Because the BetFair trading engine handles a huge number of small bets, they had to lower its cost per transaction.
Chris F. Masse November 22nd, 2007
Matt Carter (Director of the Advanced Technology Group at BetFair), interviewed by Silicon:
Matt Carter, Betfair director of architecture and advanced technology, explained to silicon.com customer trends are moving towards a high volume of small-value bets, which, in turn, produce small-value commissions. He said the only solution was to develop a system that could process exponentially more transactions for a lower cost than traditional betting engines. [Matt] Carter said: “It wasn’t a case of whether we needed to do this, we have to do it. It’s a question of survivability.”
- Business , Exchange / Market Liquidity , Exchanges & Markets
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[...] in Hammersmith, can go so low? It’s unbelievable. There is a striking dichotomy between the excellence of their information technology team and the crassiness of the people who speak out for [...]
[...] Behind all this is the reduction of the derivative trading costs. And, in my view, that goes hand in hand with the existence of generalist prediction exchanges that are allowed to have the widest offerings possible (including sport event derivatives). Indeed, prediction exchanges that would be confined to some topics only (politics, current news, finance) would have higher transaction costs, which does not seem to be the right direction of history. [...]
[...] betting operators (the big British bookmakers). They attack the problem with a dual approach: they try to lower the IT costs associated with each bet transaction (see FlyWheel Lite), and they try to spot and exploit their most costly customers (hence the [...]
[...] betting operators (the big British bookmakers). They attack the problem with a dual approach: they try to lower the IT costs associated with each bet transaction (see FlyWheel Lite), and they try to spot and exploit their most costly customers (hence the [...]