As one of the leading sportsbooks in the world and probably the first betting exchange market, Betfair has made a significant name for itself amongst punters. With thousands of bettors clamoring to join Betfair and enjoy its famous odds levels, it is no doubt that loads of Betfair clones have sprung up in recent times each claiming to provide official Betfair odds to its clientele.
Established in 2012, Betfair is licensed in UK, Bulgaria, Malta, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Romania, making it completely legal and regulated in terms of its actions involving bettors’ money. They have four brands, Betfair, Paddy Power, TVG and Sportsbet. Originally established only as a betting exchanged, Betfair has slowly moved on to operate as a sportsbook as well with great results. With the claim of having over 5 million customers across all four brands, it is time to take a serious look at Betfair and where it stands in terms of odds, access, sports covered, payments and security.
Betfair is a standalone betting exchange and sportsbook which means you do not need to go through an agent/broker to get access. A quick glance at the website will reveal that you can freely navigate between sports and different sections of the website. This makes it easy for any potential bettor to take a tour of what’s on offer and make up their minds accordingly.
The website is available in English, Deutsch, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Svenska (Swedish). This gives users from a plethora of locations an opportunity to browse the website in their preferred language. Registration is extremely easy and can be completed within 30 seconds after providing your name, email, password and mobile number. Once logged in, making the first deposit is optional which is good for bettors who want to experience the whole thing first before spending cash.
When it comes to the sports that you can bet on, Betfair believes in quality over quantity. This is evident by taking a quick look at the sports section. You should get all the sporting events from across the planet that most punters like to place wagers on. Betfair offers sports like
You get the best spread and coverage for Football, Cricket and Basketball with each covering the top leagues and international matches from across Europe, South America, North America and Asia. Both men’s and women’s matches are available for better coverage with important U19 and U21 fixtures thrown in for good measure. If you are more into little obscure sports, you can get your fix on Gaelic sports, Darts, Netball, Futsal and Greyhound Racing. Each of these sports comes with a good number of events and sizeable betting options.
Apart from sports, you can expect special betting activities on a variety of events such as television specials, who will be cast as the next James Bond or Doctor Who, which Irish hotel will welcome Price Harry and Meghan first etc. If you are not happy with these events, simple go for Politics or Esports.
The esports list, while not comprehensive, should get you the best titles such as Counter Strike: GO, League of Legends, FIFA and DOTA 2. The whole esports list, however, is a little disappointing as there are many exciting esporting events happening round the clock for a number of games. At Betfair you are sure to miss out on those titles.
Betfair’s betting odds are legendary in the sportsbooks world and a number of online bookmakers exist solely by providing Betfair odds using their API. As compared to its contemporaries, you might often find much better odds at Betfair and its huge customer base provides great liquidity for you to find matching bets. Since Betfair is a combined betting exchange and sportsbook, the options are even exciting as they offer betting odds on any possible events during a game and users can get into bet trading with profitable back and lay options. Betting is allowed for both pre-match and in-game events.
Another tremendous benefit of betting with Betfair is the seemingly non-existent winning limit. Betfair does not punish winners hence you can beat the bookie as many times as you want. With the minimum betting amount of 2 EUROs, Betfair is a perfect place for beginners, although, they might need to spend considerable time learning the interface due to the considerable number of betting options to choose from. Also, Betfair is among the very few sportsbooks in the market that allow placing bet via phone calls.
On traditional sporting events, standard bets of Over/Under, correct score, 1 X 2, Even/Odd and Handicap are available. As you open the live-betting options, you are presented with even more choices with fast-paced prediction of immediate and near future action that promise great odds. During in-game betting, you can enjoy the live broadcast of all major events which not only boosts your betting experience but also lets you make educated decisions.
Apart from the mouthwatering sports affair, Betfair also does not shy away from other offerings such as Live Casino, slots games, virtual casino games and exchange games for your instruction, pleasure and benefit. Betfair brings to its punters its own live casino experience with games like Poker Hi-Lo, Hold’em, BlackJack, Roulette and 3 Card Brag in the offing. The virtual casino section offers even more choices including the ever popular Single Hand BlackJack. The live casino games and tables are somewhat limited however for punters who enjoy those gambling options.
If you would like a different taste, Betfair also provides a number of virtual slot games and jackpot games to choose from. Bingo is there if you are an aficionado of this ever popular gambling game. There are many mega jackpot games where you can try your luck. The exchange game is another neat touch where you can play trading exchange type of games such as Bull Market Rally and The Showdown. All of these games can be joined for pretty good winnings. But the number of the slots and games are again smaller than the average offering you could find on other sportsbook websites.
Betfair is a little tight-fisted when it comes to promotions and offers, reflective perhaps of their already huge customer base and wild reputation the market. Without really a need to attract and keep punters, promotions are supposed to be stingy but there are a still a few good ones that new and existing punters can leverage.
With extremely limited deposit and withdrawal options, Betfair used to draw a lot of scorn from punters up until a few years back but the situation has changed quite a bit now. With Betfair, you get the option to deposit money with Maestro, Visa and MasterCard bank cards, Neteller, Skrill, Paysafecard, WebMoney, bank transfers, Poli, cheque and PayPal. Withdrawals can be done with bank transfer, bank cards, Neteller, Western Union, Skrill, WebMoney, PayPal and cheque. The minimum deposit amount varies from option to option. To deposit your money with paysafecard you need to deposit at least 12 EUROs whereas PayPal, Poli and WebMoney allow a 5 EUROs deposit. Rest all payment methods allow 10 EUROs deposit. Withdrawals are free of charges for all allowed options except bank transfer which levies a 5 EUROs charge.
Deposits are instantaneous but withdrawals take anywhere between 24 hours and 7 days. Apart from this slow cash out system, the deposit charges levied can be pretty high. For example, paysafecard deposits attract a 2.5% service fee and Neteller attracts a 1.5% service fee. These fees are by no means small and can amount to a large sum for low to mid-level punters with a limited budget. The surprising absence of cryptocurrency support is also telling in this day and age.
Betfair supports deposit and withdrawal in seven currencies including GBP, AUD, EUR, UDS, HKD, SEK and DKK. This should make people from all around the world happy as they can transact in their own currencies without having to worry about conversions. With proper licenses and regulations in place, transacting with Betfair is extremely secure.
The Betfair website looks pretty sleek at the first glance but perhaps a tad too busy with a lot of information being flashed. It is quite easy for new users to get overwhelmed with the amount of tabs, buttons and information being fed at each moment. But once you settle in, the navigation becomes very simple and you could get to your page of interest with two or three clicks at the most.
The color scheme looks nice with contrasting black and yellow. The site can be loaded with 7 different language options. The exchange and sportsbook sections are available at the top menu with other gambling areas of interest are lined next to them. Once you choose either exchange or sportsbook, you can quickly click the sports button and choose the sport you would like to bet on. Popular sports are pinned to the top menu for quick access.
Once you are on the sports page of your choice, you can sort the events based on the betting odds, the fixture date or live events. A single click on the odds will allow you to enter the wager of your choice in the right-hand panel. All your bet slips are displayed all the time in the right hand side of the website.
Betfair provides free downloadable apps for Android and iOS users from iTunes and Google Play Store. The app is an easy way to bet on the go with easy Back and Lay options on the exchange and in-game betting on the sportsbook. Even without the app, the mobile-friendly version of the site can do the trick with a beautifully designed dynamic display for all sizes of handheld devices. The only concern for the Betfair website is its slow loading time. Thanks to being content rich, it takes a good while to load certain pages if you do not have high-speed internet.
Quality customer support is paramount for any online sportsbook or betting exchange. For an entity as big as Betfair, the need for fast and useful customer support is even higher. While they provide the standard customer support options of phone or dropping a message, the avenues to contact them are pretty limited. Phone lines are not available 24 X 7 which is a huge surprise for an operation of this stature. You can only contact them over the phone between 7:30 and 00:30 hours.
While they encourage messaging them on Facebook, social media is hardly the place to discuss intricacies of your financial transactions. Even by dropping a message, response times are often pretty slow and could be useless if you are looking for speedy resolution of a particular problem.
All in all, Betfair is one of the sportsbook and betting exchange giants that continue to dominate the industry even today. With millions of customers thronging the platform to enjoy its great odds, we cannot deny that it is doing most things right. Easy to use website, mobile applications and great betting options on the exchange and sportsbook make betting with Betfair simple and profitable.
But the somewhat stripped down sports list, limited offers and promotions, less than savory customer support and slow cash out options ruin the party to some extent. If these issues are taken care of, Betfair could become the premier sportsbook betting exchange in the world.
| Extremely good odds that are followed and copied by numerous other betting platforms | Great spread of events for each sport offered |
| A large number of currencies supported | Existence of 20 years instills trust |
| Large options of currencies and payment methods | Good bonus for new players |
| Placing bets via phone call is supported | Offering on esports very limited |
| Website can load quite slowly | Customer support options are limited and turnaround times are slow |
| Steep service fee on some deposit methods | Slow withdrawal process |
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