Guess it's up to me to dedicate a thread to this immensely important development which threatens all honest, informed and responsible punters.

First, let's get the official quote correct.

Betfair claims this new premium charge affects:

"less than 0.5% of active customers"

Now what is an active customer?

From Betfair's material we can infer that any customer who places at least 1 bet in a particular week is considered an active customer for that week.

So someone who simply has 1 minimum bet a week on the West Coast Eagles (say) would be counted.

when I google news for "Betfair" I get 2,366 matches.

Trouble is that 797 of those matches happen also have "cashback" in the text.

Clearly there is a massive industry promoting a free money scenario at Betfair based on one bet per week.

So you have the opportunity for individuals to open accounts in as many names as they can muster merely to bonus binge. Then withdraw money from their account.

Can these people really be considered active customers?

You have inferred this. Moderators do not have time to be running back and forth to Betfair's site to see that fair comment has been made. Please substantiate your comment and provide the quote from Betfair that supports this.

Moderator 3.

"At the other end of the scale if we look at just a week then clearly the number of customers who’ve placed a bet will be less, but then so will the number of those who would be affected by the charge in the period, and the proportion is still about 0.5%. Any customer who doesn’t bet with us during a period isn’t included in the active number."

http://site.forum.betfair.com/jive3...hat+&schatname=

As we can see Betfair avoided defining an active customer until pressed. Then it responded in a roundabout fashion.

The criterion of at least one bet that week, is hardly what reasonable people would consider active.

It includes freeloaders, once-a-year'ers and many others whose turnover is so inconsequential that they are a loss-making segment for Betfair.

If instead Betfair had chosen a more meaningful group say "regulars" with a disclosed criteria of say 100 markets a month, then we would be in a position analyse Betfair's claims.

But obviously that sensible move would result in a figure far in excess of that 0.5%.

That figure of 0.5% received a thorough caning on the Betfair forum, since a very high percentage of posters found themselves affected.

And common sense suggests that Betfair would not bother tackling such a minor percentage - unless of course there was some far more significant statistic it was not disclosing.

Yet for some reason we find people actually going in to bat for Betfair, quoting that questionable statistic as if actually signified something.

You are arguing against yourself here, the figure also includes the traders, the arbers, the punters who bet every race every day. It also includes the bookies laying off huge amounts on the exchange.



Clearly there is some degree of misinterpretation here. The 0.5% figure relates to people affected, the rest actually pay no premium charge because they already have paid their share of commission. Many quite large investors on various forums have queried their account statements and done a premium charge reconciliation, finding they are not affected at all. Possibly in the future they may be affected, but this would be a one-off circumstance.



a very high percentage of posters claimed to find themselves affected, a very different thing.
They are scared that they will pay in the future. The number of posters claiming to be affected does not tally with all analysis of winning customers.
It is clear that people are inflating their own capabilities to mount an effective argument.



It's not a matter of going into bat for Betfair, it's a matter of getting some accuracy.
Betfair did not cause a mass exodus from the markets, punters overreacting caused it. The whole announcement has caused confusion and controversy because they did a very poor job of explaining it fully.
I will be affected because I don't pay commission unless I win on a market, therefore I don't currently pay as much commission as a punter.
However, I'm far from throwing in the towel to another exchange which has it's own problems.
There are ways to get around things, almost always.

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I find it mind boggling that Betfair seems to be up to their armpits in ambiguous rules, or am I wrong?

JFC, bit of a blast from the past but it looks like under the terms of the Act an active player is one that has placed a bet witin the past 2 years.



76ZP. Remitting funds of inactive player

If no wager has been recorded on behalf of a registered player for a period of 2 years, the licensed provider –

(a) must remit any funds held on behalf of the player; or

(b) if the person cannot be found, must deal with the funds as unclaimed moneys under the Unclaimed Moneys Act 1918.

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Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash

So if I drop dead tonight, I'll still be considered an active player for another 729 days.

Yes and you'll have to haunt them so they can find you, otherwise they'll keep it

__________________
Pixie

"It's worth remembering that profit isn't profit until it's spent off the racecourse." -- Crash

Onto the fanciful notion that this charge is somehow good, because it will be easier to win once the big winners have moved elsewhere.

This flies in the face of well proven and documented strategy for such capers.

Considering this is a sub-zero sum game, a key strategy of the top echelon is to crush all potential competitors. Even if that involves sustaining short term losses.

While it makes dollar sense for these leviathans to transfer some action to BETDAQ, they have adequate resources to still be active on Betfair. And ensure that no one gets a leg up.

And if by some miracle the reduced leviathan action gives you a marginal advantage, rest assured the retrofitted Betfair Premium Charge will end up leaving you worse off than last week.