Winning on Betfair For Dummies

Alex Gowar, Jack Houghton

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780470723364
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119996613
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Desarrollo personal

Betfair is the world's leading online betting exchange. Launched in 2000, its annual revenues reached £145m in 2006. In the last year, Betfair has more than doubled its number of registered users. Since the first edition of the book was published, the total number of Betfair websites has risen to 18, and an Australian exchange has launched. The services Betfair offer have also expanded, including a telephone betting operation and new games including poker, blackjack and baccarat.

This is the definitive insider's guide to playing – and winning – on Betfair. Written by Betfair insiders it gives you the full picture of how Betfair works; it explains the terms and jargon, helps you get started on the site, introduces every type of play – including poker and the Betfair Casino - and offers tips and insider know-how that both newcomers seasoned Betfair punters can use to maximise returns.

Part I

Starting Out

In this part . . .

Here we cover all the basics: what Betfair is, why it’s a good thing, what you need to get started, how to open and manage an account, and how to decide what it is you want to bet on.

Chapter 1

Introducing Betfair

In This Chapter

Understanding the Betfair idea

Realising the benefits of Betfair

B etfair is one of the world’s fastest-growing betting companies, but is probably most famous for its online betting exchange, www.betfair.com. A betting exchange allows people with different opinions on the likely outcome of an event to bet against each other, thanks to the invention of some clever technology by a boffin called Andrew ‘Bert’ Black in the late 1990s.

But that’s all you need to know about the technical side. This chapter covers what Betfair is, how it works, and why it’s so popular.

Getting Your Head Around Betfair

Yours truly (Alex and Jack) have sat through countless demonstrations at Betfair headquarters where people try to explain what Betfair is to slightly perplexed audiences. The demonstrator usually starts by showing everyone the Betfair homepage (www.betfair.com), selecting a sporting event to bet on, and then beginning an explanation of what the mass of moving numbers mean.

This is probably not the best way to start learning about a betting exchange. The Sports homepage can seem exhaustively complex at first when all you want to do is have a bet, but when you get used to it, it’s actually quite straightforward. We’ll look at the homepage in more detail in Chapter 4.

The best way to understand Betfair is to forget about the website for the time being. You don’t actually need it to understand what Betfair is all about.

Think of this example instead. Although we work together, we rarely agree on sport and so we like to bet against each other. The other week we were in a bar watching a soccer match on TV. AC Milan was playing Juventus.

Jack reckoned that Juventus would win. Alex disagreed. So Alex offered Jack odds of 2.0 (even money) on Juventus winning (meaning Alex paid Jack £1 for every £1 staked should Juventus win).

Despite being friends, we don’t altogether trust each other to hold the money, so we agreed that the barman would hold the money until the match was over.

That’s all Betfair is really – a barman in a global betting bar, although Betfair isn’t licensed to serve alcohol!

(It’s not important, but Juventus didn’t win and Alex won Jack’s £20.)

In our example, we were face to face with each other to have the bet. With Betfair, you’re matched up anonymously against people with different views from all over the world. If Margaret in South Africa thinks AC Milan will win, and Mike in Canada thinks they won’t, Betfair holds the money until the result is known.

Revolutionising Betting

Opportunities for you to bet vary from country to country. Apparently, in some countries, betting is illegal. This is disturbing to us, so we’ve chosen to assume that this is some terrible urban myth.

Before Betfair, the two main outlets for you to bet on sports were pool betting operators and fixed-odds bookmakers.

Pool betting operators

In countries where betting is legal, government-run pool betting is often the main way of betting.

Pool betting works in much the same way as a sweepstake. A number of people bet on an event, creating a pool of money. The operator of the pool takes a cut (usually upwards of 20 per cent) and then gives out the rest of the money to the customers who chose the winning selection.

Pool betting has a couple of major disadvantages:

The odds are completely reliant on how many other people choose the same outcome, and so you have no idea what odds you’re going to get on the selection you’re choosing.

You can’t change the transaction and the pool closes when the contest starts, which means that you must place your bet before the event and await your fate.

Because the pool operator takes a large cut before giving out winnings, the odds you eventually get can be disappointing, especially on popular selections.

Fixed-odds bookmakers

In some countries, bookmakers are allowed to operate on a fixed-odds basis. Bookmakers work out and offer their own odds on a range of sporting contests. They also offer odds (or make a book) on various events within the contest.

For example, in a football match you can bet on the result, but also on who will score, what the score will be, and even on things like how many corners there will be. In most cases, you can take a price, meaning that you know what odds your bet will be settled at if it wins.

Where pool-betting operators take a cut of all the money, bookmakers make money by building in a margin. So all the odds on offer have a margin built into the price on the side of the bookmaker. (See Chapter 6 for more on how bookmakers build in a profit margin.)

Revenge of the nerd

Andrew ‘Bert’ Black’s background doesn’t immediately suggest that he’d become arguably one of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs.

Bert was the grandson of an inveterate anti-gambling campaigner. After being thrown...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Starting Out
• Part II : Let’s Get Betting
• Part III : Getting Serious
• Part IV : The Part of Tens
• : Further Reading