PC Payers - How do you cope with it?

talk to frank.

Im in the same boat im into my allowance.Not sure how im going to deal with it mentally,in some ways im tempted to have a break and in other ways im trying to get my head round dealing with it.

the wife take the kids out on wednesday morning so I can smash the place up with a baseball bat

usually i'm ok by the weekend

Regardless what you think of the ethics of the operator - If you can still make a consistent profit, then 4/5 of something is better than 100% of nowt

The problem comes where you pay the charge and then have serious losses - these are the 'customers' that are hardest done by

Worst time is when you have a bad day Monday or Tuesday and then get shafted on the Wednesday for the previous week. If you play in running then you're stuck here I'm afraid and you just have to accept it as a form of tax/business expense. if you're placing outright bets etc then I'd look elsewhere if I was you.

try knocking one out, it helps take your mind off things for a minute or two.

or if you are 1k up can you lay a very short price selections for £1k exposure and back at bookies or other exchanges (generally it seems you can get similar prices at bookies/other exchanges for the shorties)? Get down on your knees and pray to the lord that your selection wins so that your betfair account is back to 0 profit. else you are fudged.

Just remember that no matter how bad off you are there's 98% of winners worse off.

FECK...Not necessary a lot of premiun charge payers are just small winners lucky to now have a winning account.

While lots of big players are still winning large and a lot more than a lot of premiun charge payers. But get away with it because they bet more.

So to say 98% are worse off than a pc payer is not necessary true unless your talking about percentage winning return rather than MONEY WON....Cheers

^^^ exactly.

I could have a great run next week and pay 5k in premium charge, lose every penny and more the following week, would betfair give me a refund?

If not, why not, and can anyone explain how it would be fair? (the stupid thing is that if I lost a packet first, I wouldn't have to pay a penny - totally and utterly ludicrous!)

chop your point is fair with regard newbies on here...but there are guys been on here a few years losing then learn how to make it pay.....so going on lifetime p/l is probably
the fairest way if there is one.

My point applies to everyone, regardless of how long they've been on. In actual fact, it would be more likely to affect people who have been on here for ages, as it's less likely that a newcomer would come on and start winning huge sums straight away (although far from impossible)

It's blatantly unfair no matter which way you look at it.

There are some of us who would love to be paying the poxy PC, cos that would suggest we are winning rather more than losing.

That said, I have to agree that it's nothing short of daylight robbery by Betfair. Maybe they should start giving 20% of the losses back to the biggest losers. Even it up a bit and become a modern day Robin Hood.

I'm happy since premium charge has been introducted.
Just had to win double than before to not be stressed by that 16%, it works.

Good traders know their money management.

For example, after winning £10K in a week they have no qualms whatsoever setting aside £2K of it to cover potential PC charges the following week. As good traders have these PC charges on a regular basis they come as no surprise. So they know that this money is potentially already lost in charges and effectively not theirs anymore.

It would take a severe lapse in judgement for the good trader to gamble away the money that they have set aside for charges.

Regular lapses may indicate an underlying gambling problem

I don't get your point Blessington. Are you suggesting that the minimum percentage of winnings figure shouldn't be fixed and should instead increase with profit or that small winners (and presumably losers)shouldn't have to pay any commission?

I'm not sure if that's what he is suggesting, but I can say it would never work (unless Betfair want to get rid of those customers).

To give an example, I remember someone saying charges should be to a sliding scale, rising to 90% for someone making £1M+.

However, whereas PC has had only a small effect in terms of losing customers, this would have a huge effect. The reason being that most people that make 'serious money' aren't going to be sitting on their own behind a screen. It's plain to see how the "they won't leave because they'll still make £100,000 falls flat", when expenses other than what is paid to Betfair exceed this amount.

To take an example Betting Promotion made a net trading profit of 58.8MSEK in 2009, after paying 14.9MSEK in trading fees (20.21%). However, their operating income was 18.9MSEK, meaning that even paying 50% in charges would see them running a small loss.

Perhaps there are some people out there making vast sums on their own, with excellent skills in all areas of betting/trading, programming etc. or acting on inside information / cheating, but as a rule I think you can take it as a given that the ratio of GP to Net profit undergoes a negative change as absolute profit increases.

Agree Investor. It's one thing charging a shower of leeches who have nowhere else to go less than all the other winners. It's quite another expecting those providing liquidity to subsidise the leeches to an even greater degree. It's said the bulk of racing liquidity (real liquidity not Adam Heathcote type) is down to a handful of customers. That's how vulnerable betfair are. It's just as well their rivals are even thicker than betfair's city boys.

It's said the bulk of racing liquidity (real liquidity not Adam Heathcote type) is down to a handful of customers.

Red Text

I just open a new account whenever I am about to pay PC. Simples :)

it does boil down to money management and predicting pc charge due to the impact of bets losing / winning within given periods.

can someone please post us the spreadsheet to allow us to do this.

It's just a 20 percent tax on winnings, get over it.

[ ] learn to arb
[ ] develop a system with a minimal edge and churn money
[ ] make mental note that betfair are no longer your friend, just a currently necessary evil
[ ] consider the possibility that there may be other invisible checkboxes

you may tick as many or as few checkboxes as you wish.