I hadn't even thought about the other way JML. This whole thing is crazy. It's as if they're doing a Reggie Perrin.

The whole commission issue needs ripped up and started from scratch and I don't say that because I'm being hit. There must be less complex ways of extracting the same amounts from the same people.

if you havnt won 250000 whats the problem?

How soon before they lower the 205k threshold ??

Isn't it the case that the really consistent big time winning gamblers ( not the plungers who win and lose big time erratically) will be earning petty much the same level of profits week in and week out with their bots that make mkts at small mark ups.
Aren't they the real liquidity makers and thus should not be really affected by the super PC charge, any more than the everyday normal punters will be.

What I don't understand is Betfair's justification for this. Are they really saying that it costs them up to 60% of a successful punter's profit to run this site? Are the Betfair servers running on gold dust? How come back in the day Betfair was making good profits on 5% and 20% ?

Can't believe that betfair would be struggling so badly that this was the best idea they could fashion[;)]

froggie came a'courtin

...popularity at BF headquarters.

BETFAIR are to increase the charges on their most successful users to as much as 60 per cent of gross win next month in a move the betting exchange claim will protect smaller players using the site.

FromJuly 18, Betfair will crank up the controversial premium charges faced by big hitters whose lifetime net profits exceed £250,000, who bet in over 1,000 markets, and whose commission generated is less than 40 per cent of their lifetime gross profit.

Betfair introduced the premium charge in September 2008 at 20 per cent, claiming it would cover costs incurred in providing the most successful punters with the platform to profit - the majority of which comes through trading and in-running punting.

At the present level, Betfair, who believe only 0.1 per cent of their 3.8 million registered users will be affected, claim to break even on the highly profitable users, but state that profits from elsewhere are ploughed into improving the site to meet levels of trading from big punters and advertising to attract new customers to maintain liquidity in the markets.

A spokesman said: “Betfair believes that the implementation of the adjusted charge will provide the business with fair compensation for the service it provides to those impacted customers, who currently pay a rate of commissions and charges that does not reflect the benefit they gain from the Betfair ecosystem.

“We have evolved our pricing model to ensure we have a fair pricing structure for all of our customers, over 99.9% of whom are not affected by this adjustment.

“Since inception we have provided customers with a unique and innovative product that has consistently offered them, on average, the best value on the market. This is still very much the case and we’re committed to ensuring that it remains the case for years to come.”

Betfair shares closed on Tuesday at 771.5p, an increase on Monday's final price of 726.5p. Betfair’s preliminary results for the year ended April 30 will be published on Wednesday.

A suggested new rebate method.

After each market they update your lifetime profit, commission generated and deduct / rebate an amount such that your total pc paid is up to date. In order to combat evasion (e.g. losing all your profits to a non-pc account to get a large rebate) they could make the maximum rebate per market equal to the average commission paid per market over the lifetime of your account. That would mean if you'd paid 15K in pc's and your average commission paid per market was £5 you'd have to lose in 3,000 markets to get that 15K back. That would give betfair more than enough time to close the account if they think someone's at it.

When you think about it, had they done this in the first place they might have escaped a lot of the flak the pc brought on them. Having a lump deducted on a Wednesday probably magnified the bad feeling about the charge several times over. The fact betfair never even considered this effect shows how out of touch their ex-city boys are with the realities of dealing with ordinary punters.

Correct JML. When the original pc came out there was a discussion about one account betting another a large sum and you'd then use the losing account.

Still no word from betscvm.