HubDubs Nigel Eccles pinches Henry Blodgets nose (like trumpetist Miles Davies did for one of his musicians, on stage, one day), and the damn result of that, believe or not, is that the valuation of The Sporting Exchange (BetFair-TradeFair) drops from $5 billion to $3 billion. So, either Nigel shoul

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Nigel Eccles:

How did you forget yadda yadda yadda. [ Hilarious. :-D ]

Nice list, roughly makes sense but lots to disagree with (as you would expect). However one clear mistake is BetFair. They should be valued at $3 billion. They just did a recapitalisation which distributed 10% of the company in cash to shareholders (I got the check this morning). It was at a valuation of ?1.5 billion, so unless you are even more bearish on the exchange rate that works out at $3 billion.

Henry Blodget:

Thanks for the info on Betfair&#8211-that&#8217-s exactly the sort of concrete detail we&#8217-re especially looking for. We&#8217-ll see if we can confirm, and, if so, the valuation will drop to $3 billion.

And there&#8217-s another interesting comment, on the other page:

Insider:

why the gratuitous &#8212- and painfully ignorant – -swipes at the USA?

can&#8217-t you do your job without the silly &#8212- and, again, factually incorrect &#8212- morals lectureds and editorializing?

actually the U.K. is one of the few countries in the world where online gambling is essentially legal (though the U.K. still hasn&#8217-t sorted out all the laws it is creating to govern online betting)

many EU countries are literally at each others throats about how/when to tax internet gambling (principally because state-run lotteries are specifically carved out of the E.U. free trade agreements)

japan, australia and china have sever and horrible and harsh punishments for internet gambling

of course, pretty much all of the islamic world puts people to death or dismemberment for breaking qu&#8217-ran-ic law – and gambling is totally and utterly forbidden under the qu&#8217-ran

it is you who are &#8220-of arbitrary morals&#8221-. stick to blogging.

Insider&#8217-s comment sounds informed, but he/she should have avoided the nasty last line.

&#8220-Stick to blogging&#8221- is an insult I was served with, recently, (by a UK-based financial trader), so I can relate. But that&#8217-s never helpful. Educate that blogger, instead. You&#8217-ll get a better ROI, believe me.

PREDICTION MARKETS HAVE ARRIVED: The Sporting Exchange (BetFair-TradeFair) ranks #4 in the Silicon Alley Insiders list of the top 25 digital startups, and is valued at 5 billion US dollars. (Yes, billions.)

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SAI 25 Live

Methodology

Current listing

Blog post

SAI 25: THE BETFAIR PAGE

Estimated Value: $5 billion

Business: World&#8217-s largest Internet betting exchange where users can gamble on everything from horseracing to tennis matches.

Location: London, United Kingdom

More Info: About Betfair

CEO: David Yu – [ a US citizen :-D ]

Investors: Index Ventures, JP Morgan Partners, Benchmark Capital, UBS Capital, and Soft Bank.

Analysis: People love gambling, and Betfair provides a safe, simple, and un-sleazy way for them to do it. The company allows bettors to place bets and bookies to arrange them, and it keeps 5% of winnings.

Betfair&#8217-s business is illegal in the United States of Arbitrary Morals, of course (thanks to the gambling lobby?), but the rest of the world isn&#8217-t so uptight. Unlike other British market makers, Betfair has been smart enough not to accept American credit cards, which puts it out of reach of US regulators. We suppose the British government could destroy Betfair with an attack of Americanitis, [????????] but we don&#8217-t see that happening. In fact, their neighbor&#8211-the E.U.&#8211-is reportedly looking into whether or not the U.S. ban on Web betting hurts E.U. companies, and, if so, it might be willing to take the US to the WTO court.

Softbank bought a 23% interest in Betfair for $600M in February of 2006, implying a valuation of $2.6 billion. The company has grown from $10 million in revenue in 2002 to $365 million in 2007 and generated $70M in operating profit in fiscal 2006. We estimate about $500 million in revenue in 2008 and believe the company is worth about 10X that. Thus, we estimate that Betfair is worth about $5 billion.

Fantastic.

That will help a lot.

Congrats to the BetFair-TradeFair people.

UPDATE: BetFair&#8217-s valuation will probably drop from $5 billion to $3 billion!!!!