It is true. 'Betfair' does sound like a firm idiots would understand straight out - Betd@q is too foreign or financial sounding for the joe in the street to remember, let alone type in.   

And the ducksfolk haven't been clever enough to sign up any web addresses that relate to possible spelling mistakes.      In contrast, if you type in 'Betfare' or 'Betsfair', you get redirected to here. Nice to see Betfair take the time to cater for the intellectually challenged!

pxb why do you reckon the major pre-match MMs will be hit?

MMs trade both sides of a market with the objective of an all green book.

Thats how I do it.

Ah OK PXB but other MMs may just leave up lays they consider value and just let them run regardless of what gets matched in the expectation that in the long run they will profit.

Such operations are unlikely to be moving elsewhere as I doubt they would be affected by the new charge and probably aren't even paying the existing PC either.

I haven't, but I know a good number of the big US Horse Racing forumites are now putting a decent portion of their bets on at the Duck. So far they seem reasonably content with the liquidity, and they're assuming it'll be rather busier there once the July deadline has passed.

You could say perhaps that When you try to get matched over there, you get a duck ?

This thing about the Betdak interface seems like recycled plagiarism to me.

Open two windows, one with Betfair and another with Betdakk and list the differences. Few and far between.

No new custom*

I should say it's purely speculation on my half. But I just can't think of any reason now why they won't introduce a charge. They could introduce a charge of just 10 or 15% and still come out looking like the good guys. And if they are going to do it they'd rather do it now rather than a year or two down the line as it p*sses off a smaller percentage of customers.

**** constantly get the rough end of the stick in these parts.The truth is they can't compete with betfair in terms of advertising yet they still sponsor races and advertising is and does take place and I think most exchange users are aware that it exists so the problem is once again liquidity and betfairs ultimate monopoly position and all the advertising in the world isn't going to change that because gamblers by their very nature are a selfish breed so if johhny isn't paying 60%,he doesn't really care who is.I have to say that it is still an incredibly useful place if you are backing a horse at the head of the market or in a big sporting event.An outlet like that is not to be underestimated in this day and age when bookies are mostly a joke and betfair are fast becoming one.
   I think the question people really should be asking is how much will punters take before they  do something about it and that appears to be quite a lot.Exchange punters and even punters in general clearly need some kind of representation in this day and age where they are by and large treated as the 'criminals' despite they being the life blood of everything.Until its worth somebody's while either financially or emotionally to get some kind of a recognized representative body in place than we are doomed to be treated like we are.I'm not saying the above would work as it often surprises me what a small amount of users contribute to some controversial premium charge threads but if you  could get a significant membership in place than you could actually do something.Until then we will have to live with what we have and how we're treated.

I agree Rocket with the essence of your thinking, that this could just snowball through the gambling industry and eventually betting as we know it is doomed to the extent that it will just be another version of one big gaming machine (thats clearly Betfair's ideal, they are making no bones about it).

I never touch gaming machines and I aint about to change but there are alot of folk who do enjoy them without any serious notion of winning in the long term and these are the people BF seem to want to cater for.

Should the whole gambling industry eventually follow suit, there would be nowhere to turn so its a sad day that the first nail has been hammered into the coffin.

What ever happened to the original ethos of Betfair, that it would invent a system for buying and selling bets as traders and investors do with shares and futures on the LSE and LIFFE?

That was the original idea which separated Betfair from the evil bookmakers, and turned Betfair into what it is today.  Why has someone at Betfair killed this idea?

Rocket to the FACE Joined: 28 Oct 08
Replies: 12550 04 Jul 11 13:18 
I should say it's purely speculation on my half. But I just can't think of any reason now why they won't introduce a charge.

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because they're the little guy trying to make up ground.

if they were more evenly matched, I agree, they probably would. because just as BF is now acting like a de facto monopoly, the two firms would then logically behave like a complex monopoly.

but they're not going to get to that point in 12 months. or, um, ever imo.

It's not such a daft idea.  The market is crying out for a serious competitor to Betfair, who whether it's with spiralling charges, outages or poor customer service, seem to be pissing off customers left, right and centre.  BDQ have horrible branding and very little presence, but with a tart-up and some serious image / advertising work , maybe a few new gimmicks / innovations they have a product that people would flock to from here.  They have a billionaire owner but don't appear ready to spend the cash required to seize the opportunity and become a big player.

I'd love BF to have a serious competitor, which would benefit everyone on here, it's frustrating to see BDQ floundering when they offer the same basic product.  I've felt for a long while that the real problem for Betfair is going to come when they are blindsided by a new, attractive and innovative exchange product, at which point they might find out that all the customers they've pissed off down the years are more than willing to jump ship.  The market's crying out for something new.  Like iBet.

To be fair to them they have done some advertising over the last seix months or sso on tv and in the racing post nad having them cheap google ads on the internet.

you have to see this as the Dack's golden oppurtunity to become a serious competitor in the market to the fair.

Their 2.5 commish offer should attract some new customers and i'd say if the fair are going down the Sportsbook route you can be sure the Dack will have to offer the same thing either before or very soon after them if they want to keep their already small share of the market.

In fairness it is a very good idea to open a sportsbook because it attracts the casual punter that the exchanges love and means they can then be enticed into using the exchange.

Dack need to change that stupid name and come up with better graphics and interface , they seem too stubborn to want to succeed

@ Frogs Hair

Nothing to do with the other site I can assure you, its a username i use for lots of diff sites.