I didn't like the introduction of a sportsbook because I feared it would become front and centre stage and detract from the ground-breaking exchange proposition. Having touted the benefits of an exchange and clearly stood for that, it seemed to be a retrograde step. However, I was assured it was just a way to drive business to the exchange by appealing to your average joe who didn't understand the exchange. Fair enough.
IMHO the sportsbook in its current form undermines the many benefits of the exchange, to punters it just feels like Betfair is just a normal bookie, there is little understanding of what is possible. It's created quite a bit of confusion: -
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/ ... l-winnings
The simple thing to do was to skin a sportsbook and drop the bets into an exchange, that was a perfect model. Everybody would win. I think this is what the other exchanges will do eventually. They can do that and undermine Betfair's current position and know that Betfair will not respond because they are hooked on the sportsbook margins.
I think you can see evidence of this in the way the sportsbook has evolved. Initially, Betfair said that cash-out on the sports book was an example of exchange technology being used but slowly cashing out was done internally. Then they introduced, to great fan-fare, price rush. This was also thanks to the benefit of the exchange, but again that slowly got phased out and rushes were done internally then phased out altogether. When the PP takeover happened it was just sportsbook all the way and they went 2 years or so without a single exchange advert being run. It's good to see that change now, but to average joe it's just a sportsbook I reckon. There is a lot of work to be done.
When I log into Betfair it defaults to the sportsbook, I can't seem to stop it from doing that despite not being the slightest bit interested in it. Most visitors will probably not find the exchange unless they actively seek to do so. It's up to us to tell people about the benefits of the exchange.