UKGC's proposed £100 a month loss limit, will it affect you?

[dvds2000]

Just wondering if the proposed plans would affect many people?

For those that don't know, part of the Gambling Act Review will most certainly focus on Responsible Gaming rules. One thing that has been mentioned is a possible £100 a month loss limit, unless you complete affordability checks, which are, if casinos are anything to go by, extremely intrusive, I'll pop a couple of examples below.

This £100 will be across all UKGC licensed properties, so lose £50 at BillyHills and £50 on Betfair and thats it, no more betting for you that month. Not entirely sure how they will achieve that level of data sharing considering Gamstop can't even data match properly at the moment, but thats a different discussion.

Couple of quick links on it

https://www.thoroughbredracing.com/...d-drive-more-uk-punters-black-market-betting/

https://www.racingtv.com/news/racin...inst-mooted-proposals-on-betting-restrictions

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-force-betting-firms-combating-addiction.html

And from the Racing Post today

https://www.racingpost.com/news/lat...mmission-doing-and-what-are-the-issues/471179

So, I'm quite active within the casino side of the industry, and Source of Wealth checks are hated because of how intrusive they can be.

In a lot of cases it's just a case of sending a couple of payslips and a bank statement over, but if you aren't PAYE then it's a whole new world of ****.

Case ongoing at the moment. Customer deposited about £3k over a period of time. Won £50k, suddenly they wanted him to prove he could afford the deposits, funnily enough only after he won. This has been going on for 17 weeks now. He showed wages & winnings from other casinos totaling over £100k and they are still asking for further documents. So far he has supplied multiple bank statements, statements from Grosvenor casino showing winnings of £100k, statements from Videoslots showing £40k winnings, they were personalised statements hand done by the casinos, as the screenshots of the accounts matching the deposits into his bank account weren't satisfactory, along with loads of other stuff sent over.

Another guy had £200 in winnings. Deposits were about £20 a week. Been gambling with them for over 5 years. Showed payslips, bank statements, all showed he could easily afford £20 a week. There was a transfer paid into his account of £30 from another personal account, that they queried. He explained they had been on a night out, he paid for the meal, his mate transferred his half of the money over. There was a transaction on the account for about £62 the day before at a restaurant. They now want photo ID, proof of address, a signed statement stating what the £30 was for and source of wealth, payslips etc, from his friend. Needless to say the customer told them where to go, and he's still battling to get his £200. I have personally had this type of scrutiny from one casino and refused point blank, luckily they didn't owe me any money.

Now you might think they are isolated cases, or over the top. They aren't. I see them pretty much daily. That is likely to be the level of scrutiny punters get if they want to lift the £100 limit.

Personally I am not against regulation. The UK is probably the safest place to gamble in the world. However, I am against over regulation. It will, in my view, push people to use unregulated non licensed bookmakers like 1XBet and the like (don't play there, you won't get paid). More importantly, I think it will kill racing, as revenue from bookmakers will crash massively.

I'm not against any limits either, and even if I was, they are coming whatever we think, what isn't set in stone is the limits that will be placed.

I was wondering what people's views are on this and how they will react?

It would be interesting to see what the poll results come out as.

You can also let the UKGC know what you think by completing the survey below, not many take part in these usually, so although you might think, 'ah, won't make any difference what I say', you could be wrong!

Sorry for the long post, but at least if you're bored during lockdown you have something to read

https://consult.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/author/remote-customer-interaction-consultation-and-call/

 

[dvds2000]

Wasn't enough room in the title but the poll is

1-4 what limit would you be happy to see
5-7 what would you do if you hit the limits
8-10 what would you be happy to supply

The poll is anonymous, other members can't see who voted for what, just how many have voted for what, and you can pick more than one answer, obviously one in each section please

If people could try to answer each section too, to give a balanced view of what might happen. I know the UKGC don't think these measure will push people to spend money at unregulated bookmakers, they might be right, but I've seen it happen with casinos.

Thanks very much

If anyone has any other suggestions to add to the poll feel free to suggest them

 

[Desert Orchid]

I'm betting less just now while my eyes are still a tad iffy but £100 per month is nothing. £100 per day would have me thinking about giving up.

My brother who bets £2w and £1ew generally might hit that total in a busy month. He gets very nervous when I tell him how much I've bet on a horse.

Having said that, I tend to keep accounts in enough credit to accommodate a heavy day so I would hope I wasn't affected.

 

[Grasshopper]

Bookmakers have the tools at their disposal to identify degenerate accounts.

They should use those tools and impose controls on losing accounts, rather than treating the mugs as cash-cows. They’d be mad not to, given the impact this might otherwise have on turnover (will be massive, imo).

 

[barjon]

It’s one of those typically useless ideas where those who it’s designed to inhibit - the irresponsible gambling addicts - will find a way around it whilst the rest of us who don’t need inhibiting suffer the strictures.

How’s it going to work anyway? It talks about overall monthly losses which makes it sound as if it’s the net monthly figure. So, I can lose £10,000 and as long as I make £9,901 by the end of the month I’m ok - can’t be right. Not overall then? Must be get to £100 then that’s you finished? Does that mean you couldn’t place bets totalling over £100 (or £11 if you were already £90 down for the month) because they all might lose and your bookie would be in trouble for letting you run over? In any event it’s quite possible that I’d be finished after the first race of the month if that was the plan.

 

[dvds2000]

It’s one of those typically useless ideas where those who it’s designed to inhibit - the irresponsible gambling addicts - will find a way around it whilst the rest of us who don’t need inhibiting suffer the strictures.

How’s it going to work anyway? It talks about overall monthly losses which makes it sound as if it’s the net monthly figure. So, I can lose £10,000 and as long as I make £9,901 by the end of the month I’m ok - can’t be right. Not overall then? Must be get to £100 then that’s you finished? Does that mean you couldn’t place bets totalling over £100 (or £11 if you were already £90 down for the month) because they all might lose and your bookie would be in trouble for letting you run over? In any event it’s quite possible that I’d be finished after the first race of the month if that was the plan.

If it works like a casino loss limit works, and most bookies tbf, although you set them yourself on a bookmaker site rather than some casinos imposing them on you, then it is could be a rolling month or a calendar month. Either way it's a loss limit, not deposit or bet limit. Say it goes the 1st to the 30th. You can deposit what you like, but your first bet can't be more than £100, as you can't lose more than that. If you won £10000 from that bet, you could put whatever you wanted on after that, up to £10100, as even that amount would only result in a monthly loss of £100. However, if your first bet loses, then you can't bet another penny till the 1st of next month.

I honestly can't see how they will manage to do this over cross brands and licenses. Clearly if you have accounts at Ladbrokes and Coral then thats easy to do, but it will take some integration to add Betfair, Boylesports, BetVictor, 32Red, Rizk etc into all that data. I can't see how it can possibly work, they would have to check a central database every single time you had a bet, and it isn't clear if it would apply just to the bookmaking side, or casino sides too, so could be every time you spin a slot, it has to check and update the database. I just can't see how it can work. Gamstop doesn't work properly, not going to say how to get round it, but needless to say, it is very easy, and that should be much easier to do than what they are proposing.

I think it might end up being per operator or license, but then it defeats the object. There are over 100 license holders (all gambling not just bookies) so you could spend £100 at each if you wanted and therefore the whole system fails.

 

[Outsider]

I think in in control of my betting these days.im not a big better,I'm more like DO's brother,but even I can lose more than £100 a month.
I once had£500 on a horse and when I watched the race I thought I was going to have a heart attack.thankfully it won but never again.

 

[Double J]

Would anti post bets count?

Say i placed a few £10s on a Skybet special. Then decided to use them for a days betting on a Saturday. Could i then only deposit so much cause ive placed AP bets?

All sounds like rubbish. Im all for helping the problem gamblers, but punishing those who are quite controlled isn’t the way forward. Can lose £100 on a Saturdays betting quite easily

 

[Grey]

I wonder if these rules will apply to Irish and other overseas users of these betting sites?

 

[Maxbet]

These stipulations are an attempt to control money laundering rather than curb addiction. You can walk into Billy's deposit £3,000 in cash, receive a voucher that you upload to your account, then deliberately lose it to whomever you want on a poker table....it's rife....Some bookmakers have received considerable 6 figure fines for not monitoring it!

 

[pawras]

£100 loss limit per month? What about cash bets in shops and on course?

I think that will kill liquidity on the exchanges.

A limit like that will pretty much kill gambling on horses and ergo horse racing itself imo.

£100 loss limit per month is peanuts I can put more than that down on one bet, and there's no way I'd let them know the far end of shite about me.

Mind you I would be happy to see banned completely or extremely limited fobts type betting inc that bingo bullshit I see advertised on tv for your phone.

Also what about the lottery? That's another one I see as a tax on the poor and/or stupid.

 

[an capall]

There is an easy way around all this.

JUST BACK F**KING WINNERS!

 

[Tout Seul]

Unfortunately racing as we have it is unsustainable without betting. The priority of those that control racing in their negotiations with HMG must be to differentiate the sport and the betting on it from all of the rip-off non sporting activities.
As someone who has seen the impact of gambling destroy individuals and families, I wholeheartedly welcome measures to protect them. They are needed!
That said, I can and do invest in a fair number of stocks and shares, listed, unlisted and overseas without restriction. I do not want to provide details to all and sundry just to have a bet. One reason is preventing people getting sufficient info to be able to attack those assets.
To some extent it is irrelevant as betting firms can be quite restrictive. Only last week I attempted to back a horse running in the UK at a meeting that was subsequently called off. I tried to get £20ew with 4 of the leading names, the sum total they would allow - £23.90 ew.

 

[dvds2000]

Unfortunately racing as we have it is unsustainable without betting. The priority of those that control racing in their negotiations with HMG must be to differentiate the sport and the betting on it from all of the rip-off non sporting activities.
As someone who has seen the impact of gambling destroy individuals and families, I wholeheartedly welcome measures to protect them. They are needed!
That said, I can and do invest in a fair number of stocks and shares, listed, unlisted and overseas without restriction. I do not want to provide details to all and sundry just to have a bet. One reason is preventing people getting sufficient info to be able to attack those assets.
To some extent it is irrelevant as betting firms can be quite restrictive. Only last week I attempted to back a horse running in the UK at a meeting that was subsequently called off. I tried to get £20ew with 4 of the leading names, the sum total they would allow - £23.90 ew.

It also doesn't work the way they are proposing. I know people with £100k a year in income, but they have less disposable income than someone on £20k still living with their parents.

Banks have AML procedures in place, if a license holder is getting deposits by way of a bank, card, transfer etc, then the license holder should be able to assume if there are money laundering concerns, they will have been addressed by the bank the money is coming from.

 

[Marb]

100 pound limit does seem ridiculous.

I'm 35 years old now, and generally one aspect of gambling that I feel is overlooked is how a newbie, say 18 or 19 year old is likely to become much more addicted to gambling much quicker, often thinking he's invincible, than someone of maturing years.

E. G, When the FOBTS were rife in betting shops in the U.K, it was more often that not younger men losing thousands of pounds and then getting wound up by losing with the consequences.

Overall I feel I'm a safer, more knowledgeable and perhaps more profitable punter aged 35 than I was aged 25, or 18 even. I don't know if that's the case for everyone. These measures do seem a bit draconian though.

Experience is important in gambling. An 18 or 20 year old gambling for the first time might not know their limits, or even what they'll be prepared to stop at or take out if they win.

Hence with the above in mind I'd like to see the government clamp or crack down on gambling adverts targeting young people, while allowing us older generation to do what we have to do.

We've all heard of bookmakers closing down winners. A further walk down this route and we'll be turning the industry into a farce. We're already getting slaughtered for eating a burger, or having a beer, or smoking a ciggerette.

 

[Marb]

Ps, from just talking to someone it seems the same adverts target young women aswell. It's not a good look and the sooner they stop this the better.

We are going from one extreme from the last gambling act in 2005 or whenever it was to the other extreme now.

 

[Tanlic]

........bookies have too much info on us as it is def against any limits...........I would start collecting 2nd hand couches as most punters have lost more than 100 quid down the back of theirs:lol:

 

[wilsonl]

A pro-punter could have spent the month smashing SPs but narrowly missing out whereas a degenerate gambler could have had a decent run during that period by blindly backing favourites.

 

[an capall]

To take a contrarian view, which is a bit offside on a horse/betting forum, so apologies.

I watched the film The Insider, a couple of months back. Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, I'm sure most of you have seen it. For those who haven't its a 'journalism story thriller' in this case a whistle blower in 1960s and his travails in testifying against 'big tabacco' and revealing the damage to health they knew then, but which was still dark to the general public.

Throughout the whole 2 hours all I kept thinking that 'big gambling' is the new tabacco and that in thirty years time they'd be making films and documentaries about how gambling ruined the mental/physical health of a significant proportion of our generations. I bet very small stakes and am in control, but I can't help thinking if you disaggregate the intelligent discussions and intellectual challenge we have enjoyed here for 20 years in an effort to just back phuckin winners, the industry is a rancid cesspit and something has to be done about it.

 

[Desert Orchid]

Yes, I think the 'younger' generation with all their tech find it too easy to gamble and are certainly suckered into playing more than is probably healthy.

A few years back my daughter brought her (now former) boyfriend for a visit to the Orchid cottage, coinciding with a Grand National meeting. He was/is a seemingly normal, intelligent chap, an accountant to trade, and, naturally the conversation came round to the big race. He had bought the papers and listened to my ideas on the race, etc. Next thing I know, he's tapping away on his phone, joining every bookie under the sun in order to take advantage of the new account offers. I have no idea how much he punted that day but I think the best any of his horses did was fifth. I was quite taken aback at how readily an accountant (the top accountant in a nationwide car franchise) could be so rash with his money and I'm convinced he wouldn't have acted so rashly without the tech facilitating it. He was probably in his late 30s at the time, too, so no reckless teenager.

Maybe my generation is more fortunate in that we had to go in person to the bookies and spend time writing a line out before waiting in queue to get the bet on. I certainly recall a number of occasions thinking, "This is stupidity standing here like an old jakie just to get a shilling on a 20/1 donkey.." usually at some back-of-beyond track like Wye, before changing my mind and giving it a miss.

Younger people tend not to give themselves that kind of thinking time nowadays.

 

[LUKE]

Some excellent points An Capall.

 

[Marb]

An, Capall, please tell me an industry that isn't controversial or doesn't have problems in one way or another.

I heard an interesting report on the radio the other day about the music industry and the treatment of young females being exploited by older males higher up the food chain 'to get a break' so to speak.

I saw a programme last night about the boxing industry and its links to organised crime.

The pharmaceutical industry has its problems. When not making new vaccines to save our good selves, they're profiteering while holding national governments over a barrel for profit.

The arms industry has problems.

The tobacco industry has problems.

What industry doesn't have problems, I guess is my point...

 

[an capall]

It's a fair question Marb - but coming to age in Ireland in 1970s I realised that 'whataboutery' was the enemy of progress. (Whatabout Bloody Sunday? Whatabout The Shankhill Butchers? Whatabout La Mon? Whatabout Loughgall?)

So I like to view issues within their own boundaries. Irrespective of say, arming Yemen and Saudi or drilling for Oil in Antartica, I can still hold the view that the gambling industry, specifically how it advertises is corrosive to a better society.

Back to your original question. The Palliative Cate Industry. Medicen Sans Frontieres. People who grow spinach.

 

[Marb]

Yes, fair points, An.

 

[Slim]

To take a contrarian view, which is a bit offside on a horse/betting forum, so apologies.

I watched the film The Insider, a couple of months back. Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, I'm sure most of you have seen it. For those who haven't its a 'journalism story thriller' in this case a whistle blower in 1960s and his travails in testifying against 'big tabacco' and revealing the damage to health they knew then, but which was still dark to the general public.

Throughout the whole 2 hours all I kept thinking that 'big gambling' is the new tabacco and that in thirty years time they'd be making films and documentaries about how gambling ruined the mental/physical health of a significant proportion of our generations. I bet very small stakes and am in control, but I can't help thinking if you disaggregate the intelligent discussions and intellectual challenge we have enjoyed here for 20 years in an effort to just back phuckin winners, the industry is a rancid cesspit and something has to be done about it.

This will come as a surprise to many but this was the disgusting part of working in the betting industry. It never sat well with me seeing people do their brains, more so when I worked in the shops and it was right in front of me.

I was glad to leave to industry in 2016 and when I did I courted a massive loser with the company and helped him get his own back. He was one of their biggest lifetime losers (7 figures) and they ended up closing him when his business got hot.

They had it good for long enough.