Would Betfair have survived if it launched with the Super PC?

Flutter would've taken them over although that would've happened anyway if the flutter backers had balls.

Mr Angry
If there had been inflation adjusted annual net profit thresholds to those bands of charges, maybe it would have.
After all, one of the very major gripes on here is that BF is now looking at lifetime profit aggregates to implement the current thresholds. That appears to many to be very unfair, and represents moving the goalposts after the game has already well and truly started.

no, it wouldn't. that's the core of the moral argument against it.

I'm missing the thrust of your response Viva.

the reality is that for the exchange winner there is no malta to escape this form of taxation and one cant help feeling betfair are opening the backdoor for the future taxation of all british gambling winners with this premium charge practise and if that happens we can thank the betfair model for it!

Taxed at source.
Ooh that hurts always.

when you get past the self-interest, the only moral argument against the PC with any force is that it's an abuse of a de facto monopoly position - which could only be built up by initially not imposing the charge or even intimating at it.

it's in some respects the equivalent of tescos opening in a high street driving everyone else out of business, then massively increasing prices in the knowledge that it's going to be extremely difficult for competition to reetablish itself.

Sounds pretty Machiavellian to me Viva.
Did the founders really think this far ahead when setting up their original pricing structure ?

very true, i am beginging to believe that many years ago the 2 chaps that dreamed up betfair being largely small professional gamblers themselves hatched a plan that instead of struggling to find winners lets make an attractive platform with little margins, let the players prosper then x years down the line hit the big guys with huge charges , if that wasnt there intention it sure looks like its going to be there legacy

;-)

with hindsight, my guess would be: not specifically, but generally yes. ie, that if they reached a point that they were a mature business with an effective monopoly, it was always their intention to milk more profits out of the site by increasing charges one way or another.

Let's all ask them then ? How though ?
An open letter to the RP perhaps?
Presumably they don't bother to read and post on this forum.
Perhaps if any of us sees either of them in any taxhaven watering holes this summer, confront them on this ( but at least soften your approach by buying them a fes sherbets first) ?.

yep it looks very much like that to me too an everyone else, milking is after all a very productive business plan especially when you own the only milker in town but at the rate of 60% is it not a case that the old milker is getting made into juicy sirloin stakes soon and the farmers going to retire early!

"-- a few sherbets ---"

Makes your t!ts hurt doesn't it ?

lol yes with bulldog clips

Stop it puhlease.

ive heard a rumour that betfair are making a sequel to babe and babe 2, babe in the city, this time the cute little pig runs into a bacon slicer.

thats 500 little bigs at 50 pence a slice, come here little piggys lol

very good question. The question itself answers how wrong betfair policy is.

But your point I assume is that they will still be pigs and will eventually grow up to be biggies and so on and so on.
But BF owns the pig slicer, and so good business for them methinks.

Pig slicer, bacon slicer whatever you want.

mind you betfair isnt the only farm around is it and maybe some of the fat piggys will vote with thee trotters and trot too the other farm, with that concept in mind any level headed exchange capitalist will understand that if they want to recoup there bf super charge losses then simply bet on both sites to create an offset providing that the other firm doesnt have a lock out policy on regular winners!

a tale of two pigs

if one thinks about it, with the current economic climate and the fact that the other exchange company is attracting possibly more of the new customer market then the only viable roads for betfair company profit expansion are 1, obtain more global markets in more countries  2, expand betting porfolio, 3, take back half of the winnings of the best customers. the last option is only to be used as last resort in the light of the first two stalling!

Re the pc always being the plan, it's hard to imagine that anyone who thought making a non-runner a losing bet and charging traders and cheats as little as 5% of their lifetime profit was a good idea would have such foresight.

hang on a minute, the very idea that too claim all profit making betfair customers are either bookies, traders or cheats is a form of manipulation and is used totally to justify what is a form of account purgery. i personally have yet to engage an exchange with the data i have researched for many years on my love of greyhound racing form and prediction modeling but with the kind of abuse potential sucessful betfair customers will be receiving from the company i wonder if all the hard work i have done is worth it as i never envisaged i would be handing the majority over too betfair.

it seems the best betfair customers will be treated the same as those who bought shares in the company and will lose money greatly to betfairs advantage, the original betfair" home of winners" concept is dying but the dream lives on and if betfair fails its self and its customers i hope another company learns from there mistakes and the monopoly ends with or without betfair the exchange working business model will evolve and prosper.

betfair are banking heavily that they are the only true horse in the exchange race but rest assured if they fall on any of the last hurdles then another horse will takes its place in the winners enclosure

what would be a fairer system is to evaluate the way any consistant winner on betfair makes there money and in mind that something should be paid too betfair have a vote on betfair as too who gets charged what. here is my charging model that is fairer

1.....cheats = lifetime ban, assets frozen
2.....traders = %40 pc , cosistantly hammering the servers and raiding the margins
3.....bookmakers = %40 , using betfair as an aid too bookmaking
4.....general speculators = %25 , the very people that fit the majority of punters on betfair

if betfair is truly fair then they should start disciminating and investigating who makes what and how, its not rocket science and most honest punters will glady co-operate openly with betfair, betfair is being too remote and dogmatic and if it doesnt do some proper public relations work then it will
further alienate the majority of punters from betfair and tarnish there reputation.

it is time for betfair to embrace its true ideals and its followers and tie its unbilical cord,it is born, it lives, but now it must learn to walk with giants, to ask and cry, and then one day it can run when it has learned too walk first.

perhaps betfair should lend an ear too the people that have followed its dream instead of the other companys and investors that are pawing and sleeping with it for it is the people that ultimately will vote with there money, take heed