Bookies sharing information on us

Ok here we go. Something I have suspected for ages is that bookies are sharing information on us and possibly have some sort of database to identify the worst offenders in terms of matched betting, ew arbing etc etc. Before I get replies of “there are 2 sides to every story and do you multi account etc etc” the answer is that I do not so here goes. I’m not after sympathy from people just merely want to point out some FACTS and possibly go further with it and hope people do not receive the same fate.

A couple of weeks back the FSB technology sites these are all the ones such as brucebetting, mintbet, quinnbet, 21bet, dafabet, tommy french, toals, dabblebet and possibly a couple of of others all reduced my stakes to £1 ew at exactly the same time. Ok I was quite heavily restricted before hand but could load them all up and get 5s and 10s on across the board. May not sound much but you could get on a reasonable amount with a bit of practice and know how.

Anyway, I have been holding off signing up to a few bookies just in case there is a special offer so finally got around to looking at SportPesa. These are a series of bookies who sponsor premier league teams and are based by TGP europe ltd. Their layout is similar to websites such as 10bet, netbet, 12bet, tlcbet, beteast, fun88, ole777, betvision, 138bet. Possibly a few more but can not be bothered to list them all. Anyway, with these sites what I have found is over time you can get a few bets on and then suddenly your horse bets will have no max bet with exposure being £1. So basically out of the horse racing game. However, sometimes on the weekend and midweek champs league they have a few price boosts which are worth exploiting. Anyway, I wanted to go for SportPesa mainly to test if I would get gubbed without doing a horse racing bet and to place the sign up offer on West Ham v Leicester BTTS to see if I could win a £20 bet.

When filling in the form which is the same style as the other ones. I got a message saying sorry unable to sign up please contact customer support. Below is a transcript of the conversation.

You — Please update your info

Sign up problems

Chat started
Chris S joined the chat
Chris S
Good Evening your through to Chris S, how may I assist you today?

You —

Hello Chris I am trying to sign up and it says that I can not have an account with sport pesa
any idea as to why this is the case?

Chris S

Do you have an email address you could provide so I look further?

You — Please update your info

yes its ………….@hotmail.com

Chris S

Thank you, I can confirm that you’re unable to open an account with us due to business reasons.
You —

Why?
that is the most absurd thing I have heard in my life

Chris S

Unfortunely you will be unable to register with this brand as a result.

You —

Why? I would like a full explanation as to why i can not sign up with this brand or have an account.
To me it is pure discrimination

Chris S
I can only confirm that this is the reason why, I do apologise that you feel this decision will stand.

You —
Well ok I will ask again. I do not want an automated response. I would like a full written explanation as to why I can not open an account with Sportpesa. Because to me it seems like you are running illegally.
And have private information on myself before I have requested to sign up for this account. Which would be in breach of data protection laws.

Chris S
I’m afraid there is no further information we can provide in regards to this matter. Please refer to our terms and conditions section 18.2 (ii) – https://www.sportpesa.uk/en-gb/info/terms

You — (copied the terms back to them)

18.2 In addition to other rights available under these Terms and Conditions, we reserve the right, in our sole discretion to:- (i) void any winnings (including Legitimate Winnings); (ii) suspend or terminate Your Account; (iii) terminate these Terms and Conditions with you; and/or (iv) suspend the provision of the Services to you and/or (v) seize all of the funds in your Player Account and to reverse any withdrawals that may be pending in the event that we reasonably determine that:-

(a) you or people living at the same address as you have more than one active account with us;

(b) the name you provided to us does not match the name on the credit or debit card or other payment accounts used to make deposits to Your Account;

(c) you participate in a promotion offered by us but fail to fulfil the requirements of the relevant promotion;

(d) you provide incorrect or misleading registration information;

(e) identification information requested by us was not provided to us;

(f) you are not the older of i)the age of 18 or ii) the legal age for participating in Gambling in the jurisdiction in which you reside;

(g) you access and participate in the Services from a jurisdiction where participation in the Services is prohibited by law or we deem (acting reasonably) that such participation is prohibited by law;

(h) you have “charged back” or procured a “charge back” against us or denied any of the transactions or deposits that you made to Your Account;

(i) you have deposited or sought to deposit money originating from criminal or other illegal or unauthorised activities to Your Account;

(j) you have been cheating or attempting to cheat;

(k) you are committing or attempting to commit fraud or we have reasonable grounds in our sole discretion to suspect price rigging, or deem any betting pattern to be suspicious in any regard;

(l) you employ or seek to make use of an artificial intelligence or other system (including machines, computers, algorithms, software or other automated systems) designed specifically to defeat the system operated by us or you are found to have colluded or attempted to collude with other players in order to defraud us (or other Players);

(m) you allow (intentionally or unintentionally) a third party to use Your Account;

(n) you fail to comply with any of the provisions of these Terms and Conditions;

(o) you attempt to conceal your location, including but not limited to, through the use of a Proxy server;

(p) you are located in one of the countries stated in Clause 9.1;
What exactly have I breached here because I can not see anything that I have done wrong.

At this point he quickly left the conversation closing it down so I could not get a transcript but luckily did so.I click on the chat link and nothing appears. I would be interested if someone can try to chat to them from their pc. I have tried this on beteast, ole 777 and sport pesa.

I have wrote this more as a case study to see what the bookies are doing with us and wondered if I have any grounds for further complaint. I would be interested to hear stories whether they are similar or some guidance as to where I go next.

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beesty2016
3

November 24, 2017 at 6:34 pm

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betman 41 November 24, 2017 at 7:25 pm

I concluded this before as well. Not quite as extreme but accounts closed clearly from who I was not what I’d done

I raised this with the gambling commission in my recent letter, but they basically said the t&c allow operators to share info and that’s what we sign up to.
The frustrating thing is Winner ignored a freedom of information request, which is illegal regardless of t&c and the gambling commission don’t seem to care on this either…. as they are the regulator who don’t particularly seem to regulate.

Does remind me I should follow up as I included the minister for gambling or whatever she’s called and the lazy bint never replied. Plus I wanted to call the commission out on part of their reply

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FoG_BLoG 58 November 24, 2017 at 8:03 pm

I suppose the terms and conditions do allow them to share our information. I am looking at paddy power terms but assume the rest have similar clauses…..

I suppose it depends what they mean by “appropriate agreement”.

But here are the interesting parts.

Of course terms and conditions are one thing, but means nothing if it’s illegal. Sharing personal information must be dodgy from a legal standpoint. I object to my name being on any type of blacklist which is shared that could defame my character. Like any list that may imply I am a cheat, or fraud, or have some gambling problems.

Some quotes from paddy’s terms:

“Your information may be processed in the following ways:”

“(j) To carry out risk management;”

“Your Personal Information may, for the purposes described above, be transferred or disclosed to any company within the Group or, subject to appropriate agreement, to third parties, for the processing of that Personal Information on our behalf.”

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bbobb 24 November 24, 2017 at 10:42 pm

Will be something similar to IESnare that the software provider are running.

You could contact FSB as a prospective customer and ask them what features they provide.

Not much can be done though…one reason why I agree with multi accounting.

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beesty2016 3 November 25, 2017 at 11:14 am

Thanks for the replies guys. Really interesting here some views. Betman it is interesting to see where you have taken it to and am thinking of doing something similar. Especially asking for a freedom of information request in what they have on me. I am just deeply annoyed that I can not even sign up meaning they have some form of information and considering extensive KYC’s this worries me a lot as I don’t want cards, passports, utility bills being passed across between sites.

I understand a little if there is one central database for problem gamblers who may have self exlcuded themselves from websites in the past. However, we know deep down the industry does not do enough to stop these vulnerable people in society.

I just find it funny how they closed the chat down and would not let me open it or see any of it. Good job I was copying it as I went along. I also do not like the fact it is saying that I am attempting to cheat or have an automated system to do it when I do all this in my head.

Do I agree with multi accounting? – Not particularly but I can see why people do it now. If they fire crap at us then we should fire crap back at them.

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FoG_BLoG 58 November 25, 2017 at 11:43 am

https://justiceforpunters.org/other-punter-injustices/subject-access-request-sar-template/

I have not done any subject area requests before. But if you’re interested I thought this was a good template courtesy of justiceforpunters.org.

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bbobb 24 November 25, 2017 at 11:56 am

FOI requests are only applicable to public organisations. They can just ignore them. You do have a right to get a copy of any personal data they hold under data protection though.

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beesty2016 3 November 25, 2017 at 12:10 pm

Cheers guys as it is a quiet looking Saturday seems like this is something to get involved with.

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mdt103 0 November 25, 2017 at 12:46 pm

Sharing of customer data between undertakings is an area caught by competition law. The Competition and Markets Authority are currently looking at bookies t&cs from a consumer perspective but may be interested if this is brought to their attention. There may be jurisdictional issues depending on where the bookies are based If some are in Malta that would be caught by Maltese and EU competition law. I am not sure of the position re Gibraltar. I would very much doubt that the UK listed bookies (Paddy, Coral etc) would touch this type of thing with a bargepole, but smaller ones could get involved in such conduct.

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Alvin 6 November 28, 2017 at 10:43 am

Hi beesty I also had several accounts with TGP gaming sites, which they decided to close all at once without any notification. I am complaining to IBAS and the Gambling Commission about them at the moment. You named some of the sites, but there are a few more including JenningsBet. You can find the full list at http://www.tgpgroup.com/. The same people do customer service and running the business for all the brands. So once we get on their radar they can just block us for all sites. I think it is different from them sharing our information with another betting site belonging to a different company. Not sure if there is anything we can do about them sharing information, good luck if you take any action!

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Deej 15 December 1, 2017 at 4:37 pm

Just out of interest, I believe the data protection laws are changing at some stage next year. They certainly are in my line of work. They are making it illegal to share your data with any other firm/company without us as customers ‘opting in’ to having our data shared. Whether this will affect the bookies I do not know, but I assume it will be across the board. I am also assuming that if we ‘opted out’ they can’t refuse business based on our personal data preferences.

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beesty2016 3 December 1, 2017 at 5:07 pm

Cheers Alvin for the post. The chat box still goes away when I click on it yet I know it does not for other people.

Yes I am planning on complaining to IBAS and the gambling commission but been a bit unwell this week so its on the “to do” list.

I have to say this but have a feeling that something big will happen with this company. You look at the amount of shirts they sponsor in the PL and I can definitely foresee a problem with them further down the line. The problem is that they are quick to gub and do offer the odd football offers which can be profitable. On the whole though their odds are always a way off the mark.

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westmatch 29 December 1, 2017 at 6:19 pm

Erm, something rather big did happen with the TGP books.
They tried to steal thousands of people’s money during Cheltenham 2 years ago.
Made the national media and they had to climb down.

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betman 41 December 1, 2017 at 7:23 pm

I think the t&c will cover ‘opting in’ to the sharing of information.

Still not got round to following up. Difficult to get motivation when busy. Do i make a quick few quid when I have a moment or spend time banging my head against a brick wall.

I suspect the only real way to make progress would be to find a problem gambler seriously affected or money launderer, go to the media and hope you can push enough points into the article to get some desired changes in as a by product of the gambling commission/government doing a ‘look at me im great’ exercise

As a group sharp gamblers, and the slightly more aware joe public gamblers don’t carry much weight or desire for change as it’s not a short term visible win

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Gilbs 16 December 1, 2017 at 7:27 pm

Deej is correct about the new rules on data sharing. To date both Honda and Flybe have fallen foul of the rules and have been fined.

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betman 41 December 1, 2017 at 7:43 pm

Ok well the gambling commission think the t&c cover sharing of information so even if it’s definitely not allowed
Flybe and honda was nothing to do with sharing customer data

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