For its first few years, underage betting seemed to be all the Gambling Commission cared about. Easy to check with borderline 18-year-old mystery shoppers, I suppose.

The management you are wrong i have taken a break from betfair just came back on, a long term winner paid premium charges and been harshly restricted

I won't say the Exchange, but they are Green... I have been restricted. For IMO having too many bets in many month, :(  Here's the thing it isn't even affordability anymore... The fact is, they ask questions about what you do with your time? I DO spend lots of MY time immersed in horse racing, I admit that. But I've always had a loss limit set on my account. Plus, always had a deposit limit affordable for me from the start of my account 10 years ago. They are now looking at how much time you spend betting. They have all DATA.

Racing is in BIG trouble. I actually think it's fading out, from a low grade level anyway. Cheltenham Aintree will always be around, I think.

It's just a numbers game.  If the Gambling are thrashing out fines of £500k a time, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to take an ultra cautious approach

Stuart Williams wants turnover tax. Wonder what his mate PV thinks.

I can only talk from my own experience.

I have opened 18 accounts in the last year with different UK bookmakers.

None asked for no proof of income. A few asked for IDs and bills to prove my identity.

One did ask me to state my income. No proof needed.

One asked me to do a skype call in order to withdraw my winnings. They refused to put their camera on and froze my account unless I put mine on and answered their questions.

16 of the 18 accounts have been reduced to betting pennies.

No I am not an arber or matched bettor or pinnancle plus 'value bettor' etc.

Just making my own selections and been excluded from betting from 16 bookmakers over 12 months and never asked to prove income.

That is real story as to why betting on racing is declining.. people cannot get a bet on if they show any signs of winning NOT people cannot deposit money because of proof of income checks.

The Racing Post and Racing Industry refuses to touch this story now they are all moaning about punters not being able to bet due to proof of income.

If people want to blow money on gambling they will. They have thousands of betting shops, casinos, arcades and over 60 licenced online bookmakers to choose from in the UK.

Even a £100 limit at each online bookmaker gives them £6k a month to lose.

We're not seeing the proportion of casino/slot players restricted compared to sports players restricted.

I believe that the books are using this current social gambling pariah situation as a means to restrict unwanted players under the cover of customer care. The books will be able to show the Govt the numbers of customers they are cutting but they will not show what type of players they are cutting, so to the Govt/GC it will appear that by cutting people they therefore must be doing their job, but this is just a ruse imo.

Put it this way, I believe that if the Govt white paper disappeared tomorrow, the books would still carry on cutting people and they would say, the white paper may have gone but we will still be responsible, but they will carry on restricting unwanted players rather than profitable casino players.

Remember, the books have been restricting stakes for years now on unwanted players , even before the white paper, so we already know how they have been thinking for a long time now, so for all intents and purposes many people were already shut down anyway shutting them down completely is just a small further step for many people.

You cannot on one hand try to appear that you are being responsible whilst we still see a plethora of casino adverts in the media, that would be counter-productive, what it actually is doing is showing up their real play, that casino players are continuing to be encouraged and targeted whilst sports players are turned away.

Someone said earlier, how do they make any money, they make money because the casino players are profitable business whilst sports players are less so, plus the likelihood of endless riches opening up in the states allows the books to be less bothered about us.

Force the books to show their figures on casino/slots players restricted as opposed to sports players restricted and all would be revealed, there should be a marked higher level of casino players restricted compared to sports bettors but I'd doubt that would be the case.

yes duffy but this was asked of a new customer depositing a small amount, not a winner or anyone nicking an early choc ice. hadnt had the chance to do it in. if hed stuck in a chunk and then asked for a lump on soemthing id understand but straight up doesnt make sense

gc are an absolute shower, like most public bodies. if you have a licence to trade send them the money-1600 quid they will leave you alone and ask no questions. the line they trot out is custmer safeguarding but its total bollox. they do nothing except collect money.

and none of them are punters.

eg, exchange shop for which they charged 1600 for licence- they never showed up once in 10 years or asked any questions or mystery shopper-nothing

could have had naked 14 year-old hotties in there fluffing the punters and theyd never have known.

It;s convenient for the bookmakers to make life difficult for punters before the legislation is law. Anyone complaining instantly becomes part of their propaganda campaign.

I read that Frog. Surely he should be warned off as an agent?

Yep, surely the RP should be condemning his actions and not bigging them up for some cheap headline.

The history of gambling is extremely murky and numerous attempts have been made by the state to control it and failed.

A pertinent extract from the 2003 version of ‘Legging’;

‘Since those betting exchanges are no more nor less than the electronic-global version of The Room at The Corner (the early iteration of Tattersalls), it can be expected that, just as the 1843 correspondent wrote, those exchanges will be places where…"the largest amount of sharp practice is to be found perhaps beneath the Sun";…or as they say "plus ca change…."

If anyone cares to spend the time to read the history of gambling, or specifically ‘The Game’ they will find stopping gambling is utterly impossible, at least having it take part in an area in the light is the best option they could come up with….yet this dumb fookin government are being led like fools into the abyss by do gooders who know nothing about the subject.

frog1000 • January 24, 2023 5:27 PM GMT

Also saw a video of bookmaker on youtube bragging about requesting bank statements so he could see what people were winning with other bookmakers and who they were transfering money to.... again when someone had won.

Is that an identifiable bookie? Because that is certainly an information breach and should be reported to the Information Commissioner. Probably copy the GC while you do it. If you cba PM me the link and I will do it.

don't, as it might get taken down before the corrective action is taken

https://youtu.be/YOpgFSJF3Pc?t=1857

Would be interesting to know the reason some people are asked for bank statements and then statements of people who deposited money etc whilst other people are not.

Would also be interesting to know what information is shared between bookmakers informally and on platforms like iesnare.