Congratulations Betfair

Yeah finally some positive news , the football markets really needed this news and I’m guessing the horse racing markets aswell , January should be interesting as we see things develop

One concern I still have though is people having deposit issues due to affordability checks , it’s very tricky these days depositing a decent cash balance into betting accounts , will Betfair allow people to deposit a decent sized bankroll to start again?

will Betfair allow people to deposit a decent sized bankroll to start again?



in a word ...no...

or shouldn't without breaching current guidelines/ legal requirements

and that's probably part of the motivation for change...it's been 'drying up' for want of a better phrase...

the exchange model is potentially so good that maybe a slow recovery will be enough..but how that sits with current ownership and the betting landscape ...who knows..in the short term it's progress for the first time in arguably 20 years...

@brentford

Speculating (purely speculating) about why they might have done this now, seemingly out of the blue, a couple of things come to mind.

Firstly, the lifetime nature of the PC meant logically it had to act as a kind of reverse loyalty scheme with an expanding net. As time went on it had to start drawing in more and more marginally profitable long-term customers; and if you're making say a couple of grand a year from betting/trading, getting taxed at 20% is much more likely to make you say "you know what? phvck it" than if you're the kind of bettor who's still making hefty amounts after the tax.

The lifetime nature of the PC really was its original sin. it created a kind of event horizon around a gambling black hole; once you crossed it you could never get back out. Imagine if income tax worked like this. Once you've earned a certain, quite low, amount in your life, everything you earn in any week for the rest of your life will be taxed at 20/40/60%. People would see the obvious problems with that straight off. Starting with a huge structural disincentive to work.

I'm much more part-time than I used to be. I make less than 10K a year now; sometimes nearer 5. A couple of weeks ago my profit in a slack week came to about a pound. Sure enough, regular as clockwork, BF turned up to take their 19p on the next Wednesday. As a kind of "negative advert", this is the kind of thing any sane, well-run company would pay substantially more than 19p to avoid. I'm still a few grand off hitting 40%, but there's just no way I'd have carried on past that barrier. I imagine there's a fair few people in roughly similar positions - and a fair few more who've just noped out already because of the financial/psychological effects of being taxed like this from dollar one.

Secondly, and this really is pure speculation, I wonder if part of the thinking stems from a queasy feeling amongst execs in the know about where the traditional bookmaking industry is going. Sporting events are so saturated in gambling advertising now, you have to wonder a) what that means for margins going forward and b) what a serious clampdown would mean for the industry. From PP/BF's point of view the exchange might be starting to look like a pretty decent hedge that should be nurtured. Done right, it advertises itself; and 20+ years in BF remains a monopoly provider.

Anyway, just some musings.

I have and have never been a profitable punter on here or anywhere else, but even I a mug punter could see the damage the P charge done. It was what it was a drain on liquidity in the name of profit, if it had been a tax that went to the treasury then it would be more palatable