The case for a minimum bet liability

As many of you will know, one of our main focuses at Justice for Punters, is the closing of accounts that show any level of skill.

Forget the debate about how many customers this affects.  With the exception of supporters of the gambling industry, those customers who are deemed non-recreational (skilled and uneconomic) are disposed of.  Is this fair trading? Certainly not, because terms and conditions, and advertisements don’t make this practice abundantly clear, plus a gambling licence is not an accountancy licence.

However unfair, the market is what it is, but whose fault is it?  It’s popular for industry PR staff (19m10s) to blame multi–accounting bonus baggers and arbers for the online industry’s policy of attempting to eradicate all winning accounts.  Do these groups of people exist? Certainly.  I’m not qualified to pass an opinion on how to address arbing and bonus bagging, except to say both opportunities have been and are being provided by different parts of the gambling industry, so it’s up to the industry to stop moaning and do something about them.

But frustratingly, all conventional punters who win or who display skills suggesting they may win, including those using stakes as small as £10 are getting caught in the cross-fire.  The reasons given by online gambling companies for their policies means nothing. The fact is, they’ve taken advantage of betting laws in the UK and around the world to eradicate all skilled conventional punters and nearly all risk. This has meant some conventional winning punters, using large or small stakes, have begun multi-accounting, because it’s the only way to get a sports bet laid online.

Governments and their regulators know about these issues, but have done nothing; this is unacceptable in our view.  It’s beholden on governments and their regulators to prevent these unfair practices.  The experience so far of ‘Justice for Punters’ is that officialdom either doesn’t want or doesn’t know how to solve the mess that some view as government-licensed fraud.  If a football association set their own rules that ensured one club always competed against other clubs less skilled and nobody else, there would be uproar.

What are the answers for solving these unfair practices?  This is an ‘opinion piece’, so I’ll make two suggestions:

– Legislate for a minimum bet liability (MBL) for all sports betting very similar to the one for horse racing in Victoria, Australia.

– When that’s in place, make multi-accounting a crime (let the police choose which legislation to use)

You can’t have No.2 without No.1, because it will be exploited, creating greater market unfairness and I accept this will not solve all the ‘fair and open‘ gambling market problems, but it’ll be a good start.  Months ago ‘Justice for Punters’ published some potential benefits of MBL: These observations require an urgent serious debate or these unfair practices, which clearly break market, competition and consumer law will continue.  It needs to happen quickly before our legal friends get involved.