what will make it worse will be those  who will only cherry pick certain matches /events which were the most profitable - this will raise the bar even higher in terms of high standards .


only the strongest,or those with the highest levels of concentration will survive .

I'm now down to below the minimum wage on here .  The sheer boredom will eventually force me to retire from here .
Good luck all .

in employment it  at 9,000  ish a year in tax free to start
on here it 1,000 tax free and that for life ?????????
something got to change

That's because of the way the way the site is marketed now. Cash out is pushing the casual money to the main markets via the sports book.
Market makers on the side markets are dead or dying. The only people prospering are the high volume tight margin churners on the main markets.

They are making money on sports book and that's all they care about...someone else will have to come in and start an exchange that works with very strong marketing to attract customers in again.

Betfair used to have the best marketing in the industry and it was free - recommendations from customers made the business grow like a snowball rolling down a steep long hill.

Any new entrant(s) will benefit from the same free marketing and any new business will grow rapidly once word starts to spread.

I hope you are right Westender with regards to growth of any new exchange, but I must admit others have had enough opportunities to start and failed...so not confident at all. Betfair also know this and have taken full advantage.

They are gambling with a guaranteed winning model, to take a punt on the sportsbook. I suppose they feel they could always go back to the exchange if it failed.

layer = i think that's the game

they're hoping Sportsbook takes off and rivals B365 etc

IF it did /does - then Betfair will be laughing and the exchange will be discarded like a pair of old Boots .

If SB fails then of course they can try to strengthen the exchange with sweeteners .

Westender is correct  when he mentioned the one off success - i believe it was a  one off ,and i believe it maybe another generation before we see the like again .

Remember when BF started there were no other sites offering in -play  , now they're all at it

Betfair need to sell the exchange and keep the sportsbook.

I'd love to buy the betfair exchange. I'd turn it in to the one of the best places to bet in no time.
:)

Get rid of all the rubbish betting markets, add some exciting new ones...

Actually come to think of it, I wouldn't like to buy it. It needs an absolute complete overhaul from top to toe. Bye.

The only problem with the above is that there is no longer sufficient rewards for the layers taking all the risk laying higher odds.

There is only so much water that can be squeezed out of a wet sponge and unfortunately for Betfair the sponge is nearly dry.

isn't it also the case that the longer time goes on , the more people are trapped into PC1 and PC2 , which means they now need win more to re-coup money taken by betfair , which means money being taken out of markets faster , betfair not advertising the exchange , so liquidity dies quicker .

Not sure it does, Darlo! 

Getting stuck with half a trade has been the reason I've stopped laying in a lot of these markets. 

BFSB, in theory, will be price rushing both sides of a two-way market.

Ah, if it price rushes both sides then fair enough. Maybe, I was thinking more of the horse race markets.

Getting stuck with half a trade has been the reason I've stopped laying in a lot of these markets.

However, on this point - and that's where maybe I was heading - I totally agree. There's certain times I won't play in some markets when I previously would because of the lower liquidity and getting stuck with an exposure I can't do anything about.

To be honest it does me, but I'm going to try be aware more of it both positively and negatively. I have been matched on some occasions recently and been confused as to how - I'm now wondering if I was matched via price rush - either that of it's the new API being so slow.

Sure it would skim much more than the cross matcher.

Say a selection is 1.5 on the sportsbook and 1.59 on the exchange. they use fractional odds on the sportsbook so would price rush the sportsbook bet to 8/15 or 4/7 and keep the difference for themselves. On top of that if the exchange users bet wins he pays a 5% commission.

I guess that's how it works I don't use the sportsbook myself.

It's been said on here before, but the single strongest marketing point of the exchange was the "Winners welcome" message.

The "best prices" was of course strong, and where they pushed hard, but it is tragically evident that a large tranche of the gambling community just don't care, to the extent that you can have an exchange and sportsbook running side by side, and offer something like Price Rush.

However they never really exploited the power of uncovering account limiting and suspension at the traditional bookmakers. I always thought that getting their best customers to produce video diaries of their accounts slowly being shut down on other sites would be an excellent campaign, because you'd want to paint the picture of being a mug if you weren't on betfair.

Of course that message was hugely undermined by the premium charge.

For a long time I've conceded that the premium charge at a basic level is a necessity: i don't think betfair or any exchange can afford to bring in customers at a loss to be picked off by the winners, but i would contend that 20% seems too high. What's more this level should be dependent on marketing spend, not static. We know that they've cut that budget significantly and the 20% remains calculated a time when it was much higher.

The higher rates, in my opinion, are and always have been a hamfisted attempt to tax those who make money due to two deficiencies in the model: namely inadequate in play delays and a commission structure which allows numerous derivative bets in a single market to be virtually commission free, with commission charged only on net profits. There a group of people in the higher (and here's the vested interest) who don't use an advantage from these areas who should not be taxed at these rates.

A flat rate PC, fairly calculated and a drop in commission rates with an upwardly sliding commission scale based on the number of hedged bets* placed in each market would be an interesting experiment.

PC is a problem but is not the main problem. That dishonour lies with the sportsbook. Type www.betfair.com into your browser and you get the sportsbook. The Exchange is given less priority as Casino and Arcade which have offers on this homescreen.  Exchange is just a small word next to Casino, Live Casino, etc.

Punters who know Betfair have the best prices but not much more than that will not realise they need to visit the exchange.  Betfair are milking their exchange reputation for their sportsbook.

They know this. They know we know this. They don't care about us but about making their sportsbook a success.

I'd love to have seen what would have happened if they'd slashed commission and focussed on winners being welcome rather than take the complete opposite approach.  Could have the sportsbook too but give it another name and still link into the exchange.