Betfair to increase cross-market liquidity sharing
Operator looking to boost liquidity in secondary markets as part of continued product development drive
Betfair has made amendments to the way its flagship exchange product shares liquidity around secondary betting markets as the operator continues to crank-up investment in product on the back of the success of Cash Out and Price Rush.
Speaking to analysts and investors yesterday afternoon, Betfair COO Mark Brooker said the firm has begun to match liquidity between separate markets in the same betting event in order to boost liquidity.
Secondary markets, such as correct score or double chance, have been prone to a lack of liquidity and Brooker, who joined Betfair in April this year, said the changes would enable its more sophisticated exchange customers to bet more using the same funds due to reduced exposure benefits .
Brooker also disclosed its Price Rush feature had driven the bets per average player per day figure up and made customers 20% more likely to remain active since its introduction earlier this year.
Price Rush and Betfair’s latest Cash Out+ feature have been the result of a continued product investment drive that Betfair yesterday revealed had seen the firm’s technology spend soar 17% to £37m in FY15, while the company had also increased its product and technology headcount by 20% to around 840 staff.
The firm disclosed it expected to release a further 30 feature updates to its products over the remained of the 2015 financial year.
CTO Paul Cutter said that 86% of Betfair’s product development spend was spent in-house compared to 53% at William Hill, with the majority of the firm’s major components developed by its teams in Hammersmith, Porto and Cluj.
Payment processing, the fixed-odds sport betting engine and the majority of its desktop and mobile games were the only items currently purchased off the shelf.