Comments wanted! A new commission structure
March 29, 2011
Since bringing our 1% commission deal to an end for new customers, we’ve been trying to work out the best way to calculate commission going ahead.
Our aim is to have a commission structure that is competitive, fair, and transparent. We think 5% is too much to charge users, and we want it to be immediately obvious to customers what they can do to reduce their commission. With this in mind, we’d really appreciate any comments or feedback on our current proposals.
Under our proposed structure, we would slash the top rate of commission down to 4%, and offer further reductions to players as soon as they start betting. The reductions would increase along with the player’s average amount staked in a month:
| Average staked per month | Expected Commission |
| 0-£50 | 4% |
| £50-£500 | 3.5% |
| £500-£5,000 | 3% |
| £5,000-£25,000 | 2.5% |
| £25,000-£50,000 | 2% |
| £50,000-£100,000 | 1.5% |
| £100,000+ | 1% |
By ‘stake’ we mean the total liability involved in any single matched order, and the average staked per month would be calculated over a 90 day rolling period, so players are not penalised if their habits change week to week.
There are some details to iron out, and we’ll be letting our customers know well in advance of any changes. However we think that this would be a fair way to move forward. However, nothing is set in stone, and we really value customer feedback. Please get in touch with us, or leave us a comment below!
Backer’s Stake
March 24, 2011
We’ve had a few requests to provide the option to switch between ‘stake’ and ‘backer stake’ when laying bets on Smarkets as it makes the hedging and arbing users’ lives easier.
As you can see, when you open the betting window you can now toggle between ‘stake’ and ‘backer stake’ and your liability is shown in the same window.
You can set ‘backer stake’ to appear by default in your account settings but if you have any questions (and more feature requests) get in touch.
Welcome to David and Steve
March 14, 2011
Steve is a software engineer who previously worked for the web team of last.fm, spearheading their concert database efforts. He’ll be working with Hunter in keeping our Erlang backend in check.
David has come back to the UK after spending a year in Japan, and will be working with Brad on our front end. He previously was Lead Interface developer at Profission, and was a Web Developer at Yahoo! Europe.
Together they make an extremely valuable addition to the Smarkets team. Welcome aboard!
Jason Trost on BBC Radio 5Live
March 13, 2011
Congratulations to Smarkets CEO Jason Trost, who was on the panel of tonight’s episode of “On the Money” discussing fraud, risk and general business news with Declan Curry.
If you missed it, or just find Jason’s voice that alluring, you can check out the programme over on BBC iPlayer.
