Betfair new CEO

I read today that Betfair are going to announce a new CEO, recruiting the Chief Operating Officer from the online traditional bookmaker PaddyPower.

An interesting move they have had a lot of bad press, they seem to be throwing away and stagnating a fundamentally good idea. Maybe it is a case of you can only go so many places from where they are now, and there is not the scope to expand the business (although I am sure a lot of other businesses would love to have the opportunities of the market Betfair are in).

I use both sites for some low stakes fun betting. PaddyPower seems the most commercialised, incentives, and special offers based. In some ways that can be a distraction but at least the mechanics of actually betting do not get interfered with. They always market their offers as a fun thing and not as a cold business transaction.

Betfair on the other hand feels like a clean unchanging interface, I actually find it very functional and unfussy. They do a lot of former sportsmen "name" sponsorship which I always feel is a waste of time. These people only seem to get advertised on the site, and by definition you already know about Betfair if you are looking at their site!

So I hope the new CEO can sort out some of the problems they seem to encounter, supposed platform reliability, lack of growth opportunities. I wonder if they may even start to look at the high commissions charged, after all 5% is what the traditional bookmaker will build into their odds - and Betfair have always promoted themselves as better than the bookies - let's start seeing more evidence!