Betfair secures coup with Yahoo!
- Added:
- Jan 31, 2005
Yahoo! Betting, to be launched in March, will feature a custom-built exchange, offering Yahoo! users an easy to use and "consumer friendly" betting platform. Yahoo! Betting will be built and managed by Betfair and will be fully integrated with the main Betfair exchange.
The deal is described by Betfair as bringing the betting exchange model to the masses. The betting exchange has proved a huge success with punters since it hit the market in June 2000 and, in the year to April 2004, published operating profits of £11.9m.
Betfair currently has some 300,000 registered customers, however the deal with Yahoo! will see the exchange exposed to the portal's huge customer base, which numbers some 10.6m unique users.
The major difference with the Yahoo! exchange will be in the way odds are presented. Betfair uses a digital model, which can be off-putting to punters who have to convert digital odds into their more common fractional equivalent. However, Yahoo! Betting will feature only the fractional odds.
Yahoo! UK currently has a betting section, although this area of its site has, to date, offered only odds comparisons, supplied by Oddschecker.
In addition, Betfair and Yahoo! are to launch a new, co-branded exchange, allowing Yahoo! customers to take advantage of Betfair's product benefits, including "better value and greater betting choice", according to the exchange.