Beginning of the end for traders???

Well people who wanted to know whether this sort of trading provided any liquidity are about to get a good idea.

Hmmm... Don't particularly like the idea of this. I suppose, from a selfish point of view, the relevant question for us is whether or not this is likely to happen in the UK.

What was the New South Wales rule that came in that caused BF to put up charges to 6.5%?

NSW tax of 1.5% on backers bets I believe

Thanks CB.    At the risk of stating the obvious, I'm assuming that if NSW try it on and get away with it (as indeed appears to be happening), before long the other states in Aus will be doing likewise.

What are the chances such a charge might be levied here???

Cooee

Victoria, the next biggest state betting wise, moves to a turnover based fee, in August.

Little chance of it happening here in the UK I reckon

Well people who wanted to know whether this sort of trading provided any liquidity are about to get a good idea.

You're assuming it won't affect gamblers Clydebank but I'm pretty sure they'll end up having to contact those **** betting many horses per race (whether that be dutching or not) or even just those who bet singles on short odds. e.g. if you back a winner at 1.01 betfair wouldn't even recoup the 1.5% they have to give NSW if they set commission at 100%.

The fact betfair think they can remedy the situation by making a few phone calls to habitual Ferengis defies belief.

**** = w h o ' re

I said this on the previous thread on this subject. The only way exchange betting will take over the world is if the government of the country the exchange are accepting bets in receive almost all of the commission. It would then be up to that government what percentage of horse racing profits they wanted to pass on to horse racing. 10% of a massive pie is better than 100% of a tiny one that will soon be gobbled up. Whoever runs it, I just hope they know more about gambling than betfair's ex-city tw@ts.

Good riddance in my opinion. Screw horse racing, come bet on football

In Ireland there have been proposals for a tax on turnover for betting on ALL sports to help fund horse racing. WTF??

Surely they are trialling people's reactions for when they start offering a sportsbook and get hammered by the sportsbook-backers and exchange-layers-off.

Previously these people were generating liquidity for and losing to bf; now they will be winning, and not off their clients but off the company itself.

And actually it wouldn't be the greatest inconvenience if backers at the sportsbook were prohibited from trading on the exchange, so long as the daq and smarkets existed at roughly the same real liquidity.

Interested to know if anybody outside of Australia has received a call in regards to trading NSW markets?

Had a brief look at the thread. Seems they are mainly worried about people that "always " have a green book. But as someone says the best response would have been to tell NSW to get lost as now everyone will want the same or more.

You cant tell the govt to get lost, we aint paying our taxes.  The govt tell you what to do and you have to lump it or get lost yourself.  They had no choice and anybody outside Australia doing the same thing will have been told the same thing.

betfair should just get out of NSW and Vic. here's 1.5% of fck all. what do you reckon to that?

I would think they'd be glad to see the back of them.

Viva, the jurisdictions where racing is thriving (inc. where ownership is dispersed) are Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong (where its market share is coming under pressure) and Victoria (ditto).

In none of these are bookmakers an essential part of the racing landscape.

Governments, the bloodstock and training industry, tracks, owners and winning punters do not need bookmakers. Winners only need vigorous public interest and a betting public less good at pricing up than they are.

I have long agreed w/ feck that exchange betting needs to be the default betting option, run by the government and offering market-efficient prices.

What do you mean by "market efficient prices" ?

Prices that reflect the balance of supply and demand at any one time--with little or no overround on either side. Not necessarily accurate prices.

HK lost some 120 billion HK dollars (the figure may be remembered wrongly) last year of counting to illegal operators. Were these people looking to avoid tax as a matter of principle? No, they were looking for better prices. No offshore or untaxed operator is going to be able to beat a 100% book.

I think this could be the end of Australian racing on betfair. A good friend who had seeded the place markets for 7-8 years has switched off his bots as they are making a loss. I am having similar issues. I've had a terrible week, losing every day. That just never happens. If it contunues I'll be soon exiting the markets too.

bit more detail on it here

http://www.puntersshow.com.au/index.php?_a=videos&videoId=326

It's awful what BF are allowing to let happen to Aus Racing.  You have my deepest sympathies Pumpkinslayer.

I love the bit half way through that video where they all stop to check out the bird jogging by!

Probably better if Betfair just passed this tax directly onto customers and charged backer and layer 0.75% of backers stake on NSW markets.

Penalise NSW for grabbing more and so give a competitive edge to their cheaper rivals?  That makes far too much sense for BF, Blank.

I presume the current arrangements are only a stop gap until they can programme in the new charges. It probably will be something along the lines of what blank is suggesting although I'd levy it as a proportion of the odds i.e.

backer pays 0.015 * BackersStake * (DecimalOdds-1) / DecimalOdds and layer pays 0.015 * BackersStake / DecimalOdds.

That way

on a 2.0 shot they both pay 50% each of the 1.5% of backer's stake

on a 100.0 shot the backer pays 99% of the 1.5% of backer's stake

on a 1.01 shot the layer (who's effectively backing at 101.00) pays slightly more than 99%+ of the 1.5% of backer's stake.

At least that way it's still possible to lay odds on shots but, either way, liquidity will be decimated. Not because of the absence of middlemen traders, but because it encourages backers and layers to restrict their bets to optimal value (i.e. deters the use of saver bets to reduce risk).

* At least that way it's still possible to lay long odds on shots

i.e. deters the use of saver bets to reduce risk

Mind you, betfair already did that to a degree with the premium charge.

Whether they change the commission structure to reflect the turnover levy or not, it appears that Australia is already setting new ground for charges by showing that a 6.5% commission structure is acceptable to punters.  That should concern many more people than a few Australian traders.

We'll now have market base rate, market turnover rate, commission discount, points bands, discount decay rate, betfair holidays, premium charge, premium premium charge and, into the bargain, you need a degree in computer programming just to place a decent sized bet without suffering the Chinese water torture. As the old saying goes, intelligent people make complicated things seem simple while simple people make simple things seem complicated.

Feck,

I've sent you a PM.

Contrarian, how do I get into community beta to read it? Used to be you just clicked on a link at the top of the forum but that's gone. Gong into the beta interface still brings up the community "classic".

Feck

If you go onto bf.com half way down on the right hand side click on betfair community.

Thanks villain. Also found a message that had been there since April from a guy in oz.

Feck N. Eejit
Date Joined: 10 Jan 02
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I presume the current arrangements are only a stop gap until they can programme in the new charges. It probably will be something along the lines of what blank is suggesting although I'd levy it as a proportion of the odds i.e.

backer pays 0.015 * BackersStake * (DecimalOdds-1) / DecimalOdds and layer pays 0.015 * BackersStake / DecimalOdds.

That way

on a 2.0 shot they both pay 50% each of the 1.5% of backer's stake

on a 100.0 shot the backer pays 99% of the 1.5% of backer's stake

on a 1.01 shot the layer (who's effectively backing at 101.00) pays slightly more than 99%+ of the 1.5% of backer's stake.

At least that way it's still possible to lay odds on shots but, either way, liquidity will be decimated. Not because of the absence of middlemen traders, but because it encourages backers and layers to restrict their bets to optimal value (i.e. deters the use of saver bets to reduce risk).

Another difficulty here is that profitable operators will have a big hole in the prices they can back and lay at. So someone laying at 4 and backing at 4.1, will need to increase their spread to 3.8 - 4.2 or whatever it would be, and the real kicker is that any small value bets (say someone trying to lay at 4.1) can't be taken by any pros, be they gambler or trader, because the value and then some is swallowed up by the charging structure.

I've switched off by AUS bot :-( There have been significant changes to the markets. What exactly, i'm not sure as yet. Will have to stay up a few nights and try and figure out whats going on.

What's going on is that people aren't backing and laying the same selections.  I can work that one out without even ever having looked at the markets.

That's true. But I'm not clear why that should impact on me in such a dramatic way.

And it's not true on most of the markets, just the NSW ones.

How can it be that you predominantly offer hedging for traders?

so taking away 30 Aussies that trade a bit but upping the commission to a max of 6.5% is starting to flow through

Considering a good supply of races are available from many corners of the globe, why bother entertaining a country that doesn't except other types of betting being different than its own biased system, surely The ossie government wont charge or control its citizens profits form betting on out or other countries race but the message from the USA and Australis is that its betting freedoms and policies are messed up as are the majority of its males whom have faulted from the British way of behavior and self respect, strong words but true.....

You taking the michael bf ?
"--- have faulted from the British way of behavior and self respect--- ".

a turnover tax that deters traders is not altogether a bad thing.  traders have had it far too easy on betfair.

^ yeah, 40% premium charge makes it far too easy

At that level it's got to be bad for gamblers as well hazel. 1.3% of my previous turnover would equate to the commission I've previously paid so 1.5% on top of betfair's charges would see me off or, at best, restricting my bets to serious value. It will have a sever affect on liquidity even though the absence of traders generally won't.

I'd love to see it levied on the flies-round-sh1te markets though.

No that's a wrong move, if Betfair just withdraw from Sydney markets, Melbourne and then all States will follow because basically the clubs bookies and tote want Btfair out.
Then other countries will cite the precedent for their own turnover tax and exchange is finished and no way to recoup it's considerable expense in getting licences and setup and High Court challenges.

It's simple, scrap all commission structure, PC1, PC2 and PC3 and move to a turnover commission structure. Better for Betfair, better for punters. The end for traders