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Tell me about the UK peer to peer betting industry
Hi! Thanks for asking Wonder to find information about the peer to peer betting industry in the UK.
The short answer is the UK peer to peer betting industry has only enjoyed limited success, with only two real-money platforms operating in the UK that allow person to person event betting.
Please note that I have not addressed betting exchanges (Betfair, Smarkets, etc), which some articles and resources call "person to person" betting. Given the details and context of your question, I did not feel like these were the types of gambling you were looking for information on.
Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
HISTORY OF P2P BETTING IN THE UK
While betting exchanges have been popular in the UK since 2001, online peer to peer betting in the UK only really started with the founding of TedBets in 2013.
According to an article in The Independent back in 2014, social betting has been on the rise for the past several years. Despite heavy regulation of the gambling industry in the UK, several companies had broken through to receive venture capital funding. BuddyBet, a Czech-based betting exchange, raised £2 million in 2013 (BuddyBet appear to have ceased operations, at least in the UK). Betable, who allow users to insert stakes into already-existing online games, received $18.5 million in venture capital in late 2013.
The founder of TedBets attributed the market potential of P2P betting to making the experience mirror real life. "The back-and-forth bets I make with friends are social and enjoyable. It's about competition, rather than the amount of money we're winning." This lays the foundation for establishing ingrained social betting behaviour. As The Independent puts it, social gambling "persuade[s] us that something is fun now, [so it can] prise real money out of us later."
I was able to find a reference to peer to peer betting in the UK as far back as 2002, when bookmaker SportingBet launched Sportingbet1-2-1.com. Advertised as a "person-to-person betting exchange", it was designed to keep betting casual and fun, limiting bets to £100 maximum. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any reason behind its closure, so we can only speculate that it was not successful enough for Sportingbet to run for a very long time. A similar company called Play121.com also ceased trading back in 2002 (though it looks like it may have been more of an exchange than strictly P2P betting).
PEER TO PEER BETTING KEY PLAYERS
---- TedBets
Launched in 2014, TedBets was one of the UK's first proper peer to peer betting platforms. It advertises itself as a wagering site that allows friends to bet on the outcome of anything, though the focus of the platform is sports-oriented, charging a 5% commission. TedBets allows users to challenge each other directly, the TedBets community, or even the 'world', offering the capacity for bets to be shared almost anywhere (social media, SMS, etc.). TedBets allows users to choose between virtual and real currency, allowing it to operate in locations where real money social betting is not currently legal. Owler estimates TedBet's revenue at $379,800.
---- Betable
Betable is so far the only licensed platform that allows mobile and PC game developers to actual insert real-money gambling in their games. Instead of needing to worry about licensure themselves, developers use Betable's UK Gambling Commission regulation and APIs to integrate real-money play into developing or already-existing games.
---- BetYou
Originally launched in Ireland in 2014, BetYou came to the UK in 2015. This app allows friends to make bets against each other on any outcome. You set the bet, the amount, and a deadline. New users are offered a €5 free bet upon registration. Users can challenge any mobile user to a bet, and then share the bet (and results) on social media. Referrals are also paid €5. The parent company, BullorBear Ltd., is registered with the UK Gambling Commission. The app also offers bookmakers a partnership to offer some fixed term odds, but this is not the primary focus of the app. BetYou charges 5% commission, but the app itself is free to download. No public data has been released on BetYou's success, but Owler speculates its revenue at a modest $389,100.
EMERGING TRENDS
Gambling Insider definitely pegs social betting as one of the emerging trends in UK gambling. More social brands like Betfect and WantMyBet, both aiming to become 'the' social media of gambling, are showing how punters are becoming increasingly social in their patterns. However, neither Betfect nor WantMyBet are true 'peer to peer' platforms, allowing users to directly place bets against each other (they allow bookmaker bets and then run tips and competitions for the 'social' element). Betfect's founder now sees around 15-20 major social betting platforms across Europe, whereas before there were only three or four. Ladbrokes, on the other hand, remain more cautious. They told Gambling Insider, "We are monitoring the environment but don't recognise them as key drivers of growth...The numbers generated through these sites are not yet significant enough to suggest that they represent the future of sports betting, but we remain interested and will sustain a watching brief in this space."
Despite the fact that Betfect and WantMyBet are not P2P betting platforms, they do further reinforce that the future of gambling may be less about winning against the house, and more about "bragging rights" for punters.
The only still-existing UK peer-to-peer betting platforms I could find were TedBets and BetYou, neither of which have enjoyed meteoric success. Fuller social networks like Betfect and WantMyBet are receiving more press attention over the past twelve months (TedBets has only been mentioned once, in passing, since initial fervor back in 2014).
CONCLUSION
To wrap up, true peer to peer betting platforms have only seen limited success so far in the UK. Despite excitement and press attention at the launch of Tedbets, the concept has ultimately not taken off to give birth to a wave of competitors. Only one other platform, BetYou, operates a direct person-to-person gambling platform in the UK, though Betable's concept could allow developers to use its platform to facilitate person-to-person bets within a game environment.
Instead, industry press is focused at the moment on the more cohesive 'social network' model, where the likes of Betfect and WantMyBet take punters and turn them into a community, allowing users to place bets, share bets, show off, share tips and compete with each other for prizes. As gambling becomes increasingly digital and mobile, even industry press is a little uncertain where the direction of British gambling is headed.
I hope this has been helpful. Please feel free to ask Wonder if you have any more questions!