If you can remember back to the beginning of last year, there was a fair bit of media around corporate bookmakers denying bets on horse racing in Australia. The Australian Wagering Council (this still makes me laugh as they are 100% owned by the British) represents all the UK owned bookmakers working in Australia. They released the following statement back in November of 2013.
After a lot of effort from some very determined individuals, the NSW racing board finally stood up for the punter and introduced minimum bet limits on all races held in NSW. This will pave the way for other states in the coming years. It is a forgone conclusion that in 5 years time, Horse racing punters will be able to bet to win a certain amount on all races throughout Australia.
After listening to a great podcast on the issue of bookmaker restrictions, I thought I would see if this “1 in 10,000 bets is declined” comment was just a made up number. I posted a simple question on twitter. Have you ever been limited by a bookmaker or have you always been able to get you bets on? Now I understand the people who follow me might not be the ordinary punters, but they are in no way professional and most are losing punters.
The AWC has always said that bookmaker restrictions affect a tiny percent of punters. To me a tiny percent would be 1-2%. Let’s have a look at the tweet and the results.
Let’s try something. Re-tweet if you have ever been limited or banned from a bookmaker. Favourite if never limited pic.twitter.com/jgRdkcqKzm
— Daily25.com (@day25) August 14, 2015
We had 62 people respond to the question and 50 of them said they had been limited. That is a whopping 80.6%. 8 out of 10 people who try and place a bet are restricted in some way.
That is absolutely staggering, so staggering it needs to be repeated and on its on line.
8 out of 10 punters have been restricted from placing bets
Now the AWC is lobbying our government to stop us from betting with off shore bookmakers, the only bookmakers who will actually let us place the bets we want. It’s time to tackle this problem once again but with a view for all sports bets to have a minimum bet limit of $1,000.
From today, whenever a bookmaker restricts you, simple tweet at that bookmaker with the hashtag #letusbet.
It is up to all of us if we want things to change. To be honest, not being able to bet with Australian bookmakers is something I have dealt with ever since I started and I am more than happy betting with off shore bookmakers as I get better odds and am not treated with disdain. If the bookies get what they want (and they probably will as they have a lot of money to lobby these politicians) than the punter who likes to bet and does a bit of research and can make a small profit will be an endangered species.
Like with an hobby, over time if you commit yourself to learning the skills needed, you get better. If I took up painting, and over 5 years became really good at it, I could sell those paintings and make a nice profit. That applies for almost all hobbies. The one hobby where that doesn’t apply is punting. If you devote time and effort into learning about betting and get good at it, you will be told you can not do it anymore. Every bookmaker sells the dream of the winning punter in every marketing campaign, but the truth is they are selling a complete lie.
Bookmakers of Australia. #LETUSBET