How is my commission calculated?
Betfair charges a Commission on your net winnings on a market. If you have a net loss on a market you do not pay commission.
Commission is calculated by multiplying your net winnings by the Market Base Rate (MBR), as shown on the Rules tab of each market. For example, if you win £100 on a market with an MBR of 5%, you will pay £5 in commission. However you can earn discounts from this rate for betting more.
The size of this discount, or your Discount Rate, is determined by the number of Betfair Points you have accrued on your account. Betfair Points are earned in proportion to your betting activity: the more you bet, the more points you accrue, and therefore the greater your Discount Rate. Please note that your Discount Rate will be capped at 20% until you have completed Betfair's Know Your Customer requirements.
You earn Betfair Points every time you bet on a market. You will earn 1 point for every 10 pence of commission paid (if you have net winnings) or implied commission (if you have a net loss). Betfair Points are awarded equally whether you win or lose.
Example:
You have net winnings in a market of £400.
The Market Base Rate is 5%.
Your current Discount Rate is 40%.
Therefore the commission you pay is £12 (£400 x 5% x (1-40%)).
You earn 120 Betfair Points.
For the purpose of calculating Betfair Points your commission or implied commission on a market is rebased to British Pounds at the time of settlement.
Your Discount Rate is calculated from your current Betfair Points every week. This occurs at midnight (GMT) every Sunday using the table below:
Once your Discount Rate has been calculated, your Betfair Points balance is reduced by 15%. This is known as the Weekly Decay. If you continue to bet at the same level each week, your Discount Rate will remain unchanged. If your Betfair Points at any time imply a higher Discount Rate, you will move to that rate immediately.
Discount Rates are applied at the time of market settlement rather than bet placement. Bear this in mind when betting in long term markets.
The Betfair Points Statement within your My Account section provides a full history of your Betfair Points, and shows changes as a result of your betting activity, weekly decay and any relevant promotions. This statement also shows your current Discount Rate.
You are able to prevent the weekly decay of your Betfair Points by using a Betfair Holiday. You may continue to bet during your Betfair Holiday but will not earn Betfair Points for any markets settled during this period.
You earn one Betfair Holiday when you register and one additional Betfair Holiday every three months thereafter. You may use your Betfair Holiday at any time but cannot accrue more than four unused Betfair Holidays on your account.
The Betfair Holidays section within the My Account section provides a calendar of the next 26 weeks and enables you to book or cancel Betfair Holidays for any of these weeks.You may book or cancel your holiday anytime up to three hours before the decay occurs (Sunday at midnight GMT).
Transaction Charges
In addition to any commission payments, Betfair customers will be charged a transactional fee if they process a large number of transactions.
At the end of every day, we add up all the bets you placed or edited (whether matched, cancelled or lapsed). If this number is in excess of 1000 in any hour of the day then:
i) for customers placing bets through the Application Programmers Interface, we will multiply this number by 1p; and
ii) for website customers, we will multiply this number by 2p.
For the purpose of Transaction Charges, bets on financial markets will count as 0.25 of a bet.
This will form the basis of the transaction fee, but we will deduct from this fee any commission you have paid during the day. Any remaining amount will be charged to your account on a daily basis. Should your commission payments exceed this amount, you will not be charged anything other than your commission payments. Note that no Betfair points will accrue for transaction fees.
Example 1:
You are an API user who pays commission of £18.50 throughout a given day.
However, between the hours of 14:00 and 15:00 you placed 2500 bets and between the hours of 15:00 and 16:00 you placed 3250 bets, but in other hours you placed less than 1000 bets.
Your base transaction charge is (2500-1000)*£0.01 + (3250-1000)*£0.01 = £37.50.
Therefore you will be billed an additional £37.50-£18.50 = £19.00 on the following day.
Example 2:
You are a Website user who pays commission of £20.00 throughout a given day.
However, between the hours of 14:00 and 15:00 you placed 3000 bets on financial markets and 1500 bets on non financial markets. In all other hours you placed less than 1000 bets on all markets.
Your base transaction charge is (((3000*0.25) + 1500)-1000)*£0.02 = £25.00.
Therefore you will be billed an additional £25.00-£20.00 = £5.00 on the following day.
Further details concerning Transaction & Data charges may be found on the Betfair Charges webpage