Betting exchange commission: what Betfair, Smarkets, Matchbook and Betdaq actually charge

For a customer in the UK or Ireland, the standard rate on every major exchange is 2%. Betfair's Basic package, Smarkets' Standard Tier, Betdaq and Matchbook all charge 2% of your net winnings in a market, and none of them charge you when you lose. Pred charges 2.5% on the position itself, which on an even-money contract works out at 1.25% of what you put in, win or lose.

The 5% figure you will find on most comparison pages is not Betfair's rate. Betfair's own charges page says so.

The rates, from each venue's own terms

About that 5%

Section 4.8 of Betfair's charges page carries a correction that almost nobody has picked up:

Please note that the Rules tab which is found on each market on the Classic or Old version of Betfair is incorrectly displaying the Market Base Rate as 5%. Please ignore the information about the Market Base Rate on the Classic or Old version of Betfair.

Betfair is telling you to ignore a number that its own product displays. That number is the source of almost every "Betfair charges 5%" claim in circulation.

The picture underneath it: since My Betfair Rewards launched, a customer in the UK, Ireland, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Croatia or Ukraine pays a rate set by their chosen package. Betfair's worked example in section 4.3 uses the Basic package at 2%. The older model, Market Base Rate multiplied by net winnings and then reduced by a Discount Rate earned through Betfair Points, still applies to Australasian events and to accounts inside a Master/Sub-Account structure. For a punter backing a Premier League match from London, it does not apply at all.

So the premise behind a decade of comparison articles, that Smarkets and Betdaq undercut Betfair by three percentage points, no longer holds. On the headline rate, four venues are level.

Why the headline rate does not settle it

Commission and fees are charged on different things, so the percentages are not comparable until you run a position through them.

An exchange charges a percentage of your net winnings in a market. Win nothing, pay nothing. Pred charges a percentage of the position at the point you trade, using the formula base rate × contracts × price × (1 − price). Buy 200 contracts at 50p and the taker fee is 2.5% × 200 × 0.5 × 0.5, or £1.25.

Two different denominators. Here is what they produce.

A single £100 position, even money

If it wins

If it loses

Pred returns 75p more on the win and costs £1.25 more on the loss. Run that across a fair even-money market where you win half the time and the exchange comes out ahead by 25p per £100 traded. Pred only starts winning the comparison above a 62.5% strike rate on even-money contracts.

That is the cost of charging on the position rather than on the winnings, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If you trade at a break-even hit rate, a 2% exchange is cheaper.

One hundred £100 positions, 55 winners

Gross profit before charges: £1,000.

Pred sits third of five. At ordinary volumes, on ordinary results, the cheapest place to trade an even-money football market is a 2% exchange.

Then look at the bottom row.

The charge that decides it

Three of the four exchanges reserve a higher rate for customers who win consistently. The thresholds are close enough to be worth putting side by side.

Betfair considers an account for the Expert Fee once its gross profit across the last 52 active weeks passes £25,000, and once it has traded more than 100 markets. Betfair states this affects fewer than 0.5% of customers. The fee is calculated weekly against a buffer and deducted from the account.

Smarkets moves its most profitable accounts to the Select Tier, where the rate rises to 3% and the basis changes. Standard Tier commission applies to net winnings per market, so a losing market costs you nothing. Select Tier commission applies to each individual matched bet as it settles, on the profit if it wins and on the losses if it loses. Smarkets notifies an account by email seven days before the move. To have the rate reviewed, an account's net profit and loss over the previous twelve months has to fall below £25,000, and the review sits at Smarkets' discretion.

Two venues, the same £25,000.

The Select Tier arithmetic is the part worth sitting with. Take the hundred positions above. Standard Tier charges 2% on 55 winning markets, which is £110. Select Tier charges 3% on all 100 settled bets, winners and losers alike, which is £300. Identical trading, 2.73 times the commission, and the trigger is that you are good at it.

Betdaq publishes no equivalent. Its terms set a flat 2% on net market winnings for customers in the UK, Ireland, Gibraltar and Jersey, 5% for everywhere else, and reserve the right to apply an Enhanced Commission on specific sports where it is marked in the market information. On published terms, Betdaq is the exchange that does not charge you more for winning.

Pred charges 2.5% to takers and nothing to makers. The rate does not move with your profit and loss. There is no tier, no threshold, no review.

What this means if you win

The question that matters is not what an exchange charges on a £100 bet. It is what it charges on your thirtieth thousand pound of profit.

Below roughly £25,000 of annual profit, a 2% exchange is the cheapest venue and Pred costs a little more. Above it, Betfair and Smarkets both have a published mechanism for raising your rate, and Smarkets' version starts charging you on losing bets as well as winning ones. Betdaq and Pred do not.

This is the same pattern the Gambling Commission found on the sportsbook side, where 400,237 accounts had a stake factor applied and around 89,693 were cut to 1% or less of their normal maximum. The exchanges do not close winning accounts. They reprice them.

Common questions

What is Betfair's commission? Betfair charges commission on your net winnings in each market, and nothing if you make a net loss. For customers in regions running My Betfair Rewards, which includes the UK and Ireland, the rate comes from your package. Betfair's own worked example uses the Basic package at 2%. The 5% shown on the Classic site is displayed in error according to Betfair's charges page.

What is Smarkets' commission? The Standard Tier is 2% of net winnings per market, with nothing charged on a losing market. Two other tiers exist. The Pro Tier is 1% and can be opted into. The Select Tier is 3%. Both charge per individual settled bet rather than per market, which means they apply to losing bets as well as winning ones.

What is Betdaq's commission? Betdaq charges a flat 2% on net market winnings across all sports for customers resident in the UK, Ireland, Gibraltar and Jersey, and 5% for customers resident elsewhere. No commission is payable on a market where you finish at a net loss. Betdaq reserves the right to apply an Enhanced Commission on certain sports, marked in the market information.

What is Matchbook's commission? Matchbook's published rate is 2% of net profit per market, with no commission on losing bets. [EDITOR: not confirmable from Matchbook's own site at time of writing, see note below.]

What does Pred charge? 2.5% to takers and 0% to makers, calculated as base rate × contracts × price × (1 − price) and charged on the position rather than on the winnings. On an even-money contract that is 1.25% of what you put in. The rate does not change with your profit and loss.

Which is cheapest? On a single even-money position at a break-even strike rate, any of the 2% exchanges. Above a 62.5% strike rate, or above the profit thresholds where Betfair's Expert Fee and Smarkets' Select Tier engage, Pred and Betdaq.

Method and sources

Every rate above comes from the venue's own published documentation, retrieved on 14 September 2026. No figure has been taken from a comparison site or a review. The arithmetic was calculated independently rather than reproduced.