Handwriting Recognition Tools in use at bookmakers

Diamond Geezer

Diamond Geezer

Gone But Not Forgotten
Joined
May 2, 2003
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"Photographic evidence" has recently been posted on social media, in particular by someone who is just lately only an occasional contributor on here, that one of the major high street bookmakers is using quite a sophisticated piece of software to analyse the handwriting on betting slips submitted in the shops in order to identify succesful punters and no doubt stop them or at least limit their stakes. I have used the plural version of bookmaker in the thread title as no doubt if one of them is at it, then so are others.

Not a bettor so don't know if this is necessarily something new, but is there nothing bookmakers won't stop at ? Anyone else had reason to suspect this ?
 
I've got a 12 hour ban from Twitter for posting it. The irony of me being in violation of infringing on privacy should be lost on no one.
 
Twenty five years ago I was putting on bets for someone else with their brother and we had been profiled in a very short period of time,shops 50 mile radius knew us as soon as we tried to put bets on I had a couple of big wins when I started on my own banned from doing certainbets and I was getting letters 20 years ago all accounts shut..They don't really need handwriting they probably have pictures anyway and just the style of bets is a giveaway only a small % of punters win anyway,anyone who's trying to bet in books and have some sort of profiling are only trying to pinch value by doing multiple bets and they are a giveaway if you're trying to get something like £2ew goliath on,or any large ew multiple bet..I have bets in bookies still mainly forecasts or some multiples but havn't written out a bet for maybe 15 years..such a small % of wbig winners i'm surprised they would bother with this sort of software when there's probably only 1/1000 long term winners..
 
Madness to invest in this as a bookmaker. Once it inevitably leaks out as it has, it is useless as punters adapt and write differently each time.

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Hope they didn't buy too many of these sophisticated pieces of kit.....they'll all be in some electronic grave yard with a bunch of FOBT's in a few months time.
 
gigilo said:
.such a small % of wbig winners i'm surprised they would bother with this sort of software when there's probably only 1/1000 long term winners..
Click to expand...

You're saying only 1 punter in 1000 wins long term? That's a lot less than the 2 or 3% I see banded about
 
My brothers probably a long term winner,bets in very small amounts he's never going to get accounts closed when I say long term winners I mean 6 figures if you're betting for a living not recreationally I know loads that make money every year not the sort of punters bookies shouldn't be taking bets off thiough..There's no way on ths earth 2% of punters make horse racing pay as in a living,maybe a profit totally different thing..i think 1/1000 is provably overestimating maybe 1/10000
 
The Times just catching up :whistle:


One of the country’s biggest bookmakers is stepping up its efforts to root out professional gamblers by trialling handwriting recognition technology.
Paddy Power has developed a tool to scan betting slips and link the writing to a database of customer activity, The Times has learnt.
Most professional gamblers have now been stopped from betting online because their gambling activity is easy to track and stop. However, bookmaking shops rely on staff to recognise punters who know how to beat the odds. To get around this, professional gamblers often travel to different shops every time they want to lay a bet.
Paddy Power’s technology could help shop workers by telling them to deny a bet if it comes from a punter with a pattern of successful bets. In testing, the system correctly identified the customer in 85 per cent of cases.
A company document seen by The Times said: “The application uses a combination of feature extraction and machine learning to make calculated estimates on a slip’s handwriting. This application will also rely on known information such a shop geography and typical stake sizes.”
A spokesman for Paddy Power confirmed that the application was in development.
He said: “If it was ever to be deployed, it would be used to assist in identifying customers for risk management, responsible gambling and anti-money laundering purposes.”
The term “risk management” is a euphemism for stopping customers who win too much.
Paddy Power added that it complied with data protection laws in its use of customer information and that a privacy notice had recently been displayed in shops so that customers were aware that their data was being used by the bookmaker.
Last year The Times revealed that the competition watchdog is investigating the terms and conditions used by internet bookmakers.
The move followed complaints that bookmakers were using the small print of contracts to deny promotions, alter odds on winning bets and place unfair restrictions on winning accounts.
Allegations have also emerged that the industry has been using money laundering rules to unfairly refuse payouts to winning accounts without applying the same checks to customers who lose.
 
Bookmakers are nothing short of licensed thieves these days. Just a shame that racing is dependent on them for an income and is at their beck and call.
 
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