A listing fee disincentivizes people from contributing new submissions which in turn hampers the diversity of options available to people who want to place bets which in turn reduces the appeal of betsofbitco.in.
The listing fee is 0.1 BTC. That's worth about $1.30 currently. If the submission earns enough commission the submitter can actually profit. The break-even is 2.0 BTC in losing bets.
Essentially if a bet statement doesn't yield at least 2.0 BTC in losing bets it probably wasn't well written or of sufficient interest to a wide-enough audience. i.e., in my opinion, the site is better off without cruft. Fewer submissions that are of a good quality are better than many submissions of little interest.
Also, this hurdle might help cause bet statement authors to think it through a bit more. For instance, if a bet is so obvious, few will bet what ends up being the losing side. So while the bet statement may end up with a ton of bets placed, if there are hardly any losing bets there is hardly any gain for those who bet the correct way. So with some "skin" in the game, the bet statement author might develop a bet statement to where the outcome is less likely to be easily predicted.
Should you have a bet statement you'ld like to submit but are holding back because of the 0.1 BTC submission fee, I created a thread for requests / suggestions:
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http://www.reddit.com/r/BetsOfBitcoin/comments/14guyw/requests_what_bet_statement_would_you_place_a_bet