Betfair to GGT: 'No Odds for You'

London-based gaming software developer Global Gaming Technologies (GGT) is promoting a tool that enables gamblers to compare prices on different betting exchanges, but the service, launched in February, is not receiving the blessing of the world's largest betting exchange, Betfair.

The proprietary platform, called OddsTrader, enables bettors to shop for the best prices by accessing live feeds from various betting exchanges.

GGT says the service is the first of its kind, although the U.K.-based TEAMtalk Media Group, parent company to a medley of sport-specific portals, including TEAMtalk.com, sportinglife.com, Sportal.com and football365.com, has operated a similar service since 2000. TEAMTalk's Oddschecker service enables bettors to compare prices offered at 26 traditional betting siters.

OddsTrader, which focuses on exchange betting, facilitates the placement of bets on two sites--Betdaq and Betfair--and GGT has run into problems with one of them. Ten days after GGT announced the launch of OddsTrader, Betfair stopped offering the service to new customers, alleging that GGT breached the terms of its Application Programming Interface (API) software vendor license by issuing statements outside the terms of the license.

Betfair released the following statement to its customers in March:

Thank you for your request for Betfair API access to the Betsportfolio/Oddstrader product. Unfortunately the API Software Vendor License for these products will be suspended from 16th of March so we are not permissioning new users to access these products via our API. We are doing this because Global Gaming Technologies, the company who hold the API Software Vendor License, have issued statements about their product which do not comply with the terms of their license. An example of this is the statement that they are launching the first betting platform which allows consumers to 'transact with one click across a number of exchanges.' Functionality allowing users to transact across betting platforms with one click is not something that we wish to facilitate or encourage by providing API access. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

OddsTrader seems to be running Betfair odds, but Betfair's Stephen Burn said it should not be. Nevertheless, GGT, he said, still has the opportunity to reinstate its license.

"I don't think their Web site has changed much since March, and the current position is that their license is still withheld," Burn said. "Actually, they haven't contacted us recently to try and get it reinstated. At present, the Web site is misleading and we have previously informed them of this and asked them to change it. They will need to do this if they wish to reapply for an API software vendor license."

GGT could not be reached for comment, but it has said that it plans to add more betting exchanges throughout 2006.

For the time being, the company is making deals of a different sort. It announced June 2 a deal to license the Oddstrader product for distribution on the all-things-football portal, FansFC.com. Customers of FansFC will be able to access OddsTrader directly from the site.