Skip to main content

Spreadfair close down

Hardly a surprise really when you think about it. Exchange betting and spread betting are the most difficult forms of betting to understand. So what happens when you combine the two? You have a concept which is bloody hard to explain and appeals to a very tiny sector of the betting public! Exchanges rely on liquidity. To get liquidity, you need lots and lots of punters. Spread firms are niche betting companies, they will never become mass market due to the credit checks etc that people require to get an account. Also, spread betting is almost completely restricted to the UK. There is no international market for it. Combining the two most difficult concepts was always going to struggle, it looks like Cantor have simply given up a business that cost too much money and was never going to make it.

On the Spreadfair website:

Dear Cantor Spreadfair Customer

Cantor Index Limited has taken the decision to close Spreadfair, its online betting exchange, to focus on its financial spread betting and CFD business.

Effective from 4 pm, 1st December 2008, Cantor Spreadfair will cease to accept new customers and will take no further opening wagers.

Any funds that you have on deposit with us remain totally secure and any funds not required to support open bets will be refunded to you immediately.

If you have any questions, please contact our customer services team on 08000 111 441.

Comments

  1. I have been a big client of Spreadfair's since they launched. I am lead to believe that the business was profitable. A management buyout was a possibility, but would have required a very large line of credit which is obviously not easy to come by at present.

    The decision to close may have been more political with Cantor not wanting to be running online gambling given the dim view in which this is held by some in the USA. Note that other Cantor online ventures also bit the dust last weekend (online casino).

    The spread betting arena is niche, but I hope and believe that an exchange could again make an appearance as it is the only counter to monopolistic and underhand practices that have been seen to develop within the mainstream spread betting companies.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for your comment. My mail was that they cut back on credit due to the state of the economy and this severely affected the liquidity.

    When dealing with parent companies with bigger aspirations, who knows what they might have been up to. The Cantor online casino closed up as well.

    To develop a spread betting exchange, they'd have to throw a lot of resources into awareness and education, something they may have thought wasn't right in the current climate.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comments, but if you're a spammer, you've just wasted your time - it won't get posted.

Popular posts from this blog

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

Betdaq.... sold...... FOR HOW MUCH???

So as rumoured for a while, Ladbrokes have finally acquired the lemon, sorry, purple-coloured betting exchange, Betdaq. For a mind-boggling €30m as 'initial consideration'. That's an even more ridiculous price than Fernando Torres for £50m, or any English player Liverpool have purchased in recent seasons! As I've written previously there are no logical business reasons for this acquisition. from Nov 29, 2012 The Racing Post reported this week that Ladbrokes are nearing a decision to acquire Betdaq. This baffles me, it really does. Betdaq are a complete and utter lemon. Their only rival in the market has kicked so many own goals over the years with the premium charge, followed by an increase in the premium charge, cost of API and data use, customer service standards which have fallen faster than Facebook share value, site crashes and various other faults. So many pissed off Betfair customers, yet Betdaq are still tailed off with a lap to go. Around the world, Betfair

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...