I'm far from convinced that you're correct in that assumption frog.

They don't understand the ethics of gambling thats for sure, and seem to be trying to re-write them. I just genuinely hope it isn't the beginning of the end for trying to win money betting in the long term or we will know who to point the finger at.

Yeah I know but I do have my own personal code lol.

you may not work for them fafh, but you do have a tendency to defend them rain or shine.

Where does the 60% come from?  It was explained to me as 40%

Ok I got it now, different people will pay different rates.  I was told I was 40%, what is the criteria for paying 60%?

Lifetime commission generated
to gross profits ratio     Applicable Premium Charge rate
< 5%      60%
5% - 10%      50%
> 10%      40%

Thanks fll

That doesn't make much sense, does it?

What's .1 % of BF's customer base.?
How many different posters on here complaining loudly about the increased PC and saying they're going to quit ?
What's that ratio ?

Btw I wonder if this thread is compulsory reading for at least the BF marketing dept.?

I read it as in your last sentence Investor.

Yes, it's irrelevant for many, but extremely important for the few. Also consider that over time, smaller long term winners will be hit, so the 0.1% is extremely likely to rise, even if Betfair don't lower the threshold.

For me this is the worst thing that's happened since the PC was introduced in 2008 in the first place. Betfair sent me an email saying it was unlikely I would have to pay, and I was paying a couple of months later.

This time, I received no communication whatsoever, like it's some kind of unimportant detail for those who won't immediately pay it. If I stick around, I would say the chances of my charges hitting 40%+ over the next 24 months are well over 95% (currently total charges generated stand at just under 22%). Difficult for me to judge that objectively of course though.

To put things into perspective, my worst ever losing streaks (peak to equity drawdown) from memory were roughly -£19k and -£14k. I consider this new charge to be far worse for me, even though I am unlikely to be affected within the next 12 months.

I've paid about £12.5k in PC, and a similar amount in commission on strategies to churn through funds that I wouldn't have deemed worthwhile in the absence of PC, plus the time I've spent on this.  Even that cumulatively is worse than my worst ever loss, and it keeps getting bigger. Over time the new charge is likely to hit me a lot harder.

I'd like to see a commitment from Betfair to keep charges stable for a long period of time like a decade or so. It's very difficult to plan ahead in an environment like this.

You don't think then that they will ever inflation proof the 250,000 over 10 years then ?

Much more likely that they'll reduce it or abolish it altogether as they did with the 250 markets a year threshold.

I still think that for those punters who are clever enough to work out how to be net winners on BF, will probably work out a way to handle the effect of the PC charge, even at the exhorbitant new level of 40 %.
Whilst I am not even close yet to be hit with that  "super " premium level, I can see from analyses of my current betting strategies that even in a worst case scenario I should still be able to earn a net 8 % pa on total revenues( defined as the total liabilities of all my bets). That's well down from my current levels, but still
enough for any " professional" or " full timer " to make a very good living.
The real unfairness imo remains the inequities that will be suffered by the successful, but inconsistent , gamblers. That is those that win big, but go through extended down periods. They will get killed by this new extra charge.
If you cannot smoothe out your performance peaks and troughs, then I think you have very serious problems in winning with the BF PC commission structure.
And there are undoubtedly many such type gamblers out there.
Rebates of some sort imo are the only reasonable solution to this major inequity.

Sounds very devious and "synful ".

I do not think BF cares if people win a lot, they couldn't care less. What BF wants is that all money that gets uploaded by customers will overtime be turned into commission and so the uploaded money 'dries up' in BF's favour. They do not want people taking money out of accounts. The best thing for BF is (none wise) people playing against each other and eventually paying all their uploads in commission.

The question here is indeed if the new PC policy will ruin BF's own product because of liquidity being taken out of the market. I do think this possible. Personally I might really move to our purple friends and boost liquidity there. I have a traded volume with BF of over 1 mln a week. For the first time in my betting history I might regard my principles higher than my bank-balance. Fact of the matter is that when I read BF's email about this new PC structure I could only smile. The 'how dare they'-attitude is long since gone. All this has nothing to do with the great product Betfair is but all with the one-way-directed communication/attitude BF takes in these matters.

Fine as Frog Hair.
You are SOOOO right. Discussion ended :)

28 Jun 11 22:53 Joined: 06 Sep 07 | Topic/replies: 8,270 | Blogger: DaveEdwards's blog
Froggy, do you work for b/f?


He covers the night shift for them , but most people here already know that.....

why is a exchange punter winning 250k and a betfair poker player  winning 250k treated different?
all of betfairs reasoning about why they need to tax the exchange player should be valid for the poker player or does the poker player avoid charges coz he would be of in an instants to another poker site.