Desmond Buys Betdaq Back Entain PLC, the owner of powerhouse UK wagering brands, consisting of Ladbrokes and Coral, has actually now dropped its betting exchange Betdaq, which it offered back to Dermot Desmond last week. A short history of Betdaq In 2000, Irish business person Dermot Desmond established the Global Betting Exchange (GBE) with a vision to produce a platform where punters could wager versus each other. From GBE, the sports betting exchange Betdaq was introduced in 2001. A few sponsorship offers, consisting of one with Celtic FC and another with Kempton Park Racecourse, saw Betdaq firmly develop itself as the second-largest online betting exchange behind Betfair by 2013, albeit with just a 7% market share. Still, this was enough to entice betting giant Ladbrokes to buy the Global Betting Exchange and its properties for EUR30m from Desmond in the exact same year. Despite being backed by Ladbrokes, Betdaq has never ever got on par with Flutter Entertainment's Betfair. It's played with various promos, such as offering 0% commission, but most have just resulted in a short-lived bump up in users, with nothing sustained. Contributed to that, Betfair and Paddy Power formed a majority merger, which included significant marketing power to assist keep Betfair at the head of the pack. What is a betting exchange? Betting exchanges were suggested to change the gambling market, and while they need to a degree, we can't state they've toppled the big bookies, like some thought they might. In a nutshell, a betting exchange is a peer-to-peer betting platform. Punters bet against each other instead of betting against a bookmaker. This style of betting has benefits and drawbacks.