I'm off out.

In case you weren't aware they are already monitoring EVERYBODY with algorithms. If they want to monitor them (EVERYBODY) with a different algorithm purely to address "problem gambling" - yep - I would be fine with that.

It's just the inverse algorithm of the one they are already running on EVERYBODY or to be more cynical, it is the one they are already running to identify "VIP" customers and/or for "marketing purposes.

I really am off out now.

So I know all I need to know

TM is for the oppressions of all gambling based on a standard state imposed algorithm.

Wing

over affordability checks

1 of 1
By David Carr
4:45PM, JAN 28 2023
Long-serving administrator John Sanderson, who has been involved in running racing for more than 50 years, has warned the funding crisis facing the sport is "as grim as anything I can remember".

He was speaking about the potential impact of affordability checks, brought in by bookmakers under pressure from the Gambling Commission acting before the much-anticipated gambling review white paper.

Arena Racing Company chief executive Martin Cruddace estimated affordability checks have been the primary cause of a £280 million drop in digital betting turnover at the company's 16 courses last year compared to 2019, which he claimed would equate to £800m across the sport as a whole and a £40m hit to racing's finances. Trainer John Gosden expressed fears last week that punters moving to the black market as a result of intrusive checks would be a "disaster for both the betting industry and the British horseracing industry".

Sanderson, who has worked in racing administration since 1966 and served on the boards of the then BHB, the Racecourse Association, the Tote and Racecourse Media Group, said: "On the face of it, the situation now is as grim as anything I can remember, mostly based on the theoretical outcome of the Gambling Act review and we're still waiting for the white paper.

"Martin Cruddace knows what he's talking about and the figures he quotes don't make good reading at all. And John Gosden is a very reserved man and he's very well connected, so he won't be exaggerating.

"If we only knew what we were facing then we could start to rearrange our product."

Sanderson, 81, who started as assistant manager at York in 1966, is group chief executive of International Racecourse Management, which runs Catterick, Thirsk, Redcar and Wetherby.

He warned that the shortfall in funding would force tracks to make significant cutbacks.

"The money is a very big part of the smaller independent racecourse's revenue now," he said. "It's more than 50 per cent in some cases.

"If that's starting to go down, we have to cut somewhere to stay alive. Prize-money is an obvious area but there are other things you can cut as well. None of us is fat with staff and it's fatal cutting maintenance because it only comes back to haunt you.

"The only flexible thing, and the biggest overhead, is the cost of putting on racing, which includes prize-money and the cost of servicing owners and jockeys. But smaller and less competitive fields in turn generate less betting turnover so then you get round to thinking, should we be looking at cutting the number of races or fixtures?"

Sanderson, who was awarded an OBE for services to racing in 2012, has recently stepped down after more than 30 years as managing director at Catterick, where he did his best to make the sport's case to the local MP, now prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

"I wouldn't bother him now but wearing my Catterick hat I did my best by writing letters to Rishi," he said. "I always got a reply and he was very sensible about it but we can't influence it.

"Of course there are problem gamblers but there are also people with other problems. But nobody is worrying about that at the moment because unfortunately gambling is flavour of the month and all the politicians react and get frightened."

Pretty rich from a man who everytime somebody in the industry opens their mouth with concerns he jumps down their throat because he apparently knows more than them.

Yep - I got sucked into conversing with The Pinball Wizard (deaf, dumb, blind kid!)

I'm bowing to nothing you half-wit - I'm the lone voice in the middle saying why none of this is necessary.

Meanwhile on one side I've got extreme nutters like you - that want to see a "wild west" (free for all) in the betting industry.
On the other side I've got a different set of extreme nutters - that want to ban or spoil the industry for all.

It's just like the real world tbf - far too many people have been sucked into holding extreme populist views and seeing everything in black or white or left and right. Very sad.

And the two sets of mental hate fuelled extremists can go back to campaigning for/against something else.

dustybin29 Jan 23 13:37Joined: 29 Dec 08 | Topic/replies: 23,835 | Blogger: dustybin's blog
You keep blathering on about your plan, that no cnt is considering

I think you will find the majority of people that are considering "my plan" are cnts to be fair!

Not sure why you are arguing that, given that all the recent indications are that they will deliver something very similar to what I have said all along. i.e. try to address "problem gambling" without impacting the rest of the world.

Of course it will be a bodge - because it will involve bookmakers, the GC and the govt but you should at try to keep up.

dustybin29 Jan 23 13:44Joined: 29 Dec 08 | Topic/replies: 23,836 | Blogger: dustybin's blog
Not one person can trust you when you say the exchange can fold for all you care.

Again - you put words in my mouth that i have never said. I have said that if the exchange were fold it would be their own fault (self-inflicted). The exchange model could/should have taken over the world - instead they focussed all of their attention on the greedy (short term) route of casino, bingo, exchange games, a sportsbook, poker, live casino and virtual sports (whatever the feck that is).

In a nutshell - the people most likely to destroy exchanges are the people running them persuing "gaming" instead.
Just as the people most likely to destroy gambling - are the "bookmakers" persuing "gaming" at all costs. It looks like thy've just come close to doing that - but hopefully not.

If you don't understand any of that ^ - just call me a commie, pinko, socialist nutter and get back to reading your Sunday Sport.

You think I'm trying to stop you from having bet (you couldn't be more wrong) - but you can't see that the argument you are making, has just come very close to actually stopping you from having a bet and is far more likely to be the thing that eventually stops you from being able to have a bet.

Again round and fuc king round we go on TM mental roundabout.

The GC had the leverage to hold bad practice to account and failed....therefore force them to act, not create ever more questionable draconian restriction on the masses that will largly not even affect those hell bent of sponking their money.

@Greg_Wood_
Mon 30 Jan 2023 17.31 GMT

For centuries, sailors dreaded the Doldrums, the equatorial waters where a ship could be becalmed for weeks while its crew were slowly driven out of their minds by boredom and frustration. The extended wait for the government’s white paper on reforms to gambling legislation – originally due to be published in late 2021 – could be having a similar effect.

There seems little doubt the proposed reforms will include some form of “affordability” checks on punters whose activity raises concerns about potential problem gambling. The detail about what form these checks would take, however, or the level or type of activity that would trigger an intervention, is still unknown.

But there is a growing body of anecdotal evidence that some gambling firms have decided to jump the gun. The Racing Post has been reporting for several weeks that increasing numbers of online punters have been asked to supply financial details, including bank statements, payslips and P60s, in order to continue placing bets with some companies. There is evidence too of the same practice extending to betting shops.

In turn, the Post suggests, some gamblers are being pushed towards the black market, which has grim implications for their own welfare and racing’s long-term finances. Closer to hand, there is a suggestion the annual upturn in betting turnover before and during the Cheltenham Festival in March could bring an equivalent spike in the number of punters being swept up in the checks.

Ultimate responsibility for this situation appears to lie, in the Post’s opinion, with the Gambling Commission, created by the 2005 Gambling Act to ensure gambling is “open and fair”. The Commission, it claims, has been putting increasing pressure on gambling businesses to impose the checks or face significant fines for failure to comply with the terms of their licences.

The possibility that a losing first day at Cheltenham could mean you are blocked for the final three is a difficult one for any punter to contemplate. What’s more, since a block on an account pending affordability checks is likely to be imposed by an algorithm, there is an obvious potential for chaos if it is triggered at a relatively low level of activity.

My own feeling – and while the wait for the white paper goes on, a feeling is all it can be – is that the short-term concerns are a little overblown. The Gambling Commission is a deeply deficient body in many ways – as the Football Index collapse in 2021 clearly showed – and its understanding of punters and betting is slim to nonexistent. But it would be a greater folly still to allow the betting industry to grind to a halt in the biggest week of the racing year.


In the longer term, some form of affordability checking, imposed on at least some gamblers, seems inevitable. A study in 2019 showed that a relatively small fraction of customers are responsible for most deposits with online gambling firms – 83% of deposits were from 2% of customers in one case – and while some, perhaps many, of those are high net-worth individuals who can afford it, some will be in the grip of a gambling addiction.

The overall problem gambling rate among Britain’s gamblers is about 0.3%, and betting on racing and other sports is a relatively safe form of gambling when compared with casino and gaming products such as online slots. However, if betting and gaming are treated as one and the same for affordability checks, the implications for the sport could indeed be significant and, to some extent at least, of its own making.

Racing looked the other way for years as major firms ruthlessly exploited the wholesale inadequacies of Labour’s deregulation in 2005, via £100-a-spin gaming machines on every high street. The Racing Post – under a previous editor – gave Fred Done a double-page spread to warn he would close most of his betting shops if the stake limit was cut to £2 [narrator: “when it was, he didn’t”].

A handful of voices warned at the time that gaming – online and on the high street – was being allowed to poison the well for betting, that having sown the wind, the gambling industry would reap the whirlwind in time. Now, that time has nearly arrived and the white paper will reveal the full extent to which racing will also pay the price.

Compared to all the alarmist ("save our bookmakers") nonsense that the Racing Post have been printing on behalf of the online slot/casino operators - That's quite a balanced piece.

Somehow he's managed to string a few paragraphs together without any use of the word "intrusive" or "draconian". - well done that man.

I haven't been able to have an on-line bet with a "bookmaker" (I use the term laughingly) since about 2004 - when their intrusive "trading depts" micro analysed my accounts and discriminated against me by imposing draconian restrictions!

It was 1.01 that you would post on a thread about intrusive Rsoles imv Ff's

Starting to remind me of the scene in Full Metal Jacket where Private Pile gets to eat the jam donut he can’t resist and the rest of the dorm has to pay for it in extra exercise detail.


They ofc come back in the night and put bars of soap in rolled up towels and give him the beating he deserves.

P1ss poor as usual from the apologist who when asked if the state should implement an algorithm on everyone to save those who won’t help themselves he replied ‘they already do’….except this in addition and far more stringent and enforced by people who know nowt about gambling and don’t really care about its potential impact.

Then he said he thought it was worth it.
Private Pile putting his faith in the stasi because he’s b ent out of shape about not being allowed a bet…must have been knocked back by the exchanges too….or know nobody who would but the bet on for him, like other people do….now ofc that’s an even more unlikely event as the other person would need his life story taken before being allowed to do owt.

I thought it was a good analogy - we are all now paying the price for their law-breaking, their greed and their lack of self control.