iis it true that only 0.27% even manage to make the equvilent of minimum wage on here

Probably.

I don't make money on my other hobbies either.

Most people bet for fun.

A few work out how to profit from it.

I don't know where you got that number, but it sounds about right if it's 0.27 % of all registred customers.
I think there are roughly 4-5 millions registred customers, but only roughly 1 million of those are active customers on the exchange. An active customer is here defined by a customer that has had at least one bet matched during the year.
  Betfair said 5 or 6 years ago that 1.4 % of their active customers had made more than 15 k during the last 12 months.

I read recently that active customers had dropped to about 450k on here.

I think that was a quarterly report, so I think the number for a year could be close to a million.

lots of unlucky ppl on here.

Crikey I could not count the number of times I have backed a horse for the place and its been edged out in a photo for 4th, then to lay a horse the place for it to get 3rd in a photo.

Or back a side to win for the opposition to get a penalty in front of the posts with 30 seconds left, or for a bet to lose by 1 run or 1 minute etc.

It seems that I have a lot of luck, 99% of it is bad.

Stop to back Bernard Tomic anyhow, you will be already luckier

Eddie the eagle : Betfair said 5 or 6 years ago that 1.4 % of their active customers had made more than 15 k during the last 12 months.

I could believe perhaps 0.27% of active customers, but not 1.4%, sounds like BF are exaggerating.

I guess we'll never know and it doesn't really matter, but 1.4% is an awful lot of clever punters beating commission - 14,000 punters making 15k or more over a year, I can't believe it, and some may only have had one bet to qualify as an active customer.

I wonder how many truly active customers there are, I mean customers who bet every day or at least once a week? That's the group that will most likely produce 15k+ winners, and if it's in the region of 100,000 BF's figure would rocket to 14% of them making 15k+! No way!

I don't believe it either, I bet they're talking about gross winners.
Especially when you consider that there are more people than thought, who are losing on the exchange, but winners overall ;)

So the figures look way too good.

Trevh, Betfair came up with that number during an official hearing or something like that. I can't remember exactly what the hearing was about, but it may have had something to do with taxation of winning punters.
  It was definately not in Betfairs interst to bragg about having many winning punters, so no way did they "inflate" the numbers in any way.

eddie,

i think it was 0.71% who made 15k (april 2004)

Eddie's right, the figures were submitted to the government to demonstrate how few of their users made a "wage" from their activities to persuade them not to change the tax rules.

modk, you may be right as it's a long time ago, but I remember having read something about 1.4 % somewhere. It may have been on another matter though.

I guess we'll never know and it doesn't really matter, but 1.4% is an awful lot of clever punters beating commission - 14,000 punters making 15k or more over a year, I can't believe it, and some may only have had one bet to qualify as an active customer.
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1.4% may sound high - but you'd think there would be more 'clever' people bringing this number down .

unless they have better things to do and make more than enough at work   

Coach, if modk is correct, the number would be closer to 7000.
  I think that could be true, especially when you consider 480 people were caught in the PC3 net this summer. That number is probably higher now and those caught had to have made at least 250 k net in their lifetime and having paid less than 40 % in commission doing so.

The figures the CEO submitted to parliament in 2004 (for 2003):

0.71% of the 200,000 active customers made £15,000
1.09% of the 200,000 active customers made £8,000 (tax bracket)

He neglected to mention the 0.001% who made more than £10,000,000

It's not at all hard to believe, seeing as some big punters will make £15k+ just by luck, in the same way that someone might be up a few tenners or more having placed a couple of hundred quid worth of bets over the year.

Eddie,7000 certainly sounds about right .

But why is it relatively easy for such a small group to take so much of the cake ?  surely there are more than 7,000 Betting boffins out there ?

2011 is pretty different from 2004, imo.