TradeSports/TradeBetx Closing Down

Tradesports is closing their doors. They claim it is because U.S. citizens have a difficult time depositing funds. That is nonsense – someone I know has Fed-x’d them a check just weeks ago and it was promptly deposited with no problems.

As a trader who used to love Tradesports I was not sad to see them go. The arrogance of the management was sometimes repelling, they ignored the issues for so long – and they didn’t evolve as other sites did to get around the laws.

There is speculationi that Intrade is strategically positioning itself to formally re-enter the US market. They want to be a “prediction market” not a gambling site. In other words, they want to be fully legal, not exist in the gray area they do now. Having a sister site where people can bet on sports undermines this.

This does make sense. There are plenty of places to bet on sports, and even to trade sports on exchanges. There’s only one place to trade politics, economics, current events, etc. with high volume: intrade. If they play their cards right, they could one day be seen in the same way as the NYSE or CMEX.

However, this also raises questions on the viability of Intrade as a single entity. Their affiliate programme was discontinued last year without any prior notice to affiliates meaning they have closed the door to their single most cost-effective return-on-investment. Their CEO, John Delaney himself admitted that since the end of the 2008 US presidential elections Intrade’s income is down. And that means the the Intrade media coverage is over implying less liquidity. See you in 2010 and 2012.

Perhaps time to switch to Matchbook. They have a good operation now and even do live in-running events.

Tags: intrade, prediction markets

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Industry Happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.