Better Odds, No Vig: Inside BettorEdge’s Bettor-To-Bettor Marketplace

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When is a sportsbook not a sportsbook, but is actually a sportsbook?

No, this isn’t some Buddhist koan, where the answer will grant you eternal enlightenment.

But the answer will grant you, almost always, better odds on your sports bets. And no vig, to boot. 

Welcome to BettorEdge, a social sports betting marketplace available in 47 states, where every bet placed is between two bettors. No house, no one being paid to make sure there’s someone on the other side taking the wager. Just a pure marketplace where users can set their own odds and prices and wait for someone to come in on the other side.

“We have no entities providing liquidity,” said one of the co-founders of BettorEdge, James Seils. “Everyone goes in there and they set their own price.”

It works similarly to typical exchange betting, where you can make an offer — say, the Eagles +1.5 at -110 — and hope someone comes in on the other side and likes the Chiefs at -1.5.

Or, you can take the bet that’s currently offered — the “best” line, which is going to be invariably the last bet that got matched. If you go that route, you’ll be told how much money is out there on the other side, and you can either bet up to that amount, or put in a limit order and wait for the match to occur.

Seils and his co-founder, Greg Kajewski, say that for the major sports and sporting events, getting matched at consensus prices is all but certain, with Seils saying it happens “more than 90% of the time.”

And invariably, the prices are going to be better than at traditional sportsbooks.

“We call them our fence posts,” Kajewski said, referring to -110 lines. “The goal is to get both sides of the bet inside there.”

He said that while that does happen with high frequency, there are also times when it doesn’t, when one side might get to -102 but the other will go to -111, as an example.

Either way, the prices are almost uniformly going to be better than traditional against-the-house sportsbooks.

Heart to heart

BettorEdge makes money — 1.5%, to be exact — on winning bets, and there is a $19.99 monthly plan that gives users some extra bells and whistles, such as advanced analytics.

But at its heart? Just a place to bet someone on the game — and at better odds.

And, there’s a little “heart” to the heart, as each time your bet gets matched, BettorEdge will show you how much money you’ll have saved should you win, and you can donate — if you like — the difference to charity, including to the Chad Greenway Lead the Way foundation, which supports children’s hospitals in Minnesota (the home base for Seils and Kajewski) and other midwestern states.

There is also a major social component to the app, and there are partners featured on the app, where users can listen to podcasts, head to SpankOdds — where BettorEdge odds are posted for comparison to other books — or buy merchandise to support your favorite teams.

“Our platform really encompasses the sports fan lifestyle,” said Seils. “Podcasts, merch, accessing other bettor tools, and more. It really becomes an ecosystem around sports gaming, not just a place to make a transaction.”

As for the future?

Well, the duo would love to continue to grow the company — there are currently more than 100,00 active users — and so far, it’s been purely word of mouth that has gotten them there.

“We’re very happy with how we’re growing,” Seils said.

And as more sports bettors find out about this legal, peer-to-peer operation, it’s sure to grow exponentially.