Betfair has announced that they will be increasing the Market Base Rate (MBR) for New South Wales (NSW) harness racing markets to 10%. In addition, a Turnover Charge will be introduced for customers that meet certain criteria on Harness Racing NSW Markets. These changes will come into effect on 1 August 2021.
The decision has been made following numerous months of engaging discussions with Harness Racing NSW to shift to a more sustainable product fee model. Our goal throughout these discussions was simple – we wanted our approval conditions to be modified so that, going forward, we were charged based on a ‘revenue model’, rather than a ‘turnover model’ (i.e. back bet volume).
A transition to a revenue-based model would in turn result in Betfair reducing the MBR for Harness Racing NSW racing from 8% to 6%. Unfortunately, in the end, Harness Racing NSW was not willing to modify our approval conditions, which means we will continue to be charged based on a turnover model.