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Premium Charge FAQ

Betfair has changed the criteria of the Premium Charge. Read all about the changes here in our Premium Charge FAQ.  Click here to access the relevant Customer Terms and Conditions.

What is the Premium Charge?

Premium Charge is a contribution paid by a very small number of the most profitable customers on the Betfair Exchange. It is implemented as a weekly top-up, in addition to the standard commission paid, ensuring that the total fees paid by a customer equate to a specified percentage of their gross profit.

What has changed?

Rather than just using lifetime profitability, the revised Premium Charge uses the gross profit from the last 52 weeks your account has been active to determine the rate that you will pay. It's a dynamic fee structure that adjusts your rate with your profitability and can return back to 0% if you don't always win at the same rate.

And what's more, it is capped at 40%. No more 50% and 60% rates.

This new approach more than halves the number of customers who generate any additional charges, lowering costs for many loyal customers.

Who qualifies?

At the start of each week, Betfair will calculate the gross P&L in the last 52 weeks of your account's activity, which we call your Last 52 Active Week Gross P&L.

An account may only be considered for the Premium Charge if all of the following apply:

  • Last 52 Active Week Gross P&L > £25,000
  • Lifetime Gross P&L > £0
  • Lifetime Markets Bet > 100

At the start of each week, we will determine your fee rate using your last 52 weeks of activity, as follows:

Last 52 Active Week Gross P&LCharge Rate
< £25,0000%
£25,000 - £100,00020%
> £100,00040%

My account is losing across its lifetime. Can I qualify?

In order to incur the Premium Charge, your account will need to be in lifetime profit. We will still show your Premium Charge rate based on your Last 52-Week Gross P&L, but if your account is not in profit over the lifetime you will have a buffer and will not be eligible to pay the charge.

What exactly is an "Active Week"?

An Active Week will be considered as any week where you have at least one settled bet in a market that fully settles in that week.

How will I be told if it impacts me?

Any customer affected by the Premium Charge will be notified in advance.

Upon initial qualification, you will be sent an email notification and will have the first debit reversed back into your wallet.

What if my charge rate changes?

If you qualify for a rate higher than you have previously paid, then a further notification email will be sent out and you will become eligible for the new rate from the following week of activity.

In the first instance you qualify for the new higher rate, a grace period of one week will be given before you are moved. This will be a one-time goodwill gesture - should you move between rates in the future, then the new rate will come into effect from the following week of activity. Email communications will not be sent at this stage, but all changes will be displayed within your dashboard located in My Account.

What happens if I qualified for Premium Charge in the past?

If you have previously qualified for Premium Charge but no longer meet the criteria for the Premium Charge, you will automatically be moved to the 0% rate.

If you have previously qualified for Premium Charge and do meet the criteria for the Premium Charge, you will automatically be moved onto the Premium Charge pricing structure from 6 January 2025. You will not receive further notification via email.

Any first week goodwill reversal and higher rate grace periods will not apply if these were availed of during the time the Premium Charge was in effect.

How do the calculations work?

If you meet the criteria for the Premium Charge, then you will be charged a proportion of your Weekly Gross P&L equivalent to the fee rate you qualify. We will subtract any commission that has been generated in the week.

And importantly, we are introducing the concept of the Buffer, which takes into consideration any losses or additional commission generated since you last paid Premium Charges, or moved to a new fee rate. The Buffer represents the gross profit that can be won before incurring further Premium Charges.

We will calculate the Buffer at the start of each activity week as follows:

The Buffer is the greater of:

(Commission Generated Since Last Premium Charge Paid / Current Premium Charge Rate) - Gross P&L Since Last Premium Charge Paid

(Commission Generated Since Last Rate Change / Current Premium Charge Rate) - Gross P&L Since Last Rate Charge

*If the buffer calculation is <£0 then we use £0.

The Premium Charge is calculated as:

Premium Charge Due = (Weekly Gross P&L - Buffer) * Current Premium Charge Rate - Weekly Commission Generated

I have built up a large Premium Charge buffer over time, will it be lost?

No, any buffers will be carried over to the Premium Charge pricing structure.

In order to transition smoothly onto the Premium Charge, we will reference the last time that you incurred Premium Charge and use your activity since this point in order to calculate your new Buffer at the time that the Premium Charge takes effect on 6 January 2025. If you have never incurred the charge, then lifetime data will be used to calculate the Buffer.

So, if you last incurred Premium Charge in 2023, we will calculate your Buffer as:

Gross P&L Since Last Charge = £100,000
Commission Generated Since Last Charge = £60,000
Current Premium Charge Rate = 20%
New Buffer = £60,000 / 0.2 - £100,000
= £200,000

Note for a customer on the 40% rate, their Buffer would be £60,000 / 0.4 - £100,000 = £50,000

If I want to understand my fees and track my buffer, how do I do that?

As part of the introduction of the Premium Charge, we will be launching a new dashboard for those impacted to track their fees.

This will land onsite under "Expert Fee " or “Premium Charge”  from 13 January 2025 (when the new fees will be debited for the first time). Look out for the info icons to easily navigate the page and understand everything from your current fee rate to your historical performance data. We will be displaying your Buffer at the start of the week, so that you can understand how much you can profit before incurring fees again.

When do I get charged?

The Premium Charge will be deducted from customer accounts weekly (after Monday noon) in relation to the previous week's activity (Monday to Sunday).

What is commission generated and how is different to the commission I pay?

Every time a bet is placed on the Betfair Exchange, there are two customers betting on opposing outcomes. One will win and pay commission based on their specific rate, and the other pays no commission, but plays an equally important role in the bet being matched.

Commission generated recognises that the true value that a customer's activity brings to the exchange ecosystem is a combination of:

  1. the commission paid on winning bets; and
  2. the commission that occurs on the other side of the bet when your bet loses. We call this implied commission and we calculate this at 3% of all market losses, as this is the average commission rate on the exchange.

We then blend these together in the form of an average to calculate your commission generated:

Commission Generated = (Commission Paid + Implied Commission) / 2

where Implied Commission is 3% of market level losses

Implied Commission is 2.5% of market level losses for non-ANZ customers. Why is this?

This difference reflects the different in average commission rates paid between these customer groups.


Three examples of how the Premium Charge works

Example one - No change in rate

Customer A consistently qualifies for the 20% rate having maintained a rolling 52-week gross P&L between £25k and £100k.

Below shows their activity since they were last incurred a fee:

WeekBuffer (Week Start)Last 52-Week Gross P&LCharge RateWeekly Gross P&LWeekly Comm GenWeekly Premium Charge
1£0£30,00020%£10,000£1,000£1,000
2£0£40,00020%-£2,500£250£0
3£3,750£37,50020%£2,500£250£0
4£2,500£40,00020%£5,000£250£250

By the start of Week 3, the customer accrued a buffer of £3,750 due to losses and generating excess commission since they last incurred a fee in Week 1:

Buffer (start of Week 3) = £250 / 0.2 - (-£2,500) = £3,750

Premium Charge Due (Week 3) = (Weekly Gross P&L - Buffer) * Current Premium Charge Rate - Weekly Commission Generated

= (£2,500 - £3,750) * 0.2 - £250

= -£500

which is <£0 so no charge is due.

By the start of Week 4, the customer accrued a buffer of £2,500 having generated excess commission since they last incurred a fee in Week 1:

Buffer (Start of Week 4) = £500 / 0.2 - £0 = £2,500

This buffer is deducted from the profits of Week 4 before the Weekly Fee is calculated:

Premium Charge Due (Week 4) = (Weekly Gross P&L - Buffer) * Current Premium Charge Rate - Weekly Commission Generated

= (£5,000 - £2,500) * 0.2 - £250

= £250

Example two - Rate increases

Customer B's rate increases from 20% to 40% as their rolling 52-week gross P&L increases from £25-100k to >£100k.

Below shows their activity since they were last incurred a fee:

WeekBuffer (Week Start)Last 52-Week Gross P&LCharge RateWeekly Gross P&LWeekly Comm GenWeekly Premium Charge
1£0£87,50020%£10,000£1,000£1,000
2£0£97,50020%£5,000£1,000£0
3£0£102,50040%-£1,000£200£0
4£1,500£101,50040%£5,000£1,000£400

By the start of Week 4, the customer accrued a buffer of £1,500 having generated losses since they last moved fee rates in Week 3:

Buffer (Start of Week 4) = £200 / 0.4 - -£1,000 = £1,500

(The alternative buffer calculation using data since the last Premium Charge payment is:

= £1200/0.4 - £4,000 = -£1,000 < 0 so = 0

We use the larger of the two buffer calculations which here is £1,500.)

This buffer is deducted from the profits of Week 4 before the Weekly Fee is calculated:

Premium Charge Due (Week 4) = (Weekly Gross P&L - Buffer) * Current Premium Charge Rate - Weekly Commission Generated

= (£5,000 - £1,500) * 0.4 - £1,500

= £400

Example three - Rate decreases

Customer C's rate decreases from 40% to 20% as their rolling 52-week gross P&L drops below £100k.

Below shows their activity since they last incurred a fee:

WeekBuffer (Week Start)Last 52-Week Gross P&LCharge RateWeekly Gross P&LWeekly Comm GenWeekly Premium Charge
1£0£101,00040%£1,000£100£300
2£0£102,00040%-£5,000£100£0
3£5,500£97,00020%£2,000£100£0
4£4,000£99,00020%£5,000£100£100

By the start of Week 3, the customer accrued a buffer of £5,500 having generated losses and excess commission since they last incurred a fee in Week 1:

Buffer (Start of Week 3) = £100 / 0.2 - (-£5,000) = £5,500

As the week starts buffer is greater than the weekly profit, no fee is due.

By the start of Week 4, the customer accrued a buffer of £4,000 having generated losses and excess commission since they last incurred a fee in Week 1:

Buffer (Start of Week 4) = £200 / 0.2 - (-£3,000) = £4,000

This buffer is deducted from the profits of Week 4 before the Weekly Fee is calculated:

Premium Charge Due (Week 4) = (Weekly Gross P&L - Buffer) * Current Premium Charge Rate - Weekly Commission Generated

= (£5,000 - £4,000) * 0.2 - £100

= £100


Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.

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