automated bookmaking - soon there will be no-one left!

At the International Gaming Exhibition in London this week, I've been looking closely at some of the modern bookmaking systems. Companies such as BetRadar supply real-time odds feeds from over 250 bookmakers spread around the world, and then you can generate your own odds from that. Set your margins, choose the bookies you want to follow, post the prices, turn on the monitoring which tracks market changes from as few or as many bookies as you like, and you're done. Very few bookies do not take this service, although most just use it to keep an eye on the opposition in real-time, and use it to track mistakes (alerts pop up when a match start time is different to other firms) and potential arbitrage/sure bet opportunities. Dozens of smaller firms - the ones listed on odds comparison sites but you never see any of their marketing etc - do all this with virtually nobody at the controls. Other companies like Entraction and Odds Matrix can offer you a 'bookie in a box' product, a white-label service that can be entirely automated.

Fascinating stuff, but you wonder how long it will be before nobody knows how to set the odds on their own! Between these services and Betfair, there are very few genuine odds compilers out there.

If you'd like some advice on setting up your own bookmaking business in this field, whether it is stand alone or as an addition to another product such as a poker room. you can contact me via the address on my profile, or make a comment and leave your details (I won't publish it).