The bearing off on bookmaker William Hill from betfair.com has been continuing all day. At first, the jobs were sheer entertainment; bookies displaying their wealth to the world at large was simply a once-off affair. Nonetheless, these images are sewn up in peoples’ minds for all time. Now, William Hill will be joining the battle in the war against betfair.
The bearing off will of course be familiar to anyone who closely follow the sport, or read any of the reports on any of the betting exchanges. Briefly, betfair will become the betting exchange of record, and the home of all competitive betting.
How different will the betting exchanges be then? Well, there are going to be some significant changes. People will still be able to back their fancies and place bets on tobetfair, but will also be able to bet against a selection, with professionals keen to capitalise on the imbalance of money being bet one way and the need to attract pounds in order to counter it.
It is also likely that there will be an increase in the number of betting shops on the betting exchanges, and the quality of the information available to both the punters and the bookmakers will suffer. Longer term, the bookmakers may decide that they do not want to incorporate the betting exchange into their fixed odds product, as they will be able to understand what is going on with the exchanges, and the offers on offer. Meanwhile, the betting exchanges will continue to attract the business, sustainably.
It will be these changes in business and focus that could allow betting exchanges to survive what will be a very competitive market. It will be these changes more than anything else that will ensure that betting exchanges stick around for years to come.
Will the online betting exchanges Hunt?
Many people believe that the principal attraction of betting exchanges is that it will act as an online hedge against the bookmakers. However, I am sure that many people also realise that betting exchanges are also attractive due to the fact that the bookmaker themselves has no real investment in their business, but is betting against the outcome. For example, an automated betting bot is programmed to filter out high risk betting (or what is commonly known as “shorting”) in such a way that only a small percentage of bets qualify for the hedge. If I were to acquire the algorithm to a betting bot, I would definitely bet against it on one of the major betting exchanges.
However, the betting exchanges are also something of a diversion and are really just a nice place to have your cake and eat it, too. If you have a large amount of money and are prepared to endure the bookmaker’s tactics, then you will have as much opportunity as anyone else in the market. If you are prepared to Grail up every penny of your stake, you can enjoy massive wins regularly.
Different parts of the UK are beginning to commercialise their betting exchanges. More often than not, operators have become savvy after setting up shop, and the desire to succeed in this market has led to a greater degree of centralisediness than was previously thought possible. Thousands of bookies from the UK have begun to offer odds, as a way of tempting new customers to imperative websites. At present, the Dewabet online betting market is probably the largest eCommerce marketplace in the world.