Arbusers

Alfa1234 wrote: Luctens,

Do you have any statistics or true data at all about this or is it just guesswork?  I agree with your basic thinking but it's based on estimates which could be way, way off.  Who says bookies have not made the same calculations you had, based on actual data and have come to a completely different conclusion, explaining their current behaviour?

I'm talking about these things in particular:
1 in 100 is a smart punter.
10% accounts closed by agressive algorythm...6% by less agressive algorythm.

What if your stats are way, way off and bookies are helping their bottom line by doing this?  What about my guestimate that 1 smart player, betting 5k value bets or arbing could take away the profit of 200 low amount bet recreational customers?

As I've said previously the figures I'm stating are my estimations. The 1 in 100 smart punter is around about what most people estimate how many are making money from the bookies, however even that I think is quite high and I think it could be quite a bit less than 1%. And regarding the restrictions, again my estimations, but I feel they are around about right.

I really don't think any bookmaker has done any proper research into whether these algorithms and restrictions are making or losing them money. I think they have taken the extremely lazy and way too simplistic approach of saying that surely if they ban all of the profitable customers then they will make more money, and therefore they got some tech guys to come up with some algorithms and just assumed that these algorithms would be pretty much spot on accurate at only banning the smart guys and leaving everybody else to bet unrestricted. And if somebody could come up with an algorithm that just identified and banned the smart bettors and left the rest to continue on unhindered, then of course this would make the bookmaker more money as they are eliminating the winning customers and keeping the losing customers, but that's just nowhere near realistic to expect an algorithm to do, and as a result these algorithms are banning a way too disproportionate amount of mug punters.

About your questioning of my estimations and your estimations as well, you only have to look at the profits of the bookmakers that don't restrict as much and look at the non-restriction policies that are in place with bookmakers at the moment, no negatives and everybody is saying it's going well, that's the ultimate test is how is it going in practice and by all accounts all of these current arrangements have been a net positive for all involved.

luctens wrote: however it is very clear from the bookmakers' profit reports that the bookmakers with the less aggressive algorithms banning less customers are making much more money than the bookmakers that aggressively restrict, so that throws your point right out the window. I go back to my point about the soft bookmakers betting everybody already, the Australian bookmakers, Coral and Black Type Bet have all said that betting everybody with their various arrangements is working very well for them. So the evidence is that the less aggressive the bookmakers are with restrictions the more money they make, and the bookmakers that are betting everybody in their various arrangements are reporting doing very well with their strategies, again throwing your point right out the window.

nothing is "very clear" from the bookmaker profit reports, unless you link something that backs up your speculation: hard numbers, annual results.  And really, If unlimiting players works so well for Coral (like you say), why don't they unlimit players around the world?  BlackType has been around for what, a few months. You really think they are going to tell you if business is bad? You'll know business was bad if they sharpen up, start limiting or go out of business, not by what they tell you.

luctens wrote: I really don't think any bookmaker has done any proper research into whether these algorithms and restrictions are making or losing them money. I think they have taken the extremely lazy and way too simplistic approach of saying that surely if they ban all of the profitable customers then they will make more money,

based on what do you think books are "too lazy"?  again, all speculation. personally, i think it's nonsensical to assume a gambling company with a worth of many billions of dollars limits players without any sort of data-analysis.  you know, when i started arbing in 2004, very little limiting.  Now, apart from the sharps, everybody limits. Every book that didn't limit either went out of business, or started limiting to prevent going out of business. The books that did limit make a multitude of the profits they made back then, it's not even funny. Sportsbetting went from a few guys offering odds to large betting giants.  And they're too lazy to see if limiting works,  yeah right.

luctens wrote: you only have to look at the profits of the bookmakers that don't restrict as much

then show me those profits!!  and don't just tell me:  they said they like it.  It doesn't mean anything.

You seem to totally miss the point about a book having to have sharp odds. You need to be a sharp, or you need to limit, there's no other way around it. Give me an unrestricted Betfred account, an unrestricted Bwin account, an unrestriced Stan James account, an unrestricted Victor Chandler account, you name it. and I'll rape them so bad it isn't even funny. I'll make millions and millions and millions week after week after week.  Their odds are a mess, they have arbs everywhere. But they don't care as they know they'll take you out before you hurt them. That's the business model. Either they make their odds sharp (they won't, they have a different business model), or they limit, or they go bankrupt. Suggesting otherwise is just completely and utterly ridiculous.

btw, you know there have been several new start-up books over the years that also said:  everybody welcome, we don't limit. you know where they are now?  gone, all of them, taking our funds with them. you can guess why that is.

Valuable info for those who want to keep their accounts alive longer. Source: Secret Betting Club.

I keep seeing the quote  "one in 100 smart bettors"  In the UK I would say its nearer 1 in 10 or even 1 in 5 these days, what with all these clone arbing/Matched betting sites opening up.  And many of these people will be opening up accounts for their family and friends.  ( I wouldnt say they were smart bettors because of their maths ability or intelligence, but they are spoonfed to take only value odds so to a bookie they seem smart)

vinciguerra wrote:

luctens wrote: however it is very clear from the bookmakers' profit reports that the bookmakers with the less aggressive algorithms banning less customers are making much more money than the bookmakers that aggressively restrict, so that throws your point right out the window. I go back to my point about the soft bookmakers betting everybody already, the Australian bookmakers, Coral and Black Type Bet have all said that betting everybody with their various arrangements is working very well for them. So the evidence is that the less aggressive the bookmakers are with restrictions the more money they make, and the bookmakers that are betting everybody in their various arrangements are reporting doing very well with their strategies, again throwing your point right out the window.

nothing is "very clear" from the bookmaker profit reports, unless you link something that backs up your speculation: hard numbers, annual results.  And really, If unlimiting players works so well for Coral (like you say), why don't they unlimit players around the world?  BlackType has been around for what, a few months. You really think they are going to tell you if business is bad? You'll know business was bad if they sharpen up, start limiting or go out of business, not by what they tell you.

luctens wrote: I really don't think any bookmaker has done any proper research into whether these algorithms and restrictions are making or losing them money. I think they have taken the extremely lazy and way too simplistic approach of saying that surely if they ban all of the profitable customers then they will make more money,

based on what do you think books are "too lazy"?  again, all speculation. personally, i think it's nonsensical to assume a gambling company with a worth of many billions of dollars limits players without any sort of data-analysis.  you know, when i started arbing in 2004, very little limiting.  Now, apart from the sharps, everybody limits. Every book that didn't limit either went out of business, or started limiting to prevent going out of business. The books that did limit make a multitude of the profits they made back then, it's not even funny. Sportsbetting went from a few guys offering odds to large betting giants.  And they're too lazy to see if limiting works,  yeah right.

luctens wrote: you only have to look at the profits of the bookmakers that don't restrict as much

then show me those profits!!  and don't just tell me:  they said they like it.  It doesn't mean anything.

You seem to totally miss the point about a book having to have sharp odds. You need to be a sharp, or you need to limit, there's no other way around it. Give me an unrestricted Betfred account, an unrestricted Bwin account, an unrestriced Stan James account, an unrestricted Victor Chandler account, you name it. and I'll rape them so bad it isn't even funny. I'll make millions and millions and millions week after week after week.  Their odds are a mess, they have arbs everywhere. But they don't care as they know they'll take you out before you hurt them. That's the business model. Either they make their odds sharp (they won't, they have a different business model), or they limit, or they go bankrupt. Suggesting otherwise is just completely and utterly ridiculous.

btw, you know there have been several new start-up books over the years that also said:  everybody welcome, we don't limit. you know where they are now?  gone, all of them, taking our funds with them. you can guess why that is.

I'll give you one bookmaker, Bet365 made around £450m pre-tax profit last year and are known to be generally one of the least stringent on restrictions out of the soft bookmakers, I'll let you do some research of your own on the other bookmakers for you to find out the rest of the figures.

Coral have slowly developed their minimum bet guarantees over the last couple of years to include more and more horse races and now to include all horse races, and the next logical step in that evolution is to take their minimum bet guarantees online and to extend them to all sports, so we will see if they do so.

Regarding Black Type, they have only been around a few months but you can only judge them based on the time they've been in business and I haven't heard a bad word about them and they haven't broken any of their promises at this stage and not started limiting customers, we will see in the long term but they obviously haven't so far seen any problems in their business model.

The bookmakers have obviously been extremely lazy just thinking that they can simply ban all winning customers, create an algorithm that will do that perfectly and that will have a positive effect on the business, when creating an algorithm to only single out about 1 in 100 customers without affecting a significantly large proportion of the rest of the customers just obviously isn't realistic whatsoever.

And all this rubbish that bookmakers are limiting customers "to stop going out of business". That's utter crap. At the very most, arbers, traders and the like are at about 1 out of 100 of all bettors. If all bookmakers bet all of these sorts of customers, they wouldn't "go out of business", far from it. What you have got to understand is that the vast majority of arbers won't just give up when restricted, they will find friends to bet with etc, so every single bet of any arber is finding their way to that bookmaker, just not always in the name of the person that is making that bet, but all of the bets that an arber wants to make is taken by that bookmaker, but they aren't going out of business as a result of taking those arb bets, so that throws your point out the window about these bookmakers restricting customers to "stay in business" as otherwise they would "go out of business". What a load of nonsense.

The bookmakers aren't doing this to avoid "going out of business", they are doing this out of pure greed and nothing else whatsoever, it's as simple as that. Australian bookmakers have to bet everybody on certain horse racing for over 2 years and seen their profits increase, and the campaigners are confident there will be minimum bet laws that will be spread across all sports within another couple of years. If that happens, do you think the bookmakers are going to shut up shop and leave Australia because betting everybody will "put them out of business"? No chance. All that is, is PR puff peddled by the PR boys of the major firms saying they'll go bankrupt if they don't close down these smart customers, it's simply complete PR crap. If you keep peddling that load of crap that the bookmakers would love everybody to believe that if they bet everybody they'd go bankrupt, then you've stooped to their level believing all the drivel they serve up to you.

dealer wins wrote: I keep seeing the quote  "one in 100 smart bettors"  In the UK I would say its nearer 1 in 10 or even 1 in 5 these days, what with all these clone arbing/Matched betting sites opening up.  And many of these people will be opening up accounts for their family and friends.  ( I wouldnt say they were smart bettors because of their maths ability or intelligence, but they are spoonfed to take only value odds so to a bookie they seem smart)

It most certainly is nowhere near "1 in 10" or "1 in 5" bettors only taking value odds in the UK. Even the most popular of those sorts of sites has around 20k members and I would guess only 10-15k active members, so if you even put that figure up to 50k nationwide that were only betting value odds, and given that conservatively around 5m UK people bet actively sports, even those generous figures only bring that amount to 1 in 100 value bettors in the UK, it's most definitely nowhere near 1 in 10 or 1 in 5.

luctens wrote: I'll give you one bookmaker, Bet365 made around £450m pre-tax profit last year and are known to be generally one of the least stringent on restrictions out of the soft bookmakers, I'll let you do some research of your own on the other bookmakers for you to find out the rest of the figures.

yes and there are many many many similar sized giant books that do limit severely and also make hundreds of millions, so what's your point?  show me a recreational book that doesn't limit AND makes hundreds of millions.  oh wait, there isn't one.

luctens wrote: Coral have slowly developed their minimum bet guarantees over the last couple of years to include more and more horse races and now to include all horse races, and the next logical step in that evolution is to take their minimum bet guarantees online and to extend them to all sports, so we will see if they do so.

i don't bet horses, so i wouldn't know.  coral increasing limits on other sports, no they won't.

luctens wrote: And all this rubbish that bookmakers are limiting customers "to stop going out of business". That's utter crap. At the very most, arbers, traders and the like are at about 1 out of 100 of all bettors. If all bookmakers bet all of these sorts of customers, they wouldn't "go out of business", far from it.

yes they would.  let's assume 1 in 100 bettors is "smart", and 99 in 100 is "stupid", because that's the black & white world you apparently live in (obviously, there's a lot of types of bettors between an idiot and a sharp one, but let's forget that). give me a book without betting limits and i can promise you (yes, promise) I'll bet 100, no let's make that 1000 times the turnover of 1 "stupid" customer, and likely a lot more.  I'll bet and I'll bet and I'll bet all day long, and every one of my bets will have EV+, and will hurt them  I'll hit that book on all of their weak lines all the time every day including Finnish Third Division Half Time Bets, while the stupid bettor will just bet Arsenal in the weekends . You understand it now?

luctens wrote: What you have got to understand is that the vast majority of arbers won't just give up when restricted, they will find friends to bet with etc, so every single bet of any arber is finding their way to that bookmaker, just not always in the name of the person that is making that bet, but all of the bets that an arber wants to make is taken by that bookmaker, but they aren't going out of business as a result of taking those arb bets, so that throws your point out the window about these bookmakers restricting customers to "stay in business" as otherwise they would "go out of business". What a load of nonsense.

what you have got to understand is that many arbers, and the ones with the higest turnover at that, don't bother finding friends to do 10 bets and make a 100 quid before being limited again. it's not worth it by a long shot, with all the passport shit, the verification shit etc. you're maybe thinking about your own situation and that's fine, but you really think I'm still going to bother with my 50th account with some soft book. But if that soft book opens their doors, hell yeah, I'll be there and I'll hit them quick and fast before they go out of business or wise up. and so will many betting syndicates, sharps, all of them will follow me.  Good luck with that as a soft book.

luctens wrote: The bookmakers aren't doing this to avoid "going out of business", they are doing this out of pure greed and nothing else whatsoever, it's as simple as that. Australian bookmakers have to bet everybody on certain horse racing for over 2 years and seen their profits increase, and the campaigners are confident there will be minimum bet laws that will be spread across all sports within another couple of years. If that happens, do you think the bookmakers are going to shut up shop and leave Australia because betting everybody will "put them out of business"?

If there will be rules for Aussie sportsbetting like there are in horse racing, they'll be in the tune of every book should accept min x bet. It won't be no limit betting. And the rest of the world, forget about, it will not happen, there's no centralized regulation that will enforce it. Do you really think the Malta LGA will intervene on players behalf?  Of course not.

vinciguerra wrote:
give me a book without betting limits and i can promise you (yes, promise) I'll bet 100, no let's make that 1000 times the turnover of 1 "stupid" customer, and likely a lot more.  I'll bet and I'll bet and I'll bet all day long, and every one of my bets will have EV+, and will hurt them  I'll hit that book on all of their weak lines all the time every day including Finnish Third Division Half Time Bets, while the stupid bettor will just bet Arsenal in the weekends . You understand it now?

It's amazing to me how someone with experience can even doubt this.

vinciguerra wrote:
what you have got to understand is that many arbers, and the ones with the higest turnover at that, don't bother finding friends to do 10 bets and make a 100 quid before being limited again. it's not worth it by a long shot, with all the passport shit, the verification shit etc. you're maybe thinking about your own situation and that's fine, but you really think I'm still going to bother with my 50th account with some soft book. But if that soft book opens their doors, hell yeah, I'll be there and I'll hit them quick and fast before they go out of business or wise up. and so will many betting syndicates, sharps, all of them will follow me.  Good luck with that as a soft book.

I think this is the biggest difference between skilled arbers and arbitrage software arbers

vinciguerra wrote:

luctens wrote: I'll give you one bookmaker, Bet365 made around £450m pre-tax profit last year and are known to be generally one of the least stringent on restrictions out of the soft bookmakers, I'll let you do some research of your own on the other bookmakers for you to find out the rest of the figures.

yes and there are many many many similar sized giant books that do limit severely and also make hundreds of millions, so what's your point?  show me a recreational book that doesn't limit AND makes hundreds of millions.  oh wait, there isn't one.

luctens wrote: Coral have slowly developed their minimum bet guarantees over the last couple of years to include more and more horse races and now to include all horse races, and the next logical step in that evolution is to take their minimum bet guarantees online and to extend them to all sports, so we will see if they do so.

i don't bet horses, so i wouldn't know.  coral increasing limits on other sports, no they won't.

luctens wrote: And all this rubbish that bookmakers are limiting customers "to stop going out of business". That's utter crap. At the very most, arbers, traders and the like are at about 1 out of 100 of all bettors. If all bookmakers bet all of these sorts of customers, they wouldn't "go out of business", far from it.

yes they would.  let's assume 1 in 100 bettors is "smart", and 99 in 100 is "stupid", because that's the black & white world you apparently live in (obviously, there's a lot of types of bettors between an idiot and a sharp one, but let's forget that). give me a book without betting limits and i can promise you (yes, promise) I'll bet 100, no let's make that 1000 times the turnover of 1 "stupid" customer, and likely a lot more.  I'll bet and I'll bet and I'll bet all day long, and every one of my bets will have EV+, and will hurt them  I'll hit that book on all of their weak lines all the time every day including Finnish Third Division Half Time Bets, while the stupid bettor will just bet Arsenal in the weekends . You understand it now?

luctens wrote: What you have got to understand is that the vast majority of arbers won't just give up when restricted, they will find friends to bet with etc, so every single bet of any arber is finding their way to that bookmaker, just not always in the name of the person that is making that bet, but all of the bets that an arber wants to make is taken by that bookmaker, but they aren't going out of business as a result of taking those arb bets, so that throws your point out the window about these bookmakers restricting customers to "stay in business" as otherwise they would "go out of business". What a load of nonsense.

what you have got to understand is that many arbers, and the ones with the higest turnover at that, don't bother finding friends to do 10 bets and make a 100 quid before being limited again. it's not worth it by a long shot, with all the passport shit, the verification shit etc. you're maybe thinking about your own situation and that's fine, but you really think I'm still going to bother with my 50th account with some soft book. But if that soft book opens their doors, hell yeah, I'll be there and I'll hit them quick and fast before they go out of business or wise up. and so will many betting syndicates, sharps, all of them will follow me.  Good luck with that as a soft book.

luctens wrote: The bookmakers aren't doing this to avoid "going out of business", they are doing this out of pure greed and nothing else whatsoever, it's as simple as that. Australian bookmakers have to bet everybody on certain horse racing for over 2 years and seen their profits increase, and the campaigners are confident there will be minimum bet laws that will be spread across all sports within another couple of years. If that happens, do you think the bookmakers are going to shut up shop and leave Australia because betting everybody will "put them out of business"?

If there will be rules for Aussie sportsbetting like there are in horse racing, they'll be in the tune of every book should accept min x bet. It won't be no limit betting. And the rest of the world, forget about, it will not happen, there's no centralized regulation that will enforce it. Do you really think the Malta LGA will intervene on players behalf?  Of course not.

Obviously all of the recreational books limit so there aren't recreational books that don't limit to look at the profits of as they are all using these algorithms and restrictions. My point is that there is a very obvious trend that the less aggressive the bookmaker is at restricting customers, the quicker the company is growing and the quicker their profits are growing, and removing these algorithms and restrictions will simply accelerate that growth for the bookmakers that are the least aggressive.

As I said, Coral have slowly developed their in-shop horse racing guarantees to a full scale all horse races in-shop minimum bet guarantee, so the natural step in that process is for them to take that online and to extend it to all sports, so we will see if they do that.

You really have been brainwashed by the bookmakers banging it into you that the poor little bookmaker will go out of business if they bet everybody. Get back in the real world, that's just bookmaker PR crap and it's very sad that you actually believe that complete rubbish that they are continually feeding you.

And with Australia, extensions to the minimum bet guarantees to all sports would most likely be to a similar lay to lose amount of the equivalent of between £500-£1000. I never said it would be no limit betting, and I've never said the bookmakers here should open it up to everybody at no limits or even at their standard lay to lose amounts, bookmakers opening it up to bet everybody at a lay to lose amount of £500-£1000 would be fair and workable for all parties. There is a way to go to either put sufficient public pressure to force the hand of the bookmakers into changing their ways or getting legislation through the UK Government and the UK Gambling Commission, but we're not talking about the likelihood of minimum bet guarantees coming in over here, we're talking about what would happen if they did come in over here, so don't hide behind the "it'll never happen" phrase, because it's likely to happen in Australia when nobody thought it would a couple of years ago, so it could very well happen elsewhere as well.

You still didn't answer the question though about the Australian businesses if minimum bet guarantees of around £500-£1000 were brought in for all sports. Will they pack up their stuff and leave Australia because they would go out of business as a result? Obviously no chance. And all I'm saying bookmakers here should do is to do exactly that, bet everybody to lay to lose £500-£1000, and if you don't think they'd go out of business in Australia betting people to lay to lose £500-£1000, then there's absolutely no reason why any bookmakers would go out of business over here under the same lay to lose guarantee conditions, just think about it for a second, no bookmaker will go out of business as a result of betting everybody to lay to lose £500-£1000, it's as simple as that, so you need to get your head out the sand, get back in the real world and stop believing all the bookmaker PR crap.

luctens wrote:

dealer wins wrote: I keep seeing the quote  "one in 100 smart bettors"  In the UK I would say its nearer 1 in 10 or even 1 in 5 these days, what with all these clone arbing/Matched betting sites opening up.  And many of these people will be opening up accounts for their family and friends.  ( I wouldnt say they were smart bettors because of their maths ability or intelligence, but they are spoonfed to take only value odds so to a bookie they seem smart)

It most certainly is nowhere near "1 in 10" or "1 in 5" bettors only taking value odds in the UK. Even the most popular of those sorts of sites has around 20k members and I would guess only 10-15k active members, so if you even put that figure up to 50k nationwide that were only betting value odds, and given that conservatively around 5m UK people bet actively sports, even those generous figures only bring that amount to 1 in 100 value bettors in the UK, it's most definitely nowhere near 1 in 10 or 1 in 5.

You are way off with your estimations.

What you aren't taking into account is that in this case, a smart bettor is not necessarily an arber or a trader, but anyone taking value from the bookie, therefore being potentially non-profitable for them.

So think about bonus abusers. They don't even need to take valuable odds (although they do most times) in order to be non-profitable for bookmakers.
Since they take bonus money, they implicitly make their bets more valuable, taking advantage over the bookies.

Do you know how many of these guys are out there?
Go to any of the main matched betting websites and check the monthly traffic coming from UK.
You say 50k at most, I say at least 500k from the UK.

Then again, if only we had a tool to measure stakes from "smart bettors" agains stakes from "stupid bettors", you would tell that limits are not only out of greed.

luctens wrote: Obviously all of the recreational books limit so there aren't recreational books that don't limit to look at the profits of as they are all using these algorithms and restrictions.

this is completely weird logic.  again: there are no recreational books that don't limit, because they get wiped out. it's the best proof you can get. 

luctens wrote: My point is that there is a very obvious trend that the less aggressive the bookmaker is at restricting customers, the quicker the company is growing and the quicker their profits are growing,

you haven't actually proven this point at all. you just keep going on and on and on with unbased speculations.

luctens wrote: You still didn't answer the question though about the Australian businesses if minimum bet guarantees of around £500-£1000 were brought in for all sports. Will they pack up their stuff and leave Australia because they would go out of business as a result? 

yes, they would need to sharp up their odds (likely by hiring generic odds compiling) and limit their offerings to only basic markets or they would leave. they would NEVER survive their current offerings.

it's pointless arguing with you,  you offer no facts, no logic, you don't address anything i write, you're stuck in your own ridiculous train of though.  don't forget to check in in a few years time, and we'll talk who was right and who wasn't.

middler wrote:

luctens wrote:

dealer wins wrote: I keep seeing the quote  "one in 100 smart bettors"  In the UK I would say its nearer 1 in 10 or even 1 in 5 these days, what with all these clone arbing/Matched betting sites opening up.  And many of these people will be opening up accounts for their family and friends.  ( I wouldnt say they were smart bettors because of their maths ability or intelligence, but they are spoonfed to take only value odds so to a bookie they seem smart)

It most certainly is nowhere near "1 in 10" or "1 in 5" bettors only taking value odds in the UK. Even the most popular of those sorts of sites has around 20k members and I would guess only 10-15k active members, so if you even put that figure up to 50k nationwide that were only betting value odds, and given that conservatively around 5m UK people bet actively sports, even those generous figures only bring that amount to 1 in 100 value bettors in the UK, it's most definitely nowhere near 1 in 10 or 1 in 5.

You are way off with your estimations.

You aren't taking into account is that in this case, a smart bettor is not necessarily an arber or a trader, but anyone taking value from the bookie, therefore being potentially non-profitable for them.

So think about bonus abusers. They don't even need to take valuable odds (although they do most times) in order to be non-profitable for bookmakers.
Since they take bonus money, they implicitly make their bets more valuable, taking advantage over the bookies.

Do you know how many of these guys are out there?
Go to any of the main matched betting websites and check the monthly traffic coming from UK.
You say 50k at most, I say at least 500k from the UK.

Then again, if only we had a tool to measure stakes from "smart bettors" agains stakes from "stupid bettors", you would tell that limits are not only out of greed.

No I'm taking into account all types of value bettors when coming to the 50k figure. If you're really trying to say that just in the UK alone that there 500k active value bettors out there, then you're deluded. 50k is a generous estimate.

And you're another one that don't think bookmakers are doing it out of greed and that we should all understand that the poor little bookmakers are necessitated to do this to preserve their very existence. Come off it, the bookmakers could start betting everybody tomorrow at a lay to lose limit of £500-£1000, and not one would go out of business as a result, so don't peddle this utter tosh that the bookmakers keep telling you.

Who said soft bookmakers are inocent or "the good guys"?

I'm just saying their business is completely inefficient, and that is the main reason why they not only operate with high margins, but also need to limit the increasing amount of "smart bettors".
They just survive because of how easy it is to take advantage from their side, either by increasing juice or by limiting non-profitable players. In a fair situation, they wouldn't survive a year.

I think it might be you who underestimate people, thinking that 99% only place bets while they are drunk watching their team on weekends.

vinciguerra wrote:

luctens wrote: Obviously all of the recreational books limit so there aren't recreational books that don't limit to look at the profits of as they are all using these algorithms and restrictions.

this is completely weird logic.  again: there are no recreational books that don't limit, because they get wiped out. it's the best proof you can get. 

luctens wrote: My point is that there is a very obvious trend that the less aggressive the bookmaker is at restricting customers, the quicker the company is growing and the quicker their profits are growing,

you haven't actually proven this point at all. you just keep going on and on and on with unbased speculations.

luctens wrote: You still didn't answer the question though about the Australian businesses if minimum bet guarantees of around £500-£1000 were brought in for all sports. Will they pack up their stuff and leave Australia because they would go out of business as a result? 

yes, they would need to sharp up their odds (likely by hiring generic odds compiling) and limit their offerings to only basic markets or they would leave. they would NEVER survive their current offerings.

it's pointless arguing with you,  you offer no facts, no logic, you don't address anything i write, you're stuck in your own ridiculous train of though.  don't forget to check in in a few years time, and we'll talk who was right and who wasn't.

The soft bookmakers all restrict customers based on flawed logic that these idiots believe and have copied each other into submission by them thinking that it is a profitable move. If one of them changes or sees enough proof in Black Type Bet doing well, then one of the other bookmakers will probably change their policies and the rest will most likely follow, as that's what the betting industry is best at, copying each other.

I'll give you an example on bookmakers that aggressively restrict and another one less so. 10 years ago, Stan James and Bet365 were on about a par with each other on how big they were. Stan James are known as one of the worst restriction offenders out there, and Bet365 much better in comparison. Stan James were bought for £19m recently, which means they must have made a maximum of £2m-£5m profit the previous year, whilst Bet365 made about £450m pre-tax profit last year. I would say that Bet365's less aggressive restriction policies compared to Stan James are a significant factor on why they have done so much better than bookmakers like Stan James. There are many other examples but the trend really is very clear in that if you look at the bookmakers that are growing the fastest, they are generally amongst the least aggressive in restrictions so the trend is there that the less aggressive in restrictions a bookmaker is, the faster they will grow and the more profit they will make.

Again your peddling this crap that if a bookmaker in it's current form was made to bet everybody to lay to lose £500-£1000 that they would go out of business as a result. Just think about what you are saying there, it's simply a load of complete and utter crap.

middler wrote: Who said soft bookmakers are inocent or "the good guys"?

I'm just saying their business is completely inefficient, and that is the main reason why they not only operate with high margins, but also need to limit the increasing amount of "smart bettors".
They just survive because of how easy it is to take advantage from their side, either by increasing juice or by limiting non-profitable players. In a fair situation, they wouldn't survive a year.

I think it might be you who underestimate people, thinking that 99% only place bets while they are drunk watching their team on weekends.

You are making out that we should be feeling sorry for the bookmaker and all understand the predicament the bookmaker is in and that all the bookmaker is only doing this for is preserve their existence so we should accept that they are not being greedy at all in doing this. Complete rubbish, they are doing this for greed and greed alone. And you saying they wouldn't even survive a year if the bookmakers were made to bet all customers to lay to lose £500-£1000, just listen to yourself for goodness sake. You are saying it like laying to lose £500-£1000 is a big bet, that's a bog-standard bet where I come from, and for you to say that they wouldn't survive a year if they bet everybody to lay to lose that paltry amount, that's simply complete rubbish.