It's about time they label the platform for recreational purposes only and remove long term winning accounts altogether.
It's for fun, you aren't supposed to be able to make money!

Keep seeing the same arguments within the premium charge fiasco repeated many times so the things that stand out most are the company known as betfair keeping its pressure on winners via charging to
create more profit for the company against the wishes of most customers and more affirmed distrust by most customers towards the betfair company and and future amendments to the charging policies
of the said company.

For me and it must be for most able minded observers the biggest problem now is how can betfair on
the one hand create an exchange that makes winning so easy with its fair markets and allowance of
winners and then attempt to take as much percent of every pound placed into betfair accounts and then justify that it needs to do this to attract more customers to then do this knowing that the company must achieve more than 70% make on all cash installed into accounts.

Perhaps what betfair must do is what all companies must do in there formative years and that is grow organically as the forced growth that has produced an inefficient company cannot continue without further damaging the company reflected ethos towards winners and all customers generally,

hoping that new customers will not know the now widespread common knowledge that winners will
have profits taken from them and also hoping they wont peer into t&c or the forum will stay quiet or the press is showing more that the company needs to smell the coffee and address its own fiscal
matters before a future staling or even downturn in markets erupts, more so now as the growth of all rival exchanges will now through there policies be soaring at a much greater rate.

They can't do that. They need to keep saying to the shareholders that the growth is here to stay and that even bigger, brighter gambling markets are just around the corner.
Is it fiction? Of course, but so what? It looks good on the yearly report and it's pretty clear BF's religion is a quarter to quarter management style. They have showed a complete inability to predict the long term effect of recent operational decisions.
I still believe that the company will be in the ground in 5 years time because of impending EU legislation, so maybe quarter to quarter is the best they can do, knowing that the business will go back to being local.

I have been quoted a few times.  Sorry if it caused confusion.  I must point out that frog's interpretation of my thoughts was not correct.  I said, "People are worried that betfair feel such a small number of customers can damage their ecosystem..."

My concern being that Betfair feel a very small number of customers can damage their ecosystem.  Which is very worrying if you are a shareholder.  If they close down the 500, then another 500 will take their place.  At the same time Betfair have indicated that they dont know if their premium charge will solve the problem.

I certainly don't think you are a Betfair plant like others do

look at it like this, betfair logged 35 million gbp profits last year and how much of that would they of made if they were not charging 20% premium charge to all consistent winners, they cant charge more in commission as this will stop the flow of new customers choosing betfair as opposed to other exchanges that would charge less, betfair is operating and investing like a high margin company when its a small margin operator, game over.

hoping that new customers will not know the now widespread common knowledge that winners will
have profits taken from them and also hoping they wont peer into t&c or the forum will stay quiet or the press is showing more that the company needs to smell the coffee and address its own fiscal
matters before a future staling or even downturn in markets erupts, more so now as the growth of all rival exchanges will now through there policies be soaring at a much greater rate

I liked the above bff, but I thought the below was funny

how can betfair on the one hand create an exchange that makes winning so easy with its fair markets

but over charging is daylight robbery!

yeah pleasing shareholders, no strike that[;)]

catflmasppo
08 Sep 11 08:58
Joined:
12 Sep 10
| Topic/replies: 54 | Blogger: catflmasppo's blog
My guess is that only a small proportion of the 500 are complaining.  As you say, they are likely to be clever and therefore likely to be able to see the issues from both sides of the fence.

I think the point is that if users adapt their strategies to avoid pc2 they will contribute more to the sustainability of betfair.  If not, betfair get more money which improves sustainability.  If they leave - problem solved.  If they leave and go to a competitor even better.

One downside is that some users are unhappy.  That's unfortunate but things have to change, you can't run a leading edge company like betfair with the attitude, as I think I read above, if it worked ok 12 years ago why change it?

The other is the poor publicity it generates but this is largely due to the misrepresentation of the charge's applicability.  Again, the 500 are intelligent people and unlikely to want to promote poor publicity for what is effectively their own business.  So who's doing it?


Overall a good post, with the exception of this statement which I think is utterly ridiculous: "If they leave - problem solved.  If they leave and go to a competitor even better."

You seem to actually agree that these users are costing Betfair money, which I think is just plain crazy. Furthermore, to think that these customers going to a competitor is 'even better' for Betfair doesn't make any sense. I guess you could make the assumption that PC payer's going to the competition won't matter too much, but to say that PC payers going to the competition is better than PC payers closing accounts and no longer using asny exchange is extremely naive.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean here, but let's say Betfair closed the 500 PC2 accounts, and most of them went to purple, do you honestly think that purple would actually be worse of as a result? Because that's what you seem to be implying.

betfair making money out of PC accounts, it just betfair is/want to be the bookmakers and doesn't want winning accounts who will feed on the fishes...it better for betfair to keep 100% of the fishes money they to share it

Betfair claims that it costs them more to replace the
money PC payers suck out of the system, some of them
paying only 5% overall on their accounts. How long
would the purple people put up with them ?

Duncan Disordorli
08 Sep 11 10:29 Joined: 10 Jul 01 | Topic/replies: 163 | Blogger: Duncan Disordorli's blog
frog2
08 Sep 11 08:08
Joined:
01 Feb 08
| Topic/replies: 197 | Blogger: frog2's blog
I think Hazel has hit the nail on the head. For all the complaints from the 500 it is apparent that they just dont get it. If the 500 are allowed to carry on unchallenged Betfair will simply not survive. They are winning too much too quickly meaning the losers are losing too quickly and leaving. It is not a sustainable model. Betfair cannot exist long term allowing the 500 to continue as they are.
--------------------------------------
I`m sorry frog2 I just won`t buy that.
The figure of winning clients on BF..1.7% was quoted by Mark Davies a long time ago, way before BF even dreamed of the three card trick that is the PC.

------------------------

Duncan,

If you listen to the call, they actually say that over 200k customers were net winners last year.  That's what, about 20% of active customers last year?

Betfair claims that it costs them more to replace the
money PC payers suck out of the system, some of them
paying only 5% overall on their accounts. How long
would the purple people put up with them ?

How long did betfair....and what is wrong with paying only 5% (as you put it)   if you're a trader, and make a small profit (green out) every event, then you will be paying less then 5%, this is what betfair was built on...come to betfair and trade sprorts like the share market

Betfair is just another bookmaker...and the PC is a betfair way of closing accounts

Duncan, Martinch found the link earlier.  You can listen to it here:

http://corporate.betfair.com/investor-relations/results-centre.aspx

Nairda, casino is different from betting in the exchange.  Each bet in a casino has negative expected value, and no amount of skill can change that.  In the exchange, skill does make a difference.  I suspect the serial correlation of winners on the exchange is much, much higher over long time periods than casino, but I don't have the data to demonstrate that.

Nairda, I agree there will be some net winners in guaranteed negative EV products like the casino if you look on a monthly basis.  However, on the call they were referring to net winners over the whole year, not a monthly period.

Duncan, was the 1.7% figure not people who had won 15K+.

Chebyshev

maybe you know what time on the call that statement was made ?  and i can go and listen to it again

The quote was earlyish on the call Nairda..maybe 5 mins ?

Feck ..I have many times Googled to try and c/p the Mark Davies quote without success.
I don`t believe he used the 15K figure but am not certain and you might be right.
It absolutely registered with me how few made it pay on here and was shocked how low it is.

Can anybody verify this for me ?
Mark has his blog these days and I could ask him I suppose but he is probably past worrying about old quotes from BF...

His departure from BF was a disgrace and just shows how badly this company has lost the plot.
He should be the top man here let alone no longer at his desk.

I think the over 15K figure was 0.3%