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We recently published a special ‘Exchange & Bet Broker Guide’ – dedicated to exploring 6 of the best places for you to bet.
After all, the simple act of putting your bets on with the right exchange, broker or bookmaker can make a MASSIVE DIFFERENCE to the profits you make betting.
So to showcase exactly how this guide can help you choose the right place to bet, today you can read our interview and feature on the betting exchange: Smarkets & its mobile app SBK
Smarkets & SBK offer a low 2% commission rate (much better than the 5% base rate from their main rival Betfair) alongside great odds on several sports and markets. It’s just one example of how betting away from the main bookie suspects can make your money go further!
SBC Exchange & Bet Broker Guide Extract: Smarkets & SBK
In Brief: Smarkets is a highly recommended betting exchange and a must-have account for all serious punters, especially those active on horse racing and football. The low 2% commission rate, coupled with improved website access both via desktop and mobile has seen a huge increase in betting volume. As well as the Smarkets Exchange, you can also now access their newly launched sportsbook app, SBK.
Smarkets Welcome Offers: New Smarkets customers have a choice of two offers depending on how you wish to bet.
If using the Smarkets exchange, you can take advantage of a £10 risk free bet when signing-up. If using their SBK sportsbook app, they offer a £10 risk-free bet for every friend you refer who stakes at least £20. This can be repeated up to 50 times.
About Smarkets:
The Smarkets Betting Exchange continues to go from strength to strength with significant inroads in terms of market share and volumes of money now being traded on its exchange. It is a genuine competitor to the Betfair behemoth and continues to attract serious punters looking to get the best value bets possible.
Although they are now going head-to-head with direct rivals Betfair and Matchbook who both have moved to the same 2% commission rate for most customers (Betfair’s 2% rate is being rolled out across different countries), Smarkets have invested significant sums in developing its offering and have quite rightly developed a loyal base of customers.
The Smarkets site and app is now very user friendly and newly introduced innovations such as charting tools and conversion of odds into percentages help you quickly evaluate each betting market and make quicker, more informed betting decisions.
Features like their trade out functionality option which allows you to ‘green up’ any bets you have open alongside their instant match option for in-play betting are welcome additions. The Smarkets exchange betting app also continues to be one of the top rated for mobile betting and the site itself is stable and not prone to falling over unlike others.
Their Asian handicap football lines essentially mirror many of the markets punters in the UK can no longer obtain through the likes of Pinnacle Sports. The in-play markets for both football and racing have also seen increased volume and usage, marking them out as further options for shrewd punters. It should be noted that although improved, Smarkets, like Matchbook, still don’t quite have the breadth of markets nor volume in that others such as Betfair do.
Away from Football & Racing, Smarkets also offer markets on all other major sports and events including but not limited to: Politics, Tennis, American football, Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Golf & Rugby league. You can also bet in-play on many of these markets.
As they allude to in our interview, they don’t indulge in the ‘entertainment’ side of betting – so you won’t find links to casino or bingo as can be found plastered all over the Betfair site and most bookmakers these days. They give the firm impression of a company focused on providing the best betting experience and odds, whilst regularly introducing new features and investing in growing what they offer.
Smarkets are also listed on the major odds comparison website – Oddschecker, so you can easily cross reference their odds against both their bookmaker and exchange rivals.
About SBK
Launched earlier in 2019, SBK is the new Smarkets based bookmaker app, available to download via https://getsbk.com/ or through the Play/Apple stores.
SBK offers a solution to those of you who prefer to use a bookmaking app, rather than an exchange as the odds are identical to those available on the Smarkets exchange itself. Unless exchanges confuse you – there is likely little reason to need to have both options, so you can simply choose the way you prefer to bet.
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All told, we are fans of Smarkets, whether it be using via their Exchange or SBK app and can recommend them as a key account to hold. Well run, simple to use with a good clean user experience, there is plenty to like about what is on offer. Highly recommended.
Our Interview With Smarkets
To understand more about Smarkets, they were also good enough to answer a series of our questions in this exclusive interview….
SBC: For those unfamiliar, can you outline how Smarkets works and what it offers customers?
Smarkets is fusing sports betting, political prediction markets and financial technology into a sleek, modern betting exchange. We focus on having the fairest price and best technology, rather than prioritising entertainment and gambling like most others in the betting industry.
Also, with our new app SBK, we’ve taken the unrivalled odds of our exchange and placed them in a cleaner sportsbook format. We’re really excited about this as we have done a deal to allow us to bring it to the US market next year.
SBK was introduced as there are still clearly a lot of bettors out there that are using sportsbooks because at first glance they appear easier and clearer to use than an exchange. So, in order to cater for these customers, we have taken the unrivalled odds of our exchange and placed them in a cleaner sportsbook format.
What are the advantages of betting through Smarkets compared to other exchanges or traditional bookmakers?
Put simply, the betting exchange model means that prices are generally fairer than bookmakers, while our 2% commission (on net market profits only) means that among fellow exchanges we offer one of the cheapest and simplest commission structures. We also strongly believe we have one of the best platforms in the industry, so users have a better experience with our products.
You are up against a well established giant of the betting industry in Betfair – how has the Smarkets share of the exchange market grown of late?
Right now, the betting exchange sector is in the best shape it’s ever been in, growing by 21% from £283m to £343m between October 2017 and September 2018 according to the latest Gambling Commission statistics.
Naturally, an ever-growing sector means more competition too – but the good news for us is that we are continuing to claim more market share.
This is reflected by the numbers at the end of 2018, with our total annual traded volume rising by 46% on the previous year, to an all-time high of over £4.5 billion.
We believe that our continued growth in a competitive market is down to our innovative base as a technology company, which has allowed us to adapt quickly, continually develop the Smarkets exchange, and as a result, offer a superior experience to customers. No betting app is rated higher than Smarkets on iOS, and we believe this shows that our focus on technology and price is paying off.
Do you have any stats on how betting with Smarkets and your low 2% rates help punters obtain better value?
We compared our price (with commission) just before each of this year’s Cheltenham Festival races, and you would have netted 101% more profit with us compared to the Industry Starting Price had you put £10 on all 28 winners.
The key for any betting exchange is the volume of money traded on it – AKA the ‘liquidity’. How does this compare with your rivals and how has this grown over the past year since our last update?
Liquidity and volume have grown enormously in recent years, especially on the most popular sports like football, horse racing and tennis. During marquee events like the Cheltenham Festival and World Cup we regularly see trading volumes in the millions and sometimes 10s of millions. Cheltenham volume went up by 10% to over £150m in 2019, while the Grand National again set a new record for our most-traded single event at £76.5m, an increase of 33% on the previous year.
What are the main markets and sports you offer and see the most trading on?
As with other operators, football and horse racing are the two biggest sports for betting and trading, but we offer a wide variety of sports as well as the most extensive list of UK, US and global political markets out there. As we grow we are continuing to see more liquidity across the exchange for all markets. We also recently hired a specialist to oversee this and ensure that we are constantly adding new markets that our customers will love.
Not only this, but we very often have the best odds in relation to these markets, especially when it comes to singles on football, which helps in attracting customers across the board.
What about in-play and live betting on sports like football and horse racing? Can you outline what you offer and the volume of money traded on Smarkets these days?
Our in-play volume is also growing, especially in top-level football as we offer ‘Instant Match’ whereby you are matched at the live price and as long as nothing ‘material’ happens in the following eight seconds, you are guaranteed to get that price, rather than waiting for an in-play delay to be matched.
I noted a significant increase in the markets you are offering for Political betting over the past 12 months. Can you detail what is on offer and the volume of money being traded in this sector these days?
At Smarkets we have a dedicated team with their fingers on the pulse to add new and exciting political markets as and when they happen. What this means is that we offer the widest array of events in the industry, covering not only the UK in-depth but also the political sphere across the world – be that the US, EU or Israel, to name just a few.
Our most popular and traded markets relate to highest-profile stories – be that the year of the UK’s next General Election or Trump’s potential impeachment.
Are there any other new markets or innovations introduced over the past year to be aware of?
The past year has been a really exciting one for us, with a landmark deal to take our platform to America and the release our new sportsbook app, SBK. This has two revolutionary features with Price+ showing users how often they’re getting better odds with us compared to those offered by traditional bookmakers. SBK also has a social feature allowing customers to share tips. We believe this is going to have a big impact on the market, as users no longer have to go to different places for their information and being able to place a bet.
We currently offer SBK as an app-only product, so customers can access it by downloading it on the Play or Apple stores respectively. Users can access the Smarkets exchange either via the website or by again downloading the Smarkets App on the Play or Apple store.
We’ve also vastly improved our live charts on the exchange, which can be a real asset for people looking to trade, and really help to bring to life how the markets change over time – we really do believe they’re the best out there.
One other thing to mention is our new Open Banking payment method. We’re one of the first betting companies to get on board with this technology and now our users can connect securely to their bank and receive their withdrawals much quicker than the standard card funding method.
In September you announced a partnership to offer your new sportsbook SBK to customers in two American States – Indiana & Colorado. Do you have plans to extend this to other US States where sports betting is now legal and what are your plans for growth into the US market in general?
It was a landmark moment for us to secure a partnership allowing us to bring our sportsbook to Indiana and Colorado. The aim for us is to become established in these two states, and then, of course, the goal is to roll out our success across all other states where sports betting is legal. The US sports betting industry could represent around $155 billion if most states legalised it, making it a crucial market to become involved with.
Finally, what offers do you currently have for those keen to open a Smarkets account?
We are currently offering sign up bonuses across Smarkets and SBK – making it a great time to open an account with us. On Smarkets we have a simple sign up and get £10 risk-free, while on SBK we have a system whereby if you refer a friend, and they stake £20, you both get £10 risk-free. What’s more, you can both do that up to 50 times, meaning there’s a lot of money in risk-free bets to be had!
Get The Full Lowdown On The BEST Places To Bet
So there you have it – revealing insight into just 1 of the 6 firms as recommended in SBC’s Exchange & Bet Broker Guide and the difference they can make to your take home profits.
If you are keen on learning more about Smarkets and the 5 other firms included within this guide, make sure you grab a copy of it right away.
As soon as you join the Smart Betting Club, you can download your very own copy and start placing your bets where the professionals do.
Best Regards,
Peter Ling
Smart Betting Club Editor
