Online Betting Routes Around Bookies
from the those-market-things... dept
There used to be a lot of hype about how the internet was going to do away with the need for "middlemen". It turns out that never happened, because there actually are reasons why many middlemen exist. However, if the internet can make things more efficient, or move some of the burden around, then it probably does make sense. That appears to be what's happening in the UK with an online betting site that takes bookies out of the equation and lets people connect directly to one another to make bets on sporting events. Whereas a bookie makes money on the odds they set, this site just takes a commission off of winnings, letting the people making the best set their own odds. In other words, it's a real exchange, modeled on the stock market, with buyers looking for sellers (and vice versa) as opposed to one central bookmaker taking bets based on odds they set.
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Look out for big italian guys
I'd be real nervous getting into a business that has been historically dominated by organized crime. They might not be too happy with the idea of a little competition.
disclaimer: The above post was based solely on my 'The Sting/'The Godfather'/etc. fed stereotypes.
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Re: Look out for big italian guys
On the otherhand this is the prefect way to take organized crime out of the equation...
...I mean after all, a large majority of the betting market is simple office politics testostone induced feuding and jousting.
It's the perfect way to let that moron in marketing have it for not knowing the impact that the injury roster has on the final outcome of a game.
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Fake users
Couldn't bookies still create fake user accounts to manipulate the payouts anyway?
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Re: Fake users
I don't think you're understanding the concept...
You want to place a bet for an unknown event with a friend, or a sibling or annyoing uncle joe.
Both of you put your money down and betfair.com and the winner gets paid after betfair.com takes their cut. Collecting on off-hand bets is really hard; this makes it easy. There is absolutly no way and, more importantly, any reason for bidfair.com to try to manuplate anything (other than the nuber of bets that get made therough their site). Because the betting would be binary, zero sum event without odds, there's not that much to manipulate.
Sure there are variations on the model, but that's the ideal p2p betting system that kind of makes concept of legal vs. illegal betting irrelivant (...and one of the reasons that office pools still exist around superbole time).
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