Betfair is one of the heavies of the industry
I never quite understood why Betfair never went the high-street route.
Its cousins like Paddy Power, Betfred, Ladbrokes did well at least in the early part of the 2000s.
Head out to the pub, have a few pints, spin a quid or two on the slot, get pumped up and then walk out to the Paddys next door to lose another 100.
Those were the days.
I don’t know.
I mean, I don’t know the math of it all.
May be Betfair was always meant to compete with the Bet365 types.
Though it’s funny that it did merge with Paddy Power in 2016 to form Flutter Entertainment (NYSE: FLUT LSE: FLTR), which is now the umbrella corporation of six brands: Betfair, Paddy Power, FanDuel, Tombola, Sportsbet and Sky Bet.
Long gone are the days of Andrew Black and Edward Wray, when they founded Betfair in 2000.
The “shark eats and rules the ocean” corporate culture is what runs in its veins now.
Don’t get me wrong.
Not once I’m saying that Betfair or that matter any one-armed bandit sellers didn’t make their fortune on the backs of the unfortunate and the vulnerable.
Ruthlessness is what matters in this business.
Nowadays they call it “Risk Management;” a soft watered-down term used to push the rich and the stupid to keep gambling more and more, making Flutter and the likes of it, all the money in the world, and kicking Sharps to the gutters, since they’re a threat to their profit margin lines.
But then as adults, the choice lies with us.
When we chose to gamble, we choose to lose.
Granted some can’t control themselves; the “problem gamblers;” a special sub-species of gullible humans who for good or bad reasons do make up the foundational base of the massive gold castles, companies like Flutter have built for themselves and their shareholders.
And keeping these hard facts in mind, I at least must respect Betfair for what it is.
My take on them must be objective.
It should be devoid of any personal bias, and construed on ground realities.
I’ve been playing there on and off since at least 2005.
There was a time period in between, may be between 2011 to 1018, where I totally forgot about them.
Got busy in the workings of life.
Never really bothered going back until a few years ago, when they bought out FanDuel – one of the two major legal sportsbooks, the other being DraftKings.
The reason I left back then was the same as others.
Lost a good bag of money on footy, 5-figures.
So, here I’m now again, doing it all over, for the sake of a review on Casino Visuals.
The signup process for me was tricky and frustrating at first
I lost access to the email I had used to sign up more than a decade ago.
I did email them about this because I know these places would shut you down for having two accounts.
They responded back a few days later, saying it would be OK, if I used a different email to register.
So, I did.
Being a legal entity (licensed from the Malta Gaming Authority and the UK Gambling Commission, plus the State Gaming Control Boards in the US and other respective regulators in other countries) it does require post-signup ID verifications.
It’s mandated by the regulators everywhere.
Not like BetOnline or Bovada; who by the way are genuine sportsbooks.
Pure breed, even if they’re offshore.
As expected, once I uploaded the ID and the address scan, their system automatically suspended my account a few hours later.
I knew it.
The guy who replied back to me earlier, clearly had no idea about Betfair’s policies.
He was just doing his 9 to 5.
It’s like 80% of the people working at a company waste time in office politics, doing 10 minutes of actual work.
Anyway, back and forth after a few emails, with me explaining to them that “Yes, I did have an account with you, but I have lost access to the email attached to it, so please act like gentlemen, for Christ’s sake;” one of their senior guys in the Accounts department named Mr. Randall, gave me the benefit of the doubt an reopened it.
Such a below average experience, when it came to onboarding at Betfair.
I never downloaded their app myself, didn’t need to, since I used my desktop mostly.
But, apps for both Google Play and Apple App Store are readily available.
Also, they have a nice App Directory, that has apps for all its products, such as their Sports Exchange, Automated Trading etc.
Deposits aren’t a hassle if your account is in order
Moving on to the deposits.
Which reminds me they also have a deposit limits section (thanks to the UKGC) on the sign up form.
It’s where you can literally setup the max deposit limit, meaning any attempt to deposit over that number would be rejected by their system.
It’s neat, but not unique to Betfair.
New to me, since I came back to his place after such a long hiatus.
These anti-gambling options weren’t there few years ago.
I guess I can’t complain.
Plenty of ways to deposit.
Most common ones are credit and debit cards, Neteller, PayPal, Apple Pay, other modes like Skrill and MuchBetter.
For cards it’s £5 minimum and all others are £20.
I deposited £150 to start.
I mean it’s a passable amount to revisit the place, I once frolicked about.
My card payment did not go through on the first attempt.
Not sure what caused that to happen.
The bank said, everything was fine.
But, it did go through the next day, on the 4th try, after I gave up on the first after 3 back-t0-back declines.
May have been the VPN, I was connected to.
I’m not sure.
Thing is it worked out fine in the end.
I could bet on anything and everything
The platform here is massive.
Nearly anything you can think of, a slot title, a sport, bingo, horses, dogs, turtles, lol.
Politics and celebrity babies?
Yup, sir all there.
I have always been a fan of their exchange, which I believe is how both the novice and professional sports bettors should pursue wagering.
Not to say their standard bet-against-the-house sportsbook is also available, but then you’re at the mercy of the “risk managers” or what some call the “odds makers” working behind the desks.
It’s their call. Backing and Laying is where the true conflict-of-interest proof action is at.
You can put your money on both sides of the game.
Even hedge out your betting pool money among other exchanges, find your own little island of edge over others.
Never have to worry about the bookie playing dirty games in the background.
They just eat their small share of the cake, in the form of a commission, shut up and let you rake in the benefits, provided your lucky stars align.
I made small bets on all kinds of sports; football, tennis, cricket, golf, even the American basketball. Their exchange is particularly promising for horse and greyhound racing.
I believe Betfair even supplies odds feeds to many racetracks around the world.
You can build your own risk profile, do your own accumulator bets, watch the games on live streaming, play professional poker, or eviscerate your bank balance on a never-ending list of slot games. Spin the roulette in their Live Casino or test your card counting skills on their Blackjack tables.
It’s pretty much a complete Vegas experience right inside your browser.
Bonuses are a dud, but it’s what the regulators want
I never took advantage of their bonuses.
Well mainly because they suck.
But, not because Betfair wants it to, but the law calls for it.
They’re capped at £30 for sportsbook which requires a £10 deposit minimum to activate.
Since I deposited £150 the first time followed by another £300 the next, bonuses were offered to me, to which I declined, since I’m privy to the wagering requirement games these betting sites play.
No thank you.
Anyways, for sportsbook it’s £30 (code ZBGC01), casino it’s £40 and 100 free spins on their pre-selected slots (code CASA10), poker has a 35% Rakeback, bingo (code BIN050) has a 200 Free Tickets and £20 Slingo Bonus, and their Exchange (code VAL225) has a £50 bonus for you to exercise your luck on.
Support can be slow or fast, depending on how one opts to contact them
Apart from my skirmishes during the signup process, I didn’t really require much support assistance during my time spent on Betfair.
You can contact them using Live Chat and Email, though they have this weird hidden page, that’s still Google-indexable and publicly viewable, listing all the phone numbers and its PO Box address for letters.
For example, according to that page, if you have an issue with your football bets, you can dial up 0844 871 0000 from within the UK or 0044 203 059 8888 (from any other country) to talk to their representatives on the phone.
They do however ask that you Tweet them your questions at @BetfairCS.
Talk about pushing Elon’s X to the limit.
I didn’t face any issue getting a payout from Betfair to be honest
I only ever withdrew £75 from Betfair.
Not my winnings, but the leftover balance after I lost all the rest on slots and sports (lost some on eSports too, I mean why not).
Minimum withdrawal amount is £0.01 penny on the cards, which on paper looks impressive, but come on, you know even the card processing cost is way more than that.
I chose the bank transfer option which did take around 5 days to get through.
Other methods can still take a few hours to a day or two.
Thing is withdrawals are not instant. And you should also anticipate some serious delays if you end up winning a big jackpot for them to finish up their “investigation,” which can take weeks in some cases.
Trustpilot and Reddit generally have more negative reviews about them
Well, above is what I as my own man had to share about Betfair, but I also did a bit walking about on sites like Reddit and Trustpilot.
Most of the Reddit ones are basically about professional bettors using their exchange platform to get an alpha.
So many threads relate to things like Acca bets, mathematics of sports betting with occasional ones touching on the topics of suspended accounts, mismatched lay and backs, slow support, their poker software and so on.
Their Trustpilot ratings are average, with 2,903 reviews based on a 3.1 score out of 5.0.
Almost all of the negative ones circle about user accounts suspended for failed ID verifications, screen freezes during play, and betting restrictions and max bet limits activated automatically by their platform if one goes on a winning streak.
They definitely shouldn’t be discounted, if anything they aren’t going away anytime soon
Betfair is a massive online betting site.
With over 4 million customers, I would imagine quite a decent number of people would put them in a negative light.
After all gambling is a losers’ game.
Long-term every one loses.
It does not matter how much of a math genius you are, given enough time, the house will always have an edge over you.
Forget about that, even playing against other players on their exchange would still end up you breaking even at best.
Consistent winnings are a pipe dream.
You can go ahead and disagree with me all you like.
I have seen people come and go all the time.
Many rich folks with Harvard degrees losing it all the NFL games; hitting hundreds of thousands on carefully articulated and well managed sports bets, and then shamefully giving it all back to the bookie over the course of next few months.
Betfair, at least its exchange does offer a genuine chance to win fair and square.
But, don’t cry a river, when you deprive yourself of the winnings to the next person who bested you.
Blaming Betfair for your shortcomings ain’t fair.
Mind the pun.