- This topic has 49 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 9 months ago by
.
- Posts
Being restricted by internet and shop bookmakers in the event that you might actually win is old news. The UK reaction is the usual apathy where the whole system is accepted as being that it is perfectly acceptable that the poor and disadvantaged are screwed their whole lifetime by the rich and powerful. Market competition is taken as gospel and to be a good thing.
Like the energy suppliers there is no real competition in bookmaking. They all now do the same thing – take it or leave it. The market has failed. If prospective punters realise that however much they work at it they won’t ever be allowed to bet, they will switch and are switching to other sports. The shops are on their last legs and internet software will gradually mean that even the few that are employed there will also gradually lose their jobs. The effect on racing’s future as income shrinks year on year will be one of continual decline.
If you care, then perhaps consider writing just one letter to your MP expressing your views and experience. Be aware that many MPs mostly have no clue of what actually goes on in UK. They just pass your letters onto bookmakers reps who concoct some PR spin that all is hunky dory and it never happens. So express any letter carefully, number questions individually and provide some evidence. If you get bookmaker guff in reply then reply that that is what it is and can you have a proper response containing the MP’s actual view. You pay their wages, expenses and pensions.
Australians are not taking all this this lieing down and this is a sample of how they are campaigning against the methods of mainly UK corporate bookmakers in their midst – together with solutions as to how things could be improved:
"Dear (MP)
You may not remember me, although I manned a polling booth for you at Mitchell Park for over 7 hours back in your successful tilt at the Legislative Council. My wife is Dr Melissa Raven, formerly at NCETA, involved with drug, alcohol and gambling addictions; I, for my sins, breed racehorses. Some years ago, I had a discussion with you where I made a major distinction between the perils of pokies (which I loathe) when compared to the perils of betting on racehorses, although both can result in financial ruin.
I am writing to you because of an on-going problem which non-losing gamblers have with on-line corporate bookmakers in Australia. The link, below, summarises the situation quite well, although I know nothing of the individual who wrote it.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/punters- … 2v3st.html
I am not personally affected by the bans and restrictions placed on punters by the international corporate bookmakers; I bet with another, Australian owned, NT-based corporate, Betstar, who appear to be a little more reasonable than most or, perhaps, I don’t win enough to be a problem to them.
I am a member of an email list, or internet discussion forum, called x. On x we discuss all manner of horseracing issues, plus politics, climate change, the Law Courts, and a myriad of other matters, but the emphasis is on horseracing with a fair proportion of the content relating to gambling or, at least, assessing the chances of one horse against another.
There has been a persistent thread, over the past month or two, regarding the practice of the corporate bookmakers based in the Northern Territory, in that they are banning punters, even after wins of only several hundred dollars. Alternatively, they are restricting punters to bets of, literally, 38 cents to win $1.14; their rationale then is to claim that they are not banning punters; they fail to reveal that a bet of 38c to win $1.14 has the effect of preventing the punter from having a reasonable bet. By law, it is mandated that an on-course bookmaker must accept any bet from any punter to win a certain minimum amount, somewhere in the vicinity of $1,000, I believe. Why is there no similar mandated amount that corporate on-line bookmakers are compelled to accept from all punters, coupled with the requirement that they cannot refuse a bet or ban a particular person, unless that person is banned, suspended, disqualified or warned-off by a court, racing authority, or regulator?
Surely, it could be legislated that corporate bookmakers, almost all of whom funnel their profits off-shore, have to accept certain minimum bets from anyone who chooses to bet with them. Comparable legislation compels Coles and Woolworths to sell their supermarket products to everyone, not discriminating against the corner-store owner who is often able to buy a particular product from Coles or Woolworths cheaper than they can obtain it wholesale from their supplier. Why, given that the NT government applies such a ridiculously low tax on the bookmakers, coupled with a regulator who kowtows to the corporates? demands, cannot the federal government legislate to compel bookmakers Australia-wide, whether on-course or on-line, to accept bets to a specified minimum loss limit as currently applies only to on-course bookmakers?
If you are interested, I can provide you with emails from various affected punters detailing their experiences, and/or contact details for them. If Kevin Andrews can override voluntary euthanasia laws in the NT, surely something can be done regarding the unscrupulous behaviour of corporate bookmakers.
I can be contacted at this email address, x
Thank you for your attention to this matter.Regards
xResponse:
Following x’s approach I wrote to the X office and received the reply below.>Dear x
>
>Many thanks for your email, I will be sure to bring it to Nick’s
>attention. We appreciate receiving feedback from customers who use
>online bookmakers, particularly where they are unhappy with their
>accounts being restricted. It is apparent this problem is more
>widespread than we first thought.
>
>I’d be happy to keep you updated on Nick’s progress addressing this
>issue, however please do not hesitate to contact me in the meantime if
>there is anything you would like to discuss further.
>
>Kind regards
>
>Skye
>Response:
G’day Skye
Thank you for forwarding me a copy of the NT Racing Commission’s decision on the minimum bet rule for online bookmakers. What a mealy-mouthed rationalisation for doing what the corporates want.
I have one off the top of my head solution to the problem. Why not?:
1) bar all corporates from banning any punter unless the punter is under some external regulatory ban or suspension.
2) reintroduce a minimum, but reasonable, minimum risk rule
3) permit reduction in the minimum risk amount for online betting
4) require that all phone bets must be accepted, to the minimum risk value, at the price currently on display online.This prevents the corporate bookmaker from reducing the odds on offer to a particular punter, but allows them to adjust the odds before accepting another phone bet, thus overcoming the stated reason for the removal of the minimum bet rule, namely multiple online bets being placed in milliseconds, surely not a massively common event, but one which could occur if a ?sting? were being organised. Such a sting could not be mounted by phone or, at least, the corporate bookmaker would only have itself to blame if they did not reduce the odds available as the sting progressed.
Most serious punters have a phone available, the internet odds on a screen in front of them, and are not part of some plot to take advantage of the corporates. I believe that they’d find it hard to rationalise their way out of accepting this sort of compromise; it makes the punter’s job slightly more difficult, particularly those having a large number of multiple bets, but it would overcome the problem of refusing or reducing bets from selected, successful individual punters.
Regards
xI dislike restrictions as much as the next punter, but how can you legislate to force any company to do business with an individual who reduces their profits?
If you were running a bookmaking business would you accept bets from such people?
Surely there has to be a fair case to accept certain liability if a bookmaker is also prepared to accept maximal loss from another punter. It really is the proverbial cake and eat it scenario.
Legislating for it may be difficult. But not unlike a retail loss leading product, the smarter accounts may become just that.
Doesn’t it boil down to the fact book makers these days are rubbish at pricing up races though and not prepared to back their trading teams. You only have to look at their 6-7pm books compared to 10am the next morning to see how off they often are. Just dangling the bait for a few carrots to see where the likely public opinion is going.
I dislike restrictions as much as the next punter, but how can you legislate to force any company to do business with an individual who reduces their profits?
If you were running a bookmaking business would you accept bets from such people?
Bet 365 – 3 £50 losing bets, account closed.
Not exactly good for the levy.
Bring back Redman …lets hear his views , in any event it might flush out the real Diane Avis …..if Corm will allow it !!!
I dislike restrictions as much as the next punter, but how can you legislate to force any company to do business with an individual who reduces their profits?
If you were running a bookmaking business would you accept bets from such people?
The Oz race tracks rule that on course bookmakers must lay an offered price up to a certain liability level and that has worked for decades. They are asking that the internet bookmakers do likewise. In UK it is bizarre that one punter can bet £200 at a price in a shop and his sharper colleague standing next to him can only get £20 at a reduced price on the same horse. Tescos would never have a business model that says yes customer A can have 5 pints of milk but you, customer B can only have one. You price your goods to sell and you sell them as hard as you can as the more items that sell the more the profit and the less the marginal overheads.
Does it reduce their profits in Oz – no – it increases their turnover and they know that a horse can be offered and the offer filled to one person if he wants it. Similarly internet bookmaker predictive analysis settings are presently set so severely that instead of keeping out the 2% who certainly might make a profit – they are excluding / restricting 20% of customers who may be in the 2% band but only show the vaguest possibility of ever making a profit – bizarrely the computer is restricting people who are actually making a loss rather than a profit.
So there is an 18% penalty in loss of turnover /profits already in their methods. Over a season that is a huge sum of money. All that needs to happen is with the 2%, once identified, then any firm is only liable to retain their custom when punter is say £5000 in front. That gives hope to the 98% that they could possibly be in that position one day so they keep trying with racing.It is much like Banks turning away loans for small businesses as the computer says no. If they do that too aggressively their profits suffer as the winners go somewhere else or the business never gets started and the country loses out. "Investment" banks only invest 4% in UK businesses and overall 80% of all UK investment is in housing as mortgages or land banks or development sites. That is killing our country in debt, debt repayments and greatly reduced job mobility.
At the moment punters, bookmakers and racing are all losing out.
It need someone to lead the way and bring some sense into the present situation which is unsustainable.But bookies are not stupid. If they are turning away 18% of the punting population wrongly, they will eventually realise that themselves as the filtering software they use becomes more refined.
I’m assuming that on-course rule in Australia is a part of the track’s terms and conditions and not something the government has decreed.
I’m afraid that part of the price you pay for the convenience of betting online is being monitored by this software. Even in the shops, Epos tills make monitoring of individuals much easier, and I know quite a few guys who are restricted or simply barred from these shops.
I’m a punter, not a bookmaker, but I have no argument with any businessman who wishes to protect his profits. If he chooses to err on the safe side and lose some potentially profitable business, then that’s the trade-off he accepts.
The big companies also have a legal obligation to do their best for shareholders, and would be remiss in not deploying whatever tools are available to help them do that.
Again, the question arises (and I find that answers are always hard to come by in these debates) if you owned a big bookmaking company, would you accept business from people that was highly likely to reduce your profits?
Your points are sort of valid but this is the trivial business of taking bets and to dress it up as a social crusade are disingenuous in the extreme. To compare this with those struggling to heat their homes…well, really!
Bookmakers do what bookmakers do. If you’re not happy with their treatment of you, go elsewhere. If ‘elsewhere’ can’t offer you the terms that you want then don’t bet. No business in the UK is obliged to trade with anyone.
If as you claim the bookmakers really don’t know their business and are driving losing punters away in the quest to restrict shrewdies, then they will go bust, simple as that.
I can think of a thousand things people should be contacting their MP’s about. This isn’t one of them.
Mike
The bookies have been experts at lobbying M.P.s of all parties for years.I do not think that writing to your M.P. would do any good as many are in the bookies pockets.
Nobody should be forced to take Barney Curley type yankees but if young people buy a Racing Post and a form book and get knocked back for £20 win on a 14/1 shot,they will soon find other ways to spend any disposable income they have.As we older backers die off it will leave the insiders and the pissheadsIf you go to back a certainty always buy a return ticket.
Your points are sort of valid but this is the trivial business of taking bets and to dress it up as a social crusade are disingenuous in the extreme. To compare this with those struggling to heat their homes…well, really!
Bookmakers do what bookmakers do. If you’re not happy with their treatment of you, go elsewhere. If ‘elsewhere’ can’t offer you the terms that you want then don’t bet. No business in the UK is obliged to trade with anyone.
If as you claim the bookmakers really don’t know their business and are driving losing punters away in the quest to restrict shrewdies, then they will go bust, simple as that.
I can think of a thousand things people should be contacting their MP’s about. This isn’t one of them.
Mike
You just don’t get it Mike,they have been having a lend of the punters there for .years.The point is if you are not prepared to compete then you don’t deserve a licence
You just don’t get it Mike,they have been having a lend of the punters there for .years.The point is if you are not prepared to compete then you don’t deserve a licence
If you like, but my substantive point was about the idea of contacting one’s MP about what is in essence a fairly trivial leisure activity.
The market in bookmaking can sometimes have a cartel-ish feel to it. But I can’t agree with the invidious nature of the OP’s comparison to the energy market (
definitely
a cartel) – one needs to keep warm and cook food, one doesn’t need a narky each-way bet at Catterick.
Nobody is forced to bet; it’s not a basic human need.
As a customer, you have the ultimate sanction – withdraw your custom. If enough people did, bookmakers would have to respond by improving their offer to customers, or go bust. As they are still taking millions of bets every day, one can only assume that those punters are happy with the offer they are being made.
Mike
You just don’t get it Mike,they have been having a lend of the punters there for .years.The point is if you are not prepared to compete then you don’t deserve a licence
If you like, but my substantive point was about the idea of contacting one’s MP about what is in essence a fairly trivial leisure activity.
The market in bookmaking can sometimes have a cartel-ish feel to it. But I can’t agree with the invidious nature of the OP’s comparison to the energy market (
definitely
a cartel) – one needs to keep warm and cook food, one doesn’t need a narky each-way bet at Catterick.
Nobody is forced to bet; it’s not a basic human need.
As a customer, you have the ultimate sanction – withdraw your custom. If enough people did, bookmakers would have to respond by improving their offer to customers, or go bust. As they are still taking millions of bets every day, one can only assume that those punters are happy with the offer they are being made.
Mike
I wrote:
"Like the energy suppliers there is no real competition in bookmaking. They all now do the same thing – take it or leave it. The market has failed"How you make that out to be "the invidious nature of the OP’s comparison to the energy market" I just cannot fathom. It is simply a neutral comparison example of competition in markets that have failed, not hatred, not morality.
in·vid·i·ous
adjective
1.
calculated to create ill will or resentment or give offense; hateful: invidious remarks.2.
offensively or unfairly discriminating; injurious: invidious comparisons.3.
causing or tending to cause animosity, resentment, or envy: an invidious honour.But bookies are not stupid. If they are turning away 18% of the punting population wrongly, they will eventually realise that themselves as the filtering software they use becomes more refined.
I’m assuming that on-course rule in Australia is a part of the track’s terms and conditions and not something the government has decreed.
I’m afraid that part of the price you pay for the convenience of betting online is being monitored by this software. Even in the shops, Epos tills make monitoring of individuals much easier, and I know quite a few guys who are restricted or simply barred from these shops.
I’m a punter, not a bookmaker, but I have no argument with any businessman who wishes to protect his profits. If he chooses to err on the safe side and lose some potentially profitable business, then that’s the trade-off he accepts.
The big companies also have a legal obligation to do their best for shareholders, and would be remiss in not deploying whatever tools are available to help them do that.
Again, the question arises (and I find that answers are always hard to come by in these debates) if you owned a big bookmaking company, would you accept business from people that was highly likely to reduce your profits?
Well independent bookmakers cannot afford to be stupid. I have not said that corporates are stupid either. They have bought in software intended for another purpose such as loan applications and got the supplier to alter it for internet bookmaking. I very much doubt if their CEOs have any clues of how the algorithms are set or how they might need to be altered.
Your argument is a bit like the "clever" banks securitising up subprime mortgages. When it was all going well no one asked any questions. By the time they found out that the stuff was junk there was nowhere left to shift it. If bookmakers do find that their sorting out of horseracing customers has been too aggressive then it will be too late – the punters have gone elsewhere or packed it in. They do not want to take restricted people back on mass because now they do not know which ones are in the 2% or the low profit 18%.
William Hills shares are currently dropping as they have admitted to the Stock Exchange that the only way they are getting any new customers is increased free offers and even heavier advertising. That is hugely costly and self defeating if once they have got some new customers they are then going to turn them away.
"Again, the question arises (and I find that answers are always hard to come by in these debates) if you owned a big bookmaking company, would you accept business from people that was highly likely to reduce your profits?"
I thought I had answered that already and also again above.
The present system is reducing their profits.I will try a third time.
Say there are 100 punters who on average will lose £15 for every £100 bet80 bad punters give a profit of £1200
18 keener punters give a profit of £540 for every £200 bet
2 winning punters at +15% make them a loss of £150 for every £500 each bet
The severe current model actually reduces profits to £1200 when they could be increased to £1590. That is 25% drop in potential profits. That is a serious loss and you think they are being clever – losing £390 to avoid paying out £150?
Robert, it seems to me you have moved from advocating legislation against corporate greed to seeking to protect bookmakers from their own stupidity.
You might be right in suggesting they are throwing out a number of profitable babies with the bath water, but of the myriad parties involved in horse racing, I have always found bookmakers to be the smartest in the long run.
If the system is indeed broken, those 18% will eventually be accommodated, and the 2% locked out.
I suspect the number is much lower than 18; it’s probably in low single figures.
We shall see.
my substantive point was about the idea of contacting one’s MP about what is in essence a fairly trivial leisure activity.
I am reminded of the Weekender’s resident wit Peter Thomas’s along-the-lines-of anecdote about reading the headline ‘torrential rain and severe flooding threatens…’ and immediately thinking of no more than ‘bugger, that will mean soft going at Cheltenham’
Living in an engrossing sometimes all-enveloping little world can result in priorities becoming somewhat skewed can’t they?
This is a Horseracing forum and therefore by defiintion is devoted to the discussion of a trivial pursuit: a game, no more no less; so in the narrow confines of what we’re all here to mumble about perhaps the OP’s post is worth considering
Though I’ve long since committed the ultimate sanction of withdrawing my custom from off-course bookmakers and have no experience of their current business model, it would appear from the regular moans on TRF and elsewhere that it is increasingly becoming a restrictive practice that’s not in the consumers’ best interest; and therefore, given how much public money this trivial pursuit turns over, is worthy of attention and even writing to your MP about: bad business is bad business
If this were the State Of Western Civilization, Where Did It All Go Wrong And How Do We Put It Right forum I would agree that discussion of the bookmaking business rather than how the old folk can manage to keep warm this winter would seem more than somewhat trite, and even invidious
Robert, it seems to me you have moved from advocating legislation against corporate greed to seeking to protect bookmakers from their own stupidity.
You might be right in suggesting they are throwing out a number of profitable babies with the bath water, but of the myriad parties involved in horse racing, I have always found bookmakers to be the smartest in the long run.
If the system is indeed broken, those 18% will eventually be accommodated, and the 2% locked out.
I suspect the number is much lower than 18; it’s probably in low single figures.
We shall see.
As always I try to see things from both sides.
In the past things seemed to work better for racing and betting.
Bookmakers were certainly smarter than the nice but dim, failed estate agent types that are on the other side of racing. Nowadays major bookmakers are being led by failed City types who have no knowledge of betting or much else – just contacts in the City.I am not so sure "me too" businesses are nimble enough to change. There is absolutely no sign of any entrepreneurial competition in the market. It is a bit like the decades of political dither about the third runway at Heathrow. By the time it goes through 5 years of planning inquiry, the airports at Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin will have long taken all their hub business.
The racing 80% are mainly in their mid 50s+ with a very few youngsters on their mobiles. The former will retire next decade not to be replaced and on a reduced income give up hope of a nice little hobby with an occasional payday. The latter will likely go onto quicker, easier, football or FBOTs to chase their losses.
The 18% may be larger if you add in the many interested in racing who have not been restricted but can now clearly see it is not worth the effort to get more involved as they know that as soon as they might get to "good" they cannot get their bets on. From posts on here it seems a very large percentage already no longer bet on horse racing.
A straw poll at Dublin Racing Club found:
"At the last DRC meeting a show of hands of 65 attendees showed at least half of those in the audience were restricted on at least one account."
Just one sample but my 20% restricted assumption may be too low.
I hear that sadly even Ray Winstone now can’t get on.
Dublin Racing Club are also suggesting that members write to Irish parliament.
One Australian small stake pensioner punter has been restricted by Bet365 to pennies. He joined Ladbrokes but has just been banned even before getting a single bet on. He had complained earlier on a forum which would indicate that bookmakers are either operating an illegal blacklist, or, possibly worse, scanning all forums for people to ban immediately should they ever try to open an account.
It has been going on in Rip-off Britain for years:
Leading construction firms to set up blacklist fund.
Eight construction firms have apologised for their involvement with TCAWorkers blacklisted for 20 years
Blacklisting ‘was soul-destroying’
Blacklist workers seek compensationSome of the biggest firms in the construction industry are to compensate workers who were blacklisted from working on building sites.
Trade unions say thousands of people on the list were denied work for years.
The eight companies have apologised for their involvement with an organisation that kept the list but have not admitted liability.
The blacklist was uncovered following a raid by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2009.
It found that dozens of construction firms had been checking potential employees against a blacklist which contained details of about 3,200 workers.
The list was held by a company called The Consulting Association (TCA).
While most on it were members of unions, some had simply raised health and safety concerns on sites.
Code of conduct
In a statement, the companies – Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and Vinci – said they all apologised "for their involvement with TCA and the impact that its database may have had on any individual construction worker".
"At this time we are not able to share any further information on the proposed scheme," they added.
While the construction firms have not admitted liability for any involvement in blacklisting, they are asking unions to work with them to establish a compensation scheme.
They added that they would support the introduction of a code of conduct "to ensure nothing like this can happen within the industry again".
Justin Bowden, national officer for the GMB union, said the next step for the companies was to "clean up and pay up".
"The victims and their families will either be fairly compensated including the offer of jobs or GMB will ensure justice for its members through the High Court," he said.
The union also called for a new code of practice for the construction industry covering how it employs people.
Another union, Unite, described the proposals as "encouraging", but said unions and employers needed to "thrash out the details".
Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: "It must be a priority to get blacklisted workers back into work. Unite is calling on contractors to employ and where relevant, support the up-skilling of blacklisted workers.
"Many of these workers have spent years out of work as a result of being blacklisted. Employers have a moral duty to give them back the jobs that were wrongly taken away from them."
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.