch would not have to raise anything like the amount that betfair are valued at, either now or when they floated, so your point is pretty irrelevant in all fairness.

Screaming, read my post. You need to look at this in the context of the wider market. By anyones opinion, any company valued at £1.5 billion with only £50 million profits has to have potential for decent future growth, or it is ridiculously overvalued. Betfair has no prospect of future growth regardless of it having no competitors. That is why £5 a share is a fair price.

Johnnie walker's point, turtleshead, was that a serious newcomer would have to raise an eye-watering sum to compete. After all, the field is already littered with failures who invested merely enormous sums and failed to make a dent in Betfair. God only knows how much Dermot Desmond has dropped, yet got nowhere.

Whippet: for the last time, I'm not arguing whether or not £5 a share is a fair price. I'm happy to concede you are 100% right. OK?

All I'm arguing is Johnnie Walker's point that £5 a share does not represent a big enough potential reward to entice a newcomer into the market. A newcomer needs evidence that shares in betting exchanges might be potentially over-valued.

Why the hell are you debating this then?

We are dicussing whether betfair are overvalued or not. People have been saying that because it is a monopoly, it isn't overvalued. Whether or not the barriers to entry are high or low is completely irrelevant. In the wider context, a £1 billion company only making £50 mill a year, with no potential for future growth (regardless of whether there are any competitors) is overvalued, there is no two ways about it.

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no potential for future growth? what if china, india, japan, usa etc legalise gambling/exchanges?

Then, as stated before, a rival in that country will spring up with much lower commission, no premium charge, better customer service (wouldn't be difficult!) etc etc etc.

Data on gambling worldwide

http://www.morssglobalfinance.com/the-global-economics-of-gambling/

Note betting is a growth business, increasing around 7% per annum

Otherwise, barriers to entry aren't that high and viable competitors will come, even though it may not seem like it at the moment.

shares up 63p today ......[smiley:crazy]