Whether you’re just getting into matched Betting, or if you’re a seasoned matched bettor, you’ll have no doubt been looking at Betfair and Smarkets in order to decide which one you’re going to use as your main betting exchange.

In this post we compare the two to help you make a decision on which one to use going forward.

Which exchange is better: Betfair or Smarkets?

This is a question that we get asked a hell of a lot, and it’s not easy to come to a conclusion.

As you can expect – and as is with most things – there are lot of positives for each side.

The good news:

There aren’t very many negatives (at all!) so it’s simply a case of deciding which one you like the most.

In order to summarise the benefits of both, we’ve came up with the following chart:

It’s all pretty self-explanatory, but more information is always required – so here it is…

Reliability

Both of the exchanges in question, Betfair and Smarkets, are pretty reliable.

However, when it comes down to which one is the most reliable, it’s definitely Betfair.

Betfair has been well established as the leading betting exchange for a number of years; they revolutionised the idea and almost single handedly took on the bookies at their own game – taking the edge away from the house and allowing punters a much more level playing field.

With this experience, they’ve grown as a company and therefore have a much bigger technical team than Smarkets does.

This means they have more IT staff and developers, but better servers too.

On extremely busy days of the year (think the Grand National, the Gold Cup, big football games etc.) Betfair will always stand strong.

However, the same cannot always be said for Smarkets.

Whilst their service is great and their website is fast, their site can have a few problems from time to time.

This can lead to bets not being placed correctly, or lay bets not being matched even when you think they are.

Smarkets are always extremely quick to rectify any problems, but sometimes it may already be too late.

If you’re using Smarkets on a busy day of the year and this happens, remember to switch to Betfair as quickly as possible to lay the bet off that you need to.

Market Range

Both sites have an extremely diverse range of sporting events being covered.

All horse races, golf events, tennis and more sports are on offer.

With football, Betfair covers virtually any professional/semi-professional football match going (including womens and youth games) whereas Smarkets has a huge range, but doesn’t cover women or youth at this time unless they’re major competitions like the world cup or the Olympics.

Betfair also has the upper-hand when it comes to the amount of markets you can bet on in each game.

For example, in football, Smarkets covers the big hitter markets – match result, correct score, half-time/full-time, over/under 2.5 goals and a few others.

Betfair has a much more diverse range of markets to bet on. The main markets they offer that Smarkets don’t – on football – is first goalscorer, anytime goalscorer, match result & BTTS (combined), cards and corners. There are too many to list here.

You can also lay off selected accumulators on Betfair by searching ‘acca’ into their search bar.

Commission

Commission is where Smarkets really come into their own. They take 2% commission on your net profits, compared to Betfair’s 5%*.

*This 5% can be reduced depending on your activity, it’s quite easy to get it down to 4.9%, but once you hit 4.8% it can be tricky to go lower, especially if you’re using Smarkets too. 

Whilst both numbers are small, the difference it makes to your monthly profits really can’t be underestimated.

Let’s look at some figures:

If you’re matched betting at a level where you’re earning £1k+, which is probably the average monthly profit level of a Profit Accumulator user, you’ll likely be placing around £100-200 worth of bets every day.

It’s safe to assume that if you’re placing that volume of bets, you’re laying off the same amount. Assuming that half of your £200 daily bets win at the exchange, so £100 worth, that £100 x 30 days in a month = £3,000 won at the exchange.

If you ‘won’ £3,000 into your Smarkets account, you’d pay a total of £60 in commission.

If you ‘won’ £3,000 into your Betfair account, you’d pay a total of £150 in commission. That’s a £90 difference in your monthly profit.  Over 12 months, this works out to over £1,000 profit!

Usability

When it comes to usability of the two sites, there isn’t much separating them.

For the amateur matched bettor, you might find Betfair’s site a little easier to navigate at first.

However, once you’re used to either of them, there isn’t much separating the two. In Smarkets, you can actually back and lay your bets in the search bar – without having to open up the market page.

Are there any alternative betting exchanges?

There are alternative betting exchanges out there, but Betfair and Smarkets are definitely the best – no doubts about it.

The main other two exchanges you’ve got are Betdaq, which is also 5% commission, and Matchbook, which is just 1% commission.

The problem with Matchbook is that they take 1% commission regardless of whether you win or lose. This doesn’t make them a terrible option; they’re worth considering if you can’t lay off your bet on Smarkets or Betfair for whatever reason.

As bookies learn to adapt to the ever changing world of betting, more and more are starting to open up their own exchanges – in addition to their regular sportsbooks. Ladbrokes is a prime example of this.

The post Betfair vs. Smarkets – Betting Exchange Comparison (Which One Is Best?) appeared first on Guide to Matched Betting.