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.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?
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.