Betfair raising the commission

What region is that??

It's going up to 6.5% in Poland.

Why are they doing it are they having to give a % to the local taxman?

Apr 25, 2013 -- 10:15PM, Just Checking wrote:

Why are they doing it are they having to give a % to the local taxman?

Knowing this awful company it will be down to pure greed.

The commission rate on racing in Aust has been 6.5% for nearly 12 months. There are also other new charges as well.

How does that affect people in your region paying PC? Is implied commission also raised?

And is commission for big players set at 2.2% instead of 2% with a 5.5% base rate (and 2.6% for the 6.5% base rate)?

I'm not sure about the implied commission, but the lowest comm is 2.6%.

It only applies to racing, but is charged in all states, eventhough some don't tax on turnover. Just another example just how greedy these pricks are.

so... did we establish where this is yet?

6.5% austria (racing?)
5.5% probably denmark/finland (all sports?)

5.5% for norway too I think

Cayman Islands 1.01
Huddersfield 50
1000 Bar

austria should be australia. that one is for tax reasons, no idea what's going on with the others.

My local greengrocer has just put up the price of apples...

What should I do?

- Stand in the middle of his shop, stamp my foot, and scream at him " You're a greedy fecker!" ?

- Tell him his pricing strategy is all wrong and his business is as good as finished?

- Slag him off to all of his other customers and suggest we group together and boycott his shop ,.. but continue secretly buying them ?... his apples are rather sweet after all.

- Report him to the Greengrocers' Commission ?   

- Or buy my apples elsewhere ?

Investor, where did you read it applies to Norway/Denmark/Finland? A quick googling of the subject just leads me back to this thread >.< Any comment from said countries please?

I'm in Norway and I've had no notification of a increase in commission rates.

JTG - WALOFS

Just use an alternative greengrocer who doesn't shaft his loyal customers just because he can - when all the customers have left and the Greengrocer has lost his living maybe then he will realise his greed was the downfall of his business.

That's good Eddie. I'm Swedish, and negative developments in neighbouring countries make me worry.

Frank ?

No, my name isn't Frank:)

It's probably just matter of time before raised commission is brought to all markets. I would understand increased charges on countries that have bigger expenses (jurisdiction's, employees..) but as far I know there are no Betfair employees and no government taxes on these countries where the new comm is brought into.

Nick, what region/countries are facing these hikes ?

At least Poland and Finland, probably some other smaller countries too. Have to wait till next week to see who's really affected, given large number of the customers didn't even receive notification email (me included) or popup when logging in to Betfair though they are most likely affected. Hard to believe they would only increase comm for some smaller bettors on that country.

For Bulgaria - new comm is 7.5%

By: Mr.Anderson Date Joined: 07 Oct 10
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Investor, where did you read it applies to Norway/Denmark/Finland? A quick googling of the subject just leads me back to this thread >.< Any comment from said countries please?

.
http://www.oddsnet.com/fora/view/Re__YNWA__-)-76595-203798.html

ty

Is there any good reason for that awful 7.5% in Bulgaria? Any government tax or such?

lack of competion i would imagine not that i am an expert on the bulgarian betting scene.

Betfair sending clear message to the affected countries customers: "don't play on an exchange anymore!"

JTG, how you'd react would depend on whether your greengrocer was a monopoly whose presence meant that there were no alternative sources of apples in the vicinity.

that's the issue with BF. in the early days they established themselves as a de facto monopoly in exchange betting, so people who love the idea of P2P see BF as a poorly performing custodian of a great idea.

Could be Betfair using countries with a relative small number of
customers to see how it affects t/o and profits.

TheInvestor, do you visit and understand Norwegian betting discussion sites or did that one just pop up through a google search ?
   Obviously some Norwegian Betfair customers have had notification of a commission raise, but I sure haven't had one yet.
  I don't know if this means Betfair will have different rates for different customers within the same country or if it's just because my account manager(I have a key account) hesitate more in "delivering" bad news...

Just googled it and used google translate Eddie.

I just recieved an email saying they are raising the Market Base Rate in my region(Norway) to 5.5 %, but I wont be affected. They have excluded a small number of accounts in my region from the raise.

WILL THIS PUT OFF ALOT OF RUMANIANS AND BULGARIANS THAT ARE PLANNING TO COME AND LIVE HERE

Or the Romulans.

Happy for you Eddie, but sad for the Norwegians who aren't as important.

It's still strangely difficult to find information about his matter, but there is this in Betfair's help files.

http://en.learning.betfair.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2684/~/what-is-the-market-base-rate%3F

"In Bulgaria the default Market Base Rate is 7.5%
In Poland the default Market Base Rate is 6.5%
In Norway and Finland the default Market Base Rate is 5.5%"

(Says nothing about Denmark. Unless I'm misinformed they currently can't use the API in Denmark though, which sucks almost as much.)

Would be interesting to know the reasoning behind these raises. Anyone got any idea? Are they just trying to figure out an equation for elasticity of demand, using "insignificant" countries for the trial?? Or is it because of taxes / regulation trouble?

No changes in regulation/taxation in Norway.
  Only thing is Norway was one of several countries where Betfair stopped all investments/promotions from at the end of last year including laying off the Norwegian country manager who was their only employee in Norway.
Betfair is still wide open though, both for new and old customers.

   I guess they are just trying out higher commission rates in a few small countries to find out the impact of it.
  If it doesn't have a great affect on the customers in those countries, I think we'll soon see a commission raise all over...

If so, I hope turnover drops like a rock

Raising commission all round would mean only trading is viable. Punters might as well go to a bookie.

Trading's only viable if you have consistent liquidity which now seems to be dwindling daily on the horses. Even close to the off and first in the queue it can take forever to get filled these days, I wouldn't be surprised if Betfair have their fingers in the till and matching bets at source before letting the scraps thru to the exchange.

^if that was happening, you'd see evidence of it on the site and especially on platforms like geeks.

I've never seen it.

Maybe you're not looking hard enough, viva

Not too sure how trading software like the geeks toy would see things that happen at source, tbf.  I run quite a bit of my own software and trade manually and odd things have been happening in the racing markets for some time now as well as actual liquidity falling alot more drastically than the matched totals show.

well, every bet I've submitted ever has appeared to hit the exchange in full, either by matching a visible amount or showing up as an offer. if BF were front running the way you say, I'd expect to see some discrepancies with that.

of course, they could be front-running by queue-jumping on the exchange, but I've seen no evidence of that either. whenever I've been waiting at a price it's seemed to take about the requisite amount of action before I've got matched.

Geeks, especially the live charting function, is useful for judging both those things.

I'm by no means a BF apologist - I think their current strategy is essentially somewhere between confused and wrong - but this particular knock just doesn't ring true with me.

How much commission do they charge for just using the forum?

no no no the comish is high enough


at some point the so called  better odds will just be gobbled up by comish if not already

the people who run betfair are total tails

I think a 5% commission rate is absurdly high.  It makes it pretty much impossible to make any profit from pure betting (no trading).  So it's not really viable now.

imo they should consider relating discount to lifetime net profit as well as BF points.

I wonder if they've ever crunched the numbers on replacing PC2 with a discount cap or higher starting rate.

how do you mean viva, you pay higher commission if you've won more? That would be a terrible idea. If Betfair did that to me, I'd cut a massive chunk of my business.

Dont confuse commission on each market with overall fees (which include pc etc). Any increase in basic commission puts Betfair at a disadvantage against the bookies in the quest to get outright punters. It benefits traders and hurts those people who want to hold on to a bet.

5% is already too high in most markets. If you are not trading who would play Asian handicaps with a 5% commission? Years ago Betfair brought in the MBR to address this and give them pricing flexibility. But in recent years it has barely been used.

PC paying customers have a cushion against increased base commission, since they are already getting their charges 'topped up'. Higher rates will mean that they pay less PC.

So the people hit by increased commission will be predominantly newer / smaller accounts. Who are exactly the kind of people that Betfair should be trying to attract and encourage...

Investor - I meant something like capping the discount at various rates below 60% for 250K+ winners instead of the higher rate PC2.

don't know if it's a flyer. out of interest, do you think you'd pay more or less with no higher rate PC but 3% commission?