yes, I visit Colorado sometimes.

Deeply ironic that in the land of the free and the home of the brave I could escape the long arm of the law for smoking a McCartney filterless yet be given an orange boilersuit and an upside down ironing board with running water for trying to make an honest deutchmark.

Can you bet in-play on bwin xgurkx?

a question for the germans, do you pay the 5% tax on stake wehn betting on the exchange

Betfair should charge German customers more commission to pay the taxes and/or scrap the funding of the new site to retain the revenue from these customers.

or on the stakes rather.

German customers need to take it up with the local politician then, because it seems like a law which has not been properly devised.

The law has been made in a way by those very same politicians with the simple aim of re-monopolizing the lottery and sportsbetting market into the hands of our federal states.

It was the same in france. On surface they're saying: "hey hey, we open the market and just want some taxes that belong to us" when in fact it was made in an unfair and impractical way towards the betting sites and exchanges on purpose.

But hey, can't lose any more money on Manchester ****!

Of course, you know you can move anywhere in the EU if you want to, there are plenty of countries which are not so money-grabbing.

Come to greece, betfair will be able to operate until 1-1-2013

I am sure Betfair have an argument against this being an anti-free market law too.

How is it possible that German law should apply to a British company? And even if it applies why is it not feasible to pay those 5% to the government every time you make a deposit?

(Reuters) - Betfair Group Plc (BETF.L) has withdrawn its online sports betting exchange in Germany, blaming a 5 percent turnover tax for making its main product unviable in Europe's largest economy.

Other British-listed gambling companies have also cried foul over a tax levied in Germany on stakes on sports events from July 2012.


Companies in the growing online gambling market complain of a patchwork of different regulatory regimes and tax systems across continental Europe. They are focusing their expansion efforts on those countries where there are clear rules and less onerous tax regimes.

Betfair, which launched 12 years ago and operates an exchange system that allows gamblers to bet against each other rather than the bookmaker, argued it should not have to pay the German tax.

Germany is a relatively small part of its business, accounting for around 4 percent of core revenue in its last financial year.

"The company is disappointed that to date the tax authorities have not been able to agree to an interpretation of the law that would allow Betfair to continue to offer the exchange product," Betfair said on Wednesday.

"Consequently, Betfair has decided to withdraw its exchange product from the German market," it added.

Betfair said contributions from Germany would be minimal following the withdrawal of the product. Besides the sports betting exchange, it also offers poker, casino and more traditional fixed-odds betting there.

Betfair shares initially opened lower but recouped the losses to trade 1.8 percent higher at 765p by 1020 GMT.

Analyst Nick Batram of brokerage Peel Hunt said he had already factored a German withdrawal into his forecasts after previous statements from the company.

"We believe that there is the potential to create a much leaner and meaner business, with the unique exchange platform at the core," said Batram, who has a "buy" rating on the stock.

William Hill (WMH.L), Britain's largest bookmaker, said it no longer offered any kind of service to German residents because of the tax situation.

"We remain licensed in Spain and Italy, and have recently developed a Swedish language website and started advertising in print and broadcast media there," spokeswoman Kate Miller said.

Bwin.party (BPTY.L), the world's largest online gaming group, said last week that the German tax had contributed to a decline in revenue in the third quarter.

Bwin has amended its business model in Germany, its largest market, by no longer accepting very short-odds bets on sports events there.

how much time we have ?

its only exchange bets n they can still bet on fixed odds??

As said and proven above, they're worse than BWIN! BWIN!!!!!!! You know what THAT means????

I don't need Betfair with such crap odds and without the exchange!

No 365 doesn't have the 5% tax... let's see how long

we need betfair in more country's not less ffs

its bad enough i cant winter in spain cos they wont have it

now i cant even summer in germany , ive relatives there aswell ffs

me too gurk

another reason is , wtf has bf to rush all this 2 days before they close in germany they give a announcement ?

just wait till atleast next year .