Smarkets Review – 2014/2015

Smarkets is a betting exchange that offers a secure and transparent platform for trading on sporting, political and current affairs events. The company was founded in 2008 by a team of finance and software engineering professionals and is backed by a consortium of private investors. As an exchange, Smarkets facilitates peer-to-peer betting where users set their own odds and bet against each other not only before an event starts but right up until the end of any event.

 

Basic description

Smarkets is a betting website that allows users to place bets against other users. They facilitate person-to-person betting where odds are decided by users, not by a bookmaker. They offer markets in all major sporting events as well as current affairs and politics.

 

Sports, markets and odds

Smarkets covers a large number of sports (and other events), including Football, Horse Racing, Golf, Cricket, Tennis, Basketball, Rugby Union and Rugby League, Baseball, American Football, Motorsports, Handball, Volleyball and Ice Hockey.

The number of leagues covered is very important. Most sports competition will be available to bet. Regarding markets, there’s still some room for improvement. Main markets are of course available but in general bettors can find more markets on Betfair than on Smarkets. As an example, at the moment we were writing this review, Manchester City vs Swansea city offered 17 markets, while Betfair had more than 71. The same happens on many sports. Anyway the number of markets is decent.

 

Usability

As on any exchange, Smarkets sets the events and markets and customers set the odds they want to back or lay.
When you want to place a bet and you find the odds you want (meaning other users are willing to accept the opposite bet at the price you want), you click on the desired odds, set the stake and if there is enough liquidity your bet will be matched. If there is not enough liquidity (there is not enough money to cover your winnings from opposite bettors) part of your bet can be matched and part can be left unmatched (your whole stake could be unmatched). Unmatched bets keep open until other bettors place new opposite bets that could match them. You can cancel your unmatched bets at any time, before they are matched.

Although on major leagues and events (Spanish football, Premier league, and so on), liquidity is not a problem, minor events usually have very low liquidity. Considering Uruguay Open Men’s Singles Quarter-finals (Tennis challenger) that will take place in less than 10 hours (at the time of this review), all four matches have no odds available. The same happens with Davis Cup World Group final (Monfils vs Wawrinka)

The web site design is nice and clean and it’s really easy to find events and place your bets.

 

Cash Out

The cash out button introduced by Betfair to lock profits or limit losses is not present on Smarkets website.

 

Fees and commissions

With Smarkets users only pay fees when they win a bet. They take a flat 2% commission from users’ net winnings on each market. Users can place as many bets as they like in a market and they will only be charged on the net winnings of those bets; not for each bet they placed.

This is a really low fee compared to other Exchanges. Only Matchbook offers a lower commission, but it is applied also on losing bets.

There are no other fees or commissions regarding betting.

 

Banking options

Smarkets accepts most commonly used credit and debit cards (Visa, Visa Debit, MasterCard and Maestro).

They also accept Neteller, Skrill, as well as bank transfers.

Deposits are free except for credit cards that charge 2.5%. Withdrawals are free.

 

Customer service

Smarkets offers live chat at the top of all pages. Users can use it to get a quick response to any of their questions when they are online.

There are other alternate contact method. You can contact them by email (support@smarkets.com), by telephone (+44 207 617 7413) and by post.

There is also a FAQ page on the site.

 

Bonus

Bonus and free bets are sometimes offered by Smarkets. However these offers are in general very limited. Currently Smarkets is offering a welcome bonus for new subscribers. The bonus is just EUR/GBP 10 or USD 20 (it’s also available on other currencies) when you deposit twice this amount.

 

Summary

Smarkets is a betting exchange that allows to bet for (back) or against (lay) on a great number of sports, leagues, events and markets.

Smarkets liquidity is sometimes low and this is currently one of their main disadvantage over other options. This can result in slightly lower odds than other exchanges or bookmakers and the inability to place large bets. Of course this is not always the case and smart bettors can find value here.

Smarkets fees are 2% flat and there are no other fees. This is really its main advantage over other exchanges.