Guess it's up to me to dedicate a thread to this immensely important development which threatens all honest, informed and responsible punters.

First, let's get the official quote correct.

Betfair claims this new premium charge affects:

"less than 0.5% of active customers"

Now what is an active customer?

From Betfair's material we can infer that any customer who places at least 1 bet in a particular week is considered an active customer for that week.

So someone who simply has 1 minimum bet a week on the West Coast Eagles (say) would be counted.

when I google news for "Betfair" I get 2,366 matches.

Trouble is that 797 of those matches happen also have "cashback" in the text.

Clearly there is a massive industry promoting a free money scenario at Betfair based on one bet per week.

So you have the opportunity for individuals to open accounts in as many names as they can muster merely to bonus binge. Then withdraw money from their account.

Can these people really be considered active customers?