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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.
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.
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.
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.
That sounds about right. Everyone is in it to make money and the sports book can’t make money on smart sophisticated bettors. They need the gambling addicts that bet on the Cleveland Browns to win the Super Bowl. Or people that parlay 5 games on Sunday.
“suggests a peer-to-peer betting exchange which simply pairs people betting on opposing outcomes -- thus taking a commission, but not facing any risk.“
So the options market. I think there are already companies doing that for sports betting. I remember meeting someone years ago that was moving his operations around every year from Central and South America to Asia and back again.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I don't much care whether businesses are selective in their customers - that's fair enough - but I do find it funny when they try to equate moderate intelligence and cheating.
Counting cards is just readily available information - rules, what cards have been revealed - plus brains. Winning at the horses is just statistics and calculating when you should bet and when you're better off doing nothing. Calling either one cheating - equating it with hobbling a horse or bribing the dealer the rig the deck - is bizarre.
The gambling "business model" is simple, it stakes the odds heavily against the punters, and in favor of the operator, which collects the profits. It works like an insurance - the insurer only stays in business because there are not many big payouts.
The difference is that unlike the insurance payout, which is a consequence of a highly undesirable event, and hence of something the punters are motivated to avoid, in gambling the "insured" has no large downside if they win.
Once the punters get smarter, the gambler cannot stay solvent, just like an insurer will not stay solvent if they allow covering deliberate insurance fraud.
So, a government body which, on one hand, lives off a "casino tax" and on the other allows punters to do tricks is in a bit of a self-contradicting position.
And, of course, while the mechanism of operations is similar, a properly working insurance company has a much more important social function than a casino.
"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.
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?
Bookmaking should run on paramutual basis, that way the house always gets a defined take and the betters are competing against themselves.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
on black
I got $50 that says there will be blackmarket workarounds for this.
Yes, if you win too much the black market operators break your legs.
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.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Although gambling is a vice and there aren't many good things to say about it, if it's accepted as social entertainment then it should at least be offered to everyone equally, without discrimination.
Letting casinos and bookies refuse access to those who can count and think is tantamount to preying on the mentally weak, and that should be made illegal with great prejudice by government. If this means that the gambling industry would lose money then they will switch to more random games very very rapidly, and that is totally fine. It's not like the traditional games HAVE to be played. Nor are we running out of new games to offer.
This is a strange usage of 'Wise Guys' - generally I've seen that refer to folks who are mobbed up and I can see valid concerns that such individuals might try to muscle the outcome through either bribery or intimidation of the athletes/referees involved. I see no reason to bar someone who is able to find arbitrage between the probabilities of outcomes and general population wagering. The lines/odds are skewed from the oddsmakers' true expectations to account for differing fan base sizes.
Being able to gamble with a particular provider is not a right, or a necessity, or a job. Gambling doesn't have to be fair. Expert players are welcome to shop around but crying about discrimination is pretty weak.
Casinos have existed for centuries, as have most casino games. In 2018 it's absolutely pathetic for professional players to cry about the system being unfair. You don't have to play - people don't have to let you play. Suck it up.
Being able to set up shop as a gambling house in my community is also not a right or necessity. In many areas not called Las Vegas, gambling licenses are very limited, meaning their business is well protected. We have already regulated the "gaming" industry pretty heavily - just ask the casino operators, they'll all fall all over themselves to agree, and yet they still make a lot of money. So I see no problem with telling them they can't ban people who abide by their rules simply because they win. Gambling in its most common form will never be "fair" or it won't exist because the casinos aren't in the business of gambling - they're simply in hospitality and making money hand over fist. Adding a bit of protection for us seems like common sense, though of course the gambling lobby won't admit that they can sustain it.
You'r right - we don't have to play. What you're missing is that we don't have to permit casinos and the like to operate at all, and we sure as hell don't need to let them stack the deck. It works both ways.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
How do they know, or even claim to know, that someone is "trying" to win, as opposed to simply playing, and who just happens to win? Or do they simply impose a limit on how often someone can win, regardless of whether the person is using any kind of system or not? If so, why don't they just say that instead of absurdly alleging that they could somehow read people's minds to know what people are thinking or trying to achieve?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The fundamental problem that's causing this to happen is that gambling is not a productive economic activity.
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.)
If you lose all the time, are you also banned from playing (for your own protection, of course)? A quick bit of googling suggests the answer to that is 'no', so I don't think the casino's should be allowed to ban winners either.
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.
If you're using a service that only welcomes losers, and they don't deny you service, then there's a very important question you should be asking yourself...
If someone walks up to me and asks me to make a bet with them, it is my decision to enter into the bet. I can refuse the bet for any reason, up to and including having lost previous bets to this person.
Why would sports betting be any different?
If you don't think there's a house advantage, you're a fucking moron, probably an addict, and it's healthy to learn that you will be screwed in this deal.
Do not play
The business model relies on stupid people coming in and spending their money on a gamble which they will surely lose, at which point they go back home and drink too much Bud Lite while bemoaning how the gods have screwed them. Then they go back to work and forget about it because their retirement plan is Social Security so it doesn't matter how much money they waste as long as they keep going to their drudgery tool jobs. At those, intelligence is punished as well.
Alternative Right.
The key is 'take steps to try to win'. WTF does that even mean? Cheating falls under that description.
Let's try "Take steps that comply with the agreed-upon rules of the game to try to win." In Blackjack, for example, these are some of the rules:
Memorizing basic strategy, or the best local play based on a player's cards and the dealer's visible card, just about compensates for the rest of the house advantage. Modifying the strategy based on observed favorable and unfavorable cards since the last shuffle may put the player over the edge. Why should that be cheating? And if it is, why don't the casinos tell their guests?
Here's an interesting thing about the slot machine errors you hear about. Most of the time, though the sign on the machine says "$5,000 jackpot", the display shows the "current balance" as 42949672.95. Most programmers and many IT people will recognize that number. It's the largest number that can be represented on a 32-bit machine. It's also one penny less than zero, on a 32 bit machine (numbers wrap around) The machine was supposed to show zero, but somehow got off by a cent, what programmers call an "off by one error".
The symbols don't display a winning combination, there is no "You've won the jackpot!!!" screen. The current balance just displays an impossibly large number, not only much larger than the jackpot on that machine, but larger than any jackpot on any slot machine ever.
So it's not a matter of "the casino claims there was a malfunction"; as soon as they see the number that was displayed most programmers will know what the error was - without even seeing the code for the machine.
In law, there is principle that if you made a typo in your Craigslist ad offering to sell your 2016 model car for $.8000 you wouldn't be obligated to sell it for 80 cents. That would be entirely unreasonable; it's clearly a mistake. You aren't required to do something totally unreasonable due to a clear error.
If a slot that prominently displays a $5,000 maximum jackpot incorrectly adds $500 on a non-winning combination, $500 is a reasonable win for that machine and the casino will probably have to pay it. On a nickel slot with a $5,000 jackpot, a current balance of $42.9 million is unreasonable, obviously wrong. People skilled in programming would know 2^32 indicates an error of the balance being one penny less than zero, so we know what type of bug it is, it's not just that the casino "claimed". In these cases the courts have normally ruled for the casino.
In one instance, the casino screwed up the PR on it pretty badly. These errors are rare enough that the casino could have explained the situation and paid her the jackpot for the machine - $5,000. The player would have been disappointed about the error, but happy to have $5,000 in her pocket. Instead the casino comped her a steak dinner. That's insulting and the casino rightly got a lot of bad press for it.
Only for stupid customers“
Because of the restrictions on betting in America, US readers may not be aware of how it is over here.
Adverts for betting are prevalent, particularly in the advert breaks in the middle of a televised sporting event. The adverts will commonly offer promotional odds for a particular bet which they may expect to make a loss on in the expectation of future custom.
These bookmakers may decline or restrict service to particular individuals if
a) They believe them to only be taking advantage of promotions and not doing enough "regular" (i.e. profitable) betting.
or
b) They are winning "too much". This is more likely to happen where their wins cause the bookmaker to make an overall loss on particular events (i.e large long odds bets on unpopular events).
Once a restriction is in place the bookmaker will attempt to identify the individual through a number of methods including tracking cookies on their PC (Google for "iesnare"). UK legislation to combat both money laundering and problem gambling has made this easier for bookmakers by allowing them to require passports/proof of address etc. before processing withdrawals.
Part of the BBC Documentary "Britain at the Bookies" was about one such individual who had had their accounts restricted for being "too good" at identifying value in the advertised odds.
Personally I think there should be similar legislation to that around loans/credit where if a particular rate of interest is advertised it must be offered to the majority of applicants, with the same applying to odds in advertisements.
"Sports book" is right in the headline of this story. It's what we're talking about.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Somewhere a tree is furiously making oxygen for you to breathe.
You should find it and apologize.
I've seen that sign several times over the years at various businesses. Seems that's all that sportsbooks are doing.
The most carefully inspected and regulated part of the machine is the PRNG, the randomizer. It randomly determines whether it's a jackpot, a second-place prize, etc.
This should not be confused with the dollar amount associated with each prize, which is posted on the machine and not random at all. A big sign on the machine will say "jackpot $5,000â or "jackpot $20,000â. That is of course not random at all.
The other part of the machine, which isn't inspected and regulated as carefully as the PRNG and game logic, is the user interface. Disputes occur when the user interface doesn't make clear what the game logic came up with based on the random numbers from the PRNG.
The proposal to build a business model for gambling operators around " taking a commission, but not facing any risk" does already exist, it is a market with many billions of revenue. It's called "retail derivatives", and those are sold by many issuers/banks, the gamble being tracked on derivative exchanges.
If you restrict everyone to the levels that the "dumb" bettors are ponying up, the "wise guys" will be more than offset. This doesn't require identifying them, just accepting the fact that unbalanced bets mean excessive exposure. The whole point of a sports book is to pull the same amount of money to each side of the line so the losers cover the winners, and skim off some vigorish along the way. If a bet is too large to be covered on the other side, then it should be acceptable to refuse it.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
For those who have any doubt: See rule #1
For those with questions: See rule #1
For those who have a "system": See rule #1
For those who think they've gotten around rule #1: See rule #1
For those who've spotted a flaw in the maths: See rule #1
If you don't understand this rule, then don't participate.
Actually, this turns out not to be the case. At least I've heard about it - there would be bookies near some of the high stakes poker games before they were in casinos. And they would let you "insure" your hand of cards against a huge raise. Like anything, the player loses a bit either way, and the insurer comes out ahead in the long run. Basically a footnote in history now, but it did reportedly exist.
If you can't make money by running an honest business that treats all its customers fairly, you are in the wrong line of business. A business should not have the right to refuse to serve customers for reasons other than disturbing the peace or the like.
Business post signs saying things like "we reserve the right to refuse service to anybody" but it isn't true. They are already legally prohibited from banning people because of their race, for example.
There are existing precedents for other forms of gambling. New Jersey and Connecticut casinos can't ban blackjack players for card counting (Nevada casinos can); they can and do make the playing conditions unpleasant and unfavorable for counters that they catch but they shouldn't even be allowed to do that.
Sports betting is already parimutuel. This is only about increasing the house take.