Random my ****

[jasonuk]

Betfair has levied ‘premium charge’ fees amounting to £723,806.01, essentially an extra tax for being successful ??

Although it isn't new - Premium Charge has been causing arguments for the best part of 15 years now. Betfair have got themselves in hot water a few times with falsely accusing someone of PC avoidance.

To clarify the screenshot as it is slightly misleading. According to the terms and conditions (9.7), the higher rate premium charge will apply when:

• net profits (lifetime) exceed £250k
• have bet in more than 1,000 markets

At this point, you will pay at least 40% commission - whether from actual commission generated, or from the premium charge top-up. If you are particularly bad for liquidity (commission generated under 10%) this charge can go up to 50% or 60%.

So in the case above, their baseline PC (20% below 250k, 40% above 250k) is around £640k. So their current (non-PC) commission is already exceeding that amount and thus they're not being charged more - but that's likely because their trading behaviour will have adapted to the PC rules, if they had a choice to generate less commission I imagine they would!

I am a little surprised that Betdaq hasn't gained more traction after escaping from Ladbrokes/Entain. While Smarkets and Matchbook both exist, their spreads aren't particularly amazing - perhaps because while there is liquidity it seems to come from a single or a narrow pool of liquidity providers.

 

[dunover]

Christ, the amount of times I've been chased off of people's drives and doorsteps doing this, including having the police called and getting accused of being a peeping tom...

 

[DreamRJ]

View attachment 194264


Christ, the amount of times I've been chased off of people's drives and doorsteps doing this, including having the police called and getting accused of being a peeping tom...

They will want your nudes next and feet pics! Or you could stand naked in front of a house! Then you will get police called 100% xD

 

[dunover]

They will want your nudes next and feet pics! Or you could stand naked in front of a house! Then you will get police called 100% xD

Even worse is the terrible grammar - 'Selfie's' which uses an unnecessary capital 'S' and apostrophe. It's also standard practice to capitalise ID and not 'Id' as that could be confused with 'I'd' but alone that wouldn't be too bad.

34% for English at Gamesys customer services. About the same as their RTP.

 

[mack341]

From a gamesys site today via email:

We’re just letting you know that our Slot game, Rainbow Riches, has temporarily been disabled. We’re hoping to get it back up and running as soon as we can.

If you’ve won Free Spins they will be valid for the next 30 days.

--------------

Never had a notification by email like this before; I did try RR recently, it played like a croc of shite, over 200 spins and no leprechaun twat or the wishing well bonus.

 

[justdoit]

Even worse is the terrible grammar - 'Selfie's' which uses an unnecessary capital 'S' and apostrophe. It's also standard practice to capitalise ID and not 'Id' as that could be confused with 'I'd' but alone that wouldn't be too bad.

34% for English at Gamesys customer services. About the same as their RTP.

Slavica on live chat ?

 

[pekka55]

View attachment 194264


Christ, the amount of times I've been chased off of people's drives and doorsteps doing this, including having the police called and getting accused of being a peeping tom...

The thing I'm wondering is that who would ever play at a place called Double Bubble Bingo? That's clearly an amateur clip joint judging by the name.

 

[HappyAda]

Wow, heard about Betfair's premium fee, but to see figures like that is still a shock. On the one hand I understand why they do it, but on the other hand it seems like a punishment for success. I wonder how people adapt their strategies to minimize these fees. But it does put Betfair in a tricky position in terms of user relations.

 

[MahoneyKnows]

Wow, heard about Betfair's premium fee, but to see figures like that is still a shock. On the one hand I understand why they do it, but on the other hand it seems like a punishment for success. I wonder how people adapt their strategies to minimize these fees. But it does put Betfair in a tricky position in terms of user relations.

Can you explain the reasoning behind doing it since you understand…. Cause I sure as shit don’t.

 

[jasonuk]

Wow, heard about Betfair's premium fee, but to see figures like that is still a shock. On the one hand I understand why they do it, but on the other hand it seems like a punishment for success. I wonder how people adapt their strategies to minimize these fees. But it does put Betfair in a tricky position in terms of user relations.

Can you explain the reasoning behind doing it since you understand…. Cause I sure as shit don’t.

Any system that involves player liquidity - such as poker, exchange betting, and traditional fruit machines - will generally have a problem where the best players can extract money from the system far quicker than the worst players will replenish it.

If we take online poker as an example, in the early days there were plenty of fish in the sea to keep things sweet - so operators were happy to give high levels of rakeback to grinders because they provided game liquidity. However, once Black Friday hit things started to change dramatically, and those grinders continued to take money out of the pot, but the fish were either excluded (e.g. US players) or lost interest as the difficulty increased and they were losing money too quickly.

PokerStars under Amaya seized on this as a way to rebalance the rewards program - claiming that they were taking rewards from the high-volume players to give to the casual players. Alas, Amaya were true to their reputation and people identified that the money wasn't going to casual players (and in some cases net rake went up for low-stakes players) , but actually to help pay off the debt accrued by the Amayastars acquisition.

In the case of Betfair (Premium Charge has been a thing for 15 years, even though Betfair and PokerStars are now part of the same company) the logic is similar - and while some of the money can be used for exchange promotions (e.g. money back specials), I would expect a substantial percentage of it goes straight in their pocket.

Once you've opened the tap, it's difficult to close it again... and given there isn't meaningful competition (Smarkets and Matchbook don't have enough liquidity providers to be considered proper exchanges, Betdaq is still recovering from being Entained, and cryptoland has tried a few times and failed) then they'll continue to do it.

If you want an interesting example, Daniel Negreanu

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a few years ago - often misquoted - where a higher-rake game may be better for a casual player, because all the grinders will flock to the lower-rake game. The casual player will still be losing money of course, but they will get more entertainment and enjoyment for their money - rather than being hunted down by half a dozen sharks.

 

[MahoneyKnows]

“we take 10%” should be on the door before you walk in, if that’s the case. I’ve paid vig since before I was allowed to buy a porn mag, but it’s known to me as “the cost for the ability to make your bet”

 

[jasonuk]

“we take 10%” should be on the door before you walk in, if that’s the case. I’ve paid vig since before I was allowed to buy a porn mag, but it’s known to me as “the cost for the ability to make your bet”

They do make it clear, and there is a grace period (of both time and allowance) before they start charging you - but of course they have a captive audience who have little genuine choice.

A lot of people making the big bucks are market making - so they can't do it with bookmakers charging 6-15% (assuming they'll stand a meaningful bet in the first place, many will not), and there aren't many other options - so either they set up shop themselves (which has happened), or they grit their teeth and pay 40% of net profits in premium charge.

I am a little surprised that one of them hasn't gone to cryptoland - a few people have tried to set up platforms, but it's not the technology that is the limiting factor but liquidity. In the case of something like Smarkets, for some markets you can see the entire depth of liquidity flicker which suggests it is coming from a single liquidity provider. It functions for people who want to lay off bets, or to get better prices than a sportsbook, but it doesn't feel like a proper exchange in terms of liquidity and the spreads for primary markets are usually worse than Betfair Exchange - and often non-existent for secondary markets.

 

[pekka55]

One thing is for sure not random and that is the graphics we see. I mean we're all familiar with the 2 scatter spin followed by the next spin giving a scatter on the one wheel you would've needed s scatter on the previous spin.

That happens so often that it's impossible for it to be a random event. Sometimes that happens 5 times in 100 spins or even more.

No big mystery then that people start to wonder about if the graphics are so totally scripted, what else might be completely scripted about these games.

You play the same games for years and you see certain patterns over and over again. Are the games random? Sure they can be technically called that on paper, but they're still tweaked so that the randomness always favours the casino and the studios.

I mean I get it, if the games were totally random then some player on a lucky streak could possibly bankrupt a casino.

 

[clogs]

It's not random, how can it be when after big wins your balance disappears quicker than ever before

 

[armster]

Well the thing that just doesn’t add up is, I have never played that many different games. I was playing a lot and I mean, a lot of hours per day. Between 4 and 8, perhaps more at weekends but only played about 8 different games.

In all that time (5 years), I only ever lost £300 in a day, twice without some kind of return or long hours of playing.

Then all of a sudden £300 started disappearing without trace in a couple of hours. Not once or twice but it became constant and more “the norm”.

Until I reached the point where it became pointless so I reduced my deposits dramatically.

@ChopleyIOM, you state that these big wins are like gold dust. Well, not on Bonanza they weren’t. I was hitting between 6 and 10 bonus rounds per day, sometimes more and a lot of them paid between x200 and x1,000.

I even posted them privately on a daily basis so there are 4 or 5 members who could back up what I am saying.

It went from playing like that for years (not saying I was winning all the time but it seemed fair), to going 3, 4 days or even a week without seeing a bonus and has played like that for at least 2 and half years.

I hit decent wins on loads of volatile games. Razor Shark, Deadwood, DoA (both), Mental, Jammin Jars, etc, etc. Again, not saying I was winning long term but I was only losing the expected and some months I would recoup thousands of pounds. Not had a decent win on any of them for 2 years.

To go from that to not having a winning month for two and half years and having deposit after deposit go down the plug hole virtually every time just doesn’t add up. It really doesn’t.

People can say whatever they want. You will never convince me that online gambling is anything but legal (I use the term loosely) systematic robbery. A filthy disgusting, immoral and unethical Industry that should be dumped in room 101 quicker than it appeared.

P.S. And in time just like the High Street FOBT’s it will be. Might not be for a while but with providers and Casinos getting so greedy, the government will eventually have to bow to the overwhelming cries.

My anecdotal evidence agrees with you. I have been lucky enough to run very well on slots when I play them. Noticeably, the only time I go on a terrible downswing is if I play a session of pragmatic games. Not only do they play poorly for me (except The Dog House), they seemingly send me into a 3 or 4 session dead spin cycle. Never happened with any other provider. Maybe they are one part evil sorcery.

 

[clogs]

Lets be honest, the gov doesn't nationalize gambling because people wouldn't trust them it's legit if they had the same results as they do with these offshore mysterious dodgy providers pretending they don't need to rob money because the 4% covered all the costs and cuts everyone seems to be taking in.