Betfair Premium Charge

[mjmorris335]

I've just started eating into my PC allowance (can't decide whether that's a good or a bad thing!) but, being a bear of very little brain, I'm struggling to get my head around the charging.

From the Betfair Charges page I know that I'm going to be charged the difference between 20% of either my lifetime profits and total charges or my previous week's profits and total charges, whichever is the lesser.

Total charges are half of commission plus implied commission, plus any PC. Is that correct?

And where would I find historical account P&L details (to work out implied commission)?

Even though you can edit the dates, the P&L page only goes back three months, as far as I can see.

Thanks,

Mike

[gazuty]

If you ask betfair they will email you an excel of your entire history.

[xitian]

I think you should definitely think of it as a milestone and congratulate yourself. I think a lot of people won't even make it to this stage (or will take a long time to get there). Having said that, you should note that the charges will only get higher from here, eventually up to 60% once you get past £250k net profit and haven't kept your commission levels up. So in the meantime (over the medium-long term) I'd do two things:

1. Think about how you can (relatively safely) keep your commission levels up.
2. Consider whether you can use any other exchanges. Having said this, all of the exchanges are giving themselves a bad reputation now. They're generally still better than the bookmakers though.

You're correct about that Total Charges calculation. But all you need to worry about each week is your commission generated:
half paid commission + half implied loss commission (which uses 3%)

If that's less than 20% then you make it up to 20% using PC. It's within your interest to eventually keep your generated commission above 10% since it means you'll fall into the 40% PC bracket rather than 60% once you pass £250k.

I wouldn't worry too much about manually verifying your PC every week since Betfair must have it all automated. Just do it once or twice like you are now to make sure you're happy.

As gazuty mentioned, there's no way to get your full historical P&L without emailing Betfair to ask. I'd recommend that on a daily, weekly or monthly period you download your full P&L and BetHistory from your accounts page, and also take a screen-grab of the PC charges page, and store them somewhere. There's no way to look back historically at the PC page, nor properly download the report unfortunately.

Hope that helps.

[sotilisuz]

I think you should definitely think of it as a milestone and congratulate yourself. I think a lot of people won't even make it to this stage (or will take a long time to get there). Having said that, you should note that the charges will only get higher from here, eventually up to 60% once you get past £250k net profit and haven't kept your commission levels up. So in the meantime (over the medium-long term) I'd do two things:

1. Think about how you can (relatively safely) keep your commission levels up.
2. Consider whether you can use any other exchanges. Having said this, all of the exchanges are giving themselves a bad reputation now. They're generally still better than the bookmakers though.

You're correct about that Total Charges calculation. But all you need to worry about each week is your commission generated:
half paid commission + half implied loss commission (which uses 3%)

If that's less than 20% then you make it up to 20% using PC. It's within your interest to eventually keep your generated commission above 10% since it means you'll fall into the 40% PC bracket rather than 60% once you pass £250k.

I wouldn't worry too much about manually verifying your PC every week since Betfair must have it all automated. Just do it once or twice like you are now to make sure you're happy.

As gazuty mentioned, there's no way to get your full historical P&L without emailing Betfair to ask. I'd recommend that on a daily, weekly or monthly period you download your full P&L and BetHistory from your accounts page, and also take a screen-grab of the PC charges page, and store them somewhere. There's no way to look back historically at the PC page, nor properly download the report unfortunately.

Hope that helps.

Great tips! Thanks a lot.

[mjmorris335]

Thanks gazuty.

Xitian, many thanks for that; very helpful. One thing I don't quite understand is using PC to increase the commission to 20%, though. Probably me being dense, but if you could elaborate slightly it would be appreciated.

And attempting to download my Bet History results in not a lot happening. Using Firefox/Windows 10 I specify the time period and press the Get History button but nothing happens. At first I thought it might be my ad/pop up blocker, but disabling it for that page doesn't produce any results either.

Regards,

Mike

[xitian]

One thing I don't quite understand is using PC to increase the commission to 20%, though. Probably me being dense, but if you could elaborate slightly it would be appreciated.

Best to give a simple example.

Market1:
Gross position +£10.00
Commission £0.50 (assuming 5%)
Net position +£9.50

Market2:
Gross position -£5.00
(Implied) Commission £0.15 (fixed 3%)
Net position -£5.00

At the end of the week:
Total gross position +£5.00
Generated commission = (£0.50 + £0.15) / 2 = £0.325
Generated commission as % of gross = 0.325 / 5.00 = 6.5%
20% commission on gross profit = 5.00 * 0.2 = £1.00

Because 6.5% is less than 20%, or equivalently £0.325 is less than £1.00, you have to pay the extra to make it up to 20% or £1.00.

PC charge this week would be £1.00 - £0.325 = £0.67
This week's net position (and after PC) would then be: £9.50 - £5.00 - £0.67 = £3.83.

Higher levels of PC
After you're in profit over £250k, if your total generated commission is less than 5% then you'll fall into the 60% bracket, if you're between 5-10% then you'll fall into 50%, and if you're above 10% then you'll pay 40%.

So, if you expect to ever reach the £250k, it's within your interest to try and keep your generated commission above 10% in the long run as you'll pay 20% less PC. 10% is quite hard to reach if you're naturally quite consistent though. However some people are naturally very volatile in their returns. I now run at around 20% naturally, but didn't when I first started.

Word of warning
Beginners should initially aim to be as consistent as possible. Don't worry about how little commission you're generating. At the start, consistency is far more important than generating commission. Once you're more experienced, you can look to really push your profits, which will naturally increase the volatility of your returns, and therefore the commission you're generating.

[mjmorris335]

Ok. Understood.

That was very clear and concise. Thank you very much.

Regards,

Mike

[Euler]

[andyfuller]

Who sent you that Peter? Are they reliable?

[Euler]

Guess I'll ask Betfair.

[gazuty]

Hmmmm.

[iambic_pentameter]

Is that "Hmmmm" in a good or bad way, Gazuty?

For some reason, I can't see the image?

[andyfuller]

Who sent you that Peter? Are they reliable?

Guess I'll ask Betfair.

Someone from Betfair sent you that?

[Bluesky]

I've just started eating into my PC allowance (can't decide whether that's a good or a bad thing!)

It has to be a good thing it means your making excellent progress even though BF are going to be now taxing you. I would imagine there must be thousands of people who have tried BF sport trading and would have loved to get the stage where they were liable for the PC. I think it starts at £5K profit if memory serves doesn't it?

If you do a search for PC charge on the forums here you will find one or two threads where methods for possible PC reduction have been discussed which might give you some options to think about.

[mjmorris335]

"You’ll only be considered for the Premium Charge if your account is in profit and only if the total charges generated since joining Betfair are less than 20%† of your gross profits."

My account is in profit at the moment, but it's laughably far away from 5k.

Mike