Betfair PREMIUM CHARGE: What is it? (& How it’s Calculated)

Caan Berry
4 min readJun 20, 2018

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Not everyone has heard about Betfair’s premium charge…

An additional charge created to tax the consistent winners on the betting exchange. For the majority, it’s not a major concern.

However, within this post we’re going to discuss what Betfair premium charge is, how it’s calculated and what you should be bearing in mind (if you think you’re about to be paying it anytime soon).

What is Betfair Premium Charge?

Simply put, Betfair premium charge is an increased commission rate. Targeted at consistent winners.

Paid on a weekly basis, relative to performance. The calculation isn’t that complicated, although it baffles many people on the first look.

We’ll explain how it’s calculated in just a second…

First of all it’s important to say that paying Betfair premium charge isn’t the end of the world. Initially it only starts at 20%, which isn’t a huge amount.

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The initial reason Betfair gave for bringing in this charge was to reinvest money back into the exchange infrastructure. Something that I think most people will find a little bit questionable if you’ve used the Betfair exchange over any period of time. Nonetheless, I’m sure it’s contributed to user experience in one form or another.

Also, as you’ll see in just a second, the charge is designed and structured so that a select group of winners are hit more than anybody else — traders.

The chances are if you’re straight gambling you’re not going to be hit by the premium charge anytime soon, so relax...

How Does Betfair Premium Charge Work?

The premium charge calculation is really quite simple, once you’ve qualified anyway. The qualifying bit is the part that confuses most.

So, with that in mind lets get it out the way…

To qualify for Betfair premium charge you need to meet all of the following criteria (at the same time).

If, at any point, you no longer fit that criteria you will stop paying premium charge until you do again. Reasonable enough.

So, the criteria is to have money matched on more than 250 sports markets over the lifetime of your account.

To be in overall profit, and for your generated commission charges to be less than 20% of your overall lifetime profit. Once this criteria has been met then you will be notified from Betfair themselves that you’re eligible to pay the premium charge, usually via email.

Also, you’ll see this tab pop up under your account section of the Betfair website (below).

Once you qualify as a Betfair premium charge payer you are gifted a one off £1,000 premium charge allowance. This is a notional allowance. After qualifying premium charges will be deducted from this £1,000 allowance on a weekly basis until it no longer remains. At which point you actually begin to pay the Betfair premium charge.

Think of it as a little buffer zone giving you time to understand how the charge works. Obviously, at a rate of 20% that means you’ve got around about £5,000 worth of profit before you have to start to pay the charge.

Also, I said around about £5,000 because premium charge, at a rate of 20% is not inclusive of that weeks generated commission.

So, for example; if 3% of your weekly profit was already taken in generated commission that means you have 17% left to pay in premium charge that particular week. This is, of course, variable depending on how successful you are!

The less generated commission in comparison to profits the more premium charge, and vice versa.

To summarise, the weekly premium charge calculation is:

Premium charge =

percentage of weekly profit - weekly generated commission

At this point you may be wondering when does the premium charge increase. That is not something you do not need to worry about until your lifetime profit of your account is in excess of £250,000.

Note there are some exclusions to the premium charge calculation. Such as, a single win accounting for 50% of your lifetime profit.

Reducing Premium Charge Payments…

Reducing your premium charge payments is a big deal. Much like tax in day to day life. However, it’s not that easy to do.

As explained in this You Tube video.

So, there it is. Betfair premium charge. Rounded up into one neat simple post.

For a slightly longer and more in depth article on the topic check out this link to my own personal blog at caanberry.com.

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Caan Berry
Caan Berry

Written by Caan Berry

Professional Betfair Trader. Author. Blogger. YouTuber. Beer Drinker. Promoted by Betfair & Betdaq. Read the blog here: caanberry.com

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