What if Betfair went bust??!!

only a very brave man would keep a huge bank of cash in here..not so much for the reason you give but the chances of an account being hacked, which has happened before

Our client funds are held on trust in ring-fenced client accounts with the Royal Bank of Scotland and are completely segregated from company funds ... Under no circumstances could third parties have a claim on Betfair clients' money.”

Is it safe? I'd say not 100%, and for reasons SCOM gives. Ayers Rock is correct, re that. The model they take isn't unique, so I'm prepared to accept that what they say re that is correct. But the report card on security its C, could do much better....

Best keep only working capital in here, in my case 5% of bank. Have had other accounts with internet bookies in the past which went bust and the balance was lost. Not saying that would necessarily be the case if Betfair went bust but better to be safe than sorry.

The "ringfenced in different account" thing is something I've read for e.g. share trading companies, so I'm prepared to accept it's a proper safe way of protecting the customer.

You are right JC but I prefer not to keep my bank here. Even if protected it might not be easy to get your money back quickly if the worst happened.

Fair point :) But my fear isn't that, it's the "hacked and deny it" that I'd fear.
E.g. Yahoo are absolutely useless and clearly know this but don't give "one" and are basically taking the P at security. They seem quite happy to live with being hacked, I know personally numerous people have been hacked, all by same method, and YH deny there are problems and can't be bothered fixing their security holes, and they are a much bigger company...:( I read BT are even switching from YH as email provider as they are so hack friendly. I'm not for one second saying BF are that bad and are obviously not a related company, don't get me wrong! But ... the principle of big companies not giving a sh*t about security is out there, and BF could easily make our banks more secure via *simple* ways posted here, and they never do anything :(

Whereas the "going bust and ringfenced account" is a much more legally robust situation, even if it takes a little time.

Ringfencing or Ring-fencing occurs when a portion of a company's assets or profits are financially separated without necessarily being operated as a separate entity.

It just means the money is in a separate bank account.

if someone can find it, there was an interesting thread about this a couple of years back which the guy who wrote the rules for the ring-fenced trust account got involved in.

That was the thread that got me banned from the forum, for pointing out the facts. And my posts were deleted.

Ring fenced in 'Royal Bank of Scotland'.

What would have happened to the money if RBS had gone bust?

Now probably safe until Alex Salmond nationalises RBS after independence.

I've wonderered if my money was safe too. Not Betfair but other bookies I use, mainly foreign ones.

I had several open bets with Bodog last year and got really stressed when I found out the site had been closed down. One of them funnily enough was Murray to win SPOTY! It wasn't worth the stress was it!

Anyway, a few weeks later I mailed them expected nothing and I was amazed when they got back to me and were unbelievably helpful! They actually gave me the option of keeping my bets open or refunding my money.

I miss Bodog, I thought they had good odds and excellent promotions.

the issue as I remember it was that there was an implicit conflict of interest when it came to BF defining the level of risk acceptable in where they held customer funds, and the trust document hadn't fully made that go away.

it was nothing egregious; they weren't chucking money at madoff or anything. but it wasn't as rock solid as it might be.

did the whole thread get pulled or is it worth looking for?

Betfair are extremely unlikely to go bust.  If they ever got to that stage I am sure you would have already reduced significantly your deposit.

I think I read that following 2008 banking crisis betfair made even more sure that their funds were distributed over a range of banks.  The risk of bank failure is still probably greater than the risk of betfair going bust.  My understanding was that if the funds were spread over say 5 banks and one went to the wall, then you would potentially risk losing 1/5 of your deposit. 

At the time senior directors gained a decent personal revenue for managing your  funds.

I am not a financial advisor, don't take my advise, you deposit at your own risk etc etc etc

If the money was split over 5 banks and one of them went bust and the funds were lost, I think there's no way Betfair would pass it onto customers, they'd take the hit themselves.

pm'd you pxb.

RBS are kind of nationalised already, doesn't the UK gov hold > 50% of the shares?

Around 83% I think, Mr Checking.

So, currerently anyway, our funds are actually backed by the government, so should be safe unless Labour get back in

Knowing the CONS, wont be long before they tax gambling, like they did spare bedrooms, if they could tax the oxygen we breathe they would

THEY COULD NEVER TAX GAMBLING WINNINGS