Another day another fine handed out by the Gambling Commission. This time it was £2.87m to Betfred for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures. Another slap on the wrist warning about future failures. One of the headline aspects to the story was a customer being able to deposit and lose £70k over a ten hour period just a day after opening their account. Without any checks. I have been pretty clear on my views regarding this stuff but lets reiterate.
Do we have issues with responsible gambling? Absolutely. Are affordability checks the way forward? Absolutely not. I have always said that if someone wants to lose all their money to a bookmaker they will do so over a period of time unless self excluded. There is very little you can reasonably do to stop that happening.
My issue has always been people losing huge sums of money in very short periods of time (no doubt on casino type games albeit not confirmed). Basic deposit limits will ensure that this stuff doesn’t happen. By basic I am not talking about affordability check type amounts of £100 or even £500. Lets have some common sense for everyone involved. Maybe £5k for the first month. Maybe that as an ongoing monthly limit. There has to be a balance between punter and bookmaker.
The problem at the moment is that it is so out of kilter that people will be understandably bitter about some of this stuff. On the one hand you can lose £70k in ten hours. Yet if you had started winning you would have been shut down incredibly quickly. The software is all there and in place. Betfred made a choice in this instance that they wanted that business at all costs. These are decisions that the big high street firms have made time and time again.
They simply don’t care about responsible gambling. I know Ben Keith will complain that the Gambling Commission are too heavy handed with bookmakers now. I can understand some of the frustrations but those should as much be directed at the others in his industry, as at the GC and punters. The behaviour of others in the industry, with regard to this stuff, is what has set us on this ridiculous path, that we are currently on. If the bookmakers had played even remotely fair none of this would be the issue that it has become.
I assume Ben that you are comfortable with a customer depositing and losing £70k within ten hours within 24 hours of the account being opened? All fair game in the punter/bookmaker war? Just the way it is?
All I see on my Twitter feed is bookmakers preaching about responsible gambling. The shops are the same. The adverts the same. Just fluff piece after fluff piece to appease the regulator. The proof is in the pudding. Unfortunately time and time again stories appear of the bookmakers behaving in less than savoury ways. This is the tip of the iceberg btw as well. So many more stories will emerge of similar behaviour. More fines issued, more hollow threats from the GC.
I am asked sometimes if I am anti-gambling. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Complete opposite. I love the challenge of bookmaker vs punter. It just has to be done in a much fairer way with everyone aware that this great pastime can sometimes lead to harrowing situations. It should be something where you can still have aspirations to make the game pay, maybe win a few pounds here or there. Lose more often. It just cant be ruining lives over ten hour periods, especially when the tools are there to prevent it.
ProPunting 