I can identify wholeheartedly with Addy's post.  I used to work for a company that had been around for donkey's years, and made steady profits.  We knew what we were good at and stuck to our principles.  However a new management team decided to throw all that out of the window. The company's name was changed, a massive new head office was built (and staffed with new people on fat salaries), while at the same time there was a vicious cut back on staff in the branches, along with draconian cuts in expenditure at the 'sharp end'.
Anyone who dared crticise the new order was deemed negative or living in the past.

Two years later the company was declared bankrupt. However the management team that caused this received golden handshakes and went on to pastures new, as usual.

However, (and I know this will bring howls of protest from PC payers), I believe that even if we could go back to the golden days when Betfair was purely an exchange, there would have come a time when the winners would have become so successful that the supply of losers would have dried up anyway.

What we do here is bet on horses.  We gamble.  Yet over the years using Betfair has spawned an industry in itself.  There are bots, bet placement software programmes, 'trading methods',
and apparently the technology has become so far advanced that some people can lay horses that have fallen before the average bettor knows they've fallen, due to time lag. (This is what I've read posted on here, so correct me if I'm wrong).
Anyone who thinks this could continue forever is in my opinion deluding themselves.  For every winner there are about 98 losers, and if those winners keep increasing their stakes and using ever more sophisticated software they will take so much money that there isn't enough to go round.

The high street bookmakers close your account if you start winning too much.  Casinos will bar you from their premises. You won't be able to bet AT ALL. Not because they are greedy but because the small percentage of winners, by increasing their stakes unchecked, then selling their successful method to others once they've become millionaires, would eventually wipe them out.

Every PC payer who tries to circumvent the rules will mean Betfair will have to employ someone to check that they don't.  Which in turn causes increase in their expenditure.

What form the charge should take is obviously up for debate, but I think some levy would have been inevitable anyway.

Lastly, I hate what Betfair is doing now.  I wish it could go back to being an exchange, but if it did I believe they should think very carefully about allowing certain types of software that allow a small percentage of users an unfair advantage.

We all get bombarded with their surveys & would imagine that 99% of us are answering the same way regarding dissatisfaction with site unreliability(& lack of adequate compensation),premium charge &  inadequacy of new site,yet despite this nothing changes & they plough on regardless.Its like they just go through the motions of hearing what their customers say,then carry on giving what they've decided is good for their customers.They pitched their company to 'sharp minds',how many of those are interested in virtual races,slots & casino games?The share price is down & continues to fall because they've lost the plot & subsequently their customer core base.

*From your mobile to your car will use Platinum power cells, go figure!

No doubt about it bf_fanatic is totally barking mad.

lets hope that bff remembered to apply his precious metal filter when he programmed his analysis

"Why have Betfair shares gone down?"

Floated at a bad time and over-valued.

Limited growth prospects, so to try and keep shareholders happy with bigger profit margins they went into exchange games, poker, casino etc. etc.  But that is not what betfair was all about in the beginning, and when all that cr@p came in and the good guys left the company ethos changed.   But don't get me wrong I love betfair, but internally things have changed, we all know that.

^ Australia has been a slow graft for betfair, and the massive USA markets will never be completely open to betfair because of so many different states, and unless they all link up and have a complete change in the gambling laws across all state borders, I don't see how they can break into the USA markets......but hope I'm wrong.

Can anybody tell me anything negative about betfair sp.