So after the tweet about Winners (169) there was a response that really got me thinking and irked me somewhat. It really highlights what an uphill battle we face to try and making gambling a fairer activity for the customer.
The tweet was as follows; ‘At any point in time about 20-25% of your actives will be lifetime winners. Off this 25% 95% will never face a restriction’. This was posted by someone who is very well established in the betting industry at a high level. I knew that there was a very high chance that the data was factually correct. I had two pieces of data in my mind at the time. That Betfair had once said less than 3% of customers were winners and that Richard Flint has said Skybet restricted about 3% of accounts.
It was then a case of trying to ascertain where the differences lay between the data. What became clear very quickly is that the original statement was correct but also incredibly misleading in my opinion. It implies that there are in fact lots of winners in this game. And that they very rarely get restricted. What transpired was that the 20-25% includes all players who may have only placed a handful of bets. So it includes a huge number of accounts that in are their formative stages where luck and variance will play a huge part. It is where the use of the word ‘lifetime’ is quite sneaky but clever and factually correct. It implies something more long term when in fact that isnt the case. What you really need to see is the data for customers who have placed 50/100/500 bets. The more bets they have placed the less likely variance and luck will play a role. You will get a much better idea as to whether someone is actually a winning customer.
With regard to the restrictions it was decided the number was closer to 90% and that was only winners. When you factor in the number of losers who are restricted for bonus abusing, arbing etc the number ends up at least at Richard Flints number of 3%. Again it is phrased in a way that it makes it sound as if the number is tiny. The following was then an interesting admission. You can’t win is just not true. “If you show a capacity to beat us using methods we know means we can’t win you will be restricted” is true. What they are saying is that you can win if we believe that we will get that money back. Otherwise win and you will be restricted.
I did a tweet on Narratives (129) where I made a case for Nottingham Forest to be a good bet to win the Premier League when they were bottom at the time. It was all about data manipulation, cherry picking of stats and essentially using data to tell the story that you want to portray. My worry is that the bookmakers are able to manipulate data and create narratives that really don’t tell the whole story. I can imagine the above data being presented to a regulator and them simply saying there are clearly no issues. It is only when you actually ask the right questions that you find out the situation isnt as being portrayed. Whilst factually correct the narrative being told is incredibly one sided and biased.
It reminded me of a situation a few years ago. Regulators asked bookmakers how many accounts had been closed because punters were winning too much. The number was very low. What the regulator hadn’t realised was that bookmakers were just heavily restricting accounts rather than closing them. They were asking the wrong question.
One of the problems we have as a normal punter is we don’t have access to the reams of data that the bookmakers have. We are solely reliant on them for any data that does come out. Obviously they are not going to share highly sensitive data readily.
One point that should be made is that 3% (conservative) of a huge number is still a very large number of people affected by restrictions. Flutter had 7.1m customers in 2022. That would be more than 200k people affected by restrictions. This isnt just a small issue as those in the industry want to portray. The problem is we simply don’t know how big it is as we never get the information we want. I just wish I had more faith in the regulators to be able to ask the right questions. I don’t.
ProPunting 