The Betfair USA exchange is relatively new when compared to its European counterpart which was formed in the year 2000. In this Betfair review, we will look at the reasons why Betfair USA is unique compared to sportsbook betting platforms.
With Betfair USA you have the chance to be a bookmaker as well as a bettor! The vast opportunities within the betting markets, and unique in play-action make this form of betting refreshing for both newbies and very experienced bettors, too. Read on to find out why Betfair USA can change your view on betting too.
The Betfair Sign Up Offers that are available come in the form of a “risk-free bet”. If you bet (*and lose), up to $200 or less, you will get the $200 back as a betting bonus. Please note, the initial bet must lose, in order to qualify. Of course, you do not have to commit and play with the whole $200, you can deposit as little as $10 and receive a $10 Betfair Bonus Code instead. Any amount between $10 and $200 qualifies. The bonus must then be used within 15 days. There is also a no-deposit bonus available, however, this is limited to $10. When looking for the correct Betfair Promo Code or Betfair Bonus Code it is wise to refer to the terms and conditions, to check the latest price restrictions for qualifying bets.
For more great bonus offers, head over to our bet365 sign-up offer and William Hill bonus guides.
Placing a bet on Betfair is very easy to do, even for someone with no prior betting experience. This is thanks to the simplicity of the interface structure. Some people do argue that the Betfair interface has not changed much since it first burst onto the scene 20 years ago in Europe. However, in some cases less is certainly more when it comes to gambling on sports.
The interface has changed as technology has improved, but the main display has remained with the same theme. The sportsbook contains a striking yellow and black coloured interface, which is good for concentration, the background is gray in color and most of the odds are highlighted in a rich blue color, which is clear and appealing.
Further into this page we will show you all the exchange has to offer when it comes to the interface and the huge amount of customization available within the wide choice of settings, including betting apps.
The exchange interface mainly consists of a gray background, and simplifies things by providing two colours for betting with. The reason for this is because you have two options of bet to choose from, unlike with a sportsbook, which is the same as a standard bookmakers’ website. As mentioned earlier, with a Betfair exchange, you can bet on something to win, and also lay something.
Laying something is actually betting on a selection to lose, therefore, for clarity purposes, Betfair have created a color scheme where: blue is for back bets and pink is for lay bets. They have done this to try and eliminate as many errors as possible. We have found this color scheme helps avoid confusion. You can bet on something to win with the blue back bet option, you can also bet on something to lose, with the pink lay bet option. You are effectively betting against another person, and this is where this money available to bet on is coming from. This is called “liquidity”, we will discuss liquidity further down this page.
We said earlier that less is more, and this is certainly the case here. Just because the web page looks quite basic when you first glance at the menu, you’ll be fooled when you dive a bit deeper and realise how each menu usually contains a subcategory underneath for that selection.
This enables bettors to drill-down even further into this selection and explore deeper into the markets that exist, as well as the data that is available to study, instantly. This is fantastic for bettors, because it allows them to stay on the Betfair website, and not have to trawl around other websites, or refer to other material, when needing to refer to data to make their mind-up.
When clicking on a race or selection, this will present another option of clicking for more information. For example, after clicking a race time, you can select a horse’s name and it will present you with the previous runs from this horse, usually displaying 6 of its previous most recent runs, or less if the horse is young and/or has not raced much. Additionally, there is also a video icon to the far right-hand side of each horse’s name. This free feature is amazing. It allows you to watch that race that the form is referring to; as they say, a picture tells a thousand words, a video tells the story!
Lastly, on the left-hand side of the horse’s name, you can view a graph that displays the market behaviour for the horse. This does not just apply to horse markets. It applies to every market that Betfair USA has available.
Being a responsible betting operator, for many years, and having gained plenty of experience already overseas, Betfair USA are advanced in the fact that they offer limitations that can be set with depositing and withdrawing. However, the ceiling is still quite high if you wanted it to be, and you can deposit and withdraw as much as $100,000 a month.
Betfair USA are provide many ways to add funds to your Betfair exchange account, such as:
Depositing on the website is a breeze, the depositing and withdrawals button is easily accessible, no matter what market you are currently looking at. This applies to desktop and mobile. So, there’s never any need to venture outside of the page you’re currently in, which we have found very useful!
Betfair USA has some outstanding states that are due to receive the Betfair services soon. This is due to the recent changes in betting laws within the USA. Therefore, for the benefit of clarity, we will base our experience on the New Jersey customer service we received.
As with most betting operators, the most common choice of contacting is the live chat facility. In New Jersey, the live chat agents are accessible between the hours of 09:00am and 02:00 am, eastern time. Which is fair enough, pending a few hours that some “night owls” may have to miss out on! We hope they improve this service to 24 hours soon.
Email contact is also possible. The reply timeline was quite impressive, we witnessed a two-hour window being the most common reply time. If social media is your thing, Betfair USA can also be contacted via Facebook or twitter. This method has proved to have quite a quick response and is very commonly used.
Betfair is properly licenced in the United States, as well as many countries worldwide, too. They have built a reputation worldwide for being a trusted, reliable brand. But, Is Betfair secure? Is Betfair reliable? Betfair uses a very high standard of encryption technologies for its platform, which covers both the sportsbook and exchange.
Betfair complies with all the relevant laws and regulations and is firmly established in many countries globally. Betfair ensures its users that security is taken of utmost importance. Betfair is a very advanced platform, once you have used it for a while you will certainly also agree with us. Betfair, just like every other website, whether small or absolutely huge, will occasionally (and probably rarely) experience downtime. We did not experience any of this during our lengthy testing process but it is always a possibility whatever site you visit!
There is a rewards and loyalty program with Betfair, but as mentioned earlier, we do advise to check this before entering. Things can change quickly within the world of online betting and promotions/offers available. So, this piece of advice is golden. There is no sign of a VIP program at the moment, but Betfair USA is still in its “early days” and things could change.
However, we noticed they have a rewards plan for exchange accounts that features several options of regards tiers, listed below:
There are currently 3 tiers, offering different levels of rewards. Please note, these reward values are often likely to change. Here’s the three tiers found within the Betfair exchange:
We will look a little more in-depth at the specifics of the Betfair USA exchange and give our Betfair ratings. We will also explain how the Betfair USA exchange is a totally different platform compared to sports betting. Although it contains similar markets, the odds offered are offered by other bettors. This is where a thing called “liquidity” comes into play. We have a paragraph about Betfair liquidity, below. We will also shed some light on the spectacular in-running options that not many people are aware of.
To truly appreciate the power, versatility and depth of the Betfair exchange, one must first understand how this revolutionary machine works. Because you are betting against other people, the model works very differently to a standard sportsbook platform.
After reading this page, you will be fully equipped with enough knowledge to explore for yourself. We will discuss liquidity, graphs, explain why the odds are great, show you the in-running betting, customizable settings and more!
Currently, Betfair USA are only offering betting on their horse racing markets. This is believed to be a temporary thing, as Betfair USA are still in very early stages, compared to the European version. So, for this Betfair review, we will base all writings on the horse racing markets that are available within Betfair USA.
Please note, most of the information given here will still apply to all other markets, such as Soccer, NFL, NBA, Golf, etc. When these markets are eventually added, this information will apply the same as even if the sport is totally different, it will still share the same market design on the interface; so, it will still be of use to learn.
As mentioned earlier, Betfair comes in two products: the exchange, which allows users to be a bookmaker and the option to be a normal bettor who places bets, just like a usual betting website. The other Betfair betting option is the sportsbook, which acts in the same manner as a normal betting sportsbook. It has fixed odds, where you bet on the moneyline for Team A or Team B to win, for example.
Betfair were originally only an exchange product; however, they did see a gap in the market and realised that they were missing out by not providing a sportsbook. Therefore, they subsequently went on to design this sportsbook, which is a good service in its own right.
The sportsbook does offer good odds, you can often find good value prices on a lot of the selections. The oddsmakers at Betfair sportsbook have also been known to be willing to take a chance, which is a quality that we really like, when it comes to online bookmakers. More and more bookmakers nowadays fear making mistakes and being “caught-out”. Due to this fact, this leads to value prices not being so abundant in the world of sports betting, and many believe it is because traders are not given the amount of discretion that they used to have years ago.
When it comes to having good odds, it is a known fact that the betfair exchange will have better odds than any betting sportsbook 95% of the time, as a mean general average, it has been proven.
The reason for this is the standard bookmakers somehow need to work-out how they are going to profit from taking bets. They ensure this is a possibility by offering odds that do not equate to a 0% “house edge”. Instead, they make sure they have a % of “house edge”, to ensure they profit overall. In the states this is often referred to as: “Vig”, short for Vigorish, juice or under-juice, margin, or house edge. They all mean the same thing.
Put simply into layman’s terms, this means that if you did bet on every single horse, in each horse race and there was a 10% vig on every market, then the bettor would generally lose 10% of your money if this was run infinitely. 10% is probably quite a generous vigorish percentage and it is likely to be more sometimes, depending on which type of betting market you’re betting in.
However, with Betfair exchange there is no vig taken! Betfair exchange makes its money through another form of charge. Instead, the exchange takes a commission percentage from winning players only. This model has proved a massive hit in eurozone, and other countries, where Betfair is already established and even considering this percentage of Commission charge (which runs from 2% to 12% overseas), punters have generally widely-reported that they have the best odds still.
Live streaming is found on almost all horse racing. The only time you won’t find a live stream on a horse race is if it is a horse race that is streamed from an obscure country overseas. The live stream runs well, has minimal lags, and pops-up in a separate viewing window that can be customized in size, which is great.
You can also have multiple windows open, if you wish. Sometimes, especially on a busy period over a weekend, races can become delayed and therefore clash, which can result in races running at the same time. This is a perfect time you may wish to opt for multi-screen. There is, however, a qualifying criteria, as to whether you can view each race. Depending on where you are viewing from. For Betfair USA, it is usually $2.00 per race.
Have you ever had a bet on a horse that is leading the race right up until just before the finish line, only to get beaten by a very slim margin? It is heartbreaking to say the least.
Welcome to the in-running betting option of Betfair exchange. You will need to pay attention to the settings instructions carefully. In-running betting is not exclusive to Betfair exchange only. You can often bet in-running with a general betting sportsbook, however, it is often hard to find in-running on horse racing races.
The reason for this is that with sports books the odds have to be created by the odds maker who works at the sportsbook company. Therefore, it is quite hard to be able to update these sports odds in real-time while the race is running. This is why it is a lot rarer to find in-running betting on horse racing, unlike other sports that have a longer duration to the event, such as NFL or soccer, for example.
You do not have to wait until the race starts before you can place your in-running bets on horse racing. We mentioned earlier, the vast number of customizable settings that can be found in the Betfair exchange markets. When placing a horse racing bet, you can tick a box called “keep”. This is found on the betslip when you initially attempt to place your back or lay bet on the Betfair USA exchange. The default setting when placing an exchange bet is not keep, the default setting is set to what is called “cancel”. What this means is that if the bet has not been matched i.e., taken by the time the race starts the bet will be canceled.
If you wish to place an in-running bet on a horse, you simply press the option of “keep”. This ensures that the bet will still be remaining in the market while the race is running, and if the odds do touch the odds that you are requesting for it to be backed or laid, it will get matched, providing there is enough liquidity being offered. Liquidity is mentioned further down his page.
Sometimes horses are even matched at odds 1.01, in-running, which is the lowest odds that you can find on Betfair exchange sometimes but very rarely these can still be beaten. A typical example of when this would occur would be if a horse was clear and suddenly fell for an unknown reason.
There are not many times you can say this when it comes to sports betting. Betfair exchange is limitless. Providing, of course, you have the balance to bet with. Also, there needs to be enough “liquidity” for the horse, or selection you are betting on.
If you are unfamiliar with betting exchanges, you most likely do not know what this means. Because Betfair is basically betting against other people, unlike a sportsbook, other people need to be providing you with these betting odds. Sometimes, there may only be $300 available to bet on a horse selection.
Therefore, in this instance, $300 would be your limit until further liquidity was added. It is rare for liquidity not to be added somewhat “quickly”. The general rule of thumb is the bigger the race, in terms of status and prize money, the bigger the liquidity will be. Liquidity is not really an issue a normal bettor needs to worry about. This is more of a concern for real serious professional players. But, even then, Betfair has a solution for this very rare problem. Betfair do, from time to time, employ services called “liquidity makers”, these guys ensure that markets always have ample liquidity to make sure markets rarely run dry.
We think Betfair exchange is a revolutionary part of betting that will serve a purpose for every bettor, from advanced to complete beginner.
We like the fact there is no “vig”, as we explained earlier, this creates value prices 95% of the time. We like the fact that data is readily available, and we can watch race replays at the click of a button. We like the interface for its simplicity, yet surprising depth of functions.
We also recommend the Betfair sportsbook, for having value odds on sports. We like how the clear interface is easy to navigate around and there is a good choice of events to bet on.
Betfair USA most certainly has an app. The app has almost the same functionality as the desktop version. In our Betastic.com review, we look at the app, the betting markets and drop a few knowledge bombs about the Betfair exchange.
We recommend both the Betfair sportsbook and the Betfair exchange for two different reasons. The sportsbook offers a good selection of markets and has value odds that you can bet on.
The Betfair USA exchange offers a whole new bunch of opportunities and ideas, if you are only used to sportsbook betting at the moment, especially. In our opinion, Betfair exchange provides a lot more flexibility for a bettor to be able to choose the exact bet they wish to bet on. They can also opt to be a bookmaker for the first time in their life too! The in-running opportunities are also amazing.
The only downside, for now anyway, is there are no other sports other than horse racing; we predict this to change at some point soon, though.
Looking for U.S. online casinos? We’d recommend checking out our Party Casino review.
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