Last Saturday I had a tickle with MoPlay, a bookmaker I’d never seen before. Winning £724 in a day was just too much for them…
Which led to this YouTube video. The video caused a bit of a stir, leading several viewers to make contact.
One of those followers wanted to share the story of his own betting problem because, by all intents and purposes, it was the complete opposite to mine!
His experience was with Bet365, a bookmaker I am extremely familiar with. A bookmaker that has also limited my account for winning £6,667 a while back.
You can read about my alternate experience with B365 and what happened by clicking here.
But for now, I will share Mike’s experience, in his own words…
£700 Per Day For 10 Months:
So in 2017, I realised I was starting to develop an unhealthy relationship with gambling and froze my Bet365 account for 6 months. At the end of 2017, I reopened my account but I had to have a call with a “trained supervisor” from Bet365. He essentially ran through a dozen questions with me and just asked for a yes or no answer. He didn’t press me on any of the answers and congratulated me that my account could successfully be reopened.
He then said that Bet365 insist I put a daily limit on my deposits but this could be up to £5000 per day. Stupidly thinking I was now in control I opted for £1000 per day. He then informed me my account was good to go but because Bet365 did not want to encourage me to gamble and therefore I would no longer be entitled to any free bet offers.
I started to gamble erratically again near the end of Jan 2018 with multiple deposits per day, often over 10. Over the course of the next 12 months, I gambled almost every day, apart from a 2-month break where I didn’t gamble once but I didn’t close my account. During the rest of the period, I would often gamble from the first race until the last and occasionally on to the dogs or slots just to continue gambling. Not once did this raise any flags with Bet365 and their bots which pick up winning gamblers within a day. I was averaging out at £700’s worth of bets per day for the 10-month binge….which doesn’t include any money gambled on slots.
During this time the bet365 app would still send notifications through to my phone and I would get the occasional promotional email from them.
I have now signed up to Gamstop and I attend regular GA meetings to help. I understand my problem better and as a result, I am a much happier person.
I urge anyone who feels they have a problem to seek help before it spirals out of control, as the nature of a gambling addiction means it will get progressively worst. The bookies will close their eyes and allow it to happen, pleading ignorance, however, if you win be prepared to have your account closed within a matter of days.
Conclusion
First of all, I’d like to say thank you to Micheal for sharing his story. It can’t be easy to accept you have a problem, stop, addressed it and is now share it publicly…
Secondly, I find it fascinating how these companies invest heavily in artificial intelligence and algorithmic work but couldn’t find him in 10 whole months!
On several occasions, bookies manage to find me on day one! BetBright set the record at 3 hours.
Surely this kind of behaviour can’t go on forever? It’s been happening for years and years, but with the threshold for restriction getting lower and lower there has to be a point where people will give up on bookmakers.
Which begs the question: will exchanges eventually take over?
If you missed it, here’s the video that inspired Michael to get in touch…
9 thoughts on “Real Life Story: Problem Gambler Speaks Out | Caan Berry”
That’s a rough road Michael has had. I hope he’s doing ok now but if gambling addiction is like alcohol, then this time of year is the high risk time. There’s no hype over Christmas coming up, not many big sports events in the next few weeks, maybe I can have a little drink/bet here or there and it’ll be fine mentality creeps in, before you know it you’re betting on the cartoon F1 and cartoon greyhound races.
Exchanges are definitely the future Caan, but it’ll probably take a full generation to take over, or at least until prices are forced in digital and not fractional format so people can see side by side what shit prices bookies are giving them…..even then you’ll still have old guys complaining they got 2.14 on their horse but wanted evens!
I tend to agree. But anything that speeds the process up has to be good.
Hi Caan, Will exchanges eventually take over? They should do, it would make sense provided there was competition, but I cannot see it happening.
Bookmaking is a business, obvious to some but not to others. A bookmaker invests a lot of his money to obtain a license and his operating costs are high. It is thought by many that bookies always win, that is not true. In Australia they have been dropping like flies for over twenty years, and I suspect in England too, I am talking of on course bookmakers. New ones come in but soon realise how difficult it is and drop out. Increasing costs, Betfair and other exchanges, and internet betting in general has made it difficult to survive.
I know it from both sides and I think arbitrage betting puts a bookmaker at a distinct disadvantage. Any system, and that is what it is, whereby the punter cannot lose and the bookmaker cannot win is wrong, and if the bookmaker wants to stay in business he will stop it, and so he should.
Don’t think the bookmaker is being mean, he is surviving, and surviving in this game is is not easy.
To make a comparison, and you may not like this Caan, but I read recently in your blog that you were increasing the cost of the products that you sell because of increasing costs, in other words, if you do not control your price you will go out of business. How different is that to a bookmaker who is limiting his risk in order to stay in business by limiting unprofitable customers. I believe that arbing is unfair on bookmakers and they have every right to stop it in order to protect their business.
Thanks for the comment, Todd. Some of it makes sense to me sure, but there are a few large buts on my part…
“I know it from both sides and I think arbitrage betting puts a bookmaker at a distinct disadvantage. Any system, and that is what it is, whereby the punter cannot lose and the bookmaker cannot win is wrong, and if the bookmaker wants to stay in business he will stop it, and so he should.”
Really? Arbitrage is basically betting at value. So with that statement, you’re saying people shouldn’t be able to bet at value. Also, it’s naive to think that because someone got a better price than the SP that they were arbing.
I don’t think it should be stopped. The bookmaker should improve his product so it’s air-tight, and if that means lower prices and less business, its just the evolution of betting markets. Same in any other industry. Why should it be different? It’s not acceptable for someone to be thrown out of a supermarket for only buying from the discounted/value shelf.
“Don’t think the bookmaker is being mean, he is surviving, and surviving in this game is is not easy.”
Denise Coates – 323M paycheck this year. Surviving might not be the best way to put it.
“To make a comparison, and you may not like this Caan, but I read recently in your blog that you were increasing the cost of the products that you sell because of increasing costs, in other words, if you do not control your price you will go out of business. How different is that to a bookmaker who is limiting his risk in order to stay in business by limiting unprofitable customers.”
I can accept comments that are not in-line with my agenda that’s fine. However, what kind of comparison is that? We don’t ban people that turn up and read articles on the site that didn’t haemorrhage money to us… neither do we encourage people who have a gambling addiction. If information and support become a less valuable commodity we would go out of business yes, not try and control the marketplace through deception, lies and bully tactics!
“I believe that arbing is unfair on bookmakers and they have every right to stop it in order to protect their business.”
Arbing is just the opposite side of the coin to offering bad odds. Bookies are arbing against ‘true odds’. You seem to think that’s cool though? Doesn’t make a lot of logical sense to me really. 🙂
Hi Cann, my take on it is, the online bookies are here to stay. I have two late teen daughters and so get to meet their friends and of all the boys they know, the ones who like to bet only use on line bookies and nearly all of them use Bet 365 as their main bookie. None of them use Betfair because they don’t really know what their doing, don’t like the interface and can’t be bothered to change. Bet 365 they say is the best bookie for ease of use and looks the best, which is all they care about. They let their dicks do their betting so use the big glossy bookie. Most of these lads I speak to have never been in a bookmakers or been to a race track. They see me trading and have no idea what is and can’t be bothered to even look at it when I offer to show them. Don’t get me wrong, these are intelligent lads, just yesterday one was at mine telling me how his footy acca lost, he is studying law at uni and was an A grade a level student. I know they are only betting pounds at the moment but there are a lot of them doing it and doing it regularly, as they get older, get full time jobs it will only continue and increase in the amount they bet.
As for Betfair, let’s face it, I guess most of your followers on either Twitter, Blog or trading etc. are around 30 plus, and have learnt about Betfair at this age, but what we don’t here about is the younger people as they aren’t interested in trading etc. just a quick and simple bet on the horses or a Footy acca and a lot of them bet on the NFL and NBA as they play/watch these sports. All the while online gambling is so easy and accessible they will keep coming through the ranks using these sites and that’s part of the contribution to their profits.
Can’t fault anything you’ve said there…
What bets were you doing mate? Some going to make that sort of profit in one day!!
Agree with some of what’s been said but I think we’re increasingly living in a world where every mistake we make is someone else’s fault. I can’t pay off a loan – it’s the bank’s fault for lending me more money than I can afford to pay back; I’m overweight – it’s because of all the adverts that tempt me to eat unhealthy food; I lost a ton of money betting – it’s the bookies fault for not closing my account. How many bookies are there? If Bet365 close an account it’s rather easy to open another one elsewhere – closing an account doesn’t really achieve anything and at the end of the day does it? And whatever way we look at it they’re there to make money. And how are they meant to know the net worth of a customer? £700 a day for some is just a round of drinks.
Going to head down to Next tomorrow to see whether I can persuade them to refuse to sell clothes to my wife on the grounds that she’s spending more money there than I could afford.
Game tips that you buy. The seller receives a bonus of B365.
If the betting suggestions do not go in, the seller of the betting tip receives a bonus of B365. New game systems sellers recommend bet 365. The answers are in mini-text lines. I didn’t think this was true. So it is.