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my question has been prompted by reading another post on here where the chap said he had a number of accounts closed due to making money on them
my question is- is this common practice?
it seems a bloody cheek to me- they are happy to take our money off us but if you start winning say £20,000/£30,000 in a year will they close your account down?
not that i expect to mind but just a coriosity as to how some people do make their money if they aint allowed to win too much
thoughts?
- Total Posts 17716
I read that too in the thread "money talks" but did not ask.
There are forums with sections dedicated to such lament stories, and at least some of those should be true.
One that made impression to me was a fellow who said he backed Barcelona to win away half time-full time against another Spanish team. Seemed a relatively easy selection and he said in the post the winnings were some 2500 euros. But they closed his account on the grounds "he was too clever and made too much money out of them" (he said). I would have thought if you back Twickenham to win away against Barcelona half-time full time, it’s something that might raise suspicions, but not Barcelona against any Spanish opposition.We have such rules here in Greece also hidden somewhere in the small letters,
but
because the system is high street only they cannot be enforced.
Eight years ago there was a man who won 6 million euros with an accumulator. The house limit was 1.8 million euros but he had taken the precaution to submit the same bet 4 times.
He did not however take the other precaution to send three representatives plus himself to collect and somehow the company noticed it and they voided three quarters of the bet !
So a trial began. I went to talk to the lawyer and he was a 90 year old man. He said to me he was the defense lawyer of one of the most notorious gang of crooks who tried to swindle the national pools in the year 1959 (!) and if I had n’t said goodbye to him at some point in time, he d’ be still talking to me ! But he won the trial and the company paid the full amount in the end !With added pressure to obliviate all forms of anonymous betting, we are likely to see more of it.
But the innocent will suffer more.
If I am a match fixer, justice needs all sorts of proof to convict me and there is also the appeals court. That’s quite naturally so, but for the bookie a mere hint of suspicion suffices to close an account.In another notorious case I covered as a racing reporter, a horse was substituted with another horse and won the race.
There were no scanners and electronic chips in those days, so the lazy paddock officials did not spot it beforehand, but when it was over and taken for biological sampling it was discovered.
The trainer said he made a mistake but he was banned for life for the substitution by the association.
But what of the betting side of the investigations ?
That was a real shambles.
The company printed a sheet in which all winning bets of the race could be seen. Among them a pretty big one, coming from a specific shop. To me it did not prove anything because the winning combinations were quinellas and trios and it was not unnatural to include the guilty horse had there not been a subsitution, in quinellas and trios.
But whatever the case, the union of betting shop owners make up an announcement saying "we do not provide testimonies". So that’s it. No testimony from the local bookmaker and the judicial proceedings had to continue without the key witness. The police duly obliged !
In the end some sentences were passed but one of the key witnesses never appeared in court.In this notorious situation I tried to back the winning quinella myself, not knowing of course what was going on. But at that moment a freak thunder storm breaks out and all electricity and computer terminal communications are gone ! Punters luck !
So it’s a heads I win, tails you lose situation.
In a fair world things should be as follows:1- all bets are honoured unless the punter is succesfully prosecuted.
2- all companies should have to cooperate with justice + compliance authoritiesBookmakers provide a service and expect to make a profit. So they have to restrict or close accounts that make money. In fact they don’t like to close them completely – they prefer to restrict bets to tiny amounts – hence nicknames like Bet £3.65. This is because if the account is closed and the data wiped it’s easier for a punter to start afresh with a full limit a short while later.
However, I recently tried to reopen an account that had been closed for 3 years and was surprised the bookmaker remembered me. So best to ask for your data to be removed when you close.
The puzzle for me is why the British bookmakers don’t adopt the business models of 188 and Pinnacle. They will take big bets because they don’t offer the wrong odds.
You forget that Pinnacle in particular are operating in very strong markets – ie. NFL, NCAAF, NHL, MLB etc. where there’s a lot at stake and it will take hundreds of thousands, or in some cases millions to move the market as opposed to British racing which due to the lack of prize money, lack of genuine regulation and having most of our races run using a handicap system that rewards cheating doesn’t help matters.
I’m sure if you had £100,000 races, more conditions events, allowance races and claimers then bookmakers would be far more inclined to lay bigger bets as they’d have more confidence in the prices.
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Why should the bookmaker have the right to close an account and withhold payment to a person
not before justice and not known to have broken the laws of sport
?
That’s the dummiest statement I ever heard.Those are dictatorship practices.
But the dictators of old at least used to have disciplinarian regimes, armies, navies, tanks, secret police.
We went down to mickey mouse eurocrats.
That’s utter predicament that is.A UK registered bookmaker can close any account he likes but he has to honour bets, as these are recoverable in law. Only the UK Gambling Commission can legally void a bet. The fact that UK punters do not know their rights nor the law and bookmakers do, so fob them off with mickey mouse stories is another matter.
UK bookmakers are closing accounts on all sports, not just horse racing, where the punter looks like he might someday make a profit. All internet bets are recorded and analysed to highlight that and you do not need to be actually winning – just might do at some future date. It seems very short sighted as 96% of punters lose in the long run so keep the accounts going in full and get the money off them. There is no possible income from a closed account.
I don’t think you’d need to win anything like those figs to have your account closed or restricted.
Particularly if you are having success with a specific type of bet.
this then brings up a couple more questions
1 theoretically- if i was winning £2,000 a month say how long would it be before they closed the account
2 how do that 4% make bets then to keep winning
3 would the same apply to betfair where your betting against other punters???
again your thoughts would be appreciated
this then brings up a couple more questions
1 theoretically- if i was winning £2,000 a month say how long would it be before they closed the account
2 how do that 4% make bets then to keep winning
3 would the same apply to betfair where your betting against other punters???
again your thoughts would be appreciated
1) That would depend on the company, the bets you’re having, the races you’re betting in and probably how often they check their customers stats
2) That’s quite an easy answer to be honest – use others. There are numerous examples around of those who are high profile and do this and those who are far far less profile and will be making a similar amount.
3) Betfair work differently – they match your bets with other peoples bets and take 6% of whatever the winnings are, whoever wins they win and if someone wins a larger amount over a certain period of time they take 20% off them on top of the original 6%.
It wouldn’t be in Betfair’s interest to shut accounts as they’re effectively making money on turnover and acting as a broker rather than bookmaking in the traditional sense of the term.
Sparky,
I can assure you that Bookmakers don’t like winning punters, and they do close accounts. Essentially Bookmakers are now run by accountants, and they are constantly reviewing the accounts of their punters, if you are costing them money then they don’t want your custom.
Over a period of about three years, I had all of my phone or internet accounts closed or restricted, plus all of the accounts that I had set up under 3 friends names. Technically they don’t always close the account, but they restrict it to a level that makes it pointless betting with them. The person I spoke to at Stan James was very helpful after they had closed/restricted my account. He told me that they have a level of liability for each horse in every race,and depending on who the customer was they would lay them a percentage of that liability. If a serial loser wanted to back a certain horse they would lay him 100% of that liability which lets say has £1000 liability set against it, if the horse was 5/1 they would let him have up to £200 on it. With me they would only allow me 1% of that £1000 liability, so if it was 5/1 they would allow me £2!
The thing that really amazed me though, was when I had 2 people putting cash on in the local shops. After about 6 months one of my punters was approached by the area manager of Ladbrokes and told that they had been monitoring his bets, and they were now restricting his bets to £20 at SP only!
I now solely bet on Betfair, and as the previous poster said you will never be closed by them.
thanks everyone for taking the time to reply to my post
it seems like you can’t win at the bookies no matter what
A UK registered bookmaker can close any account he likes but he has to honour bets, as these are recoverable in law. Only the UK Gambling Commission can legally void a bet. The fact that UK punters do not know their rights nor the law and bookmakers do, so fob them off with mickey mouse stories is another matter.
UK bookmakers are closing accounts on all sports, not just horse racing, where the punter looks like he might someday make a profit. All internet bets are recorded and analysed to highlight that and you do not need to be actually winning – just might do at some future date. It seems very short sighted as 96% of punters lose in the long run so keep the accounts going in full and get the money off them. There is no possible income from a closed account.
No idea where they were registered, but did you read about Eurosport Bet? They voided all existing bets on March 1st and ceased trading on 14th March, the day before Cheltenham. There was a lot of speculation that they had a colossal accumulator running on that they didn’t fancy honouring.
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I never really fancied boookmaking of any type.
For backing the tote system is superior and technically it is equivalent.In sport there are the four levels of corruption:
1 – punters cheat bookies
2 – bookies cheat punters
3 – punters cheat the tote
4 – non gambling related (teams exchanging points and similar)Other things being equal, the tote appears to be the lesser of evils.
Only the UK Gambling Commission can legally void a bet. The fact that UK punters do not know their rights nor the law and bookmakers do, so fob them off with mickey mouse stories is another matter.
E-mail from Betfair.
"One or more of your bets, placed on the market has been voided/lapsed by Betfair. Whilst these bets were all placed in good faith, in order to be fair to all users we have had to void/lapse them.
Should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact us by emailing info@betfair.com or calling our helpdesk on 0870 0110444 (+44 20 8834 8060 from outside the UK). You will find details of the voided bets in "My Account, Betting History".
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience, and we hope you continue to use and enjoy the site.
Kind regards"
Backing two runners is the relentless pursuit of value. Backing each way is a shortcut to the poor house. Only 7% make a long term profit.
- Total Posts 17716
Only the UK Gambling Commission can legally void a bet. The fact that UK punters do not know their rights nor the law and bookmakers do, so fob them off with mickey mouse stories is another matter.
E-mail from Betfair.
"One or more of your bets, placed on the market has been voided/lapsed by Betfair. Whilst these bets were all placed in good faith, in order to be fair to all users we have had to void/lapse them.
Should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact us by emailing info@betfair.com or calling our helpdesk on 0870 0110444 (+44 20 8834 8060 from outside the UK). You will find details of the voided bets in "My Account, Betting History".
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience, and we hope you continue to use and enjoy the site.
Kind regards"
Were those bets voided before or after the event took place ?
That’s of crucial importance.If before, were they taken out of the book altogether or still offered to other punters ?
It only strengthens my argument.
To create a world-wide tote system requires software and internet platforms to a) handle the bets, b) provide the necessary information to the public.
There should be laws governing the distribution of the money and the safety of transactions.Fixed odds could also be allowed in a limited sense.
For instance if the selection backed stands at 1/2, and punter wishes to fix that price to 1/2 and not accept the fluctuation, the system can compute the maximum wager using a suitable criterion. Such as: "overall liability on selection <= 5000 pounds".Laying in the tote system is also theoretically possible.
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Bookies some times are busted.
Once upon a time I received from a honest one a pile of paper, consisting of euros, American one dollar bills and there was also a checque signed by an uptown used refrigirator salesman. I went there and he said "come on man, it says October and we ‘re still in May" !
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