Betfair are the world’s biggest betting exchange and have been in the industry now since 2000. The company have almost single handily revolutionised the way that we now bet online and a lot of features such as cash out betting have been as a result of the way that betting exchanges such as theirs works.

These days they are so much more than just a betting exchange. They also offer a very successful more traditional sportsbook, giving you the best of both worlds. In terms of a well-rounded betting option, you will find it almost impossible to find anyone that even gets near to Betfair, let alone top them.

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The Betfair Website

There is a heck of a lot to take in when you first walk through the doors at Betfair and for those of you who are new to gambling, it might be a little overwhelming. But, it honestly needn’t be and after a short time browsing you should be able to find your way pretty easily.

The first obstacle that you’ll need to overcome, if you can indeed call it that, is whether you are looking to bet within the sportsbook or the exchange. If you are familiar with sports betting already then the sportsbook should be pretty easy to work out. The exchange will offer a new look to how you bet and options such as ‘back’ and ‘lay’ will mean that you are able to essentially become your own bookmaker.

The site design these days is iconic and it looks great. The ability to jump between markets quickly and also locate betting odds with the light blue background is a great feature in our opinion. The exchange follows the same theme and the design for this hasn’t really changed since the company started, which is testament to how right they got things early on.

Of course, you’re going to be able to get all this on your mobile as well via the app. There used to be separate apps for both the sportsbook and the exchange but these days it’s all linked into one, which makes it so much easier to use.

Betting Markets

The sportsbook gets the lion share of betting markets, and what a range they have. What’s great is that it’s not all weighted towards football and horse racing, even though they are the two biggest sports on site. Tennis betting is simply huge here and we would assume that they have the biggest range for this, cricket and golf from the tests that we have run.

The exchange works a little differently in that there are fewer markets to choose from, but it’s all about the liquidity on site. For those that aren’t too familiar with this, it essentially means the number of people that are willing to both back and lay a certain bet at a certain price. As you are betting against other punters, it’s simply Betfair’s role to set up the market and then the money comes in from the users.

The exchange is unrivalled in terms of size. The likes of Betdaq offer alternatives for higher profile sports and games, such as Premier League football, but outside of these they really struggle to get the volume of bets that allow you to find the same really great odds.

Live Betting & Streaming

Live betting is another area where Betfair really excel. There’s a massive range of markets to choose from, but more importantly, they offer it over a number of sports.

The live betting section is linked with their match centre and their live view. This offers real time statistics and also a great game analysis showing you exactly what’s happening at any point in the match. The betting markets are all nicely linked in, allowing you to bet as you watch.

We think that they were the first bookmaker to offer free live streaming online, although don’t quote us on that. These days they are definitely one of the best and provide streams of thousand of matches every year. These streams will also integrate into the live betting section, which is another great feature.

Banking

There are a plethora of deposit options at Betfair, including debit cards, e-wallets and bank transfers. Each of them are pretty painless, but it’s worth noting that when using PayPal that’s linked up to a MasterCard you may incur some issues, so they recommend just using that MasterCard straight to your account. A benefit of their merger, you can deposit funds in cash into your account at Paddy Power shops, the minimum that you can do is £10.

There are no fees when either depositing or withdrawing and transaction times can range anywhere between just a few hours (e-wallets) up to 7 working days (cheque/ bankers draft).

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