With more and more cases of winning bettors complaining about having their accounts closed or severely restricted by leading bookmakers, what are the reasons behind this off-the-record practice? Read on to find out what can get your betting account closed and why this will never happen to you at Pinnacle.
In the past two decades, the spread of the Internet changed the gambling industry landscape for good, making online betting the most popular way for placing wagers.
With an increasing number of sites making historical data and statistics available to the public, more and more well educated people turned to sports betting not only as a means of entertainment, but also as a means of living.
Main indicators that flag an account and can lead to closure or severe restrictions are: bet size, free bets and bonuses, user behavior and profitability.
Professional bettors have a strong understanding of themathematics of bookmaking and manage to make long-term profits by applying arbitrage strategies and bet hedging.
Despite claims to the contrary, a common off-the-record practice among mainstream bookmakers in an attempt to exclude winning players from their business, is to close or severely limit winning accounts.
While some bookmakers go as far as cancelling accounts and literally barring profitable bettors from their e-premises, others effectively end their relationship by limiting the stakes to ridiculously small amounts such as $2 per bet.
Criteria for limiting/closing accounts
With more and more bookmakers looking to attract square punters (those who bet more than they win on a daily basis), professional bettors are the anathema to leading sportsbooks. But how do bookmakers know who bets for a living?
Below are the main indicators that flag an account as professional and can lead to closure or severe restrictions of betting amounts:
- Bet size: Professional bettors do not experiment with their money. They often calculate the exact amount of money they need to place on a market in order to ensure winnings. Odd stake amounts such as $79.34, for example, indicate arbitrage, which is a common strategy among professional bettors.
- Free bets & bonuses: Professional bettors are rarely interested in specials offers. They will only take them if they fit into their business plan, which is rarely the case as free bets and bonuses come with a long list of terms & conditions.
- User behavior: Professional bettors don’t bet for fun, they bet for a living. You will rarely find them hanging around the website watching live matches. They login, place their bets and move on to the next bookmaker.
- Profitability: Last but not least, professional bettors take more money out of a bookmaker than they put in.
Surprisingly enough, profitability is not the first factor a bookmaker looks at. In order to know who is profitable in the long run, you have to let time pass and then it might be too late.
Refusing to accept a bet at the advertised odds may break the spirit of fair game, but it does not break any law.
What bookmakers try to do is detect professional bettors before they manage to take money out their pockets. For that reason,they develop guidelines for risk groups and profiles on players based on their behaviors and betting patterns.
This rigid style of investigation can catch out bettors who are not professionals but to eliminate risk, bookmakers take the better-safe-than-sorry approach. This means that in many cases, casual bettors can have their accounts shut down or heavily curtailed for no apparent reason or any further explanation other than:
We are writing to you to inform you that a business decision has been taken by our senior traders and your betting account has now been closed. No further business may be executed on your behalf. As explained in our Terms and Conditions, a traders decision is final and will not be overturned.
Is closing betting accounts illegal?
Refusing to accept a bet at the advertised odds may break the spirit of fair game, but it does not break any law.
There are several organisations that are involved in the regulation of the gambling sector, however their primary role is to adjudicate on bets that have been placed, not arbitrary account closures or betting limitations.
Until the industry’s regulations change, so that a bookmaker’s unfounded refusal to accept bets is a reason to lose their licence, it is down to the individual to choose who they entrust their money with.
Why Pinnacle allows winning accounts
Bookmakers must manage their risk to stay in business. For that reason bookmakers set limits on how much money they are willing to accept on each market. However, managing risk is one thing and playing unfair quite another.
Until the industry’s regulations change, so that a bookmaker’s unfounded refusal to accept bets is a reason to lose their licence, it is down to the individual to choose a reliable bookmaker.
At Pinnacle, we don’t just believe that it is important to treat bettors fairly. We are on a mission to educate players on how bookmaking works, so that they can choose smart when deciding what is the best sports betting deal online.
As opposed to the practices of mainstream bookmakers, Pinnacle is known for offering zero bonuses. Instead of throwing our money in expensive marketing campaigns, we invest it in risk management.
Our unique model not only allow us to guarantee you an account no matter how much you win, but it also enables us to offer the highest odds in the online betting industry. When mainstream bookmakers offer rounded odds of 2.00, 3.40 or 1.70, don’t be surprised to see Pinnacle offering odds as precise as 2.23, 3.826 or 1.92. To find out more about how Pinnacle can do that, read The maths behind Pinnacle’s winners welcome policy.
But don’t take our word for it. We encourage you to compare us to other bookmakers, before you decide for yourself which sportsbook offers the best deal. That’s why Pinnacle is the number one choice of winning bettors.
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Source: pinnacle.com