In the world of sports gambling we have learnt to accept one phrase as common knowledge. We say “the house always wins” and it seems like we acknowledge our lesser position or our disadvantageous position when we place our bets. But ever since sports betting exchanges have emerged into the sports gambling market, all this has changed.
Betting exchanges have now become so popular that they are continuously growing their share of the industry’s turnover. In fact, betting exchange sites in India or anywhere else in the world, generally see their revenues spiking in the past few years, thanks to an ever increasing bettors’ segment that is opting for ‘becoming’ the house and disintermediating bookmakers- whether traditional bookmakers or more modern, sports betting sites.
Betting exchange sites are actually gaining momentum lately, with more and more bettors turning to these peer-to-peer, decentralized platforms which allow them to be both backers and layers and which eliminate the role of sportsbooks as we know it.
But first things first. Let’s see what betting exchange sites are and how they work.
Betting exchanges are platforms that match bettors and when we say bettors we mean both those who bet on something happening and those who bet that something will not happen.
In betting terms, the first option is called ‘backing’ and the second is called ‘laying’. So, backing means that a punter bets on a cricket team to win a T20 game, let’s say, whereas laying means that the punter takes the opposite side, which is to bet that the team will not win the match. Laying, therefore, implies that the punter assumes the role that the typical bookmaker gets in a traditional betting site.
Now assume that there is not just one backer and one layer, but thousands of bettors who want to wager on a cricket game – especially now that cricket is going global after the announcement of its inclusion in the LA28 Olympic Games. The role of betting exchanges is to make sure that the betting activity is matched and settled. So, the betting exchange sites make sure that the unmatched bets are up for grabs. They are displayed so that bettors can take on them.
The basic function of betting exchange sites, therefore, is to bring together bettors who can bet against each other and not against the ‘house’. Although one of them assumes the position of the ‘house’, in practice this is so only because the layers bet on something not happening.
Particularly because there is no intermediation from bookmakers, the odds are better and so when winning the profits are more. There is no vig or juice, as it is called, integrated to the odds for the betting markets. And so, when betting, punters get to have more realistic and of course more favorable odds than those offered by conventional betting sites.
The betting exchanges have a commission for operating the platform where bets are matched, but this commission, which is on winners’ profits, is much less than the traditional bookmakers’ overround. The best exchange betting sites may actually charge very low commissions and thus be even more attractive to bettors. So, it is more efficient and more potentially profitable to use betting exchanges.
And what is more impressive about betting exchange sites is that they can be absolutely safe thanks to the blockchain technology, making things easier, faster, more secure and more transparent. Betting exchange sites are actually now in a whole new different level, where decentralization, disintermediation and efficiency become the ultimate drivers of any betting activity.
