A new venture called “Tradefair” has just been launched by the online betting exchange company, Betfair. The venture is intended to take advantage of retail derivatives space, which is currently estimated to be worth approximately $650 million each year.

Betfair’s online betting roots date back to its launch in only the year 2000, yet it has since attracted and retained over 200 million registered users, and established itself as one of the industry's leading companies. Tradefair is a new project that the online betting company believes can exploit the sophisticated exchange technology the site employs, and was first launched in late 2007 as a subsidiary. It currently offers high-low game-based online betting, as well as financial spread betting, yet is hoping to boast more additions following authorisation from the FSA (which is likely to be granted in early 2009).

Betfair’s new online betting website currently operates using a high quality technology that allows for an “extreme transaction processing system”, as Andy Phillips, the Head of Systems at Tradefair has explained. The technology can accommodate up to 100,000 users simultaneously, and the site is now taking in an incredible 190,000 orders each second (approximately). This stands in stark contrast to larger institutions such as the London Stock Exchange, which can only handle about 200 customers concurrently. Martin Thompson, the CEO of Tradefair, explained that the transaction process of the online betting site is so fast because it uses data stored in memory.

With so many new technologies and features boasted on this online betting site, company representatives are positive that Tradefair will begin to be profitable well within a 5 year period.