Not at all Mike, 6 months ago withdrew my bank from Betfair(what a idiot)after getting pissed off,a week later tried to deposit it back but max of£500....my average bank was £10k for the past year(acknowledged by Betfair), a customer for 20yrs+, but no flexibility, £500/month Max....what a shower of sh1t

Similar modus operandi,but I use the Safer Gambling option to fix my Daily Loss and Daily Deposit maximums.
Worked for me.
Illustrates to Betfair that you have an awareness of the dangers, and worked for me at the end of last years debacle.
Still have large limits, and have had no problems .
PS Far larger than £500 per month.

The way I see it the government got a real problem coming down the pike.

Financial distress will be a real problem for them, and it will have to be sufficiently lenient as to align with their earlier declarations.

A person isn’t entitled to benefit if the own 18k in capital, and works on a sliding scale of allowance down to 6k where they get the full whack benefit.

So on that metric how can they argue anyone with more than 18k can be restricted?

You're looking at it from the wrong angle, dusty. The people behind this don't think you should be gambling (aside from a tenner on the grand national/ lottery). They don't care if people who can afford to lose are restricted. They definitely don't care for anyone who is betting full time, they'd rather you didn't (or weren't able). The concept of winning full time, long term is an anathema.

Yes, it's impossible to get away from the politics. Not party politics, but ideology. This project is just a part of the move to try and sanitise general life.

There are very few people in politics who fight for genuine freedom for individuals now. Okay, the few that do exist in the Tory party, but they are being marginalised and othered as kooky dinosaurs.

You just have to look at the utter spineless collapse of the political class over the lockdown disaster. I don't tend to be defeatist, but there is little hope, we are inexorably headed to CCP style control of the minutiae of our daily lives.

That's a useful warning Lemon Drop Kid.

I'm only betting for a little bit of interest and pocket money these days but because I lay mostly and I haven't wanted to fall into the too many deposits trap, I keep a minimum of 5k in my balance and I've actually only made (I think) 1 deposit in last 18 months. I'm going away for 6 weeks in September so my intention was to take out my whole balance then but maybe I should leave in a couple of K so I can still function a little when I return if they get silly.

I will look at the Safer Gambling limits too as suggested by Rothman Mike.

At some point the government has to play its hand and ratify

They've already played their hand. It goes out for consultation this summer. They don't need to ratify anything.

So, it can only be 'won' on the ideology argument imv. Not the technicalities and implementation. People either believe they should be able to do what they want, when they want, as long as it's legal, with their own money, or they think they should be mothered by some faceless freak on the state payroll who thinks they know what's better for you than you do.

And what is X by the way?
Incase they have mentioned it and I’ve missed it?
What is the salary you are supposed to have to be allowed to lose 1k net in 24 hours freely?

For clarification the company that limits me to £1k rolling had £2.5k in the account from a winning acca. So I was betting with net profit.

Cutting ones stakes drastically in some cases to allow for a potential 2k loss within 90 days is the way , the days of making decent money from gambling seem gone.

* while also saying that figure alone would constitute distress.

It’s a minefield

dustybin • April 29, 2023 10:15 AM BST
And what is X by the way?
Incase they have mentioned it and I’ve missed it?
What is the salary you are supposed to have to be allowed to lose 1k net in 24 hours freely?

As far as I can work out, it is disposable income rather than salary. So if you earn £50k pa and spend all of that on housing, food, children. You have zero money to gamble.

Been a massive overeaction to this, was speaking to a few people high up in purple who seem to think that any balance already in play will not be restricted if shown to have solely come from activity with that company etc...

now wheres that switch!!! 29 Apr 23 11:15 
Only when a lifetime p&l fell into negative would it trigger the 125 or 2k restrictions. Which would be the common sense approach.





So they will end up with just winners and a few restricted losers.  How long will that scenario last?

The winners look to have a limited future if this is the way forward.

Totally agree on the advertising issue Trident.

Utterly ridiculous that this current line can be taken, but they see nothing wrong with allowing advertising random chance gambling to children.

How on earth is that the same ethical line in these rulings?

If the doomsday predictions from all this are correct then places like this exchange die - a basic fact that will follow.

It won't be sustainable for any real length of time, casuals that are limited, pros limited, liquidity dies steadily, people will start to walk away.

That would finally support all those doomsayers on these forums for many years, but for reasons they never predicted.

But it wouldn't end there - many areas of the industry would also start to crumble, as exchanges are not a minor blip anymore but support this wider industry as a core system - bookies price races on these prices, moves etc. Funding for many industries relies on keeping both exchanges and gambling moving every day.

It wouldn't just be us, or the exchanges that would suffer - it would alter many longer term business functions and even wider economy implications long run.

Many people will lose jobs, many people will lose income - all to protect people, apparently. Irony?

(I also agree as others have said, that actual gambling harm will not be stopped by these proposals, so it is pointless as it stands).

But, I have a sliver of hope that some of this doomsday resulting will be spotted before it reaches that, and steadily, dust settling, things will slacken and not be as awful as we are predicting. But it is just a hope at present, and time will tell.

If this is how they are planning on doing the £2k 90 days thing then anyone half serious will have no option but to give up or allow the bookmaker full access to view your bank through open banking.

Very intrusive but possibily worth it for the Tote and Betfair Exchange - although many will not be able to prove actual income to the levels required.


That's another of the really stupid aspects to this. Most of the people who have built up a bank to the point where they can play big stakes will have taken a professional attitude towards their betting, and it'll probably be their passion. They almost certainly won't be combining that kind of dedication with a highly-paid job that gives them the kind of income needed to justify their bigger stakes. So that's probably them gone.

On the other hand, there will be plenty of lawyers, doctors etc. chucking away silly money, and the new guidelines will probably wave many of those people through if they agree to share their financial details with the bookies. Arguably those types are more likely to become the problem gamblers, but the guidelines will be fine with them..   The whole thing is very poorly conceived from the govt side, but good news for the betting firms.

Been a massive overeaction to this, was speaking to a few people high up in purple who seem to think that any balance already in play will not be restricted if shown to have solely come from activity with that company etc...

That would be good if that's true, but if so, we need to have actual clarification of that. Until people can be sure that incurring a £1,000 loss in a day won't make them subject to affordability checks (that in many cases would lead to dramatically reduced stakes) as long as their activity has only been with that company, they won't be able to take the risk. Once the checks have been raised against you, you're screwed.

Quite a few on the forum claim to have already been subjected to affordability checks. It would be good to know how many of them felt they had lost money from recent deposits etc.

Because otherwise there will be no industry left at all. What happens if a bookmaker standing at Taunton on a tuesday afternoon wants to lay a bet for more than 1k liability..? He will be able to lay that bet because he is licenced to do so, I'll bet 1.01 that eventually full time exchange users will be able to carry on as they were but will be licenced accordingly.