Betfair Exchange Review

Review Sections
About Betfair Exchange	Soccer
Horse Racing	Tennis
Cricket	Liquidity
Commissions	Comaprison
Additional Features	Website & App
Account Settings	Deposits & Withdrawals
Support & Contact Info

About

Betfair was launched in the year 2000 and is regarded as the largest online betting exchange in the world! By operating as an exchange it allows players to place both back and lay bets against each other instead of a standard bookmaker taking on the bet, this set-up often translates into better odds, higher profits and a more enjoyable betting experience for all players.

Due to the huge customer base Betfair has, users rarely are unable to get their bets matched as liquidity is generally very good. Add on to these already great exchange features, available cash out at exchange odds alongside a telephone betting service and 24/7 help and support, it becomes clear that Betfair is a force to be taken seriously.

In this Betfair Exchange review, we will look at what makes Betfair so special for users within New Zealand.

Betfair Exchange Sports & Betting Markets

Using an exchange such as Betfair grants customers access to a large number of sports and special events to bet on. This excellent range includes the New Zealand National football league, the New Zealand Rugby League, international cricket fixtures including the ICC World Championship, European & Worldwide football leagues, golf, tennis and many other sports including Australian football!

Soccer

With full coverage of the New Zealand National League in addition to many other popular leagues worldwide, Betfair is the ideal place for soccer betting. Everything from the winner of the match, BTTS and the correct score are all available along with many more.

Finding your favourite soccer games on Betfair is simple thanks to the user-friendly soccer pages which allow filtering by country, league and even if a particular game is in-play or being played later on that same day.

Horse Racing

Betfair is world renowned for horse racing thanks to extensive coverage of top meetings including the New Zealand Cup, the Wellington Cup Carnival, the Auckland Cup Week and the Hawke’s Bay Spring Carnival amongst others.

Looking further afield we see many big international meetings including the Grand National and Cheltenham Festival in the UK, the Kentucky Derby and Breeders Cup in the USA and many other big meetings across other racing nations including Australia, Hong Kong and South Africa are also available.





 

Not only can we back and lay horses to win and or place from this page, but also have access to a huge wealth of stats and form information simply by clicking on any horse.

Tennis

Tennis is another very popular sport at Betfair with many of the world's professional and major tournaments covered including the ever popular ASB Classic in Auckland amongst other international events such as Wimbledon in the UK and the US Open. A good range of tennis markets is also available to bet on including:

• Match Winner


• Set Winner


• Games Over / Under


• Correct Score


• Winner & Over


• Odd / Even Games


• Plus others...

Cricket

Cricket has for a long time been a popular sport on the Betfair exchange with coverage of many great competitions including the T20 World Cup, The Ashes and numerous smaller tournaments all making up a solid cricket offering.

Cricket markets commonly available on Betfair include:

• Match winner


• 1st innings total runs


• 2nd innings total runs


• 1st innings 6 over total


• 2nd innings 6 over total


• Completed match


• Plus many more...

Liquidity at Betfair

When choosing a betting exchange over a traditional bookie, the issue of liquidity and available market depth is one that needs to be considered very carefully! 

Exchange liquidity is basically the amount of money in bets which have already been matched on any given market, a useful figure which will help betting exchange users determine how easily a bet can be placed and subsequently matched.

Market depth is the amount of money available for any given selection, this figure is also important as it will determine how much exchange users can bet on or against any given selection. In markets where we see poor market depth we might also see a big spread in the values of odds, this could ultimately mean having to take lower odds to get a larger bet on and is often one of the biggest disadvantages of using an exchange!

If we have a look at an example of a big international sporting fixture, in this case the The Open 2021 golf championship, we can begin to assess how good the liquidity actually is at Betfair:



Above, we see over $3.3 million has been matched and over $19k is currently available for backing the favourite, John Rahm.

NB - Whilst betting exchanges such as Betfair won't enforce a “max bet” limit like many bookies do, we are still somewhat limited by these amounts of money mentioned above. For example, to get more than $6107 on Rory Mcllroy above would mean taking some of the money at slightly lower odds (23 instead of 24 in this particular case)!

Commissions at Betfair

Unlike a more traditional bookmaker, betting markets at Betfair are subject to a commission being paid on any winning bets (losing bets are always free of any commission at Betfair).

The base rate of commission for sports and international racing at Betfair is 5%, although take note that this commission varies between 6% and 10% on various Australian racing markets depending on the state in which they are run (as can be seen in the graphic below):



Even though exchange commission might seem expensive at first, it is worth noting that the enhanced odds usually available when exchange betting will almost always mean you can still win bigger at an exchange versus a traditional bookie!

Comparing the Value Available at Betfair

One of the best features of Betfair is that exchange betting tends to offer much better odds and with this much better payouts than traditional bookies might. Even Betfair’s own marketing suggests that they have the best pricing on horse racing a massive 96% of the time!



To see this value in action we can compare the offering at Betfair to one of the world's leading betting companies, Bet365, this will allow us to see a representative example of the value on offer.



In the example above we see the top 5 finish market for the 2021 golf Open Championship, the tournament favourite (Jon Rahm) is currently at odds of 3.85 for a top 5 finish and the second favourite (Brooks Koepka) at 5.5.

Moving on to one of the world's most popular online betting sites, Bet365, and in this case we see the same top 5 finish market for the 2021 Open Championship below:



As can be seen above at Bet365, the favourite (Jon Rahm) is priced at only 2.75 for a top 5 finish (versus 3.85 at Betfair) and the second favourite (Brooks Koepka) at 4.5 (versus 5.5 at the Betfair exchange).

This means a $100 bet on the favourite, Jon Rahm, finishing in the top 5 at the 2021 Open Championship would pay out an additional $110 at Betfair in this instance - even with 5% commission taken away this is still considerably higher!

Other features

With generally better odds aside, one of the other big features of using Betfair is for the cash out feature, a feature which will allow you to cash out any bet at exchange prices all the way up to an event becoming in-play.

Other bookies do offer cash-out functionality, however, this is often solely at the discretion of the bookmaker, and this functionality can be removed without any notice being given! With Betfair, the cash-out functionality is based upon the exchange prices and liquidity meaning, so long as such liquidity is present, Betfair customers will be able to cash out bets at the current exchange prices.

Telephone betting is also available, customers with an account can call the dedicated telephone betting line 24/7 to place bets (there is a minimum $50 bet size when using this service versus the standard $5 minimum via the Betfair website).

Betfair App and Website

A nicely designed website and smartphone app are fast becoming essential for any bookie or exchange operator and help deliver the best possible experience to their customers.



Thankfully, Betfair have started off well in this regard with a very well designed and easy to navigate website. 

All of the available sports on offer can easily be navigated using the main sports markets menu on the left or more popular sports found via the “quick links” menu on the right. The main homepage itself makes finding popular sports and big events easy and this includes making visible the next few horse races as well as any other big events which are in-play at time of viewing the site.



As well as the excellent website interface, the Betfair app itself is a great way of keeping in touch with the markets at Betfair and in helping to manage any open bets you might have whilst on the go. Available on both iOS and Android devices it is consistently rated as one of the best betting apps available and is a really valuable addition to all Betfair customers.

Managing Your Account at Betfair

One of the big advantages of using the Betfair exchange is that it allows you to easily manage your betting activity, this is thanks to multiple reporting screens which make seeing different bet types, winners & losers, profits & losses and current bets (and market exposure) quick and easy.

Most bookies do offer some basic reports for checking betting history, it would, however, be fair to say that Betfair have gone much further than most and, as such, this makes managing betting at Betfair easy! 

Overall, a great reporting system and one of the main advantages of using an exchange for anyone who takes the managing of their betting activity seriously.

Betfair Deposit and Withdrawal Options

Deposits

Betfair currently supports deposits via AUS dollars, other currencies will be converted and may be subject to currency conversion fees.

Betfair currently supports the following payment methods for making deposits:

• Debit card (Free / instant / min. $10 deposit)*


• PayPal (Free / up to 24hrs / min. $15 deposit)


• POLi (Free / instant / min. $5 deposit) **


• BPAY (Free / 2 - 5 working days / min. $20 deposit) **


• Bank Transfer (Free / 3 - 5 working days / min. $15 deposit)


• Neteller (Free / instant / min. $25 deposit)


• Skrill (Free / instant / min. $15 deposit)


• PayID (Free / 10min to 12hrs / min. $30 deposit) **


• Osko (Free / 10min to 12hrs / min. $30 deposit) **

* Any cards issued in Australia cannot be used for withdrawals from Betfair.

** POLi, BPAY, PayID and Osko can only be used for funding an account.

Withdrawals

You can withdraw money from Betfair via several different methods:

• Debit card (Free, only when applicable)*


• PayPal (Free / up to 24hrs / min. $15 withdrawal)


• Bank Transfer (Free / 3 - 5 working days / min. $15 withdrawal)


• Neteller (Free / 1 - 2 working days / no min)


• Skrill (Free / 1 - 2 working days / no min)

* Any cards issued in Australia cannot be used for withdrawals from Betfair.

Help and Support

Betfair has a great help portal called ‘The Hub’ which features numerous help and support articles on using the Betfair exchange and its many features.



If you need further support from the Betfair help team then initial contact can be made 24/7 via the following options:

• Live chat (for logged-in customers)


• Email: service@betfair.com.au


• Phone: +61 (0) 800 238 324