Old Betfair
Betfair International Plc is licensed and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority. Licence Number: MGA/CL3/454/2008 17th March 2015, Triq il-Kappillan Mifsud, St. Venera, SVR 1851, MALTA. Register an account with Betfair and get access to sports and exchange betting across all of your favourite markets and topics. The Betfair App Directory is the home of betting applications where you will find a range of tools, apps and interfaces that can be used on the Exchange.
This is an excellent question. The name hints at what the company has to offer, although it has often been misconstrued as being about fairness in gaming.
In essence, Betfair wanted to take the process of setting lines for sporting events out of the hands of the traditional bookmaker and put it into the hands of the punters, or bettors.
The theory was that if people were allowed to set their own odds based on their personal knowledge of a sport or their love of a particular team, then the betting options would increase, making the wagers more appealing to a broader group of players.
To accomplish this, Wray and Black created a betting exchange. The principle behind the exchange is similar to that of a stock exchange. A player would initiate a wager at a certain price and odds, and it would be posted to the exchange.
Old Beefaroni Song
If someone fancied that particular wager, then they could agree to make the wager. The bet would happen between the two players, with Betfair taking a small fee for providing the service.
Old Betfair Exchange
Let’s show you what this could look like regarding an NFL football game. For this example, we will use a game between the New England Patriots and the Cleveland Browns. Many bookmakers would consider this an easy game for New England, so they may set a line that looks like this:
Old Betfair
This means that New England would have to win the game by 15 points for you the wager. Now, let’s say you are a huge fan who is so sure that you want to give more points away. With Betfair, you can create a wager like this:
- NE -21.5 +150
Old Bethel Church
In this case, you are betting that they will actually win by 22 points, but if someone wants to take the other side of that wager, then they have to put up $150 to your $100. See how easy it is? Of course, there has to be someone on the other end of the bet, or else it doesn’t take place.