UKBetting GBP to USD conversion problem

[WLVRYN]

Its 1.9% each time, or 3.8% for the deposit and withdrawal. 3.8% of $550 is about $20, which should account for most of your difference.

[krimson]

Exchange fee's suck.

It's typically recommended to deposit the minimum amount into the GBP sites that you can play with and leave it in there for a few months while you clear the bonuses (assuming that's why your playing there).

[Robert Ezzo]

I'm going to do some quick math to show this:

£300 deposit, minus 1.9% hidden processing fee = £5.7 fee
£321 withdrawal, minus 1.9% hidden processing fee = £6.1 fee
£1 fee for withdrawal from UKBetting (their service charge).

£12.8 pounds total.

£21 profit - £12.8 pounds fees = £8.2 actual profit.

£8.2 ~= $15 US. Which is how much you profited in the end.

Those Neteller fees really do add up, so it is best not to deposit/withdraw each month if you can avoid it. Gets quite expensive.

[Dr_Freeze]

The exchange fee isn't exactly hidden. Below is a quote from the Neteller site, taken from the small print on the "Transfer funds" page:

---Begin Quote---
Note: If your transfer transaction involves a currency conversion, the exchange rate that NETELLER applies is an average daily inter-bank market rate published by a third party foreign currency data provider plus 1.9%. NETELLER retains this amount as a foreign exchange processing fee.
---End Quote

This quote is on every Neteller page involving a transaction, whether it's a deposit, withdrawal, transfer, whatever. Anyway, as you can see, the 1.9% is included in the exchange rate that Neteller uses for the transaction.

-Freeze

[naschburger2]

My friend went through this problem a few months ago but never did figure it out and I have not made a withdrawal yet from these sites. I don't believe limiting your withdrawals will have any effect on the 1.9% processing fee,it will only help with the $1 withdrawal charge. Its a % fee so it will be the same whether you make 1 or 6 withdrawals.

[OneCentRob]

As a UK player, my advice would be to open an account that lets you deposit and withdraw in GBP. I have accounts with Bet365 (prima network) and Ladbrokes. Both allow you to do this, and what is more you can withdraw straight into your bank account with NO CHARGES. To do this you must be sure to make a bank wire deposit into your poker account from the same account that you want to withdraw into.
All the game play on these sites is in US$ but the exchange rates for buying and cashing in poker chips are fixed (either for the day or the week) and they are the same both ways with no charges. (Bet365 used to have a system where you got the same rate chashing out fixed to the rate of your last chip purchase, but as the dollar fell players like myself who only withdraw were getting about 10% above the market exchange rate! Took them a while to realise but they have adopted the ladbrokes methed now.)

Another alternative is to get yourself a US$ account, which you can do easily from various UK banks. You can then pay in US cheques without any fees. The disadvantage being that you will get virtually no interest, although IF the dollar recovers it would be worthwhile.

For my non-UK poker accounts I tend to just withdraw US$ cheques. Find out how much your bank charges as a minimum for paying in US cheques and then work out the minimum value cheque that you should request (it's normally a smakk % with a minimum charge of about $15). Most sites offer a free registered delivery to UK for cheques over $1000. My guess is that you will get better value this way than through Neteller but unless you are a very heavy user who need many sites I would strongly recommend opening an account with BET365 Ladbrokes (or any of the UK sites that offer GBP withdrawals - William Hill and Betfair (crypto sites) may do, but I've not checked them out yet.

Hope this helps.

[Art Vandelay]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to do some quick math to show this:

£300 deposit, minus 1.9% hidden processing fee = £5.7 fee
£321 withdrawal, minus 1.9% hidden processing fee = £6.1 fee
£1 fee for withdrawal from UKBetting (their service charge).

£12.8 pounds total.

£21 profit - £12.8 pounds fees = £8.2 actual profit.

£8.2 ~= $15 US. Which is how much you profited in the end.

Those Neteller fees really do add up, so it is best not to deposit/withdraw each month if you can avoid it. Gets quite expensive.

[/ QUOTE ]

And here I thought I was getting jammed on the rake. Damn, those fees add up quick.

[Robert Ezzo]

[ QUOTE ]
The exchange fee isn't exactly hidden. Below is a quote from the Neteller site, taken from the small print on the "Transfer funds" page:

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed, no argument from me, I found that page a long time ago. But since so many people consider it "hidden", I thought I would continue using that nomenclature.

[ QUOTE ]
My friend went through this problem a few months ago but never did figure it out and I have not made a withdrawal yet from these sites. I don't believe limiting your withdrawals will have any effect on the 1.9% processing fee,it will only help with the $1 withdrawal charge. Its a % fee so it will be the same whether you make 1 or 6 withdrawals.

[/ QUOTE ]

It works because you are not depositing/withdrawing your stake every month, which is where the fees add up fast. Given a 4-tabling $1/$2 bonus chaser, you would need (approximately) $200. If you take that on and off every month, you are paying an extra $8/month in exchange fees you don't need to, where you could just cash out profits instead. If you did that for a year and then cashed out your stake, you would have saved yourself $88 over the course of the year. It adds up. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Dr_Freeze]

The matter is complicated (perhaps favorably) by the fact that sites like UKBetting, Totalbet, and Littlewoods use a different exchange rate altogether, and the one used by those sites is often better than the "official" going rate.

By way of example, I think my last transfer to Totalbet was for 250 pounds, and it only cost me about $3.00 (~1.5 GBP), because part of the money lost to the neteller fee was "regained" by the favorable exchange rate on Totalbet.

The exchange rate changes like daily though, so I can't say that this is generally the case.

By the way, someone asked about where/how to find the poker site's exchange rate. It's given on the "buy-in" page any time you sit at a GBP table.

-Freeze

[peregrine]

The 1.9% fee actually does account for the difference. Neteller finally acknowledged they do charge this. Thanks for all you help.