Product Review: Betfair Sports Gambling Exchange

About the company: "Betfair is the world's leading online betting exchange, a concept it has pioneered. Driven by cutting-edge technology, Betfair enables punters to choose their own odds and bet against each other, even after an event has started. Betfair processes more than 3m transactions a day and at peak times matches more than 12,000 bets a minute."

The big pitch: You choose the odds you're prepared to accept, or lay odds for other users to bet with you!

If you've ever been involved in sports betting, you've probably cursed, like we have, the fact that if you don't like the odds on offer, you're kind of screwed. If you're convinced that the New York Yankees will beat the Houston Astros, but the line is heavily in New York's favor, you can either bet a lot of money to win not much back, or you can win not a lot of money and barely even make a profit.

But Betfair changes all that by hosting the world's first betting marketplace where you, the user, decide what odds you're prepared to take on just about any sport there is, and other users either accept those odds and take your bet, or set their own odds that they hope you'll agree to. Think of it as eBay for sports gambling odds.

The reason this is a good thing is simple - somewhere out there, there's a sucker who honestly believes the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will beat the Boston Red Sox, and they believe in that theory so much that they're prepared to offer you good odds in the hope that they'll win your money. You, on the other hand, know better, so you take that knucklehead's bet and when the Sox cream the Dev's, you clean up.

If you've ever wanted to be a sports bookie for a day but didn't have the resources to do so, this is your chance. If you've ever wanted to add a little spice to the Denver Broncos game, but didn't have any buddies around to bet with, this is your chance. And if you've ever wanted to bet on the NHL, profesisonal handball, greyhound racing, snooker, rugby league, Australian Rules football, darts, cricket, chess and whether or not the FTSE-100 will go up or down today... this is your chance.

When you make your bets, there's no tax to worry about and no commission to Betfair itself. In fact, you only ever pay a commission on your NET winnings in a given market - so if you lose, there's no fee beyond the money already lost. If you win, you can keep on gambling and pay a 1.5% commission to Betfair on your FINAL winnings, which is fair enough. On top of that, Betfair's research has found that, on average, the odds you get through their website come out to 20% better than what you get from professional bookies.

Now, if you've been reading this far, I'm thinking you have one very important question left, and it's one of those questions that are always worth asking when a casino or gambling website is involved - is the company behind it reputable. Well, let me tell you this: In 2003, Betfair won the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the UK, which allow them to carry the Queen of England's emblem on the website until 2008. This award is only given upon recommendation of the Prime Minister of England, and following a full assessment by the UK Department of Trade and Industry, so that's a pretty big deal. The half million bets lodged daily through the service are the cherry on top. Join today!

The Product Trends rating: In all honesty, we love this concept and believe it's the future of online gambling over the next decade. As thousands clamor to play online poker (which you can also do at Betfair), the next big thing will be person-to-person bookmaking, and Betfair is the only place we'd trust to do that properly and securely. Five massive stars.

To try Betfair for yourself, click the image below: