Re: TradeSports
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Unless I'm making a mental math error (been known to happen) the vig is substantially smaller.
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Yeah the vig is only .4%. It's great in this respect.
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Tradesports fee structure is deceptive. It's $0.04 per contract, each contract worth $10, but it's much higher than 0.4%.
First, generally contracts when traded are at a value around $5, not $10 (fees are actually worse the further you move away from $5, I'll explain below) so the percentage is about 0.8%.
Second, you have to pay a fee both for the buy and the expiration (or sell) that doubles it again to 1.6%.
Third, you have to pay fees on both winners and losers whereas regular sportsbooks and the other exchanges (Mansion, Matchbook) only charge fees on winners. If you're picking 50% this doubles your fees again RELATIVE to other books. So for comparison purposes, either use 3.2% (or higher - see below) for Tradesports or halve the fees from whatever you are comparing to.
This makes Tradessports the most expensive of the exchanges and when you factor in the bid/ask spread it's not necessarily better than a standard book. That said, you can still sometimes find some great lines there and I use it occasionally. Also you can save half the fees if you're the price setter (i.e. you put out a bid and somebody accepts it later) you only get charged the expiration fee.
footnote:
Fees on contracts priced away from 50 - again because you pay fees at buy&sell and win-or-lose fees are worse for contracts away from 50. Look at an example:
Suppose you bet on a long shot by buying a contract at 8 (worth $0.80). Though you'll be fine if you win paying a small % of your winnings in fees, most of the time when you don't win you're paying $0.08 per $0.80 or 10% of your original bet.
Similarly if you bet on a heavy favorite by buying a contract at 92 (worth $9.20) you pay a small % of your original bet in fees, but it's a quite large 10% of what you hope to win.
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