Betfair Premium Charges

[gm10]

Originally Posted by edmond1

gm10:

This will be the third week in a row that I will have to pay. Would have been 4 but they wave the charge the first time. Check the following link for the status of your account :
https://premiumcharge.betfair.com/PremiumPortal/portal.

Must be logged on to your account for it to work. Start to worry if your Lifetime Total Charges % nears 20 %....

"Your account has not incurred Premium Charges. If you become eligible to incur Premium Charges in the future, we will contact you before any charges are paid. "

I like the choice of the word Eligible. It's almost worth looking forward to!

It's a stupid rule, that's for sure.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

Where the Betfair premium charge can get nasty is if someone has a really good run for a few weeks or months and then has a bad run which cancels out the profits from the good run. Income tax is assessed yearly but the Betfair premium charge is assessed weekly. If you make 20K one week and qualify for the premium charge they might charge you up to 4K commission for that week. But if you then lose 20K the next week you have made nothing across the last 2 weeks but have had to pay the extra commission on the first week. Betfair don't pay any refund on the premium charge from the week before. The weekly assessment of your profit situation can make it look like you have made a profit which is only illusory in the long run

If you have a method that works on low ROI but lots of churn you won't have to worry too much about the premium charge though

[classhandicapper]

I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to understand all the details because I can't play at Betfair, but leave it to the horse racing industry to take something great and figure out a way to kill it with a dumb rule.

If the model doesn't work as is, then they need to raise the commission rate slightly or adjust it according to activity not according to profits vs. action.

[lurker]

It's really quite simple. Betfair is saying " If you don't like it play elsewhere". Unfortunately there really aren't many other options.

[Hoofhearted]

I find that Betdaq is a eminently suitable alternative for me.

In 2003 I opened accounts with both Betdaq and Betfair -- for the past 2 years I have not put a single bet through Betfair. All my betting is exclusively transacted on Betdaq.

For my purposes, Betdaq provides ample liquidity on British/Irish racing, and is often stronger on soccer and golf markets. Prevailing odds on Betdaq are comparative to Betfair's due to bot activity, the overround on Betdaq is similar to Betfair at ~101% ................. again due to the presence of market bots. Most relevant of all is the Betdaq commission of 2.5% max.

The one circumstance imo where Betdaq could be compared unfavourably to Betfair is in the instance of In-Running betting on horseracing. (But then, Betfair doesn't provide In-Running markets on U.S. racing.)

[Kelso]

Originally Posted by Hoofhearted

the overround on Betdaq is similar to Betfair at ~101%

HH,
What does "overround" mean, in this context?

Thank you.