Have Betdaq given up ?

[quincunx]

A while ago Ladbrokes took over Betdaq to some fanfare.There was suppose to be extra liquidity - or some such.Anyway,there was a 3% deal on commission - at least on some things - and liquidity on big games.So I kept betting with them occasionally.
Now they seem to have started charging me 5%.I have got that reduced to 3% short term,but it will rise unless I bet enough often enough,in the same way as it does with Betfair.
I cannot see how Betdaq now seriously hopes to attract business from Betfair.

 

[Trevrizent]

I think Ladbrokes may well have given up on Betdaq - either that or they can't decide what on earth to do with it. Their acquisition of Betdaq in early 2013 was supposed to be the start of a credible challenge to Betfair's dominance of the exchange market, a challenge which was to be strengthened still further by the creation of Ladbrokes' own exchange which would feed into Betdaq. The challenge just hasn't materialized, however. Liquidity barely seems to have improved at all and the fact that they now appear to be raising their base commission rate is hardly going to improve matters on that score. To make matters worse, Betdaq is now itself facing a challenge from Smarkets whose liquidity and market share have been growing steadily over the last twelve months or so thanks to their 2% commission base rate. I don't know whether Ladbrokes underestimated the strength of Betfair's market position and overestimated the role their own exchange could play to strengthen Betdaq (after all, many Ladbrokes customers would already have had a Betdaq account and many of those that didn't probably had no interest in exchange betting anyway), but whatever the reasons, Ladbrokes appear to me to have been left with a very expensive white elephant.

 

[quincunx]

Thanks,Trevrizent.Are Smarkets listed on any odds comparison websites ?
N.B.Matchbook seem to have improved but they could do with a cashout feature and don't seem to be set up for that.

 

[Trevrizent]

Smarkets are on Easyodds.com and they may be on other comparison sites as well. I'm not a big user of exchanges, but I quite like Smarkets for UK and Irish horse racing (odds are on a par with Betfair when it gets close to post time and, whilst their liquidity doesn't match Betfair's yet, it's not too bad and seems to be improving). I'd much rather use them than Betdaq these days to be honest.