Do you trust Betfair stats?

[buyonaut]

First, I don't like to complain about any company before I'm not sure that something is wrong - I wait and see what is happening, then contact them and try to sort it out directly. However, Betfair didn't response to my mail since June and I want to share this with you.

Please take a look at my stats for September and tell me is this possible!?! And this is going on through June, July, August......



Just don't believe it! Would you?

Stats for June look even worse... 144 new players, something like 120 new depositors out of those and 16 new active registered??!!! I don't even bother to mention earnings.... not enough for a pack of cigarettes LOL

[RayUK]

I wonder what their criterion for active customers is then. I have only just put up a banner for them on my site having been nagged into it by their rep. Maybe I should have checked in this forum a bit more carefully beforehand, having seen some of the other issues here with non-payment and affiliate's accounts being arbitrarily shut down. And now this problem of yours. No way did that many players sign up, and deposit money, and then not spend at least some of it.

I will be interested to see if you get any sensible response. Your earnings are risible, I am sure Betfair made a hell of a lot more than that off of your referred players.

[Betpartners]

Personally i do trust Betfair, cannot imagine that they would do anything untoward but they should be responding to you, it is unacceptable to ignore an affiliate when they have a legitimate complaint.

Thing is that Betfair sports (i assume yours are sports players) are calculated on the commission that betfair charges and so in most cases players that sign up through Betfair will be lower earners for affiliates than at standard sportsbooks.

That said if you have 20 depositors and just the one active that does need an explanation, it is hard to fathom that just 5% of your new depositors are active, why deposit when you wont bet, i can understand some will do that but 95%?

I will say however that it is not unusual to have hundreds of sign ups and just a few active players, i have an account with another sportsbook which has close to 500 sign ups but just 4-5 active players per day.

But you do need some clarification, even on the Betfair structure with the amount of sign ups you have and the amount of depositors and even the amount of active players you would expect to see a higher balance.

Be interesting to see how this one pans out

[ablett]

Hi buyonaut,

Firstly apologies if nobody has got back to you, as your players seem to be mainly sports I have asked the sports team to look into this for you and to get back to you.

RayUK, an active player is classed as someone who has deposited and then placed a bet or played all or some fo that deposit, so basically an active customer is anybody who starts betting or playing on Betfair. If they deposit but do not play they will not be classed as an active player.

Sports works differently to casino and games with the revenue share being based on % of the revenue Betfair make through their sporting exchange, however casino and games operate on a % of the net player losses.

With regards non payment, we have had issues with this in the past but it was a case of delayed payments not non payments. We have worked hard to rectify this and I can assure you that all affiliates who have produced genuine customers and commission will always get paid as we value the hard work and the business affiliates bring to us. With regards accounts being closed we would never do that without justification or notice.

Thanks

Chris

[RayUK]

RayUK, an active player is classed as someone who has deposited and then placed a bet or played all or some fo that deposit, so basically an active customer is anybody who starts betting or playing on Betfair. If they deposit but do not play they will not be classed as an active player.

Thank you for this, that is how I thought it worked. Buyonaut's depositing players to active players ratio look very high to me though! I did realise after my post that buyonaut may well have been promoting sports betting (as opposed to casino) and that does make a difference.

Regards,

[ablett]

Hi Ray,

Yeah it does make a difference if you are promoting sports or casino but the conversion from depositing to active players also varies depending on the affiliate thats why we need to look into cases like this on an individual basis as there is no rule that suits all affiliates.... although I wish there was it would make our jobs much easier

Thanks

Chris

[Simmo!]

I don't even bother to mention earnings.... not enough for a pack of cigarettes LOL

Have you drilled down to look for winners? I think in NetRefer you can see revenue by customer so obviously a winner or two could account for the low revenue.

[buyonaut]

Thanks to all that actively participate in this discussion but I feel that I have to clarify my concerns;

1.) I know very well that sports commission work totally different at Betfair and I'm not so concerned about earnings but ratio between deposits and active players that looks really unbelievable to me. However this 2 things are directly connected and more active players would lead to better earnings.
I have enough experience with sports betting customers and it happens, aldo rarely, that somebody deposits and not play - if player deposit, he will play, simple as that. Percentage of ones depositing and not playing are so low that we can neglect that - it is closer to this ratio then other way around; 100% Deposits=95% active players.

2.) If I send an email to affiliate team and do not get reply for 3 months, something is obviously wrong. Either they don't take me serious or their job.
Personally I think Betfair affiliate management is not taking enough care about their affiliate partners - to me it looks like "Ah, what this guy want now" attitude. Not good.

3.) Finally, I do respect Betfair (as well as other partners I work with) and their business but would like to clarify this issue - stats just don't look right!

ablett, thanks for your effort in this matter, I hope somebody from Betfair will contact me directly soon.

[buyonaut]

So, I did get a reply from Betfair and I quote;

Please see the response from our software developers below concerning the inactive players showing in your account.



It seems that of the players you have sent over in fact only two have become active.



It may be that the players have actually deposited but have yet to play. The stats are correct from our end and therefore I cannot explain why they have not become active. I do agree that the conversion levels are extremely low in this case but the figures themselves are indeed correct.


A customer is considered as active when he/she generated gross revenue. When checking the affiliate reports & stats of affiliate ID 11592 for September, there are now two new active customers listed.

If you search customer reporting for the above affiliate and filtering by signup date 1st September till today, you may see that only 2 customers out of the 25 new signups generated gross revenue and therefore, only these are considered active customers.



It does not matter whether the customer generates positive or negative gross revenue; as soon as any kind of gross revenue is generated, the customer will be active. The turnover (wager) does not has any affect on the customer's status.



Don't know what to say or think - however at this time, while writing this, the saga continues;

New Signups	56
- Depositing Customers From New Signups	49
- Active Customers From New Signups	5
- Total Depositing Customers This Month	51
- Total Active Customers This Month	8
+ Revenue Share Commission	£3.49

If this continues like this, I guess I should send this players to someone else LOL

[vmlinuz]

Could it be that those depositors only signed up and deposited a minimal amount so they can watch the live streams at betfair? This is just an ideea, I'm not 100% sure how this works at betfair.

[buyonaut]

Just to close this subject so it is not hanging;

Betfair crew (Thanks Phil) looked into the stats several times and stats are correct, believe it or not - looks like people are joining in to watch video streams (just as vmlinuz said) and never gamble with that money - if find it weird, still, but there is no reason for me not to trust Betfair affiliate crew.

90% of those that deposited and never played are from Bulgaria, do they have any specific reason to do that, I don't know...

[RayUK]

That is interesting, thank you for posting that buyonaut. At a wild guess perhaps Bulgaria has a following/fanbase of a particular sport that is streamed by Betfair but isn't shown on any of their TV channels? That might explain it.

[Betpartners]

Yup just need to deposit but not actually bet, maybe betfair should look at changing that, i think but cannot be certain that you must have placed a bet on the horses to see the race.

I know some bookies have that condition.

[buyonaut]

I dare to say with 90% certainty that Bet365 and VictorChandler have the term that you must place a bet (either live bet or xyz sports bet) to watch live streams.

I guess Betfair would not be wrong to follow that direction as well - it is very generous from BF to allow watching matches with minimum deposit and no gambling activity.

In most of European countries football is broadcasted by commercial TV stations and that comes with a fee (not small however you look at it), so I guess bunch of Bulgarians found a hole in Betfair terms and took advantage of it, possibly spreading the word around.

This is just a theory tho, can't be sure is it true or not.

Would be cool to see if BF changes the T&C's that you must place a bet to watch streaming how many of this sign ups (counted as few hundred) will activate their accounts and start betting.

[4ndy]

If you're promoting Sportsbooks I personally think Betfair is a bad choice for revenue share commissions.

1. They only pay sportsbook commissions for 12 months compared to lifetime revenue share from other bookmakers such as bet365

2. For every $/£100 your sports betting sign up loses they only pay you £1.25 compared to bet365 who pay you £30.

3. When sportsbook bettors find betfair they usually stay very loyal to the brand because of better odds etc which is great news for Betfair but you and me only get paid for 12 months not lifetime, we are in effect promoting a brand that will only pay us for a limited time and that we need to keep finding a constant stream of new players for compared to others who pay lifetime commissions and we can build up a nice revenue stream for our efforts.

4. The Betfair model is great for punters but not for Affiliates at the current 12 months revenue share deal the more people get to know about and use betfair the harder it will be for traditional online bookmakers (the ones that pay better commissions) to attract new players and as such are not featured prominently on most sports betting affiliates websites.

There is a solution............
Betfair want more players and we want better commissions and if we are on revenue share then Betfair cant lose.

Solution..............Lifetime revenue share, if this were to happen Betfair banners and text links would start to appear more prominently and on new websites.....more nails in coffins of traditional online bookmakers.

The longer Betfair leave this the harder they will find it to build up trust and relationships with affiliates who have been rewarded well and looked after by other online bookmakers in the past.

Don't be greedy

[TheGooner]

For every $/£100 your sports betting sign up loses they only pay you £1.25 compared to bet365 who pay you £30

You're close 4ndy with the general idea but not correct with the specifics.

Betfair pay out on comission earned - and they charge a 5% commission on net WINNING bets - meaning 25% of 5% or the 1.25% that you mentioned.

But ... a player who loses - does not pay commission at all - so you'd get nothing. You need you player to WIN in order to collect.

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My rough rule of thumb is that an amatuer punter usually only manages to turn over a deposit around 3-4 times before losing the lot ...

So in the example of your $/£100 player they will win $/£150 in bets and lose $/£250 (for a net loss of $/£100) and will generate about $/£7.50 in commissions - or just $/£1.75 for the affiliate.

If you can find winning players or experienced players who get closer to tracking level then a initial deposit of $/£100 can actually be quite profitable. But the 12 month limit then kicks in to limit payouts too.


Remember that at Betfair your players need to win - and pay commissions in order for you to collect

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DISCLAIMER :

We have promoted Betfair in the past - but only on a renewable media buy basis - as my maths proved pretty much what Buyonaut has shown - the standard affiliate terms are not competitive with the general industry.

[EugeneK]

maybe some player won a lot

[cass]

Having read the reviews in general about Betfair I think we'll stay well clear of them for the time being.

Cass,

www.cassaon-casino.com

[eldar78]

i do not trust betfair stats, i know exactl some people registered via my banners, but they do not appear on stats.

[graham]

In my past experience with Betfair (which was much more active about a year ago) I ran many tests and had players confirming accounts with me and never ran into any issues.