Viva,

...say you have a hundred pounds in your account. you win another hundred on an epl game, then lose the full 2 hundred on an evening la liga match. you now have a zero balance and a 20-60 pound bill coming on wednesday.


Does that differ much from the current PC situation?

I genuinely don't know as I've never tested it but is it not the case that you could currently be due to be subject to a PC bill of £x on the Wednesday based on the previous week's betting and lose or possibly withdraw your entire balance on the Monday?

do you know something - i'm surprised they haven't come on and said 

'Spanish Premier league matches ,excluding matches involving Real Madrid or Barcelona and all games played after 7pm on weekends  unless the match in question is a stand alone game ,or a match in the last month of the season which can influence the outcome of Champions league or title winning placings'

OK I see, thanks.

Same here, Gin. Maybe our account managers' day off. Doesn't start 'til next week, so I'll chase it up on Monday if I've not heard.

I've not had "the email" either, however, I have had communication from my account manager based on my comments here. 

Evidently, the vast majority of PC payers' betting does not involve risk, so the fact you can theoretically have a losing week and still pay PC will be irrelevant to most. 

I only wish the current BF experience allowed me to know (expect) what I can expect in terms of winnings/losses over a five week period - JT45.  At the moment, there is so little cash in the markets that I play that I can't anticipate with any certainty whether I'll even be able to close out my position if play goes my way, let alone whether the week will be profitable....

Lata - what does he mean by this "the vast majority of PC payers' betting does not involve risk"?  Surely even those that win on most markets have some element of risk to every bet/position/trade or however it  is termed?

Vis - I presume he's referring to people running bots and the quick pics brigade. 

Clydebank - Are you saying that you still arb between here and other places?

I'm a firm believer that the level of interest and success of the site is based fundamentally on the level of recreational interest.  Recreational interest is affected by the premium charge because this site is no longer the punters' champion.  Recreational interest isn't going to pick up on rugby by making it PC free.  It may attract one or two more pros to share a potentially larger pot because there is no PC, but that's about it.

Latalomne,

It doesn't really matter whether you have weeks in which you make no weekly gross profit and still pay the PC. That would apply in 4 of the 9 weeks in the example that I provided.

If the PC Customer expects to make a gross profit over the period at a sufficiently high strike rate such that PC would normally be applicable on the betting activity within the trial markets, he should remain in the trial. If he expects to make a gross profit at a lower strike rate than that or a loss within the applicable markets over the duration of the trial, he should opt-out.

I suspect that very few customers can be confident as to exactly what they are likely to make over future months. Their betting history, weighted towards the more recent activity, combined with any additional current information is likely to provide a fairly good indication in many cases.

There is the possibility that, despite expectations, a customer does not make a gross profit at the strike rate expected and may be worse off as a result of not opting-out of the trial. To a greater or lesser extent, very similar also applies to any 'bet' struck by a customer at a good value price barring those where the selection had already won at the point the bet was placed.

That is true The Investor and it is a chicken and egg situation, but my feeling is that long term it's recreational interest that feeds shrewdies, much more so than the other way round.  Of course, it's far more complex than such a simplification, and different sports and markets are affected in very different ways.  I've played significantly in markets where peak turnover and liquidity was in 2003 and 2004, well before this place reached anywhere near it's peak.  Was it for example:

Due to a significant amount of turnover being arbitrage and the bookies put a stop to it?
Due to the same people winning and losing nearly every time?
Due to it being too difficult to price up and no bookies to copy from that the market makers were getting picked off?
People making easy money backing and laying on other markets then using some of the money to experiment to their cost in these ones, and that when the easy trading money dried up so did their knock on custom?
Did they just attract the sort of people that thought they could win money at them long term rather than casual bettors?

Sorry if discussed before, but has this recent apparent rethink got anything to do with amount of potential competition recently appearing?

I guess tennis is the last sport we will have PC free, or is this the beginning of a quick change all over?

Great! i have received an email from Betfair saying rugby and spanish footy are not included in PC for a trail period , since i never have or will bet in these markets , its totally and utterly pointless to me

I don't think PC will be reintroduced, as Betfair will make more money without it.

the PC creates such a weird set of incentives doesnt it

people who KNOW they can profit in these markets are likely to already be doing so, PC or no PC

on the other hand, PC payers who are new to these markets are in a strange position, when you enter a new market chances are higher that you'll lose money initially as you learn the ropes

but anyone losing money on a market would be better off NOT taking up this offer since they cant offset losses against their other PC payments

this is what happens when your pricing structure is such a Kafkaesque nightmare.

I see the Red alternative has gone live.  It seems to be a realtime mirror of the Purple place.

People aren't interested in the first goalscorer market in play because there is no market maker making a decent book. Market makers aren't interested in providing a decent book, because going to the trouble and expense to set that up would not be lucrative enough.

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not sure that's true Investor, at least for televised games.

LGS is a funny one. I've dabbled with it, and I think fun bettors would be quite up for it if it had more money at serious prices in it. after all, once the first goal goes in it's the only GS bet in town. but yes, atm it's tumbleweeds.

the problem with dead markets is not that they're inherently of no appeal, but that they're in a vicious circle. punters don't bother looking because they know they're dead. so people don't bother laying because no one's gonna come along anyway.

probably it would take a promotion or something to kickstart them.

Does not apply to NZ or Australian Residents I read. Well that is a great help. I dare say NZ and AUstralians are the biggest rugby bettors. What are you doing Betfair?

That may be so but in NZ we can do in running, and we like to bet rugby on the Southern Hemisphere side of things. Though in all fairness I do note even on NPC rugby in NZ it seems the majority of money does come from the NH. Still its a pity BF cannot offer us the same deal as it may have helped me provide more liquidity in the markets. I am getting to a point where the pc is making me consider leaving the site. (or cutting back substantially)