For a long time, if you mentioned a betting exchange then Betfair was the only name that people would recognise.
However, despite having led the way for many years the Betfair brand has started to fade, the platform feels clunky, outdated, even intimidating, and public opinion is starting to shift away from the old dinosaur of exchange betting and increasingly towards the new breed.
Say hello to Smarkets.
Not the only challenger to the throne it’s true, but arguably the brand best equipped to take the crown.
It’s a stylish product packed with interesting features that tickle the curiosity of the customer, and leaves them better equipped to make betting decisions by offering real time data alongside the ever changing odds.
A genuinely customer friendly company with an unbending mission to give the punter a better deal, Smarkets are a true disrupter of the gambling industry.
- High Deposit Protection Limits – Money held in your account could not be safer
- Politics and Current Events – A betting exchange for more than just sports
- Market Disrupters – For our money, the best, most contemporary, and boundary pushing betting exchange available in the UK.
To be clear, this is a review of the brand themselves and their product offering, it is not intended to be a guide on using a betting exchange or a comparison between an exchange and a traditional bookie.
However, if that’s what you are looking for we have a guide here, along with the pros and cons of using one. More of a general interest piece on the bookie vs the exchange can be found here.
Now, onto the review.
History of Smarkets
This history behind the Smarkets brand goes back a lot further than you might think.
The brand concept was first knocked up way back in 2008, a good decade after the betting exchange model itself became a reality, when a small group of investors and software developers led by Jason Trost saw an opportunity to apply financial trading principles to online sports betting.
To begin with it was an invite only affair, but this was more for testing purposes than for exclusivity, and after launching to the public in Feb 2010, the company only needed until October to process £1 million in trades.
This is small fry these days of course, but back then far fewer people were using exchanges, and Smarkets were a tiny company playing catch up.
Just a year later, they hit £50 million in lifetime trades.
In Jan 2012 they threw down the gauntlet by introducing a flat 2% commission structure across the board, in a bid to tempt punters away from rivals and introduce them to the Smarkets platform.
It worked, and their next milestone of £100 million in lifetime trades was hit just 3 months later, underlining that success.
This had jumped to £500 million by April of 2014, after a slight rebranding and the introduction of a zero delay management system along with their first ever mobile app saw customers flocking to the site.
Less than a year later, that figure had doubled to over £1 billion and the company was officially in the big leagues, buying expensive sponsorship deals with the likes of QPR and opening trendy new offices across the road from the Tower of London and the Royal Mint, in St Kathrine’s Dock.
It’s literally where the Queen used to keep her yacht. God bless her.
This progress was recognised with multiple awards, including ranking 4th in the Deloitte Fast 50, an annual release of the 50 fastest growing tech companies.
Expansion to the US followed in 2017 bumping staff number over the 100 mark, and Smarkets consistently ranked in the top 5 of numerous publication’s lists of top start ups/tech companies etc.
After a decade in the industry, Smarkets launched their own sportsbook, SBK, running as a separate entity to Smarkets but allowing the two products to compliment each other, with the sportsbook taking odds from the exchange.
The company now employ over 140 people across their 3 offices in the UK, LA and Malta, they have had 600k sign ups and processed more than £25 billion in trading volume as of 2022, and the man who started it all, Jason Trost, is still at the helm with the same mission:
To make the betting industry fairer for customers.
Payments: All About the Money
Instead of starting with payment methods and deposit and withdrawal limits, let’s kick off this section with some really good news.
Smarkets have High deposit protection limits.
This is significant for two reasons:
- It means that if the company goes under any money in your account is one hundred percent safe.
- Hardly any gambling companies have this level of customer deposit protection. It’s the top level and it is expensive, so this tells you that Smarkets are willing to put their money where their mouth is. They aren’t just chatting about giving the punter a better deal, they are actually doing it.
Which company would you rather spend your money with? One that takes your cash with them if they fail, or one which goes out of their way to keep your cash protected? We know what our answer would be.
Deposits and Withdrawals
| Method | Min Deposit | Min Withdrawal | Fees | Withdrawal Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debit Card | £10 | £10 | - | 1-6 Days |
| PayPal | £20 | £10 | - | 24-48 Hours |
| Skrill | £10 | £10 | - | 24-48 Hours |
| Neteller | £10 | £10 | 0 | 24-48 Hours |
| Bank Wire | £10 | £10 | - | 12 Hours |
So what payment methods are available and what are the limits like?
Pretty good.
The usual direct debit and bank transfer options are available along with the most popular ewallets, so it’s a very easy company to deal with in terms of money, the only thing missing is a pay by phone option, but how many people would prefer this route is questionable anyway.
Deposits are instant apart from bank transfers which can take a few days, and the minimum deposit is £10 for most methods, with only Paypal and Trustly coming in higher, at £20 and £40 respectively. There are a few maximums, like £200 a day tops via Paypal, and £5k per transaction with Neteller and Skrill, but this is as much to do with the provider as with Smarkets.
When it comes to withdrawals it’s hard to argue with a limit of £10 – withdrawing any less would be close to pointless anyway – and there are no upper limits unless you are using Paypal where a £5.5k maximum withdrawal applies. Processing could be faster, but it’s not far off the mark.
What’s more, with Smarkets being a betting exchange there are no max win limits to consider here, as the company simply take their commission on wins, with the payout itself coming from the losing bets of other punters.
All in all, we couldn’t ask for much more.
Navigating the Interface
The sleek, attractive, and incredibly functional interface is undoubtedly one of Smarket’s biggest selling points.
The buttons you need to place your bets stand out clearly from the black background, with green buttons to back and blue buttons to lay, and white writing highlighting the pertinent information while a light grey details anything less immediate.
These seemingly minor details are important for the user journey because they tell your eye where to look first, and help you to navigate the screen in the correct order. You might not even notice it, but you will notice how easy you find the interface to work with, which means it is doing its job well. It’s why the site feels so intuitive.
The betslip is very useful, doing all of the difficult maths work for you, so you can play with your stake and the odds you want to back or lay at until you get something you are happy with in terms of potential return/liability.
This is extremely important when using a betting exchange, especially when laying as the liability can catch you out if you’re not paying attention, so the fact that the calculation is instant and highlighted so as to be very difficult to miss, is ideal.
The whole site is one of the fastest we have ever used to be fair. There is zero delay that we have experienced. It must be a beast of a machine running in the background.
Travelling through the site starts with the sports A-Z unless your fixture is on the home page, with the sports list also serving as a filtering tool before then drilling down into specific bet types on your market on the main part of the page.
There is quick and easy access to anything in-play and the most popular fixtures are listed underneath the betslip as a bit of a shortcut too.
It’s not massive on personalisation, but the sports list can be hidden to give full attention to the current odds, you can create a watchlist, and most betting markets can be minimised and expanded as you might be used to.
Betting Market Availability
Given that Smarkets is a betting exchange rather than a bookie, you would be forgiven for thinking that there are fewer sports to bet on.
In reality though, there are a good 25 categories on the list, and that includes everything from football, horse and greyhound racing and tennis, to MMA, cycling, eSports and volleyball.
One of the more interesting aspects of Smarkets though, is there quite frankly unbeatable market availability when it comes to things like politics, current affairs, and novelty betting.
For example, at the time of writing there is a lot of money being traded, ironically, on whether or not the UK will officially go into a recession. Markets like the next Prime Minister or President, which party will have the most seats, etc.
Of course you can also bet on stuff like Love Island, Dancing on Ice, the Oscars and the next James Bond.
This makes Smarkets a great place to bet for the punter with their finger on the political pulse, and ties in with the sleek style of the interface – it’s a place for the thinking bettor.
Back to sports then, and market depth is really good in football, as you might expect, with seemingly every league in every country covered; you’re looking at over 120 markets even in the likes of the Bahraini Premier League.
Liquidity
It’s all very well having lots of market depth, but for a betting exchange, liquidity is king.
Without liquidity, all the market depth in the world isn’t going to help you, because there will be no one there to take the opposite side of your bet.
Obviously, Smarkets doesn’t have this problem, regularly matching £250,000 or more worth of bets on big football games, with even the more obscure markets getting plenty of money matched.
It will be more difficult getting bets matched in sports like cycling, but so long as you aren’t wanting to drop thousands of pounds on the winner/loser of the Strade Bianche you should be alright. Even then, at the time of writing there had been £40,000+ worth of bets placed on that particular race, so it’s not exactly slim pickings.
Even if you do like a particular sport or market that isn’t getting much attention, you can offer something out and see what bites. The good thing about Smarkets is that it will only get busier, since it is on an upwards trajectory.
For anyone wanting to bet on popular sports and typical markets within those sports though, you will have absolutely no problems getting sensible bets matched.
Commission
Since a betting exchange makes money from commissions instead of from building a vig into the prices, the comission structure is very important for the bettor.
Their commission rates are tiered, but the majority of customers will start and remain on their standard tier.
For this tier, Smarkets have an industry low commission structure of a flat 2% on winning bets across the board. So you only pay when you win, and even then, you pay less than you would pay if you had gone somewhere more expensive like Betfair.
The rate might go up to 3% if your account ends up in a lot of profit over the previous 12 months, venturing into the ‘Select’ tier, but if you head to the Trading Stats and Commissions tab in your account it is all clearly explained.
On the other side of the coin, those who use the platform a lot, or trade large amounts of money, can knock the rate down to 1% under specific circumstances by entering the ‘Pro’ tier, so it offers even better value if you are someone who uses exchanges often. You could say that this is a loyalty scheme of sorts, but it doesn’t really operate in the same way.
It’s not just the big spenders who can get extra value though, Smarkets have been known to run 0% commission promotions on certain events or markets, so this is something they may well do again in the future.
This is one of those rare occasions where the best product is actually also the cheapest, as Smarkets keep commissions low despite keeping their standards super high.
Mobile Betting Exchange
Aside from a little bit of restructuring to fit the different shape screen, the mobile site is exactly the same as the desktop website.
There is an app as well but again, it looks and feels the same.
You still have access to all of the same features, the same data, and the navigation system works in the same way with the ability to hide the A-Z being especially beneficial on the smaller screen.
The whole thing actually feels even faster via mobile too, if that were possible, and in terms of responsiveness it’s… well, perfect if you ask us.
During our testing we felt in complete control 100% of the time.
There were no buttons hit by mistake, no instances of scrolling so fast we lost our place, and it effortlessly kept up with quick decision changes without any tripping up or laggy behaviour.
To compress such a complicated and detailed product so that it fits a screen the size of a mobile phone, still keep it simple and intuitive to use, and yet retain so much power under the hood really is an achievement.
Of course it still looks good too, the user experience is almost exactly the same as on a laptop.
So many betting apps get one thing right but not the other, or fail completely, but Smarkets have knocked it out of the park.
Using Smarkets for Live Betting
A lot of the fun with exchange betting on certain sports is to be had once the event gets going.
This is when the odds start moving incredibly quickly, especially in sports like horse racing where they change lightning fast, so for bettors trying to benefit from quick price changes or those who have strategies to test and use, live betting capabilities are a very important factor.
We have already covered just how quickly and smoothly the site responds, so there is absolutely no danger of the platform letting you down technically, and access to in-play events is one of the first things you see on the home screen, so you can get to your fixture in seconds.
The in-play interface is arranged by sport then by game or match, so it’s really easy to navigate, and the most popular market will be available to bet on from here without even opening event view.
For all other bet types you will need to open the event in question, but it takes just another 3 seconds to do that.
Horse racing and greyhound racing are not included in the in-play interface, so if you want to bet live on them you should select their categories from the A-Z.
This actually makes more sense, especially since, when it comes to horse racing, some races can be live streamed too.
The fact that this is already available with horse racing means that other sports may soon follow, but even where steaming isn’t available, there are statistics which are arguably more useful anyway.
Overall, it’s a fantastically well engineered live betting service.
Is Smarkets Right for You?
To be honest, unless you bet on very niche sports, Smarkets is going to be a good choice for anyone looking to use a betting exchange.
Ok, there is better liquidity in more obscure markets at one particular competitor, but given that most punters stick to major sports and popular markets, this won’t be an issue for many, and liquidity is improving all the time.
Also, and at odds to the above, is the fact that Smarkets offer industry leading market availability on non-sporting markets like politics and current affairs. It makes the site feel a bit more grown up than most others.
Our favourite thing about Smarkets though, is their approach.
This is a thoroughly contemporary brand, in touch with the modern world and with its finger on the pulse of betting technology.
The product therefore looks incredible and you feel like a Don when you are using it, so bettors wanting a technology led experience – which, let’s face it, is almost all of us these days – will be very happy here.
A Little Help from Customer Support
To round off what we obviously think is a brilliant bookie, let’s have a little look at their support options.
The first thing to note is that they don’t offer telephone support in any official capacity, but they do list the phone number of their London office so they aren’t hiding from the people betting with them.
So many other bookies keep their contact details secret, or at least make them difficult to find, whereas Smarkets more or less drop you a pin.
The dedicated support channels offered are all online, either via email or live chat, which are only open from 8am to 11pm, but to be fair that does cover most people’s waking and betting hours in his country.
There is a Twitter support account too, but it’s more for technical issues that need resolving than anything to do with promotions and the like.
Their live chat agents seem to be based in Malta so calling the London office won’t get you in touch with one of them, but this is where any post should be directed if you like to communicate in the old school way. Which translates as slowly, basically, very slowly.
We wouldn’t say that support is the area where Smarkets are most lacking, because even though the methods of contact and support opening hours are fewer and shorter than a lot of other bookies, they are still very good.
It’s an area they could improve upon for sure, but it won’t make a difference to most of us, and the agents you deal with a very knowledgeable, so it’s a quality service.
Contact and License
- Name: Smarkets
- Registered Company Name: Smarkets (Malta) Limited
- UKGC Licence Number: 39173
- URL: www.smarkets.com
- Telephone Support: Not available
- UK Office Telephone: 020 7617 7413
- E-mail: [email protected]
- Twitter: @smarkets @smarketstech
- Registered Address: Level 7, The Hedge, Triq Ir-Rampa Ta’ San Giljan,
ST JULIANS, STJ1 062, Malta - UK Address: 1 Commodity Quay, St Katharine Docks, London E1W 1AZ