Over 300 people attended the Matchbook Traders Conference on 1st November in a captivating day of insight in the heart of London’s financial district, Liverpool Street. Multiple high-profile speaker sessions and trading panels preceded plentiful networking sessions as the sharpest minds in gambling, ranging from academics to gambling legends, took advantage of this unique event.

Douglas McWilliams, the Deputy Chairman of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) and one of Europe’s foremost economic forecasters set the tone for the day with an explosive opening session covering how recent massive political and economic upheaval is affecting our economies and what the future holds. McWilliams really divided opinion sparking a fair bit of discourse both at the event and on social media afterwards. This was exemplified by his session being voted third in attendees top 3 session and voted first in attendees’ bottom 3.

Arguably the two highest profile speakers on the day, Ronan Ryan (Flash Boy and president of the IEX) and Harry Enten (senior political writer and analyst and for the website FiveThirtyEight) were extremely popular with attendees. Ryan delved into the parallels between betting and financial trading and how the landscape has changed in recent years with faster access when betting a crucial requisite. Following the shock voting in both the USA and the UK in the last 18 months, Harry Enten unraveled and enlightened attendees on the intricacies of the 2016 election of Donald Trump and looked at depth in how much polls can be trusted and examined.

Unsurprisingly, Harry Findlay pulled no punches in the final session of the day when welcoming speaking to a knowledgeable and gambling specific audience. He was adamant that there is room for an exchange outside of Betfair to “do things right” and rule the market since Betfair have “lost sight of what is important”.