So it became apparent last week that Single Customer View would be launched on a trial basis amongst the biggest betting companies (Flutter, Entain, Will Hill, Bet365). So what will Single Customer View do? How will it affect you?
In essence it will enable bookmakers to share information between themselves in a bid to stop problem gamblers moving from one site to another. i.e. if you are a problem gambler with one site they will share that with the other ones and you wont be able to use them. On the face of it this isn’t a huge deal as it will only impact those who are at risk from problem gambling. In theory. However, it opens up so many other questions. Before we talk about bookmakers and data let’s first look at the idea in principle.
There has been a desire from all parties to stop punters going to unregulated black market sites. How does the Single Customer View square with that? It doesn’t in the slightest. If people want a bet they will simply go to lesser operators or the “Black Market”. Let’s imagine eventually that ten operators sign up for this or even twenty/thirty. There will always be other operators who aren’t part of this where people can place bets. It is only as useful as the weakest link as such. Forcing these players to these other operators carries other risks. I am truly struggling to see what problem this solution actually resolves. Honestly, it feels like one of the most pointless, poorly conceived ideas I have ever heard of. Retrospective action when problem gambling is involved is almost always pointless. The damage has already been done.
What is becoming increasingly apparent is that there are so many hidden/less than transparent motives for these sorts of schemes. Let’s look at it from the bookmaker perspective. They don’t really care as they will already have rinsed the problem gambler for what they can. If their rivals cant profit from it then I don’t see why they would be that bothered. Far more beneficial to the bookmaking community is the ability to share data between operators under the guise of the Single Customer View.
I have talked about this before but what do you think is the worst behaviour the bookmakers have demonstrated in the last 20 years? Is it account restrictions? Is it poor attitudes to problem gambling? Is it KYC/Withdrawal issues? Affordability checks? None of those specifically. Think of it as a collective. It is the misuse and abuse of customers data by the bookmakers. It has helped play a part in all the other issues that we see. The bottom line though is that bookmakers have abused customer data horrendously over the years.
The data the bookmakers already have enables them to restrict or close accounts/adjust stake factors. They have had the data to hugely cut down on problem gambling for years. They chose profit over that and are now suffering the consequences. The data was there though. They have the data that should render KYC/withdrawals a non issue. They don’t because it suits them to make life a nightmare for winning customers. They already have all the tools/metrics with regard to affordability checks and what that is trying to achieve (think PS-EDS). They have all the data they could ever want/need and more and have proven time and time again they cannot be trusted with it or to do the right thing. So let’s give them even more power to abuse the increasing amount of data they will be collecting. Honestly, do you trust the bookmakers to do the right thing and not share data in a way that benefits them at the expense of the customer? How on earth the Gambling Commission thinks that this is appropriate is beyond me.
There will no doubt be people caught up in the middle of this who shouldn’t be. Good luck resolving that if you are a customer. I can just imagine how vindictive the operators could be in certain situations. I just don’t know where it ends. I noticed the other day when looking at inactivity fees, a clause included in there now, about allowing soft credit checks to happen. It has got completely and utterly out of control. They have extended their reach so far beyond what is reasonable. And it is going to get worse.
The problem as always is that racing and those within the sport will spend all their time moaning and complaining about the new whip rule or some other in vogue topic. Do I ever see them complain about the abuse of data by bookmakers? Obviously not. All the big social media accounts will no doubt wake up to this when it suits their agenda. Will obviously be far too late as usual. Once these schemes are introduced and are standard practice there is no going back on them. They will become the ‘norm’.
It was also interesting to note with SCV that there was hardly any fanfare about it in the media. People only became aware of it because some had noticed it in the T&Cs. Any mention by the Gambling Commission? Racing Post? Big bookmakers? Nothing that I saw. It’s very conceivable I missed their transparency on the issue. Maybe there just wasn’t any. Maybe it was pretty sneaky and underhand. I think its pretty safe to say that punters are again being treated very shabbily to put mildly. The Racing Post only publishes stories that benefits their paymasters. Article after article. Not their customer/punter. The big social media accounts only make comment when it suits them/their agenda. That’s fine but start seeing them for what they are.
ProPunting 