Smarkets affordability cheques

*checks !!

Yeah same old bank statements required, they ask were funds come from all are bills up to date etc. ridiculous. I got limited to 200 pound per month and they took over a month to do them check. And I couldn’t use account while they were being done.

I started out fine with no checks whatsoever.
It was all done by email.

The first was asking one to send photos of my driving licence then a household bill within the last few months.

still able to bet there ok.

Then another email asking about my income. I told them I am a pensioner and have private pensions along with a state pension.

I explained have no mortgage and although I have a credit card with several thousands to spend should I desire I have it solely for the extra protection it offers should I decide to use it.

I explained that I have no cars on H.P.and would probably have more disposable income than a 30 something guy earning 50K a year who has wife children, a mortgage and H.P. debt.

I also mentioned my account showed a profit of over 4 figures and I had only ever made a single deposit when I started the account.

The next email informed me the account was closed and that under the terms they operate in they do not have to provide any reason to close an account.

They returned all by balance the next day so no problem on that score.

Welcome back Ken, long time no see.

'kennel...', if I were you I'd complain to someone further up the entity. Then I'd send an email detailing what'd happened to you esp your financial info to the bookie just to be told your account would be closed without being given a reason.

Any bookie using AC to obtain personal financial info from account holders willy-nilly for their own benefit must be reported to the right body for attention, and possible explanation and redress.

My main concern with bookies asking for personal financial details is they are not governed by the code of practice of the Financial Conduct Authority. This is akin to an illing individual being treated by a care worker, and not a doctor or a specialist of the ailment.

I also mentioned my account showed a profit of over 4 figures

a lot of this would be from them (yes, they play their own markets just as padi does here ... spoiler alert).  if it was person to person your account would still be open.  if all they're doing is taking commission it's simply a numbers game and they've no reason to close anyone's account.

when did they close your account hulk?

Hulk is right they seed their own markets. I'd recommend after my experience of not even bothering - they were good up until say early last year. They closed my account last week - with open positions (About the 4th time they'd done that the past couple of months) additionally you have no access to your account/live chat, no contact number to call so you're reliant on them responding to your email. Customer service is terrible I'd suggest going nowhere near it and saving yourself the stress.

profit over 4 figures...think he's talking of kens account clyde

"hey closed my account last week - with open positions (About the 4th time they'd done that the past couple of months)"

So have they reopened it 3 times or do you have a handful of accounts?

You'd have to be mad to continue betting with such a bunch of shysters.

"and I had only ever made a single deposit when I started the account."

this is the worrying bit, it's not as if you're depositing regularly

@ kennethturrel1 if you can be bothered you should ask for all the information they hold on you and point out that they most definitley do have to provide the information they used for their decision under data protection laws.

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/

Everyone who has an account closed should do the same.

he's clearly upset them by winning from them.  if they just ban him for winning it's obvious he's winning from them.  so rather conveniently, along comes a nice affordability test.  show us all you've got please.  ok, here you go.

ok, we've looked at all that and it's all ok.  we've closed your account. 

ffs

Smark famous for closing profitable accounts

The last message was under our terms and conditions (then they referred to a certain clause but it would have been wasting my time reading it all through)we do not have to give any reason to close any account and no further correspondence will be entertained and any funds would be returned.

Overall as others have mentioned I don't think it is an exchange in the true sense of the word but for me it was good while it lasted as they had a lot of markets with zero commission.

what's their licence for then ? 

to operate a betting exchange, or to operate as a bookmaker under the guise of operating a betting exchange.  fairly clear it's them on the other end of the bets, otherwise why are they binning winners ??

Remote betting intermediary operating licence

This licence allows you to bring two or more betting parties together online in circumstances where you do not have liability for their bets. A remote betting intermediary is also commonly known as a betting exchange.


So i presume that is the licence they have.

They are binning winners, that doesn't make any sense if all you are doing is bringing two or more betting parties together.  It's in their interests to have as many parties playing as possible.

In my opinion, they are binning winners because they do have a liability for their bets.  On the balance of probability, that's the only reason you would get rid of winning accounts.

So that appears to be a clear contravention of the terms of a Remote betting intermediary operating licence.  If that's what they have.

hulk - you guess rightly

(linked from Smarkets' website)

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/public-register/business/detail/39173

BF have always had a bookmaker's licence - they needed it for the old Exchange Multiples before the Sportsbook came along.

I think Smarkets liquidity is provided by 2-4 big layers and the layers have basically said to Smarkets we can't afford to operate unless you cull winning punters. 

Regardless, I would look at Smarkets filing history at Companies House.

In particular, page 5,8,13 of the latest set of published accounts.

It doesn't allow me to copy and paste, but on page 5 look at revenue, costs, profitability, balance sheet and capital.

On page 8 it details that on 31/1/22 the company bought back 143,956 Ordinary Shares for £725k from Jason Trost and then cancelled them.

On page 13, under the Auditor's Report; "Going concern, Material uncertainty related to going concern"

All taken from Companies House

Profit and Loss for last 2 years

In £ Million year to 31/12/21

Revenue £20.25m
Gross Pft £12.7m
Admin (£30.1m)
Other £0.3m
Loss (£17m)

In £ Million year to 31/12/22

Revenue £18.1m
Gross Pft £9m
Admin (£27m)
Other £0.3m
Loss (£17.7m)

Balance Sheet

@ 31/12/22 Total Assets £44.1m down from £61.8m at the previous year end.
Those assets include customer deposits in short term bank accounts of £32.1m

So unless I'm missing something? they've effectively only got £12m of working capital as at 31/12/22.  And in the last 2 years they've suffered losses of £17m and £17.7m.  It's been 14 months since that date and if I search financing on Google, all I'm getting is that they closed their last round of funding on Jun 10th 2021, so nothing it seems since?

Far better than Sporting Options CLYDEBANK.

You'd need to know the breakdown of assets to know the working capital (ie what proportion of assets are current). You could potentially have nonsense intangible assets to game the accounting (for example).

If you had an account balance/exposure there, you'd definitely want to know how your liabilities and credit balances are protected / ring fenced.

if it's revenue is entirely commission, why are the revenue and gross profit different? There aren't input costs - administration is detailed separately.

it's because of betting taxes, payment service provider costs of customer deposits and withdrawals and affiliate costs

In the notes to the accounts (1.3) it says the director has a reasonable expectation that the group has adequate resources to continue in operation for at least 12 months from signing off the accounts (29/9/23).

It says that at the tail end of 2022 that the group underwent an efficiency drive to reduce costs and focus marketing efforts on "higher quality" clients.  It expects the group to to a net profit position over the next 12 months.

That seems a tall order to me, since it requires, for example, both gross profit from the last financial year last to increase by approximately 50% and admin costs to fall by approximately 50%, just to break even.

Anyway, you can see why they culled winning accounts, myself included in 2022.  They simply had no choice.  AFAIK, when I joined, they were making profits.

there is a targeting of shrewd accounts but they also got fined for some failings including not doing checks (or enough) on their users, think it was a couple of years ago and was in excess of i/2 mill

i can't see them surviving in current form, did say a joining of 2 exchanges such as smarkets / daq might be the way they get some temp stability but long term don't see it working, betting is currently on its @rse and some of these are going to the wall in the next 18months

My account was closed too. Just here left.