Betfair Review

FULL REVIEW - Betfair (8.91)

Betfair is a player-to-player betting site. No bookies are involved, so you get better odds and bigger payouts. Punters have the ability to set their own odds and can choose to bet for (back) or against (lay) an outcome.

Betfair provides extensive coverage of events, including a wide range of sports (especially good coverage of football and horseracing because of Betfair's UK roots), financial bets, politics and novelty bets. Betfair also offers live in-play betting, Poker, a zero house edge Casino and numerous exchange games.

Betfair charges a commission on your net winnings on a market. If you have a net loss on a market you do not pay commission. Commission is calculated by multiplying your net winnings by the Market Base Rate (MBR). For example, if you win £100 on a market with an MBR of 5%, you will pay £5 in commission. However, you can earn discounts from this rate for betting more. The size of this discount, or your Discount Rate, is determined by the number of Betfair Points you have accrued on your account.

If you are a UK registered customer you are betting through the UK exchange, which means that your bets are being matched by other Betfair customers. In this case, although Betfair knows who is on each side of every bet matched, you never know who you are betting against, as it may be a number of people matching your one bet. If you are registered with Betfair from outside the UK you are betting directly against Betfair rather than other Betfair customers , but in all cases your privacy and the confidentiality of your bets is maintained by Betfair's secure site.

Betfair customer service has a quick response time, and the site also features an in-depth FAQ guide, to help newcomers who may not be familiar with exchange betting .