Sportsbooks Start Refusing More Bets From 'Wise Guys' Trying To Win (espn.com)

Sportsbooks have closed 50,000 betting accounts just in the U.K. -- and placed strict limits on 50,000 more, according to gaming experts contacted by ESPN. "Bookmakers from London to Las Vegas are refusing to take bets from a growing number of customers whose only offense might be trying to win." Banning or limiting sophisticated players has been a regular part of Las Vegas sports betting for decades, and, like in the U.K., there's absolutely nothing illegal about it. Bettors say the practice is increasing and has even occurred in some of the new states (such as New Jersey) that have entered into the now-legal bookmaking game in recent months. "Americans should be worried," said Brian Chappell, a founder for the U.K. bettor advocacy group Justice for Punters. "It's coming."

In Nevada, refusing to take bets from any customer, from card counters to wise-guy sports bettors, is completely within any casino's legal rights. From Caesars Palace to the Venetian to more local spots like Station Casinos, every bookmaker in town will tell you -- albeit somewhat quietly -- that they've 86'd customers for one reason or another. Seasoned bettors are concerned, though, that the practice of banning or limiting accounts is not only increasing, but the reasoning behind the decisions is becoming more and more suspect. Many believe that the only thing betting intelligently will get you at some shops is a one-way ticket to being thrown out...

In shooting for commercial success, should bookmakers be allowed to refuse to take bets from customers who take steps to try to win? On the other hand, should a business be forced to take on a customer they fear will repeatedly damage its bottom line? The debate is getting ready to play out in state legislatures across the U.S. In May, the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on state-sponsored sports betting. Full-scale, legal sportsbooks have since opened in Delaware, Mississippi and New Jersey, and many more states are expected to pass sports betting laws and set up regulations in the coming months and years.
"In the end, you have two professions, each trying to increase profits, but only one side gets to make the rules," concludes ESPN.

One London-based veteran of the international sports betting industry even suggests a peer-to-peer betting exchange which simply pairs people betting on opposing outcomes -- thus taking a commission, but not facing any risk.

Comments

Problem?

[Kohath]

Either party is free to walk away from the transaction rather than go ahead with it. How is that a problem?

Seems equal and fair to both sides.

Re:Problem?

[nine-times]

Well, I could see an argument...

Casinos are big businesses with a lot of resources to put into creating a contrived situation to their advantage, as well as manipulating people. They choose the games. They set the process. They have every opportunity to rig the odds in their favor already. It's not a symmetrical relationship.

They're even allowed to present themselves as though players have a real shot at winning. So should they also be allowed to disqualify players for winning too much? It seems to slant things even more in their favor. No one is forcing them into this business. No one is making them run blackjack tables. If it won't be profitable enough to run this bookkeeping operation straight, without additional manipulation, then maybe they just shouldn't do it. But once they offer a game, they should be forced to adhere to the rules of their own game that they set.

Tout

[PopeRatzo]

I got $50 that says there will be blackmarket workarounds for this.

I grew up around bookies. There was a social club around the corner from my house where you could get a bet down, and everyone from the local bartender to the local barber had a shirt pocket filled with slips of paper of action they'd taken from working guys.

It's funny when vice becomes sanitized for public consumption. It loses a little something. Sure, poor people and degenerate gamblers won't be able to help themselves from lining up at the government-sanctioned betting parlors, but the business around the margins won't be going anywhere. It'll become tax designed to redistribute wealth upward. but the ones who know will always be able to find some honest crook to take their action.

Re:Soo... gambling is a utility now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Gambling" as we know it institutionally is a borderline criminal enterprise masquerading as a sport and preying on dopamine addicts' fantasies as they deliberately steal their money. I like the idea of idiocy being a protected right.
But when idiocy involves money it has the power to destabilize society, if done wrong on a large scale. Some take "wrong on a large scale" to new depths for their own profit, others go bankrupt 6 times despite that theft.
Someone is always left holding the bag if we allow our society to gamble, eventually we have to deal with those socialized losses for that private theft. We seem to be denying that reality as best we can right now, but failing.

Re:Aren't NJ casinos failing ?

[Etcetera]

New Jersey Supreme Court ruled casinos could not bar skilled blackjack players known as card count so the same thing may happen with this over them.

Aren't New Jersey casinos failing at a far greater rate then their Las Vegas counterparts?

Yes, but that's mainly due to the ability for Native American tribes to engage in full Class III gaming, which started to bloom in the '90s after States began making pacts following the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988. Nowadays, people on the Eastern seaboard don't need to go to Atlantic City to get the full "Vegas-style" casino experience on the east coast, which adds up to problems.

What a load

[Anonymous Coward]

Bookmakers don't care if people win. The odds change to reflect where the bets are being placed. They always make a profit.
Same goes with casinos. After decades of tightening the rules and procedures to close any possible advantage, such as setting minimum and maximum limits on tables to stop doubling down, and using multiple decks of cards to foil card counting, these stories of people getting banned for being too good are just fluff. It makes people believe in the dream that they can do it too.
Casinos have so much to thank Hollywood for. James Bond and endless heist movies. So romantic and exciting!
In reality it's where lonely people with no imagination go to hand over their retirement.

Why do we let them have it both ways?

[uvajed_ekil]

I'm not anti-gambling, but I believe that if we allow it, us (the customers, the bettors) should have a certain level of protection. There are certainly already a lot of regulations that bookmakers and casinos must abide by, ranging from which games they may offer, how the games are played, the equipment used, minimum payouts and maximum house cuts, limitations on comps and promos, and limiting or banning players that admit to being addicts.

It seems like common sense that those who we allow to make a fortune in the business shouldn't be allowed to ban us, the citizens, simply because we win while playing by the mutually agreed upon rules. Being good should not be grounds for a ban, and if they don't want to follow that, we should pull their gaming licenses. If they are allowed to take every penny we have, we should be allowed to win as much as we can, too. Either allow everyone to play a particular game, or no one, their choice.

Isn't this trivial to circumvent?

[Solandri]

The banned gamblers just need to start a website where they sell memberships, and provide their recommendations for bets. Subscribers then win in their stead, and pass some of their winnings on to the banned gamblers as subscription fees. Basically the same reason why voting in elections is anonymous - so some rich person can't pay people to vote for the candidates they choose.

The fundamental problem that's causing this to happen is that gambling is not a productive economic activity.

• A mining company sells iron ore to a refinery because the refinery pays them more than it cost them to mine the ore.
• The refinery turns the ore into steel, and sells it to the tool manufacturer, because the tool manufacturer pays more for the steel than it cost to buy the ore and refine it.
• The tool manufacturer turns the steel into a hammer, and sells it to the hardware store because the hardware store pays them more than the cost of the steel and tooling.
• The hardware store sells the hammer to you, because you pay more than it cost them to buy the hammer from from the tool manufacturer.
• You buy the hammer because you figure you can get more value out of its use than what you paid for it.

In each of these steps, both buyer and seller profit from the economic transaction. Both parties benefit, so both parties want the transaction to occur. That's what productive economic activity does - increases net economic activity by increasing productivity for both sides of each transaction. It's net positive sum.

Gambling doesn't work like that. It's zero sum. For someone to win money, someone else has to lose it. That puts it in the same economic category as theft and scams. So gamblers will only want to participate in transactions where they think they can rip off the other participant. (Gambling as entertainment can be legit. The relaxation you get from entertainment can help increase your productivity in other tasks, offsetting the monetary cost of the entertainment. But for this to work for gambling, it has to be done in moderation.)

No Problem if Open About It

[Roger W Moore]

So should they also be allowed to disqualify players for winning too much?

They cannot disqualify players for winning too much - if they have already taken the bet then they have to pay out. However, there is nothing wrong with them refusing to take new bets from them in the future provided that they are open and clear about their terms which must include a "if you win too much we will refuse all future bets" so that it makes it even clearer that gambling is never going to make you money.

As for rigging the odds, the odds are ALWAYS rigged in the casino's favour: this is how they make money! Provided that the odds are rigged in a way that everyone knows about i.e. results depend on a truly random odds of cards, dice etc. then it's fair. If you don't like the odds then you don't play the game...in the exactly same way that if the casino does not like the odds it too can refuse to play.

Re:This is unsustainable, though.

[novakyu]

Not analogous comparison.

Even the best "wise guys" are playing under the same statistical rules as the casino. They are just not as easy a mark because they know the probabilities as well as the casino's stats guys do.

Insurance fraud is, as the name suggests, a fraud. The person committing insurance fraud is not simply taking opposite side of the bet the insurance company is taking; the person committing insurance fraud knows something that the insurance company doesn't know (because of deliberate concealment, etc.). Its card game equivalent is someone who literally knows what the next card up will be (not just probabilities of particular card coming up), either through prescience (they shouldn't be wasting their talent at gambling) or by cheating (then that is like insurance fraud and is illegal).