Does Betfair share premium charges with racing industry?

[hockey_nut]

Presumably, part of the commission Betfair generates is shared with horsemen and the racing industry putting on the show. Does anyone know if Betfair shares the premium charges they collect from successful horse players with the racing industry? Seems to be a sensitive question that led to Betfair blocking me on Twitter instead of answering it.

If they only share commissions it seems a bit unfair to racing, as premium charges are essentially just commissions with a different name.

Anyone happen to know the answer to this?

[Euler]

I don't believe any of it does. They came up with a number of excuses for it's introduction, the main one being that they needed the money to advertise to get more people onto the exchange. But that never happened in the age of Breon, all external exchange advertising vanished.

When they sold the Australian business I was amazed that they said it wasn't profitable because there were a lot of premium charge payers in those markets, but it turned out they never counted that revenue as Australian.

So I think it goes into some slush fund somewhere and is actually a contributing factor to their bottom line under (other) revenue.

[megarain]

Am i the only one who feels the whole issue of Premium Charges has never really been examined / discussed.

I sorta feel, Bf knew they were trying it on, and, with the lack of sustained backlash, they have got away with it.

Over time, various rumours have surfaced - people have reported they were due to pay, say £7k in PC, but, effectively closed their accounts, by withdrawing everything, before the payment day, and Bf have never chased thru the courts.

I think pro gamblers can accept some charge is probably right - but, there should have been a distinction between Bot PC, and manual PC - they are different spheres, and 40-60% seems too high.

No one really feels they can talk to Bf, and I am sure PC avoidance was rife, at least in the early days. With the merger, I am not expecting things to change - the money they rake in, will just be hidden in another pot.

[kerberus]

Maybe they should have a quick peek at the retail sector. Certain companies (no names for obvious legal reasons) "thort" they could get away with anything (250M black holes 6.4bn write offs) etc. because of their size and customer "loyalty". They are now selling off their crown jewels (S Korea, M(whatever)) for ready cash. The shelf fillers are not students, they're graduate managers (shelf stackers with ties).
The Exchange Market is ripe for a new (german?) incomer like Aldi or Lidl. If I had the cash I'd go for it. As for the PC charge it's an ideal target for the T****xman (sorry, I can't say that word without swearing) or maybe a lottery Good Ca*****ses(Must stop swearing) PC payers will be so much "happier" donating???? (and no swearing in replies )

[Euler]

In all big companies, dominance leads to arrogance, arrogance to complacency and complacency to failure. Seen it so many times.

Trouble is they can do a lot of damage along the way.

[andyfuller]

BRITISH RACING AND BETFAIR SIGN LANDMARK COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT
04 Jul 2012

http://corporate.betfair.com/media/pres ... -2012.aspx

Will be up for renewal soon. No mention of PC but from their wording I would say it should include PC but I very much doubt it does!

[Euler]

For a sense of scale, Breon's bonus was worth more than the money they paid to racing last year.

[hockey_nut]

I know of a Canadian horse player who had more than 30k taken by Betfair from his account under suspicion of premium charge evasion. He was automated right up until Betfair discontinued the old API. After several weeks of unsuccessful manual trading he simply took a break and left his balance idle in his account. Betfair decided his betting was part of a "single betting strategy" without outlining any criteria for what that constitutes, linked his account to 2 others and took the bulk of his balance.

Apparently he's about a third of the way into a letter writing campaign letting US race tracks and state horsemen associations in the markets Betfair trades on, know about some of their business practices. The question of whether they only share commissions and not premium charges is interesting as some of the heaviest betters getting discounted commissions will tend to give some or all of that discount back in the form or premium charges. Perhaps bringing this to the attention of industry insiders before they negotiate with Betfair may help pressure Betfair to put an end to their creative accounting on commissions and put an end to the PR fiasco that premium charges have become.

It's a shame really, as winning players should be a huge source of positive word of mouth for Betfair.

[LeTiss]

I'm astonished that the likes of hockey-nut's story (above) doesn't get more coverage. To take £30k from someone's account like that is surely fraudulent behaviour?

[hockey_nut]

The real irony, once BF decides what constitutes a "single betting strategy" and they start linking accounts to harvest premium charges, they're the ones to throw around terms like "fraud" as it relates to "premium charge evasion" and their customers.

The question of whether they give back some of the premium charges to racing remains unanswered by Betfair. Anyone with a twitter account that has not been blocked by Betfair should feel free to continue to pile in and pose this this question to them.