What are the different types of bookmakers?

What are the main types of bookmakers?

The terms sharp and soft mainly describe a bookmaker's business model and risk policy. The terms market maker and follower describe more its role in creating the prices. A betting exchange, for its part, is a distinct model in which the platform connects bettors with one another.

Why do these categories overlap?

Each category describes a different part of how an operator works. Sharp or soft mainly indicates how it generates its revenue and selects its customers. Market maker or follower indicates more how it obtains, builds and adjusts its prices.

An operator can, for example, seek high volume with low margins, accept bets from informed players, actively build its prices on major football, and follow an external supplier on a secondary competition. In this example, it can be considered sharp in its business model, a market maker on certain markets and a follower on others.

It is often more relevant to qualify a bookmaker's behaviour on a given market than to assign a definitive label to its whole brand. Economic research on the European market describes sharp and soft as two opposing models: the first relies more on low margins and high volume, while the second relies more on high margins, marketing and commercial restrictions.

What is a sharp bookmaker?

A sharp bookmaker generally seeks high volume with relatively low margins. It accepts more bets from informed players and can use these bets to test and then improve its prices, particularly on the markets it masters best.

Its frequent characteristics: competitive prices, relatively low margins, high limits on liquid markets, high volume, informed bets more readily accepted and regular adjustments. Sharp does not mean, however, that all of its odds are always accurate, better or faster: its behaviour depends on the market, the limits available and how much information is already built into the price.

Compare sharp and soft bookmakers →

What is a soft bookmaker?

A soft bookmaker mainly targets a mainstream clientele. Its model generally gives more room to marketing, promotions and a higher commercial margin. It can also apply more individualised restrictions to accounts considered unprofitable.

Its frequent characteristics: mainstream acquisition, more visible promotions, generally higher margins, individualised account policy, more cautious limits on certain profiles and possible use of external reference prices. Soft does not necessarily mean slow or technically weak: a mainstream operator can quickly produce solid odds on its priority markets.

Sharp or soft bookmaker: what are the differences? →

What is a market maker?

A market maker is an operator that actively takes part in creating and maintaining a price on a market. It does not simply reproduce an external odd: it produces an estimate, accepts bets and then adjusts its price as new information appears.

A market maker can open a market, produce or buy an initial estimate, publish odds, accept volume, interpret the bets received, evolve its prices, and supply its probabilities or its feeds to other operators. It is not defined solely as "the bookmaker that publishes its odds first": publishing early can be a clue, but a market maker is characterised above all by its active and lasting role in price discovery.

A market maker often has several characteristics associated with the sharp model — tight margins, high volume, acceptance of informed bets — but the two terms are not synonymous. A bookmaker can be sharp while using an initial price coming from another source on certain markets.

What is a follower bookmaker?

A follower bookmaker builds certain prices less directly. It can rely on an odds supplier, on reference operators or on movements already observed on the market, and then adapt these prices to its margin, its clientele and its own exposure.

Its typical operation: receive a reference odd or probability, apply a commercial margin, adapt the price to its rules and its limits, monitor external movements, then adjust the price when the market evolves. A follower bookmaker should not be presented as an actor that mechanically and belatedly copies the others: automated systems make it possible to pass on a variation very quickly. The difference lies less in absolute speed than in the role played in price discovery.

Many soft bookmakers rely more on suppliers or reference sources, but a follower bookmaker is not automatically soft, and a soft one does not necessarily follow all of its markets.

Is a betting exchange a bookmaker?

No. A betting exchange is not a classic fixed-odds bookmaker. It provides an infrastructure allowing users to offer and accept bets between themselves. The platform organises the matching of positions and generally takes a commission.

The UK regulatory definition (the "betting intermediary" category) precisely describes this service as bringing together two or more parties without the operator itself carrying the risk of their bets. A classic bookmaker offers a price, accepts the bet directly, acts as the customer's counterparty and generally builds its remuneration into the odds. A betting exchange displays the offers of the participants, matches opposing positions, depends on the liquidity available and generally takes a commission.

The betting exchange appears here because it answers a frequent intent around the "types of bookmakers". It is, however, another market model, not a category of bookmaker.

In Great Britain, betting exchanges are legal and regulated. The UK Gambling Commission licenses this activity as a "betting intermediary": an operator that brings together two or more parties to make a bet, without itself being party to the bet or carrying the risk of the outcome. Well-known examples such as Betfair operate under this category. A betting exchange is therefore a distinct market model, licensed separately from a classic fixed-odds bookmaker. Availability and the legal framework vary significantly from one country to another:

Bookmaker or betting exchange: what are the differences? →

How can you identify an operator's profile?

No single indicator is sufficient on its own. To place a bookmaker, you have to observe together its margins, its limits, its account policy, the timing of its movements, its apparent use of external prices and its commercial positioning.

• Margin level — durably tight prices on the main markets can indicate a volume-oriented model. The detailed calculation belongs to the page on margin.
• Market limits — high limits on a liquid market can indicate strong confidence in the price.
• Account limits — heavy customisation of the amounts allowed can reveal individualised commercial management.
• Opening timing — publishing early is a clue of participation in creating the market, but is not enough to identify a market maker.
• Reaction to movements — observe whether the bookmaker regularly initiates variations or whether it reacts after the other sources.
• Commercial positioning — the role of marketing, promotions and mainstream acquisition helps understand the model.
• Behaviour across markets — the analysis must be carried out sport by sport and market by market.

A high limit does not prove that a bookmaker is sharp. An odd published first does not prove that it is a market maker. A promotion does not prove that it is soft. A late movement does not prove that it is always a follower.

Comparison table of the models

These categories describe general tendencies. Sharp, soft, market maker and follower can overlap. The betting exchange belongs to a distinct market model.

How does OddScore use these differences?

The same odds variation does not necessarily hold the same value depending on its source, its timing and its confirmation by the rest of the market. Comparing several profiles makes it possible to identify isolated movements, pioneering operators and changes progressively picked up elsewhere.

OddScore collects the odds of several fixed-odds bookmakers and turns them into comparable probabilities after removing the margin. The platform then observes the direction of the movement, its amplitude, the moment it appears, the number of operators concerned and the consistency between the different sources.

OddScore does not consider an odd in isolation: the platform compares several sources and measures the consistency of their movements to make the market more readable.

Understand how OddScore analyses bookmakers →

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