Matchbook acquires rival betting exchange Betdaq to provide users with “deeper pool” of liquidity

Matchbook has completed the purchase of fellow peer-to-peer sports betting exchange Betdaq for an undisclosed sum, it has been announced.

The deal is touted as an opportunity to combine Betdaq’s heritage with Matchbook’s pricing, liquidity and technology expertise in a “single, deeper pool – meaning tighter spreads, bigger fills and better prices for customers of both”.

The company has confirmed the acquisition includes Racecourse Data Technologies, a hardware and software solution that enables on-course bookmakers to hedge liabilities into the Betdaq exchange. 

It is 26 years since Betdaq was established by Irish billionaire entrepreneur Dermot Desmond and headquartered in Dublin under the parent group Global Betting Exchange. The platform launched the following year.

Betdaq was initially the main challenger to runaway leader in the vertical, the Betfair Exchange, though the pair were later joined in the market by the likes of Matchbook (2004) and Smarkets (2008).

In 2013, Ladbrokes acquired Betdaq for €30m, which resulted in the bookmaker rolling out a Ladbrokes-branded exchange that was ‘skin’ of the Betdaq platform and had shared liquidity. Ladbrokes Coral was acquired by GVC in 2018, with that business rebranding to Entain in 2020.

Later, in 2021, Entain sold Betdaq back to Desmond for what was rumoured to be substantially less than the €30m Ladbrokes paid eight years earlier.

Betdaq, which is operated by EPS Ltd, will remain open for trading until 21 October to allow an “orderly transition”, Matchbook said, while customer account withdrawals are available until 4 November.

Customers are being notified of the Betdaq closure on Wednesday, 14 October. From 5 November, a message will be shown on the Betdaq site containing a closure message and details of customer support services.

Betdaq customers will be required to open a Matchbook account following the acquisition, an FAQ page on the operator’s site states.

Ronan McDonagh, CEO of Matchbook, said in a statement: “Betdaq and Matchbook grew up proving the same idea – that bettors get a better deal when prices are made by a market rather than a margin.

“A quarter of a century on, that idea is winning: exchanges and prediction markets are bringing peer-to-peer pricing to new audiences around the world, and this acquisition deepens the pool at the heart of everything we build.”

He added: “Our first priority through this transition is Betdaq’s customers: their funds are safe, their options are clear, and in one combined pool they should find better prices and deeper liquidity than either exchange could offer alone.

“Everything we are doing – this deal included – is about making the exchange first choice.”

Matchbook has expanded into B2B in recent years, including the launch of easyBet in partnership with easyGroup, the company behind low-cost airline easyJet, and entered the rapidly growing world of prediction markets with ADI PredictStreet ahead of this year’s World Cup.

Management at Matchbook, which is operated by Triplebet, said the Betdaq deal has been agreed at a time when the peer-to-peer model “enjoys renewed momentum worldwide, with exchange betting and prediction markets”.

The company first dipped its toe into prediction markets by soft launching a product in the UK at the end of 2025 with an event contracts interface including percentages instead of decimal odds.

In April, Betfair, which is owned by Flutter, quietly rolled out a repackaged version of the exchange with the look and feel of a prediction market, while Smarkets is awaiting approval for the required licences to launch in the US.

The combination of Matchbook and Betdaq comes at a time when UK-licensed operators are having to deal with the near-doubling of remote gaming duty to 40% and, more importantly for betting exchanges, remote betting duty is set to rise from 15% to 25% next April.  

Matchbook may feel now is the opportunity to take market share given liquidity has markedly fallen on Betfair in recent years.