Let’s take a look at the withdrawal issues facing customers in more detail. It’s been talked about a lot and some of the behaviours from the bookmakers are really unsatisfactory. I think the easiest way to do this is look at my personal experiences with Unibet.
So the account was originally opened in April 2011. The account wasn’t used much until placing a few football bets in 2013. After a few winners initial restrictions were placed on the account. When I asked for a withdrawal I was asked to verify the account. After jumping through some hoops this was done. This was standard practice at the time. Bookies always used to do it. Despite the account being open two years earlier they wanted the KYC checks done when making a withdrawal.
Let’s fast forward to 2021 when I thought I would try to use the account again. See how bad the restrictions on it were. I couldn’t remember. They were about 0.1 so I could get about 10% of a normal bet on. Not ideal but potentially useful albeit time consuming. Wasn’t a huge amount of activity on the account that year. In 2022 in April I thought I would use it again for something very specific. I made five deposits totalling £658 over the period of a week. There were no checks at this point. I was able to make two withdrawals totalling £690. Again no checks at this stage.
I hit gold on 21st May and had a decent winner. The account was immediately restricted. It was in essence shut. The balance was five figures. Once restricted I tried to withdraw the balance in smaller increments. I.e. not all at once. Straight away I receive an email saying that they needed to do KYC on the account. Going against the latest Gambling Commission guidelines that says that operators cannot ask for KYC on withdrawals when it could reasonably have been done at an earlier date. They could have done it 11 years before when the account was opened. They had already asked for KYC 9 years earlier and verified it. They could have done it when the account started to be used again in 2021. They could have done it when a different withdrawal was made in 2022. No they decided it needed to be done once the account was effectively closed and I was trying to withdraw the balance.
I am very conscious of all the games the operators play in terms of verifying accounts. It seems to be their aim to reject as much ID as possible. I sent the information perfectly. All corners visible, etc. Knowing they would try and say something was wrong with it. After weeks of back and forth, submitting new documentation it was finally verified. It took 7 emails to get it resolved from my side. The original ID was perfect.
This is simply the tip of the iceberg in the industry for this type of stuff. This didn’t involve any AML. It didn’t involve Source of Funds checks. This was as straight forward and simple as it could have been. It is even worse if those aspects are involved.
Why would a bookmaker do this? They would argue that they are fulfilling their regulatory requirements. GTFOH. As shown previously they all could have been done at an earlier stage. So what are the reasons for the delays? Bear in mind they will never see further bets on the account. The obvious ones are these. They earn interest on any balances in their name. It may only be a small amount but as interest rates increase these numbers become more significant. That money all adds up across a large numbers of accounts.
More significantly is that they hope the customer will say sod this. It’s just far too much hassle to send in all these forms. They will then either leave the money in the account or punt it until it becomes an amount big enough to really care about. I have had that experience on a few accounts (not necessarily opened in my name) where despite everything being verified the bookmaker would ask for more information and I couldn’t satisfy it without a whole world of hassle. You would end up punting it away in the casino because the account was restricted. The hope with these delay tactics is that the customer will continue to use other products and lose the money back to the operator. It will happen more often than you think.
The levels of intrusion that the bookmakers are now asking for is absolutely insane. For some they are asking for 90 days worth of bank statements. P60’s. They are asking people to justify transactions on those bank statements. They want to see the bank statements of friends/family. It has gotten completely out of hand. The criteria that they are asking people to fulfil is nuts. They make it so difficult that they can effectively confiscate balances when the people don’t want to, are unwilling or unable to divulge such information.
Bookmakers have hardly shown themselves to be beacons of honesty when it comes to customer data. Why would people trust them with the sort of information they are requesting? Just use those magic words Anti Money Laundering (AML) and anything goes.
It’s amazing that they don’t make you jump through these hoops when the account is still active and they want your business. Coincidence? Hmm. Come on the Gambling Commission. Sort this ridiculous state of affairs out. They have been warned and take no notice of you. All people want is a fair and safe environment to bet in. You deposit money, fulfil the KYC checks, place a few bets and if you are lucky enough to win you can withdraw YOUR money without a ludicrous amount of harassment. An absolute shitshow at the moment.
ProPunting 