I've been using Betfair for years now however it is only recently I've wondered simply how much does this company can even make? This question 's what has compelled me to publish this article. I will not get copies of their accounts from companies house, the information is going to be all conjecture based on what I've picked up from using the website through the years.

What has allowed me to ponder this question may be the transparency inside the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies for example WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, what you have no idea on any particular sporting event is exactly what has been bet as a whole and also on what particular outcome these bets were placed.

Take an everyday Friday afternoon race meeting at say Ascot. It's the 2.30 and 5 horses are racing; the punters are logging on one of several traditional bookmakers websites and backing various horses. The outcome is say the second favourite winning, we've got no clue whether everyone was backing the outsider or favourite, just how much was bet, and what sort of assist the bookmaker made.

Now think about the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged with the race is given towards the top of the page, that is typically about A�200,000 to get a standard horse race. Now we understand that Betfair have a commission on all winnings, as well as for every bet exchanged there exists a winner, so they're taking their 5% regardless of the result — about A�10,000 in this case.

So now for the quick bit of 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races each day generating A�10,000 each is A�400,000 each day seven days a week, that's 2.8 million pounds a week. Throw within the bigger meetings understanding that rounds it up to say 3 million, sbobet 5% ones is A�150,000.

Now take into account the Premiership football season. At least 12 games every week generating between A�200,000 as well as a million pounds in exchanged bets, take the average and figure out the 5% commission knowning that's another A�350,000. On top of this you have the lower league and foreign games that has got to generate another A�100,000 in commission so we're up to Half a million pounds a week in revenue.

Bear in your mind that one could (and the ones do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, not to mention gaming. I'm needs to arrive at concluding that they must be getting weekly revenue inside millions, and if it's only A�3 million weekly, that's over 150 million 12 months.

I admit to getting not a clue if my workings are drastically wrong here, and when Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a sense of what their legal fees, IT costs etc total. What I do see is that unlike traditional bookmakers the results from a sporting event has no effect on their revenue.

To this end their main aim will be to just recruit as numerous customers as you can, which poses the question; while using numerous online bookies around offering free introductory bets up to as well as in more than A�100, then so why do Betfair offer only A�30. That could be the topic of my next article.