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Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

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blackjim
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Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Fri Oct 28, 2016 12:43 pm

Interesting article in the FT:
https://www.ft.com/content/09fbf882-9764-11e6-a1dc-bdf38d484582

Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Murad Ahmed and Nicholas Megaw

Regulator to examine complaints of cancelled bets and altered odds

Online gambling companies in the UK are facing a regulatory investigation into potentially
unfair practices, such as the cancellation of winning bets and tough conditions around
receiving payouts.
Yesterday, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority said an initial review of the industry
had “highlighted examples of potentially unfair treatment”, including users being forced to
play for longer than expected before they can withdraw winnings and companies having
“wide discretion” to cancel bets or alter odds after wagers have been placed.
“Gambling inevitably involves taking a risk, but it shouldn’t be a con,” said Nisha Arora,
the regulator’s senior director for consumer enforcement.
“We are worried players are losing out because gambling sites are making it too difficult
for them to understand the terms on which they’re playing and may not be giving them a fair deal.”
The CMA said 5.5m people in the UK regularly used online gambling sites, creating an
industry worth £4bn a year.
Among the issues the regulator will investigate are complaints that punters are unable to
withdraw deposits when they choose to stop playing, the ability of companies to change
odds or cancel bets after saying they made a mistake, and short time limits for players to
register complaints.
Sarah Harrison, chief of the Gambling Commission, the UK’s regulatory body for gambling,
said “operators are still not doing enough”, adding that many “appear to bamboozle rather
than help the customer make informed choices”.
The CMA said it was requesting evidence from companies and website users as part of its
investigation.
The move comes as UK gambling companies complain that increased taxes and regulatory
burdens are damaging their earnings.
In December 2014, the government introduced a “point of consumption tax” - a 15 per cent
levy on gambling no matter where bets are made, and bookmakers including Paddy Power
Betfair, GVC and 888 Holdings are among those to say profits have been hit as a result.
But one gambling industry executive said: “I’m not surprised [the CMA] is taking a look,
because everyone is making far too much money.”
Increased regulation is one of the main reasons behind a wave of consolidation hitting the
industry.
Rivals Betfair and Paddy Power combined this year, and Ladbrokes and Gala Coral are in
the final stages of finalising a merger. GVC Holdings, owner of Sportingbet, bought Bwin.party
last year after outbidding 888 Holdings.
William Hill and Canadian group Amaya, owner of Pokerstars, the world’s largest online poker
company by users, called off talks over a £4.6bn merger this week.
William Hill shareholders expressed reservations over the deal, but one person close to Amaya
said the merger also faced hurdles from its investors due to an expected UK government review
into gambling machines.
The likely “triennial review” could lead to restrictions on fixed odds betting terminals in betting
shops, which represent a significant revenue stream for bookmakers on Britain’s high street.
Activist groups such as the Campaign for Fairer Gambling argue that these terminals are the
“crack cocaine” of gambling and disproportionately attract problem users - an allegation denied
by bookmakers.


also
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/21/competition-watchdog-to-investigate-online-betting-firms-gambling
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/online-betting-firms-face-cma-investigation-cheating-a7373001.html
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Fri Oct 28, 2016 1:33 pm

Interesting read. Thank you for sharing
luctens
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:07 pm

A lot of the credit of getting to this stage of a CMA investigation into the bookmakers has to go to the tireless work day in, day out of Jimmy Justice: https://twitter.com/gondorffhenry and all of the people who are involved in Justice For Punters, an organisation that Jimmy Justice founded: http://justiceforpunters.org/

Jimmy Justice on this tweet: https://twitter.com/gondorffhenry/status/789770882189230080 thinks that this CMA investigation which includes them investigating the clarity and fairness of bookmakers' terms and conditions, he thinks it may result in the CMA forcing the bookmakers to put something similar to "winners will be closed down" very clearly on the sign up page for the bookmakers, and he doesn't think they will do that, and he thinks that if the bookmakers are faced with the choice of putting something along the lines of "winners will be closed down" clearly on their registration page or the alternative of them taking bets from everybody, he thinks that may force the bookmakers hand into take bets from everybody so they don't have to put the "winners will be closed down" sign on their registration page, so it's certainly worth everybody contributing to the CMA investigation to see if minimum bet rules can be forced out of the bookmakers in that way:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-launches-investigation-into-online-gambling

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-gambling

Gambling@cma.gsi.gov.uk.
Last edited by luctens on Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:45 pm

Yes there are several things that are quite absurd
Some bookies T and C has sentence  " When we detect professional activity we can void winning bets"

I just wonder how they protect their  side in courtroom ?Any medicore laywer would destroy their thesis
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:25 pm

Extremely interesting stuff, thank you blackjim and luctens. I hope this leads us somewhere good... the lack of proper regulation in the gambling industry never ceases to amaze me.
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Sat Oct 29, 2016 12:16 am

I'm not sure if it would be such a great development. If they are forced to accept every bet they will have no choice but to invest in sharpening their lines. If one depends only on arbing it's like being between a rock and a hard place..
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 4:52 pm

Bubbles wrote: I'm not sure if it would be such a great development. If they are forced to accept every bet they will have no choice but to invest in sharpening their lines. If one depends only on arbing it's like being between a rock and a hard place..
As far as I know they are not looking at forcing them to accept bets. There is no right to bet in the UK. What they are looking at are their terms and conditions which basically give them carte blanch to cancel bets, alter prices and make it very difficult to collect winnings. So they will be looking at how they handle palps , suspected multiple / third party accounts etc.

Personally I think justice for punters does itself no favors as they seem to have very little understanding of why the restrictions are there. Its pretty easy for the bookmakers to make what they are saying look stupid as the bookmakers have the data whereas justice for punters is just guessing.

I think a lot of the complaints have actually come from amateur arbers who get burnt because they chase palps and get caught using duplicate and third party accounts! 
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:28 pm

Thanks for correcting me. Friday night reading... :D
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:00 pm

dejected wrote:
Bubbles wrote: I'm not sure if it would be such a great development. If they are forced to accept every bet they will have no choice but to invest in sharpening their lines. If one depends only on arbing it's like being between a rock and a hard place..
As far as I know they are not looking at forcing them to accept bets. There is no right to bet in the UK. What they are looking at are their terms and conditions which basically give them carte blanch to cancel bets, alter prices and make it very difficult to collect winnings. So they will be looking at how they handle palps , suspected multiple / third party accounts etc.

Personally I think justice for punters does itself no favors as they seem to have very little understanding of why the restrictions are there. Its pretty easy for the bookmakers to make what they are saying look stupid as the bookmakers have the data whereas justice for punters is just guessing.

I think a lot of the complaints have actually come from amateur arbers who get burnt because they chase palps and get caught using duplicate and third party accounts!
Justice For Punters know full well why the bookmakers restrict customers, which is because bookmakers are greedy and in a perfect world they would ban everybody with half a brain from betting. And it's the bookmakers that are the ones that look stupid when Justice For Punters put forward statements about account closures, as the bookmakers reject the notion that it's a problem, but refuse to state how many accounts they've closed down, and if the bookmakers weren't hiding anything and it wasn't a big issue, they'd reveal all of the figures on how many they'd closed down but they aren't, because they know the figures would be embarrassing for them. And anybody with experience of betting in recent years knows that account closures are an ever increasing issue. So Justice For Punters aren't talking crap here, there's an obviously big issue, it's just the bookmakers that are trying to stick their head in the sand with loads of deluded statements on the matter. So it's the bookmakers that deny there is a big issue when there obviously is, and they refuse to release any data on account closures even though they say it's not a big issue, so it's the bookmakers, not Justice For Punters that time after time come out of it looking stupid.

And what you're saying about the type of people who complain of restrictions and closures doesn't hold any weight, as if anybody bets a palp, it should be voided and the person that bet it carry on with their betting with the bookmaker improving their procedures to stop putting down palp prices, no account closure required there. And with duplicate or third party accounts, if bookmakers took bets from everybody, these people wouldn't need to create duplicate or third party accounts in the first place, so it comes back to the same point causing all of the problems, that bookmakers need to be accepting bets from everybody.

As I've said previously, The CMA aren't directly looking at forcing the bookmakers to accept bets from everybody, but they have said that if they get enough of a response on this issue, they may look into directly off the back of this current inquiry. But even in terms of this current inquiry, they are looking at is unfair and unclear terms and conditions, and as I've said previously, what Jimmy Justice seems to think will happen is that the CMA will say to the bookmakers that the kind of term saying we can refuse any customer for any reason isn't clear enough so they will force the bookmakers to make a term that is much clearer along the lines of "winners will be closed", and that they will say that term isn't prominent enough on the bookmakers' websites being buried in terms and conditions and that such a fundamental and important term needs to be explicitly stated on the registration page.

So Jimmy Justice thinks that as a result of this investigation the bookmakers will be forced to clearly state on their registration page something along the lines of "winners will be closed", or the alternative is for the bookmakers to take bets from everyone. Jimmy Justice doesn't think there's any chance that the bookmakers will put a "winners will be closed" sign on their registration page, which would leave them the only alternative to accept bets from everybody. So it's in that way that the bookmakers could be forced to take bets from everybody as a result of this CMA investigation. And the only meaningful result that can come out of this CMA investigation is for the bookmakers to be forced to accepts bets from everybody, as other fringe issues that the CMA are looking into like adjustments to terms and conditions and improved procedures and all the rest of it are absolutely pointless to a customer if they can't get a bet on in the first place.
Last edited by luctens on Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 10:01 pm

Luctens, you just don't get it. People try and explain it to you and you just keep reiterating the same stale arguments.

Why should bookies reveal private details about account closures to Jimmy? Are you sure you are a real arber? I've only been here a couple of days and most of what you say just does not fit with reality! If you understood the game as you seem to claim, you would know that when the bookies release their figures to someone in authority they will paint a completely different figure to what Jimmy is saying. Exactly how many people responded to the BHA survey in to restricted accounts? About 800 I think. its not the bookies that are being greedy. Its those 800 who think they should be able to bet like they did in the 1990s! The market place has been completely changed by the internet and exchanges, yet people like you can not seem to accept that. 98% of people betting are getting a much better deal than they were before. So you think the government should regulate to give 2% a better deal and 98% a worse one. Get real. Nothing will be done about restrictions.

Who said palps have got anything to do with account closures and restrictions? They are 2 completely different issues. If a novice arber, backs a palp and then it is canceled they are in trouble. These novice arbers complain that the bookies have unfairly cancelled a bet when in reality they should never of backed a 1/3 shot at 3/1!!!!!!

You do realize that when you create a duplicate account or bet from a third party account you are not only in breach of the bookie terms and conditions, you are probably breaking money laundering laws and maybe even committing fraud. But that is OK because the bookies forced you in to doing it by not allowing you to take free money from them. As I said, you just don't get it do you?

Yes, what Jimmy says always happens dosen't it? Stating "winners will get closed" again just shows such little understanding of the current market you and Jimmy have. If you think accounts get closed just because they are winners you are SOOOOOO far from the mark. You believe it because Jimmy says so, without doing your own research. Surely as an experienced arber you have a better understanding of why accounts get restricted than that? The bookies have plenty of winning accounts, just showing those figures to the authorities debunks what Jimmy is saying. Ask yourself why the CMA say they need more complaints. Its because for the general public it is just not a problem!

I'm not an arber at the moment, but if bookie restrictions were removed i would become one overnight! And very quickly be a multimillionaire.

This is the last time I will respond to you, your arguments just don't hold water. You are unwilling to accept that your views are so wrong, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to educate you anymore.
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 10:57 pm

dejected wrote: Luctens, you just don't get it. People try and explain it to you and you just keep reiterating the same stale arguments.

Why should bookies reveal private details about account closures to Jimmy? Are you sure you are a real arber? I've only been here a couple of days and most of what you say just does not fit with reality! If you understood the game as you seem to claim, you would know that when the bookies release their figures to someone in authority they will paint a completely different figure to what Jimmy is saying. Exactly how many people responded to the BHA survey in to restricted accounts? About 800 I think. its not the bookies that are being greedy. Its those 800 who think they should be able to bet like they did in the 1990s! The market place has been completely changed by the internet and exchanges, yet people like you can not seem to accept that. 98% of people betting are getting a much better deal than they were before. So you think the government should regulate to give 2% a better deal and 98% a worse one. Get real. Nothing will be done about restrictions.

Who said palps have got anything to do with account closures and restrictions? They are 2 completely different issues. If a novice arber, backs a palp and then it is canceled they are in trouble. These novice arbers complain that the bookies have unfairly cancelled a bet when in reality they should never of backed a 1/3 shot at 3/1!!!!!!

You do realize that when you create a duplicate account or bet from a third party account you are not only in breach of the bookie terms and conditions, you are probably breaking money laundering laws and maybe even committing fraud. But that is OK because the bookies forced you in to doing it by not allowing you to take free money from them. As I said, you just don't get it do you?

Yes, what Jimmy says always happens dosen't it? Stating "winners will get closed" again just shows such little understanding of the current market you and Jimmy have. If you think accounts get closed just because they are winners you are SOOOOOO far from the mark. You believe it because Jimmy says so, without doing your own research. Surely as an experienced arber you have a better understanding of why accounts get restricted than that? The bookies have plenty of winning accounts, just showing those figures to the authorities debunks what Jimmy is saying. Ask yourself why the CMA say they need more complaints. Its because for the general public it is just not a problem!

I'm not an arber at the moment, but if bookie restrictions were removed i would become one overnight! And very quickly be a multimillionaire.

This is the last time I will respond to you, your arguments just don't hold water. You are unwilling to accept that your views are so wrong, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to educate you anymore.
Yes I am a real arber and I most definitely don't need "educating" by you.

About bookmakers not revealing any data on account closures, that obviously shows they have something to hide. So when bookmakers say there's no big problem and then somebody comes back at them and says if there's no big problem you'll have no problem in showing us the figures then, and the bookmakers then refuse that request, that shows the problem is much bigger than the bookmaker want to let on. So the bookmakers not releasing any data shows there is a big problem and they want hush hush it as much as possible as if they released the figures on how many accounts they've closed down, they'd be completely embarassed by the figures.

Jimmy Justice has said on a number of occasions that he thinks about 2% of punters win in the long term, and that sort of percentage of people that win is roundly accepted in the industry as a realistic estimate. He has also said that he thinks that this 2% of long term winners are getting closed down and in addition to that, a significant amount of recreational punters that are getting caught up in the crossfire and getting closed down as well. If bookmakers released their actual figures on account closures, Jimmy Justice's estimates on the amount of people being closed down would most likely be very close to the mark indeed.

It's not directly about disadvantaging 98% of people to benefit 2% of people, it's about getting a level playing field where everybody is allowed to win if they are good enough and it's about trying to restore some fairness, as with the bookmakers closing down anybody they identify as having a clue in what they are doing, this issue is obviously deeply unfair as it stands, so it needs to change with bookmakers forced to do what pretty much every other industry sector does, which is serve all customers. It really isn't a novel idea at all, because as I said, pretty much every other industry serves all customers, so the bookmaking industry shouldn't be allowed to get away with doing any different.

There were many naysayers like you saying "nothing will be done about restrictions" and all the rest of it in Australia 2-3 years ago, but those naysayers over there have gone very quiet indeed as they've been roundly proved wrong. The campaigners there are now confident of getting minimum bet rules in place across all horse racing states and all sports within a couple of years. So if that can happen in Australia, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever that it can't happen here as well.

You were very clearly referring to palps when talking about account closures, but if you didn't mean to do that, then there's simply just a crossed wire there, although I have no sympathy with anybody betting on an obvious error, as if you know what you're doing, you know when it's an error or not.

Regarding duplicate and third party accounts, I'm simply saying that if these people weren't closed down by the bookmakers in the first place, they wouldn't be creating these duplicate and third party accounts, that's quite an obvious point to make. But it isn't the case that punters that are closed down are done so because they take "free money" from the bookies. It just that they take money from the bookies, it's a two way game, or at least it should be where the punter is able to win long term if they are good enough. The bookies don't just have a licence to deal with the half-wits and the bozos of this world, there has to be a chance for the bookmaker to lose in the long term, as if nobody can win off the bookmaker in the long term and bookmakers can fleece the crap punters for all they've got in the long term, then that isn't gambling or bookmaking, that's simply licenced theft.

I obviously don't think people get closed down just for winning, as any idiot can go on a good run and be winning in the short term or even the medium term if they're really lucky, but I was obviously talking about long term winners in that if a bookmaker identifies a punter that is betting at value and they identify that they think that punter may win off them in the long term, the bookmaker will close that person down, plain and simple. So when I was referring to "winners will be closed", firstly I was referring to an outline or what may need to be stated on the registration page by the bookmakers, but I was obviously referring to long term winners.

I most certainly do my own research, but I was simply quoting Jimmy Justice on what he has said about this CMA investigation as he is widely credited as being one of the main driving forces in the reasons that this inquiry has been called, with the day in, day out protesting that he's been doing, and he is very much in the know of what's going on in this investigation, so he is more qualified than anybody to know what the likely outcomes of this inquiry are going to be.

The bookies just showing how many winning accounts they have on their books won't debunk Jimmy Justice or anybody else's similar arguments about this whatsoever. He or anybody else connected with his campaign isn't saying that the bookmakers don't have any winners on their books, what he is clearly saying that the only people left on the books of the bookmakers and the only winners left on the books of the bookmakers are the ones that the bookies think are mugs or haven't identified as smart yet and he is arguing that the bookmakers are on a never-ending mission to close down anybody that they identify as smart or having a clue in what they are doing, so in a perfect world for the bookmakers, they would only have mugs and absolutely nobody else left on their books, and the bookmakers are working as hard as humanly possible to get as close to that perfect world for them as possible. That is simply a completely unfair situation to have where the bookmakers are fleecing all of the mugs for everything they have whilst trying to close down everybody they identify that has a clue what they are doing in the process. As I said before, the bookmakers culture and mission to manufacture a situation of only doing business with mugs that lose whilst aiming to close down any long term winners is no different from licenced theft.
Last edited by luctens on Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:22 pm

The fact that Jimmy has been banging on the gambling commissions door about restrictions for ever and they have said they are not interested, should tell you something about their view on his arguments! You think the bookies have not already shown the GC their figures. Cloud Cuckoo land. Why would any release figures into the public domain where they would be mis represented by guys like you, and obviously give the competition an advantage. Restrictions are not an issue in the eyes of the general public so what would they gain by releasing them? Obviously you not understand the bookmaker business very well  either! Bit like Jimmy!

I said I was not going to listen to you any more. Does this version of SMF have ignore user enabled?
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:24 pm

dejected wrote: I said I was not going to listen to you any more. Does this version of SMF have ignore user enabled?
Yes it does, luctens ignored. Bye.
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:45 pm

How did you ignore him?? I cannot see that option
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Re: Gambling sites face ‘unfair’ practices probe

Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:47 pm

dejected wrote: The fact that Jimmy has been banging on the gambling commissions door about restrictions for ever and they have said they are not interested, should tell you something about their view on his arguments! You think the bookies have not already shown the GC their figures. Cloud Cuckoo land. Why would any release figures into the public domain where they would be mis represented by guys like you, and obviously give the competition an advantage. Restrictions are not an issue in the eyes of the general public so what would they gain by releasing them? Obviously you not understand the bookmaker business very well  either! Bit like Jimmy!

I said I was not going to listen to you any more. Does this version of SMF have ignore user enabled?
I can see why you left the other forum you were on as you obviously very quickly chuck your toys out of the pram like a baby and run away if somebody doesn't agree with you.

If you knew anything about the UK Gambling Commission and the apathy they show for doing anything meaningful to help customers in the gambling industry, then you'd know what a task it is to get any response from them whatsoever. And he hasn't been banging on their forever, only for about 2 years, and that's the kind of time it takes to lobby and protest and make any sort of headway. It doesn't happen overnight. You probably wouldn't be a good protester as you seem to think protesting should get a matter resolved straight away and the people in power are obviously going to listen to you and take action on the first attempt. Doesn't happen. The fact that the UK Gambling Commission have gone from ignoring people like Jimmy Justice to now instigating an investigation in association with the CMA shows he's making big progress.

And no, I wouldn't have thought the bookies have shown the UKGC their figures, and even if they had and it shows the sort of figures that Jimmy Justice has been talking about, that won't automatically make them do anything. It needs constant lobbying and protesting to make any organisation such as that make real change.

I'm not saying the bookies should necessarily reveal any of their figures, as they simply don't need to, as it's very obvious that what the figures the campaigners are claiming as to the amount of accounts that are getting closed down are very realistic and it's obvious that if they were way off the mark, the bookies would just reveal the figures and try and put the matter to bed there and then, but them not doing that tells you all you need to know. The slience is most deafening in this case in that the refusal to show any figures in the public shows the problem is way bigger than the bookies are making out, and nobody except from the bookmakers anyway is arguing with people like Jimmy Justice's 2% long term winners plus significant amount of recreational players estimate of who is getting shut down so it doesn't really need the bookmakers to show any figures to prove that, as it's easy to see that those figures are realistic, and every time the bookmakers fail to come up with concrete figures of their own to rebuff Jimmy Justice's figures, then that simply tells it's own story that the protesters are most probably very near to their mark with their estimates. The bookmakers would gain absolutely nothing by releasing their figures, it would actually have an adverse effect on them, because it's obvious that releasing the figures would prove the campaigners are right, but by the bookmakers trying to duck the issue and not release anything and talk complete rubbish about the matter, then it has the same effect as them releasing the figures in that everybody knows that the campaigners are very near to the mark and it is just that the bookmakers don't want to officially reveal the true scale of the number of closed accounts as that would show that the bookmakers have been talking a complete load of crap about this issue all along.
Last edited by luctens on Mon Oct 31, 2016 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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