30th October 2001 - issue 7
1. Coral closes Play2match
Since issue 6 the biggest news is that Coral Eurobet have withdrawn their p2p site Play2match.com. Whilst they captured the attention of their audience with their unique graph, which plotted the trades interactively as events unfolded, something more than gimmicks are needed to keep the serious punter happy. In the end Play2match fell down due to their poor selection of events and relatively poor liquidity. Given time they hoped to sign up thousands of clients who would inject liquidity and therefore support a larger number of events. However, Eurobet arrived at the conclusion that to attract these clients would involve substantial investment to progress the site to break even status. Unfortunately, given their publicly stated short term intention to cut back their involvement in on line betting, Eurobet did not feel able to risk this level of investment on such an innovative but largely unproven product as Play2match.
On the positive side, for those who are interested and prepared to learn about the site, Intrade.com more than fills the gap left by Play2match. A full review of Intrade, along with an exclusive joining up offer for Bookie Free Newsreaders will feature in issue 8.
2. Flutter
As the best financed and perhaps the highest profile site Flutter made much of the running in the early days of the bookie free revolution. However, once the public started comparing the p2p format offered by Flutter with the betting exchange format offered by Betfair, they voted with their feet and Betfair started pulling away. After 18 months Flutter have finally bowed to the inevitable and moved completely to an exchange format. Whilst the Flutter exchange is unavoidably similar to the Betfair exchange, it does have a number of subtle but important differences. The first is the bet manager which you can display on the screen in conjunction with the current event. This displays all of your bets, both matched and unmatched, with the facility to instantly change the odds you are offering or seeking from your unmatched bets. This is a very nice feature currently unique to Flutter, although it does not extend to changing your stake, nor does it allow you to cancel your bet completely. To achieve this you need to go into ‘my stuff' and cancel your bet there. Flutter still lacks a profit and loss account for each event which to me a significant omission, although Tom Johnson, new product development manager at Flutter assures me this will be coming soon. In summarising the changes Tom says:
'We made some major changes to the site in the middle of September which were aimed at giving users more speed and more control in their betting. The focus was therefore on a faster interface for managing and placing bets. These developments also provided a base from which to add more functionality without hampering the ease with which users can manage their betting. Next on the functionality list are some features aimed specifically at users
wanting to bet in-running.'
Overall these are great improvements which are difficult to fault and seem to have been very warmly received by members on the forum. In terms of liquidity, Betfair has had such a great head start over Flutter with their exchange format that they are currently way ahead. This is also the case with the number of markets available for each event, Betfair offering far more than Flutter. There is, however, little doubt that this gap will close as Flutter use their marketing might, and particularly as Flutter's commission at 2.5% is compared with the standard Betfair rate of 5%. Betfair certainly retain the initiative however, as they always have the option of reducing their commission to the same rate as Flutter if competitive forces dictate. So far there has been no sign of Betfair having any need to do this.
3. The end of betting tax
UK betting tax ended on October 6 th . It seemed to have an immediate effect with the high street bookies reporting a 20% increase in off course turnover. The tax on the customer has been replaced by a tax on the bookie's profits. The government hope that the increase in betting turnover that will result will ensure that this tax makes up for the lost revenue from the old tax. In reality the government had little choice with the growth of offshore betting. The Government are hoping that the cessation of betting tax, along with the changes being brought about as a result of the Budd report will reverse the movement of the betting giants offshore.
For bookie free bettors it should have no real impact. Firstly, because we rarely use bookies, and secondly because when we do, we use the online bookies, who have been offering tax free on line betting for some time. It's difficult to imagine the scenario where you would pop into your local bookies to check out their prices when you have so many options available at your fingertips online.