Premium Charge will be changed in October

[milfor]

Betfair forum Q&A – Monday 10th August


Have you any plans to make changes to the Premium charge?

Yes. It’s been nearly a year since we announced the charge, and we’ve recently completed a review to confirm that the outcomes matched our predictions, and to see if there are changes that we believe would be an improvement. Overall we’re happy with the way the charge has worked. It’s affected slightly fewer customers than we originally projected, considerably fewer than 2,000 of our 650,000 active accounts, but principally it’s affected the customers we expected to incur it.

Based on feedback we are planning to make some changes:

1. The current charge considers only customers who’ve demonstrated consistent profitability over the long-term, currently defined as 60 weeks. In conversations our customers have told us that they’re concerned this isn’t long enough, and that they’re worried about the possibility of incurring the charge during an extended successful streak. We’ve therefore decided to reduce the number of customers affected by the charge, and the amount we collect, by increasing the time period over which a customer would have to exhibit highly consistent profitability from the current 60 weeks to the entire lifetime of each customer’s account.
2. We chose to assign the commission we collect at the settlement of each market equally between those who win and those who lose, to focus the charge more on those who are incredibly consistent winners and to reduce the charge for big risk-taking winners. We chose to use the actual rate that we collect commission at the settlement of each market, rather than a fixed approximation, because we concluded it would be preferable to be accurate. Feedback from customers has been consistent that they consider transparency and certainty to be more important, so we’ll therefore simplify the charge by valuing the contribution of all markets in which customers lose at 3%, regardless of the actual average commission rate.
3. We included transaction and data request charges in the calculation of what customers have paid, reducing the charge collected. Customers have told us that they believe this is incorrect, that those charges exist to discourage excessive use of the site, and that there is the perception that those customers who run robotic strategies that use our facilities intensively are being treated unreasonably favourably. We’ve agreed and we’ll be removing transaction and data request charges from the calculation. The number of customers affected by this is negligible.

We expect those changes to be implemented in October this year, and we’ll communicate the precise details to affected customers nearer the time.



Will expanding the PC to cover an accounts lifetime reflect in any way on the 60 week allowance period?

The 60 week allowance period will no longer be relevant – the relevant period for the allowance will be the lifetime of the account.

[milfor]

In plain language:

You dont't get the 1000 allowance every 60 weeks any more but only once in a lifetime.
Winnings long before the start of the PC are now included in the calculation.

[Steve Voltage]

We’ve therefore decided to reduce the number of customers affected by the charge, and the amount we collect

So more customers will be affected ?

[doris_day]

They obviously decided to ignor those users who felt that the PC was tantamount to theft and that if they had been regulated by a proper govenernment body, they would have had to withdraw it immediately.

It really is about time Betfair were regulated correctly....

[2020vision]

Hi All

maybe I am just stupid but I can not make heads or tails of this.

Will it mean that for winners the PC will be more or less in general?
I personally am already badly hit by the PC - basically it's as good as theft
because if I lost money they would not give any back!

Can anyone give me an example or two please?

Thanks for your time - Michael

[2020vision]

Or does it mean that winners will pay more when a market is settled
instead of a lump sum every Wednesday - I am completely lost?

Having said that if past Betfair rules are anything to go by then it will all
most likely mean even more of my winnings will go to Betfair?

Perhaps I shall get the hang of it over the coming weeks?

All the best - Michael

[doris_day]

Overall it will certainly be worse for me because of the added data charges which they currently allow you to offset.
They will be increasing the PC percentage next year as sure as eggs are eggs and will continue to do so until they bleed all their customers dry, particularly the ones with an edge. They want to keep any edge in the marketplace to themselves.
The problem they have is that they set themselves too high a growth forecast and so they've had to resort to charges like the PC in order to boost their bottom line in readiness for flotation when the economy revives.
I'll now have to churn my money needlessly in other markets in order to increase my turnover and reduce my ROI to a level which they find acceptable. What a total waste of time.

[milfor]

@2020vision:

No it still will be deducted on Wednesday.

This change is good news for you if you were losing in the years before the invention of the PC. This change is bad news for you if you were winning in the years before the invention of the PC.

[2020vision]

I was losing for about 3 years on and off (but not much), then thanks to
this great software I finally managed to crack a way to consistently win.

I have always paid the PC from the very first week so I do not see any way
I could be better off? Hope it's not going to be any worse than now?

We shall see - Michael

P.S. I don't even automate!

[doris_day]

Michael, for those who have an edge greater than that which Betfair will tolerate, it will get worse........churn that money.......

[2020vision]

I think I understand what you mean by "churn" that money - but how?

I am at this game long enough every day without willingly giving some back!

How does one "churn" money - I have thought about this before?
What about also wasting a lot of my time?

e.g. make a lot of very short priced bets, win some - lose some but hope
that overall you end up NOT in a loss situation? Is this right?

Cheers - Michael

P.S. The way I win means that I have very few losing events btw.

[knot]

2020vision i have just tried to access your web site and i get the following message:

WARNING: VISITING THIS SITE MAY HARM YOUR COMPUTER!

[2020vision]

Which site?

Do you mean this one?
I just visited - no problems, this site is DEFINITELY SAFE?
http://www.bestpricemobiles.com/

Will look into it if so? Michael

[2020vision]

My mistake - I know which one you mean now?

It is because of this:

"Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including bigskytopguide.cn/."

NOT MY DOING - thanks for pointing out.

I shall take action about it very soon, in the meantime I have changed my
site within my profile to the link above.

Cheers - Michael

[doris_day]

By 'churning' money I mean making bets, in say the soccer markets, where you lose in one market but win the equivalent in the other. Its fairly simple to set up once you've got the hang of it but its a pain in the butt and takes a lot of time. However, it does create turnover and as you're guaranteed at least one losing market, your efficiency falls and therefore you pay less PC.