Bet365 deecreased my betting imit

[Kate - bet365]

Hi kaszino,

At bet365, as with all sportsbooks, we retain the right to decline all or part of any bet requested, and to close or suspend a customer’s account. As I am sure you can appreciate, when accepting a requested wager, our trading team have to consider several things, including among others:
• What they predict the outcome of the market may be
• Their existing book (profit/loss given the different outcomes) on the event
• The customer’s previous betting activity and history

In certain circumstances and on certain customer’s accounts, the trading managers will take the decision to refuse a requested bet, offer to accept a lower stake or take the bet at a shorter price, or accept the wager and then lower a customer’s maximum bet limits on all or selected future markets.

We are all aware that there are many knowledgeable punters who will win overall over the bookmakers, or at least make a serious dent in the margin on some markets. As this is a business, our traders have to act in the best interests of the company, and unfortunately on occasion this will be to the disappointment of a small number of customers who cannot back their chosen selection to the stake they requested.

Unfortunately for punters, bookmakers will decide that there is some business they would prefer not to lay, and we retain the right not to accept this business. This is not in any way a discrimination personally against the customer, but it is a business decision taken by the traders following a review of the typical activity of the punter and their betting history, given for example the type and frequency of bets, markets bet on, average stake, as well as profit/loss.

Kaszino, while I appreciate your frustration at your max bet limits being decreased, this is not an act of personalised discrimination against you. Certain business will be refused to enable the traders to maintain the value in the market for other customers who in the long run may be more profitable to the business, rather than having to bet to an extremely high % which may put others off. It is extremely rare for these trading decisions to be reversed.

Bet365 is licensed in the UK, and as such we are regulated by the Gambling Commission, as outlined in the 2005 Gambling Act. For any disputes, we are also registered with IBAS (Independent Betting Arbitration Service), details of which are listed on the bet365 website or can be found here: http://www.ibas-uk.com/.

I hope this helps to shed some light on the situation. Thank you to everyone for your contribution to this thread as it is very interesting to hear the differing opinions on this, and to ugaboga for bringing the thread to my attention.

Cheers,
Kate

[desertdog]

Bet365 cut my limits before they banned US players. They are a class act and paid me promptly and I do believe than any sportsbook has a right to limit a players wagers. I wish more sportsbooks had been doing this rather than running up huge debts and then subsequently defaulting.

[sonneti2]

$4000 bet.. hmm must have been one tasty arb

[dealer wins]

Originally Posted by Kate - bet365

We are all aware that there are many knowledgeable punters who will win overall over the bookmakers, or at least make a serious dent in the margin on some markets.

I find this very interesting. I bet a lot and so do a lot of my mates, some of whom think they are real experts in horses, football etc. But overall we are all down a lot over the years!!

I thought bookies set their prices to build in a 10% or so margin on every bet, and if they get a lot of betting on a particular horse/team they shorten the odds.

Since betting online I frequently find prices on betfair to be much more competitive than the bookies so if bookies are taking bets off punters at worse odds than they could get on betfair, how can they not make a profit?

I think it is unfair to restrict any customer personally. If you are going to advertise odds then everyone should have the same right to take the odds offered until they are changed for everyone. Otherwise it borders on discrimination and false advertising IMO. If the bookie thinks the odds are too high and will not generate a profit then lower them.

I use online bookies and betfred seems to only let me bet £10 on football. This was a result (I think) on having a winning run of bets on football recently. But I would have thought that all the people who bet on the other side of the bet lost and that would cover the book?? Just because I hit the winners they seem to stop me betting. Strange way to run a business, no wonder betfair is thriving.

[Eagle]

Originally Posted by Kate - bet365

Hi kaszino,

At bet365, as with all sportsbooks, we retain the right to decline all or part of any bet requested, and to close or suspend a customer’s account. As I am sure you can appreciate, when accepting a requested wager, our trading team have to consider several things, including among others:
• What they predict the outcome of the market may be
• Their existing book (profit/loss given the different outcomes) on the event
• The customer’s previous betting activity and history

In certain circumstances and on certain customer’s accounts, the trading managers will take the decision to refuse a requested bet, offer to accept a lower stake or take the bet at a shorter price, or accept the wager and then lower a customer’s maximum bet limits on all or selected future markets.

Hi, Kate,

This is very interesting to me. I was thinking of joining bet365 and doing some sportsbook betting there. It seems, on the first glance, that your quotes are okay.

But, I ran into "my bets are being limited" complaint on online forums a couple of times, enough to get me thinking. Examples are as drastic as getting limited to 5 eur per bet (!) on such matches as Champions' League soccer.

For instance, I ran into a guy who was wagering with bet365 for a couple of years, and connected two, as he called them, "stronger" winning singles. Upon my query as to what does he mean by stronger, is that 5000 eur perhaps, he said - no - those were two 50 eur singles. And he was still, overall, losing to bet365.
Yet after those two he got limited to 1 eur per bet (!).

Signing up for your 15% bonus means I'd have to deposit something like 3000 euros. Also, you have some playthrough requirement before I can withdraw for the first time. I'd have to first wager it all three or four times. The exact numbers aren't as important as the other of magnitude.

So, what it adds up to, and what I was thinking about, is this - after depositing and having 3500-4000 eur on the account, I am left with a 12000 eur playthrough.
After placing a couple of 100 or 200 or 300 eur bets, and hopefully getting them right - I get limited to 5, or 10, eur per bet.
So that leaves me with what..... a thousand more bets before I can finally withdraw?

I was wondering if you could shed some light to that picture cause it seems pretty grim.


Eagle

[GaryWatson]

Eagle, forget about the bonuses when you are betting on sportsbooks. The soccer odds vary from site to site. If you are selecting particular teams every week, you will do better switching from site to site, determined by the odds.

From a bonus point of view, most sites have the condition of betting a double or something and the free money is not counted in the payment. No playthrough required.

Point is, by ignoring the bonus and just going with sites that have the best odds on the day will earn you more that the bonus you would get from one site.

[Eagle]

Originally Posted by GaryWatson

Eagle, forget about the bonuses when you are betting on sportsbooks. The soccer odds vary from site to site. If you are selecting particular teams every week, you will do better switching from site to site, determined by the odds.

From a bonus point of view, most sites have the condition of betting a double or something and the free money is not counted in the payment. No playthrough required.

Point is, by ignoring the bonus and just going with sites that have the best odds on the day will earn you more that the bonus you would get from one site.

Gary, yes, I do get that.

Bet365 does have some playthrough requirement though and this is "cashable". (Something like 3 times the deposit plus the bonus I think; it's a drag to check out the Terms when you are signing up so I'm not doing it now when I still don't really have a reason to believe I'll be signing up )

Also, Bet365 is high up there with their margin so they do offer good prices. So since I'm betting 100 euros or 200 euros a piece anyway, and it is of little difference to me wether I'll deposit 1000 or 3000 euros right away, then it should do no harm to pick up the bonus along the way.

Yet, the stories of bet limits are scary.
I do agree with the description how it's very similar a store manager telling you you can only buy two kilos of bread and no more at a particular price. While others can take dozens of loafs. What's the difference to him?

In my opinion, a better solution is to handle it per-bet, and not per-user. This leaves a STRONG impression they'll simply - screw you over should you get ahead and win. Even the description makes it sound as such. "A good punter may get ahead so we'll limit him to 2 eur per bet". Wow, where do I register for that.

It's better, and more sensible, to limit the bets for all users there for a certain bet (in case the margin wouldn't yield a profit or get close enough to it), then, or move the lines of a certain bet lower/higher.
To the bookie, it doesn't matter who places the wager, only the amounts and the pick (and wether it nets them the profit) matter anyway.


Eagle

[dealer wins]

Thinking about this more, I think that the likely scenario is that Bet365 are incompetent in pricing their odds correctly. Say on a horse race where the odds can fly all over the place 5 mins before the off, if Bet365 cannot keep up with the rapid movements they are going to get hit with some big bets as they will be showing the best odds on all the oddscheckers.

Either that or they are a 2 bit operation that only want small mug punters and cant handle normal punters (Who lose but could have a nice win every now and then)

From my basic searches on the net it seems that there are a lot of people limited to £1 a bet at Bet365, its even nicknamed Bet£3.65 LOL

In these www days they will seriously be damaging their reputation by doing this and will lose market share over time.

[Kate - bet365]

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone for their input here. The issue of limiting bets or accounts is a long-running one in the gambling industry and one unlikely to be resolved anytime soon!

Markets are priced up in a way that gives the bookies a certain percentage margin, which can very widely depending on the sport/event, number of outcomes, etc. Prices can be shortened or lengthened while the book is open, but if there is little or no money on one side or another, this can leave the market looking very unfavourable to the traders involved. This is something that has to be considered during trading.

Since the rise of betting exchanges and odds comparison sites, along with more professional gamblers conducting their bettin online, trading teams have to have much greater awareness of potentioal arbs. 'Arb'ing can bring about very low margins for bookmakers and it is business many traders seek to avoid. If a customer is a known arber, it is likely they will find their betting limits reduced.

Bookmaking is a very different arena to a corner shop selling loaves of bread, where the shopkeeper can very closely forecast their profit margin on an item. There is likely to be no difference to the shop's profits if customer A buys the loaf or customer B. Betting is different. It has to be run as a business with different priorities to a general retail outlet.

There will always be business that our trading team does not wish to lay. The right to refuse the bet - either at the price or level requested, or in its entirety - is retained in our terms and conditions, as it is with all bookmakers. Customers' accounts are more likely to be evaluated on the nature of their betting than overall P/L. Our traders will restrict on accounts where they believe the customer is not likely to prove profitable in the long term for the business. This issue is not so much about profit in individual markets - there will always be the bad day for the bookies - but more about the long-term attractiveness of an individual customer.

Bet365 has continued to increase its market share dramatically since it opened its online doors in 2001, growing to become the UK's 32nd largest private company with over 700 employees.

If we had a trading team who could not handle large volume and fast moving markets profitably, this would not be the case. If a large proportion of our customers were not happy with our service, this would not be the case. If we only accepted small bets from small-time punters, this would not be the case. Bet365's restriction policy is only criticised by those whose business is restricted or refused - and there is a reason why that happens.

Bet365's reputation has been built on providing the widest range of markets, especially in-running and on less popular sports, and the highest levels of customer service. The ever increasing number of bettors who choose bet365 is testament to how well we provide this to our customers.

Cheers,
Kate

[Eagle]

Hi Kate,

Thanks for your reply. It has shed some light on the situation.

I must say I still am not fully convinced - seeing how you say you'll limit users who don't seem profitable for you.
It is the nature of the bookie's business (and I do know it's not easy) to make any user who's willing to wager their money profitable for them. Either through his losses, or through the losses of the bettors who picked the opposite outcome. Any bet makes it possible to offer a better price or a bigger bet to the other side.

Also, the same goes with laying a pick. Profiting as a bookie is different than when you're selling any other good, that is true - but the nature of refusing to sell it to me as a customer seems still pretty much the same.
Same cash, same pick, doesn't matter where it comes from. That same bet is in any case used as a way to expand the particular market (and adapt to the terms).

But regardless, thanks for your thoughts.


Eagle