LADDAQ?

Not a good end to the weekend's XX Draws as Rayo Vallecano beat Getfae 3-1 on Monday night, and here is the FTL table caught up as best I can after the end of year festivities.

After more idiotic spam comments, I have been forced to implement the 'comments moderation' which I have not had to do in almost five years of this blog. Rest assured that only spam will fail the moderation test, and that all non-spam comments, both favourable and not-so-favourable will be published.

The last comment was from Baz who asked:

Are Betfair using the premium charge to also close accounts?

Technically no, but they are using the Premium Charge as a way of limiting the payouts to winning customers. The high rates of commission are clearly intended to deter the sharper-minded big winners from using Betfair if they have a viable alternative, but since they know that most of their big winners do not have this viable option, and that closing winning accounts would be a PR disaster (as Smarkets can tell you), their strategy so far has been to hit people where it hurts. 20% didn't do the trick, so for many of us, the percentage is now 40%, 50% or 60%. Betfair could be in for a challenging year, and there may even be a viable alternative with Ladbrokes currently in acquisition talks with BETDAQ? Don't get too excited though - it's hard to imagine Ladbrokes (coming from a different perspective than an 'exchange') tolerating long-term winners. 

I wrote back in February 2009:

They [Betfair] are certainly not in competition with the likes of Ladbrokes, Hills etc. These are traditional bookies who do not want winners. They want customers who, let’s be blunt here, are clueless about value and just want to have a bet. Social gamblers you might call them. As soon as someone starts winning, their business is declined. This happened to me in the early 80s when I had a credit account with Ladbrokes closed after I had won the enormous amount of something like £200.

And if Ladbrokes-Exchange.com (they already own the name) do emerge as an alternative and have no compunctions about closing winning accounts, Betfair may not be far behind. A publicly traded Betfair is a quite different beast from an innovative start-up Betfair.

Finally, I've been a little tardy in thanking my friend Steve at Daily25 for his generous hamper contribution over the holiday period. A little disappointing that the silence was deafening in response to his suggestion that if you "have loved reading his blog and wish to show your support, then donate to this gift" but not unexpected to be honest.