Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the United Kingdom Betting Industry: The Rise of Person-to-Person Betting

The emergence of Web based ventures in 2000 offering person-to-person (P2P) betting represented a genuine revolution in the oligopolistic United Kingdom betting industry. The radical innovation of P2P betting was that it enabled punters (the term for betting customers) to lay (accept) bets, a role that had previously been the preserve of bookmakers. This created a free market in betting offering dynamic markets to punters and also enabled trading style activities as seen in financial markets. P2P betting flourished and by 2004 it was estimated that it accounted for up to 25-30% of UK betting turnover. However, the oligopolistic bookmakers claimed that P2P betting encouraged cheating as corrupt insiders could lay bets on horses riding to lose. In response the P2P firms argued that these criticisms were levelled at them solely for commercial reasons, and that rather than encouraging corruption, P2P betting brought innovation and transparency to betting markets.