Online Casino Games

Bet Exchange

A betting exchange or p2p gambling website is a fairly recent Internet phenomenon, and is used to describe a website acting as a broker between parties for the placement of bets (gambling, in other words). The concept is similar to that of a stock exchange or a futures exchange, where in this case the commodity being traded is a bet, rather than a stock or futures contract. Most betting on a betting exchange is a form of fixed odds gambling.

History

The concept was first brought to the public by the UK website Flutter.com in May 2000 in person-to-person betting form, followed closely by UK-based Betfair in June 2000. Betfair embraced a pure exchange model - one Flutter later adopted and even improved upon in places - but first-mover advantage proved decisive for Betfair. Though Flutter managed to climb to a reported 30% market share, Flutter's backers were content to broker a merger which left Betfair the dominant partner by a reported ratio of 84:16. Post merger, Flutter's customers were transferred to Betfair's system, which was later upgraded to embrace some of Flutter's functionality. Betfair went from strength to strength and controls a reported 90% of global exchange activity today. In late 2004, Betfair announced a rescue package which resulted in it absorbing the customers of Sporting Options, which had gone into administration with debts in excess of