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List of licensed bookies in ireland.

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popamadalin
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List of licensed bookies in ireland.

Fri Sep 30, 2016 4:04 pm

Hello, I searched on google but I haven't found anything. So I ask for help in finding a list of licensed bookies for ireland.
Thanks in advance!
luctens
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Re: List of licensed bookies in ireland.

Fri Sep 30, 2016 11:08 pm

popamadalin wrote: Hello, I searched on google but I haven't found anything. So I ask for help in finding a list of licensed bookies for ireland.
Thanks in advance!
If you go onto https://smarkets.com/licensing/ and click the link regarding their Irish licence, it will download a list of bookmakers that are licenced in Ireland for online betting, and that list is correct as of 01/09/2016.

Unless there is any moral reason or whatever that you choose to only bet with Irish licenced bookmakers, there are a lot of reputable bookmakers not licenced in Ireland but are still winging it and accepting Irish customers, so if you do some research regarding other bookmakers, then there will be many more reputable bookmakers that you can currently bet with, in addition to the ones on the Irish licence list.

There are a couple of interesting bookmakers on the Irish licence list, SBOBet and Interwetten. Both of these pulled out of the UK market when the POC tax was brought in, but even though the Irish system is pretty much the same with the same 15% tax and similar licence fees, both SBOBet and Interwetten have got Irish licences and stayed in the Irish market whilst they both pulled out of the UK market when a similar system was put into place, even though the UK market is much bigger than the Irish market.

This further puts weight to the reasons that a lot of the bookmakers including Pinnacle pulled out of the UK market a couple of years back. I've always said it wasn't about the 15% tax as that sort of rate of tax isn't especially penal whatsoever, it seems to be certain now that the reason bookmakers like Pinnacle and SBOBet pulled out of the UK market was because of the extensive background checks on the business that the UK Gambling Commission do when applying for a licence, and SBOBet and Pinnacle obviously were operating in too many grey markets etc to get a UKGC licence.

So it's obvious that the pullout from the UK market wasn't really to do with the tax, it was to do with these bookmakers not coming up to scratch to actually be granted a licence by the UK Gambling Commission. Pinnacle even said in their announcement when they left the UK market then if they were ever able to get a UK licence in the future, that they would happily accept UK bets again, but people still went on that a bookmaker would pull out of a massive gambling market like the UK just because of a tiddly 15% tax on profits, which sounded like rubbish at the time and has been proved to be rubbish now.

It is now obvious that Pinnacle have had to make several changes in the last couple of years to now be in position to be confident of getting approval for a licence from the UK Gambling Commission. I'm sure the operation of grey markets etc is what forced SBOBet to pull out of the UK market because they wouldn't be granted a UK licence, but I'm not so sure on Interwetten, because as far as I know they don't operate in many grey markets if any at all, but there must be a reason similar to that as to why they thought they wouldn't get a UKGC licence given that when a very similar system was introduced in a much smaller market like Ireland, they have paid the licence fees, paid the POC tax and stayed in the Irish market, so it must have been something to with maybe because they are operating in grey markets or maybe other reason that the UKGC wouldn't grant them a licence.

It's pretty obvious from the information available on this Irish system that they don't do hardly any of the checks on the bookmakers applying for an Irish licence compared to what the UKGC do when applying for a UK licence, so it would be much easier for bookmakers such as SBOBet and Interwetten to be granted an Irish licence with the minimal checks in comparison that the Irish would do on them. It is obvious now that the bookmakers that pulled out of the UK market would mostly all have stayed in if it was just a 15% tax and a yearly fee for access to the UK market without needing to be granted a UKGC licence, but given that they needed to be granted a UKGC licence and they obviously knew they wouldn't be granted it, these bookmakers were forced to leave the UK market.

This is further backed up by Pinnacle now in the process of applying for a UK licence, as nothing in terms of the UK POC tax or anything related to it has changed whatsoever in the last two years, if anything it has got worse with the UKGC recently proposing significantly increased licence fees for bigger operators, so Pinnacle and other bookmakers obviously didn't withdraw from the UK market because of the tax or anything, it was solely down to them not going to be granted a licence from the UKGC. Given that the UK system now if anything has got more expensive for Pinnacle compared with 2 years ago and given that even with that, they still want a UK licence, this shows that Pinnacle only pulled out of the UK market because they weren't going to get a UK licence with their current business structure. This would be the same reason for pulling out of the UK market for pretty much all other operators that pulled out of the UK market 2 years ago. Pinnacle have now made the necessary changes to their company and are confident of now getting a UKGC licence, which given the POC tax and UKGC licence fees are no different or are even worse than they were 2 years ago, it shows that Pinnacle and other bookmakers only pulled out of the UK market because they weren't going to be granted a UKGC licence, and it wasn't to do with the tax or anything.

The irony is that the UK Gambling Commission seem to be so strict in their checks when granting a licence, but once they grant a licence, they basically keep no eye whatsoever on the operations of a bookmaker. Geoff Banks said a year or two back in an interview that in the previous 3 years, the UK Gambling Commission had only contacted him once, and that wasn't to do with how his business was financially or anything, it was them asking him tickbox questions like if anybody has self excluded and all that kind of crap. It just shows that at the time a bookmaker is granted a licence from the UKGC, you can be pretty sure they are legit as the UKGC will have conducted all sorts of checks, but once a bookmaker has a licence then you have no idea if a business is on a sufficient financial footing as the UKGC aren't checking any of their operations or their financial stability on a daily, monthly or yearly basis at all after that licence is granted. So it is very clear that a bookmaker only has to be squeaky clean at the time of being granted a UKGC licence, but after that it's every man for himself as there is no way of a customer checking through the UKGC's syatem of operations as to if a bookmaker is in a good state on an ongoing basis as UKGC obviously don't give a toss what the bookmakers are doing as long as they are getting the licence fees and the tax, and it's clear that when a bookmaker does scam customers out of money or goes bankrupt, the UKGC don't give a toss, don't change anything in the way they operate and they just move on to the next car crash of a company that they're going to licence. It's laughable that even with the numerous scams and bankrupts that the UKGC have licenced in the last few years, even after all of that, the UKGC has not changed any of their operations and not changed anything in the way they keep an eye on bookmakers whatsoever.

It is pretty obvious that the complete lack of any oversight by the UKGC of a bookmaker's operations and financial stability has significantly contributed towards the scams and bankrupt companies that have cost players millions over the last few years, as if the UKGC were making regular stringent checks on these companies, then they would have been able to step in way earlier to protect customers' funds and prevent a significant amount of money getting scammed out of customers. When I started looking into the gambling industry a few years back, I assumed that a regulator like the UKGC would at the very least be doing stringent monthly checks on all important aspects of all of their licencees, after all that's just common sense on what anybody would expect a "regulator" to do, but no, they do absolutely nothing after you have been granted a licence to check that a bookmaker is operating in the correct way and that they have sufficient funds to do business. So the one thing that any punter would expect as a bare minimum from the UKGC, which is to do everything to protect customers' funds, they do absolutely none of that, which is utterly despicable behaviour from these pen pushing wastes of space.

So we have a regulator in the UKGC that are such tickbox merchants that they refuse to grant licences to the likes of goliaths of the gambling world Pinnacle and SBOBet, for flimsy reasons like if they operate in a few grey markets etc whilst not taking into account that these are bookmakers keep customers' funds as secure as many bookmakers in the world, but on the other hand they are more than happy to licence the likes of 666Bet, Bodugi, Canbet, BetButler, Smart Live Sports, Win Cash Live and many other scams and bankrupts that have gone out of business recently.

It shows how utterly useless this "regulator" is, in that they will refuse licences to some of the most secure bookmakers that there have ever been like Pinnacle and SBOBet, whilst at the same time giving licences to the some of the biggest scams and amateurs that have ever set foot in the gambling world.
Last edited by luctens on Fri Sep 30, 2016 11:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
popamadalin
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Re: List of licensed bookies in ireland.

Sun Oct 02, 2016 1:39 pm

luctens wrote:
popamadalin wrote: Hello, I searched on google but I haven't found anything. So I ask for help in finding a list of licensed bookies for ireland.
Thanks in advance!
If you go onto https://smarkets.com/licensing/ and click the link regarding their Irish licence, it will download a list of bookmakers that are licenced in Ireland for online betting, and that list is correct as of 01/09/2016.

Unless there is any moral reason or whatever that you choose to only bet with Irish licenced bookmakers, there are a lot of reputable bookmakers not licenced in Ireland but are still winging it and accepting Irish customers, so if you do some research regarding other bookmakers, then there will be many more reputable bookmakers that you can currently bet with, in addition to the ones on the Irish licence list.

There are a couple of interesting bookmakers on the Irish licence list, SBOBet and Interwetten. Both of these pulled out of the UK market when the POC tax was brought in, but even though the Irish system is pretty much the same with the same 15% tax and similar licence fees, both SBOBet and Interwetten have got Irish licences and stayed in the Irish market whilst they both pulled out of the UK market when a similar system was put into place, even though the UK market is much bigger than the Irish market.

This further puts weight to the reasons that a lot of the bookmakers including Pinnacle pulled out of the UK market a couple of years back. I've always said it wasn't about the 15% tax as that sort of rate of tax isn't especially penal whatsoever, it seems to be certain now that the reason bookmakers like Pinnacle and SBOBet pulled out of the UK market was because of the extensive background checks on the business that the UK Gambling Commission do when applying for a licence, and SBOBet and Pinnacle obviously were operating in too many grey markets etc to get a UKGC licence.

So it's obvious that the pullout from the UK market wasn't really to do with the tax, it was to do with these bookmakers not coming up to scratch to actually be granted a licence by the UK Gambling Commission. Pinnacle even said in their announcement when they left the UK market then if they were ever able to get a UK licence in the future, that they would happily accept UK bets again, but people still went on that a bookmaker would pull out of a massive gambling market like the UK just because of a tiddly 15% tax on profits, which sounded like rubbish at the time and has been proved to be rubbish now.

It is now obvious that Pinnacle have had to make several changes in the last couple of years to now be in position to be confident of getting approval for a licence from the UK Gambling Commission. I'm sure the operation of grey markets etc is what forced SBOBet to pull out of the UK market because they wouldn't be granted a UK licence, but I'm not so sure on Interwetten, because as far as I know they don't operate in many grey markets if any at all, but there must be a reason similar to that as to why they thought they wouldn't get a UKGC licence given that when a very similar system was introduced in a much smaller market like Ireland, they have paid the licence fees, paid the POC tax and stayed in the Irish market, so it must have been something to with maybe because they are operating in grey markets or maybe other reason that the UKGC wouldn't grant them a licence.

It's pretty obvious from the information available on this Irish system that they don't do hardly any of the checks on the bookmakers applying for an Irish licence compared to what the UKGC do when applying for a UK licence, so it would be much easier for bookmakers such as SBOBet and Interwetten to be granted an Irish licence with the minimal checks in comparison that the Irish would do on them. It is obvious now that the bookmakers that pulled out of the UK market would mostly all have stayed in if it was just a 15% tax and a yearly fee for access to the UK market without needing to be granted a UKGC licence, but given that they needed to be granted a UKGC licence and they obviously knew they wouldn't be granted it, these bookmakers were forced to leave the UK market.

This is further backed up by Pinnacle now in the process of applying for a UK licence, as nothing in terms of the UK POC tax or anything related to it has changed whatsoever in the last two years, if anything it has got worse with the UKGC recently proposing significantly increased licence fees for bigger operators, so Pinnacle and other bookmakers obviously didn't withdraw from the UK market because of the tax or anything, it was solely down to them not going to be granted a licence from the UKGC. Given that the UK system now if anything has got more expensive for Pinnacle compared with 2 years ago and given that even with that, they still want a UK licence, this shows that Pinnacle only pulled out of the UK market because they weren't going to get a UK licence with their current business structure. This would be the same reason for pulling out of the UK market for pretty much all other operators that pulled out of the UK market 2 years ago. Pinnacle have now made the necessary changes to their company and are confident of now getting a UKGC licence, which given the POC tax and UKGC licence fees are no different or are even worse than they were 2 years ago, it shows that Pinnacle and other bookmakers only pulled out of the UK market because they weren't going to be granted a UKGC licence, and it wasn't to do with the tax or anything.

The irony is that the UK Gambling Commission seem to be so strict in their checks when granting a licence, but once they grant a licence, they basically keep no eye whatsoever on the operations of a bookmaker. Geoff Banks said a year or two back in an interview that in the previous 3 years, the UK Gambling Commission had only contacted him once, and that wasn't to do with how his business was financially or anything, it was them asking him tickbox questions like if anybody has self excluded and all that kind of crap. It just shows that at the time a bookmaker is granted a licence from the UKGC, you can be pretty sure they are legit as the UKGC will have conducted all sorts of checks, but once a bookmaker has a licence then you have no idea if a business is on a sufficient financial footing as the UKGC aren't checking any of their operations or their financial stability on a daily, monthly or yearly basis at all after that licence is granted. So it is very clear that a bookmaker only has to be squeaky clean at the time of being granted a UKGC licence, but after that it's every man for himself as there is no way of a customer checking through the UKGC's syatem of operations as to if a bookmaker is in a good state on an ongoing basis as UKGC obviously don't give a toss what the bookmakers are doing as long as they are getting the licence fees and the tax, and it's clear that when a bookmaker does scam customers out of money or goes bankrupt, the UKGC don't give a toss, don't change anything in the way they operate and they just move on to the next car crash of a company that they're going to licence. It's laughable that even with the numerous scams and bankrupts that the UKGC have licenced in the last few years, even after all of that, the UKGC has not changed any of their operations and not changed anything in the way they keep an eye on bookmakers whatsoever.

It is pretty obvious that the complete lack of any oversight by the UKGC of a bookmaker's operations and financial stability has significantly contributed towards the scams and bankrupt companies that have cost players millions over the last few years, as if the UKGC were making regular stringent checks on these companies, then they would have been able to step in way earlier to protect customers' funds and prevent a significant amount of money getting scammed out of customers. When I started looking into the gambling industry a few years back, I assumed that a regulator like the UKGC would at the very least be doing stringent monthly checks on all important aspects of all of their licencees, after all that's just common sense on what anybody would expect a "regulator" to do, but no, they do absolutely nothing after you have been granted a licence to check that a bookmaker is operating in the correct way and that they have sufficient funds to do business. So the one thing that any punter would expect as a bare minimum from the UKGC, which is to do everything to protect customers' funds, they do absolutely none of that, which is utterly despicable behaviour from these pen pushing wastes of space.

So we have a regulator in the UKGC that are such tickbox merchants that they refuse to grant licences to the likes of goliaths of the gambling world Pinnacle and SBOBet, for flimsy reasons like if they operate in a few grey markets etc whilst not taking into account that these are bookmakers keep customers' funds as secure as many bookmakers in the world, but on the other hand they are more than happy to licence the likes of 666Bet, Bodugi, Canbet, BetButler, Smart Live Sports, Win Cash Live and many other scams and bankrupts that have gone out of business recently.

It shows how utterly useless this "regulator" is, in that they will refuse licences to some of the most secure bookmakers that there have ever been like Pinnacle and SBOBet, whilst at the same time giving licences to the some of the biggest scams and amateurs that have ever set foot in the gambling world.
Thank you for the link from smarkets and of course you're right about the scams and amateurs linceses.

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