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I’d be astounded (and few things astound me these days) if the major chains are operating a shared ‘blacklist’. They’re under massive pressure on FOBTs (questions in the house today), and they simply need to be above suspicion in all business matters.
The Gambling commission have the power to remove the operating licence of any company for any one of a number of reasons. They could, for example, should they choose, close down every Ladbrokes shop (or Hill’s etc) for something as ‘simple’ as persistent under age betting in ONE of their shops.
Had the banks been regulated as tightly as bookmakers (fill in your favourite quote) It would be utter madness to be running a blacklist
It seems that many restricted punters get a string of restrictions from other companies soon after as soon as they try and bet. I would be staggered if there was not a black list offered by the companies that provide their predictive analytics software. It is their main selling point.
The Gambling Commission have theoretical powers but have zero intelligence as to what scams are going on. They are even more naive and gullible than the bank and energy regulators. When a TV program exposed self excluded punters persistently going into the same shops they self excluded from and placing bets the Gambling Commission head asked the journalist for details, as the list they had been given gave them no idea of the issue. Not a single shop has been shut down since. The bookmakers also hire politicians and wine and dine the others so that any issues get swept under the carpet.
It would be utter madness of the police after a string of wrongdoings, including supply the intelligence to blacklist the construction workers, to frame a prominent politician but that is what they seem to have done. With their tame politicians perhaps the bookmakers think they are untouchable.
"In 2012 Conservative MP Philip Davies was exposed for accepting gifts from bookmaking organisations whilst at the same time calling for them to be given tax concessions by the UK Government"
"On 1 February 2013, it was reported that Davies is to be investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards after a complaint claiming he received more than £10,000 in benefits from companies with links to the gambling industry which he did not fully declare during a year-long investigation into the betting trade. The Commissioner required Davies to apologise for breaching the parliamentary code after not declaring an interest in a debate and at the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The financial interest involved was £870 of hospitality from the bookmaker Ladbrokes, rather than the larger amount complained about which came from another company which was not relevant enough to gambling"
"In evidence to the commissioner, Camberton admitted to parliamentary authorities that at the same time it was meeting Davies it was also employed by BetFred to "manage political engagement", but said the issue of gambling had never arisen in conversation with the Tory MP."
"The Rt Hon Mr Davies claimed that disabled people should be paid less than minimum wage"
Rt Hon Philip Davies MP has served on the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee since 2006 and is still serving there.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/19624570/betting-ban/
And who says that there is no punter blacklist?
"Mr Irvine says he opened an account with Ladbrokes, a $2.8 billion company from the UK registered in Norfolk Island, and was welcomed warmly.
However, he says he was locked out after five minutes of opening the account.
He received an email from Ladbrokes saying: "one of our industry experienced bookmakers has recognised your name and regrettably, we have had to close your account."
Mr Irvine rang Ladbrokes, and was told that "one would need to say it is probably not commercially viable to hold an account with someone like yourself."
Mr Irvine claims it’s not just Ladbrokes who blocks some punters, the five biggest bookies in Australia including Centrebet, Luxebet, Sporting Bet, Sportsbet and Bet 365 all pick and choose who can bet on them."
And the most laughably inaccurate PR tosh from Ladbrokes:
"Ladbrokes Australia – James Burnett, general manager, marketing and communications:
"Ladbrokes Australia chooses not to do business with a very small minority – and by doing this we can maintain attractive offers and top odds for the vast majority of regular customers."Drone refers to the sport of racing
as being a trivial pursuit. Horse Racing
is part of the heritage of this country
is a huge employer and its presence
is felt in every high street.
Bookmakers have corporate
responsibility to act within the law
but also a moral one to act
reasonably and responsibly to its customers.Starbucks has manipulated its wholesale
price of coffee with one of its foreign
European subsidiary suppliers to increase
net losses thereby avoiding tax. (customer backlash
and company pays more tax)A Chinese latte costs more than
one in the US possibly as they
have less competition from others from
their flat white. (No action just comment)Primark was the first but also Matalan have offered
compensation to Bangladeshi workers
caught up in the factory tragedy there.
Companies reacted to the trading perception
of cheap clothing being devalued.extended moral responsibility (taken from U.S. report)..
Over the last couple of years, a company’s scope of moral responsibility has even extended upstream (to suppliers) as well as downstream (to end-users). "During the last 20 years or so, there are a number of companies that have been held morally responsible-not legally-but in the eyes of the public have been held morally responsible for injuries that their suppliers have inflicted on some third party," he noted. Companies in the apparel industry, toy manufacturing, electronics assembly, and others have been perceived as accessories to the mistreatment of workers by their suppliers, even if they have not been directly involved. Many now try to prevent that by doing onsite inspections.
_____________________________… The problem is if a bookmaker cartel is in operation it is in my honest opinion unfair to its customers and should be stopped or at least enquired into. These firms are in the leisure and entertainment industry and have a moral responsibility to act fairly to their customers. Operating a common blacklist and fitting up customers is unethical and in my opinion breaches the laws of competition.
As for algorithms being wrong, well it wont be the first corporate misunderstanding of its markets. If the algorithms are wrong then eventually they will be corrected – it makes good business sense to increase profit. I have only today been discussing with an insurance industry its poor actuarial algorithms – which do not bear scrutiny when working out fair premiums for its customers.
Companies that advertise they offer a service should offer a service – if they restrict their service unreasonably they are wasting people’s time (time is money) and are ethically responsible for bringing in a fair standard – not a gold standard but a fair one.
Cartels are a particularly damaging form of
anti-competitive activity – obviously bookmakers with a blacklist are not manipulating prices but they are manipulating their competitiveness as to say an independent bookmaker so may well infringe the 1998 on unfair competition. The office of fair trading should be interested.And remember campaigners organised a successful boycott of Nike’s use of sweatshop labour back in the 90’s
In short if companies offer a service and waste a lot of potential customers time (and therefore money) denying them their service
for unjustifiable reasons
, they are at least ethically and morally irresponsible – and have a responsibility to right themselves – as punters are too shy and too poor to organise a public backlash. MPs will understand the value of ethics as a group they themselves have been embroiled in ethical misconduct quite recently.
The issue is gaining some traction in the media. Social media that is, the racing media are obviously in thrall to the advertisers that pay for their mortgages. So don’t sack your beards just yet.
"Cartels are a particularly damaging form of
anti-competitive activity – obviously bookmakers with a blacklist are not manipulating prices but they are manipulating their competitiveness as to say an independent bookmaker so may well infringe the 1998 on unfair competition. The office of fair trading should be interested."By excluding about 20% of the more informed market then bookmakers are effectively manipulating prices to a large extent.
If the stock exchange, say, restricted the cash input from better informed professional traders then the share prices would be set by the less well informed. The market prices would to a degree be wrong. Once set wrongly then the prices would only drift lower or bubble higher as there is no counteracting sense being applied to the market.
Bookmakers with the better informed element removed can far more easily shift bets on over-hyped horses and set up false "steamers" for the mugs to pile in on. The worse the price gets the more mug money is bet. It is a one way win for them as they do not accept better value bets at a decent price.
A free, efficient market accepts the cash input of all to set a fair price.
The bookies have done what they want for the last 50 years,punters cannot afford £250,000 for supper with the P.M.They are looking ahead as Labour might be in power in 2015 and Harriet Harman was making a noise,they gave her son a job to shut her up.
They pretend to be in favour of a free market,but it is the last thing they want.If you go to back a certainty always buy a return ticket.
Bet365 hauled before regulator
The Northern Territory Racing Commission (NTRC) appear to have taken the first step in an attempt to rein in UK entrant Bet365 and their controversial risk management practises.
Responding to a series of questions posed by OnThePunt, NTRC Chairman Richard O’Sullivan said that the commission has "invited a representative of Bet365 to the next Racing Commission meeting in Darwin to fully explain its risk management practices". This has come about due to a "considerable number of complaints .. to the practices of Bet365."
The giant privately-owned firm have adopted a strict policy since opening up shop in Australia – one that appears to simply not tolerate winning clients. Punters have often expressed outrage in online forums and on social media.
Bet365 management use phrases such as "due to the nature of your business" and deeming an account to be "uneconomical" as justification for closing accounts or restricted punters to miniscule wagers. They have also removed bonus bet winnings from accounts that have had restrictions subsequently placed upon them. Actions like this have never been seen in Australia.
The broader issue – fairness to punters
After consultation with bookmakers, the NTRC recently removed the "Minimum Bet Rule" which required licensees to bet punters to win a minimum amount – $1000 on major race meetings for example. They quietly posted a somewhat confusing media release regarding the subject on August 16.
The NTRC stated that the min bet rule was brought in because bookies were often betting punters to win minuscule amounts. But then, due to "technical realities of internet operations", bookmakers simply closed accounts.
"Since removing the rule, the Commission continues to be disappointed over licensed bookmakers offering to accept minimum wagers or continuation of the practise of closure of accounts," O’Sullivan told OnThePunt. Well what did he expect would happen?
Let’s remember that the NTRC has as one of its regulatory objectives:
"to promote fairness in the delivery of betting services to the public" (The UK Gambling Commission has a legal statutory duty to ensure fairness – so any day now there will be a long queue of bookmakers having to explain themselves – pigs might fly is more likely in the banana republic of regulation light rip-off Britain.)
http://onthepunt.com.au/betting-news/it … lator.html
Stop Press:
Today, Ladbrokes Exchange started phoning customers to ban them completely from the one day old exchange. Having customers is a nightmare to a public company stated an anonymous PR source.Ladbrokes accused over child gamblers and criminality
Bookmaker denies claims by former executive who alleges that gambling industry became immoral
Britain’s biggest bookmaker warned staff not to mention the words "children", "smashed" and "money laundering" in company documents for fear of exposing the scale of underage gambling and criminality in betting shops, a former company executive has said.
Paul Pearce, who was with Ladbrokes for 48 years and worked in the security team overseeing 2,000 shops from the company’s London headquarters, contacted the Guardian after the paper’s investigation into how high street betting shops were being used to launder drug money.
Bet365 hauled before regulator
The Northern Territory Racing Commission (NTRC) appear to have taken the first step in an attempt to rein in UK entrant Bet365 and their controversial risk management practises.
Responding to a series of questions posed by OnThePunt, NTRC Chairman Richard O’Sullivan said that the commission has "invited a representative of Bet365 to the next Racing Commission meeting in Darwin to fully explain its risk management practices". This has come about due to a "considerable number of complaints .. to the practices of Bet365."
The giant privately-owned firm have adopted a strict policy since opening up shop in Australia – one that appears to simply not tolerate winning clients. Punters have often expressed outrage in online forums and on social media.
Bet365 management use phrases such as "due to the nature of your business" and deeming an account to be "uneconomical" as justification for closing accounts or restricted punters to miniscule wagers. They have also removed bonus bet winnings from accounts that have had restrictions subsequently placed upon them. Actions like this have never been seen in Australia.
The broader issue – fairness to punters
After consultation with bookmakers, the NTRC recently removed the "Minimum Bet Rule" which required licensees to bet punters to win a minimum amount – $1000 on major race meetings for example. They quietly posted a somewhat confusing media release regarding the subject on August 16.
The NTRC stated that the min bet rule was brought in because bookies were often betting punters to win minuscule amounts. But then, due to "technical realities of internet operations", bookmakers simply closed accounts.
"Since removing the rule, the Commission continues to be disappointed over licensed bookmakers offering to accept minimum wagers or continuation of the practise of closure of accounts," O’Sullivan told OnThePunt. Well what did he expect would happen?
Let’s remember that the NTRC has as one of its regulatory objectives:
"to promote fairness in the delivery of betting services to the public" (The UK Gambling Commission has a legal statutory duty to ensure fairness – so any day now there will be a long queue of bookmakers having to explain themselves – pigs might fly is more likely in the banana republic of regulation light rip-off Britain.)
http://onthepunt.com.au/betting-news/it … lator.html
Stop Press:
Today, Ladbrokes Exchange started phoning customers to ban them completely from the one day old exchange. Having customers is a nightmare to a public company stated an anonymous PR source.That’s right Robert we have never experienced the closed accounts syndrome here! Company cons like Bet365 will never make it here, we have laws that say you must be prepared to bet to lose a certain amount.All these UK operators are buying up the locals thinking they are going to get an easy mark, it won’t happen because Australian punters won’t tolerate it. The Ginger tipsters of the world who prefer to get a quarter of a point more with someone who gives back nothing only help their cause.
The gambling machines helping drug dealers ‘turn dirty money clean’
"Several high-profile cases have exposed a seamier side to the rise of the machines. Earlier this month the Gambling Commission, the industry regulator, fined Coral bookmakers £90,000 in profits it made from one drug dealer who had laundered almost £1m in its shops. Last month the industry regulator also publicly admitted what has long been privately acknowledged: FOBTs present a "high inherent money-laundering risk". In a letter to the industry trade association, the commission warned about "a retail betting model that includes high volumes of cash transactions, particularly where this includes low individual spend and a high level of anonymity… especially where that model also offers (FOBTs)."
Surely nothing to do with not accepting bets from 20%+ of customers.
Surely nothing to do with the unsustainability of paying advertising companies over a £100 to attract each new customer then banning those customers after a few bets or in some cases no bets.
Surely not from the never ending bad publicity of refusing to pay out on winning bets then finding that they should have never refused payout in the first place after the internet is full of bad publicity.
For heavens sake wake up and make a start in treating your customers with some respect.
Ladbrokes forced into allaying profit fears
"Life continues to be difficult at Ladbrokes who had to issue a statement last Thursday to tell the markets they expected to meet forecasts in the face of speculation they were set to issue another profits warning.
Gala Coral group ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) fell by 34 per cent in the fourth quarter, to £39.5 million from £59.7m, while full year ebitda was down 9.3 per cent to £246.4m.
Meanwhile William Hill, the third member of the old ‘big three’, are reviewing their telephone betting and customer services operations in Gibraltar, but denied it was because of the forthcoming point of consumption tax.
The company said the review was being undertaken to deliver operational and cost benefits “and make telephone betting more sustainable in the long term”.
PADDY POWER will not have been immune to the poor sporting results that have affected their rivals and on Tuesday we will find out by how much when they issue their interim management statement.
A note about Paddy Power from Morgan Stanley said: "We expect a slower start [to the second half of the fiscal year] due to adverse sports results."
The perverse and unsustainable action of bookmakers to exclude punters from betting into the market except those losing heavily has unexpected consequences. No doubt the UK Gambling Commission is right on the case.
In Australia, NSW police officers were used to open hundreds of betting accounts to enable Mr Fletcher and another punter, Darren Azzopardi, to disguise their betting activities.
The recruited police handed over credit cards, Medicare cards and other forms of identification to enable gambling accounts to be set up.
The commission heard that many were unaware their details were used not only to open accounts with several betting outlets, but also passed on to Mr Fletcher and Mr Azzopardi.
the gambling commission has 3 pillars
1. gambling is crime free
2. gambling is fair and open
3. children and the vulerable are protectedwith regard to point 2.
Part 1 Section 9 of the Gambling Act 2005 says
9 Betting: general
(1)In this Act “betting” means making or accepting a bet on—
(a)the outcome of a race, competition or other event or process,
(b)the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring, or
(c)whether anything is or is not true.(2)A transaction that relates to the outcome of a race, competition or other event or process may be a bet within the meaning of subsection (1) despite the facts that—
(a)the race, competition, event or process has already occurred or been completed, and
(b)one party to the transaction knows the outcome.(3)A transaction that relates to the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring may be a bet within the meaning of subsection (1) despite the facts that—
(a)the thing has already occurred or failed to occur, and
(b)one party to the transaction knows that the thing has already occurred or failed to occur.This to me reads that it is enshrined in law that it’s perfectly acceptable behavior to cheat by betting on past posted winners, to cheat by laying dead horses lying still warm on the ground, to know what # an RNG has picked before the customer places his bets, etc etc.
Fair and Open.
You are correct on point 3 but what the drafter had in mind as a bet between two people, say, as to who won the 1950s cup final.
They are betting on who had the correct memory.The drafter would never have contemplated in-running and past the post betting where one side knows the result as fact and the other side thinks the event is still about to happen. The useless UK Gambling Commission investigated this and gave it a clean bill of health provided it was written somewhere in the small print – a suggestion made by the very vested interests profiting from it at the general public’s expense.
The people who draft these bills are lawyers and civil servants with no real knowledge of betting. They rely on "consultations" with vested interests to point out the faults within the bill. Of course the vested interests keep stum on points like these as they know full well that Christmas only used to come once a year now thanks to Government incompetence and naivety it is a far more common event.
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