If you think of it, the business model of BetFair and InTrade should be to deliver free prediction market data to the world, while leveraging trading fees on the bettors. Agree?
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I suspect that Betfair could provide some significantly revealing data as regards its betting markets; not least the workings of its horse race betting markets. I suspect that it does not do this for two reasons; first, because it would serve to cannibalise its old school horse racing data service (Timeform), and, second, because the company is generally incompetent when it comes to adding value to its core proposition. I believe that the latter point is substantiated by the fact that despite the introduction of Betfair’s radical model, traditional fixed odds bookmakers continue to flourish.
“the company is generally incompetent when it comes to adding value to its core proposition”
Interesting remark, worth thinking of.
“despite the introduction of Betfair’s radical model, traditional fixed odds bookmakers continue to flourish.”
BetFair’s share of the market is growing, but the whole market is growing, so indeed, BetFair’s competitors’ revenues are still growing, but BetFair’s revenues are growing faster. Am I right?
>> ““the company is generally incompetent when it comes to adding value to its core propositionâ€
I think it would be wrong to typify them that way. It’s a young and foolish company displaying too much arrogance.
There are forces within betfair who are right on the money but there are also people who don’t understand their own product.
These days I do most of the PR for them, and I was the person they wanted to get rid of as quickly and quietly as possible. That should tell you something.
This is Intrade’s model, and partially Betfair’s. But neither of these companies is doing anywhere near a passable job at monetizing the attention their data garner. I’m not talking about charging for the data, either. Besides the US election cycle no one gives a damn about Intrade, but during that time they have pure gold on their hands. All they have to do is capture that value by funneling it back into the stream of users that generate revenue – the traders.
Agree.
Almost as much of a no-brainer as making it easy for Google to index your markets.
BetFair is a UK company and InTrade is an Irish company. Those people don’t understand the Web well. In the future, US prediction market startups will be created, and they will be fully Web 2.0 literate.
One of the main factors that was supposed to differentiate Betfair from the traditional bookmakers was the notion of transparency. Whilst the company has been good at applying this notion vis a vis insider dealing, it has simply failed to be transparent when it comes to transaction data. This type of date should be publicly disseminated to ensure that all traders compete on an equal footing …it isn’t.