We’ve been matched betting for quite some time now and it has been very profitable. Of all the side hustles we run, this is by far and away the biggest earner.
Through our journey into matched betting a few websites have been crucial. Oddsmonkey (see our review here) has been our guide and helped us find the right bets to place. But the betting exchanges have been absolutely vital too. And part of the journey has been working out which one is best.
In this article we’re going to review the two that we’ve spent the most time and money with: Betfair and Smarkets. They’re also the two that seem to be the most popular.
There are pros and cons for both. In this article we’ll give you our view of them, and tell you which is best.
What is a betting exchange?
Many of you will already know this – in which case skip on to the section below. But if you’re not so familiar with betting exchanges, it’s worth knowing what they are.
In short, a betting exchange is a market place where you can both back and lay bets.
Back bets are what a normal usually puts on with a bookmaker. Usually the exchanges will give you better odds on these bets than you’d get with a bookmaker. They can do this as you’re being paired up against other punters, and a better price results.
Lay bets are what the ‘back bets’ are matched against in a betting exchange. This is where you’re acting as the bookmaker and offering odds to another punter. Crucially, this can’t be done at a normal bookmaker and it’s our ability to do this at an exchange that makes matched betting possible (and profitable).
Lay bets are used either to reduce losses on qualifying bets, or to lock in maximum profits on free bets.
If you’re really feeling brave, it is also possible to use the exchanges to trade bets and make money that way. But we’ve been using the betting exchanges for matched betting only. So, let’s explore which of the two main exchanges, Betfair vs Smarkets, is better.
History & Reputation
Even if you’re not into matched betting, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Betfair. They are a pretty sizeable company who have been around since 2000 and merged with Paddy Power back in 2015. Betfair also has a sports book and an online casino, like normal bookies.
In comparison, Smarkets is a relative newcomer. It was founded in 2008 and has offices in London, Los Angeles and Malta. It might be less well known, but it is very popular with matched betters for a few good reasons.
Fees
Here’s where there is a clear difference between the two exchanges. The fees on Smarkets are a lot lower than on Betfair:
Betfair’s commission rate is really high compared to other exchanges. On both exchanges, you only pay commission on your winnings, but you still want to minimise the amount you’re having to pay the exchange.
5% is an awful lot of money for Betfair to charge, just to match you up with another punter. Admittedly, Betfair will reduce the fees down towards the levels that Smarkets operates at, but only if you place quite a considerable amount of bets with it. If you’re not doing a serious amount of volume through the exchanges, the lower fees will be out of reach.
In fees, Smarkets is the clear winner. But that doesn’t mean you should rule out Betfair completely.
Size
In terms of size, Betfair and Smarkets are both big players. A lot of people assume that Betfair is the bigger of the two, having been around for longer.
But it’s easy to do a comparison of Betfair vs Smarkets. Both exchanges show how much money has been placed with them on a particular event. It’s not exactly a scientific study, but look how much was staked on each exchange on one of the largest betting events in the UK – the Grand National 2019:
This shows two things. Firstly, they’re both handling an enormous number of bets (and the above numbers were both taken 5 hours before the start of the race – so the number would have been much higher!). But secondly, Smarkets dwarfs Betfair when it comes to the key events.
You might ask why the size of the betting exchange is important. It’s simply that the more liquidity a market has, the easier it is to fulfill your bet at the price you want. In main events (such as the winner of the grand national) both exchanges should have sufficient liquidity. But where the betting gets a bit niche, you might find that one exchange has more action than the other, so it can be worth checking both.
Range of Bets
Betfair tends to have more of the ‘outright winner’ bets. Such as the top goalscorer in a particular tournament. Or the top try scorer in the 6 nations. That kind of thing.
Smarkets, on the other hand, comes into its own with the football accumulators (or ‘accas’, for short) that it offers. Basically, it’s very complicated – as well as time consuming – to lay an acca constructed of multiple separate bets. But Smarkets allows you to lay ready-made accas that it has put together, and these mostly match against the bookmaker offers, which allows you to make money.
Betfair is lacking any football acca betting options. We think this might be something they look at for the 2019/20 season as Smarkets seem to do a lot of business on these types of bet. In the Betfair vs Smarkets battle, this gives Smarkets another little edge.
Ease of Use
Betfair was the first exchange we tried at The Money Mountain, largely on the recommendations of Oddsmonkey. It has a fairly simple to use interface which shows the bet, the odds and tells you your liability if you make said bet (you’ve already selected this using the odds matcher or calculator).
Betfair makes it easy for you to place bets as well as monitor and record them. The “Profit/Loss” section shows you your bets both per market and individually so you can track your profitability for each bet very easily.
Here’s an example some “Match Odds” bets for Montenegro v England:
You can see the profit / loss on each market and go into each particular bet to see how much profit or loss you made.
Smarkets is a little less clear. It aggregates all your bets into one line item and that makes it a little more difficult to work out your profit or loss on each individual bet. It’s not a fatal flaw though.
One other minor detail that we noted is that Betfair won’t let you place a bet for less than £1. That’s annoying, when every now and then Ladbrokes will throw you a bone of a free £1 bet.
Offers
Both exchanges tend not to have a great amount in the way of offers. They tend to leave the offers to the bookmakers. The betting exchanges would rather compete on having the best odds available.
That said, Smarkets does offer a £10 bonus when you sign up for a new account and deposit cash (using this link). They don’t tend to provide much in the way of ongoing offers though.
Betfair do tend to provide better ongoing offers (including some money-back offers) in addition to a decent sign-up offer. This link will take you to their latest sign up offers – we recommend doing the exchange offer rather than the sportsbook one, unless you really know what you’re doing.
Summary – Betfair vs Smarkets
In the battle of Betfair vs Smarkets, both exchanges have their strong points and at the end of the day it will boil down to personal preference. One man’s Harry Kane is another man’s Emile Heskey.
Here at The Money Mountain, three of us use betting exchanges for matched betting. Two of us are keener on Smarkets, and the other prefers Betfair. So, it’s very much each to their own.
Smarkets is a clear winner based on fees alone, though. It is more flexible and allows you to make more and keep more of your money, which is really all we’re interested in at the end of the day. Most of us aren’t doing this for the love, we’re doing it because we want to make more money.
What we can categorically say, however, is that it’s worth signing up to both exchanges as having two good betting exchanges gives you many more options. We use the Oddsmonkey oddschecker (see the review here) and find that sometimes better odds are on Smarkets, and other times they’re on Betfair. It’s better if you have the flexibility to use either.
Let us know which one you prefer.
If you’re ready to sign up, please consider doing so through the following links (which will pay us some small commission to help this site run, and be no additional cost to you).
Smarkets – you will get a £10 referral bonus through this link when you deposit money.
Betfair – this link will allow you to choose your new customer offer