Would you be happy to forego some or all of your bonuses etc in return for keeping your accounts open and with the ability to bet at a reasonable level?
With account restrictions and closures more and more in the news lately we would like your opinions on whether you are happy with the status quo - or would you prefer to give up BOG etc in return for keeping your accounts open for longer?
- I am happy as things are, restrictions and account closures don't bother me
- I would be willing if necessary to give up some or all concessions if it meant I was not restricted or closed
- This topic has 41 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 3 years ago by
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“Professional punters just disrupt that cosy environment”
Ginger doesn’t he is a professional investor..
Charles Darwin to conquer the World
“For the record I do agree that when people are being knocked back for bets like those, things are getting somewhat farcical.”
And for the record, much though I might sound calm and balanced myself – a bookmaker sympathiser, even – each and every one of the dozen or so times I’ve had the restriction email I’ve been snarling like a rottweiler and in a bad mood the rest of the day!
I do see both sides!
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"It’s not only pro punters though, is it? A big bet for me these days would be £25. Skybet let me have a tenner on a 22/1 chance last weekend (I knew not to try for more). An hour later I tried to have another fiver on the same horse and was offered 70p. More than once with others, I have been refused a £2EW acc ante post.
Were it pro punters only being restricted, social media wouldn’t be full of punters complaining. Ian’s right in that the directors of these companies are duty bound to do their best for shareholders, but, as always, it’s treated as a short term ‘solution’ by those directors. They never (ever) see the big picture – as proved with FOBTs, as proved with advertising, as proved with problem gamblers, the big picture, the long term, is ignored. What will be said of the same directors in x years time when punters have found something else to do with the money they can’t get on, and racing’s demise is being dragged out through a bunch of flapping tracks? I’ve worked in the industry more than 50 years and have never met a decision maker who’d take a minute to extract snout from trough to look to the long term.
As for the utter mess the Gambling Commission has made of its brief in its 15 years or so, that ought to make a perfect case study for the future in how not to be a regulator.
Again, I must say that there is an option to simply not have bookmakers at all. The Tote doesn’t care whose money is being added to it. There’s also less opportunity for race-fixing as there are no outside entities that stand to profit off a particular horse winning/losing.
Again, I must say that the majority of UK punters have about as much enthusiasm for a pari-mutuel (Tote) monopoly as they would have for a bowl of frozen porridge.
Bye-bye fixed odds ante-post betting, in fact bye-bye all forms of fixed odds betting and trying to beat the starting price, and bye-bye the exchanges too.
I’d stop betting altogether and I’m not the only punter on this forum who has said that.
I often watch USA racing in the evening at Betfair exchange – Stateside the favourite might be 9/5 at Post time on the local Pari-Mutuel – on the exchange it’s 4.5 (7/2) and you’re guaranteed those odds if you bet.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"A legally mandated, maximum liability of a few hundred quid per race, after a certain time (11am) would suffice. Don’t think there are many, if any, expecting to have unlimited amounts on the Hugh Taylor at 9am of a morning. That is unreasonable.
MBL operates well in Australia, where nobody is going bankrupt. Quite the opposite, racing and betting on it there are thriving.
In the absence of that, a legally mandated advisory placed on all sports betting markets operated by licenced betting operators here, to the tune of – “95% of customers lose money betting over the longer term, the small minority who do not, can expect some form of restriction(s) to be placed on their account. This product is for entertainment purposes only”.
Bookmakers are offering a confidence trick as things stand. They want it every way.
More power to you, Sean. Keep up the good work, and thank you.
‘A legally mandated, maximum liability of a few hundred quid per race, after a certain time (11am) would suffice.’
Which, unless there is an existing law that could be used, presumably requires the usual procedure of getting it through Parliament etc (happy to be corrected on this). The country has far bigger fish to fry at the moment than the needs of restricted punters and I think the vast majority of people would consider this a waste of Parliamentary time. Add to this the fact the the uninitiated will see this as allowing people to lose more money (it would not be hard for the press to manufacture ‘outrage’ to that effect) and I do not see such a proposal getting anywhere any time soon. The bookies would no doubt ‘lobby’ against it too, probably citing the need to protect vulnerable gamblers.
Again I will happily be corrected on this if anyone can explain how such a thing would work.
“MBL operates well in Australia, where nobody is going bankrupt. Quite the opposite, racing and betting on it there are thriving.”
I often read and hear this and tbh I find it extraordinarily hard to believe.
Unless there are far more mug punters and hardly any professional punters in Australia, it’s just kneeling down and begging for a kicking.
If it’s such a goldmine, why aren’t all these successful Australian bookmakers getting UK licences and doing it over here too?
Good luck to them if they do – I’ll be in the queue at the trough with my knife and fork and my bib on!
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Have a read about the so-called ‘pokies’ if you haven’t already Ian, basically Aussie FOBTs and from what I’ve read they are just as much of a problem there if not worse. Do wonder if the gambling industry rakes it in so much from these that the minimum bet is less of an issue.
I know numerous UK professional punters who organise ways of getting on in Australia, Richard, so you might have a point!
But even if every other Aussie punter is a kangaroo playing the FOBTs, no gravy train lasts forever and I can see bookie firms reviewing MBLs in this increasingly-global market sooner rather than later.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"It’s not hard to believe at all, Ian. A simple Google will provide all the hard facts and figures you’ll need. Horseracing in terms of betting turnover, and the subsequent prizemoney that goes back into the sport is at record levels down under. They are buying our good horses!
Oddly enough, despite being legally obliged to lay a bet to a fixed liability, the UK corporate bookmakers who willingly operate down there, still manage to operate profitably in that market.
Given the current operating environment in these parts, couldn’t see how the UK/IRE market would be of any interest to an Australian bookmaker setting up an operation here.
Interesting comments, Cav, and I do know of UK punters who organise getting on with the Australian versions of British bookmaking brands out there.
But I’d say it’s underpinned by a very high proportion of recreational to professional punter turnover, I’m sure it’s not the MBL that drew British operators out there in the first place and the proportions of recreational/live money turnover is ephemeral.
Good luck to any punter who can get what they want on with any bookmaker – that’s living the dream – but nothing lasts forever in a global marketplace where market forces tend to homogenise products over time.
I’d personally love to see MBL here in the UK, but bookmakers would mount a fierce collective legal challenge to any attempt to bring in such legislation and I suspect they’d simply start closing accounts outright rather than merely restricting them for image purposes as is currently the case.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Nobody gets what they want on with any bookmaker, but legally mandating the aspiration that profit is achievable, is a hugely more effective method of maintaining interest and engagement imo. The variance monster will always prevent the vast majority from turning that aspiration into a reality, and is a scenario that ultimately any bookmaker doing their job properly should be able to account for. It seems they want it every way though.
Take the point that the ideal bookmaker customer is betting recreationally, losing regularly, but to generally small amounts, well within affordability.
That’s very bad news for racing though, as that demographic generally bets on football these days.
Think the levy returns due at the end of March will be a real eye-opener this time around.
“I must say that the majority of UK punters have about as much enthusiasm for a pari-mutuel (Tote) monopoly as they would have for a bowl of frozen porridge.”
Correct. The last thing we need is for British racing to become as boring as French or American racing.
“legally mandating the aspiration that profit is achievable, is a hugely more effective method of maintaining interest and engagement imo”
I hear professional punters (who like everyone have their own agenda) making this point frequently and tbh they have a point.
Punters bet with a variety of motives, but in my youth many were drawn to it by tales of punters like Alex Bird and Phil Bull – other names like Dodger McCartney became the stuff of legend too.
If absolutely no one is allowed the opportunity to derive a primary, or even supplementary, income out of betting in the UK any more what is the point of anyone betting at all?
It’s like having a National Lottery with no life-changing prizes.
So, while professional punters make this argument out of self interest, they have a manifest point.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Your spot on there, Ian. Aspiration is a key component of it. Otherwise, either people lose interest, or they go elsewhere to bet. As seems to be playing out at the moment, in these jurisdictions at least.
Of course bookmakers are commercial entities with an understandable profit motive. But that commercial profit/customer aspiration balance, has been lost.
Think the exchanges have significantly propped up interest in racing over the last decade, largely because they allow aspiration to still exist. But even they are making it difficult for long-standing customers these days.
Can you imagine a world without exchanges, where anyone serious about their racing had to go through a bookmaker to bet. Most would have gone elsewhere by now, well beyond the reach of the levy. Racing would be, and increasingly is, competing with football, for the acca builder ‘lad’ market.
Only one winner there.
So, what is wrong with betting exchanges? They offer a platform for punters to bet against each other. The business model has no incentive to close anyone’s account, or to change the odds offered and accepted. They are not like Rails- (and Office-) bookmakers where all the losing bets go in their satchel, and all winning bets come out of their profits. Bookmakers have a huge axe to grind. One of the well known Exchanges makes their money by charging a maximum 5% commission on winning bets, which is reduced on a sliding scale by the amount of business you do with them. A punter just need to factor that commission into the odds they are willing to take. Although many of the odds offerers are bookmakers, no single one has the ability to skew the market because they could be “taken to the cleaners” by other bookmakers (or wealthy punters) who might be better informed. What the Exchange supplies is a balanced playing field. Just like Financial Markets.
If today’s punters do not like the way that bookmakers behave, telling them that they are naughty boys is not going to have any effect. You do not even have to go on strike. Or move funds to Australia and wallow in a market of uncertain provenance.
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