Proof that online bookmakers lied to the NT gambling commission
Today I came across a great article about the current state of Australian online bookmakers and how they are killing the Australian racing markets. The article can be found here and it restates what has already been said many times before. I had a similar article in mind but Daniel says it much clearer then I ever could.
I just want to reinforce one small part of Daniels argument here. In his article he says:
“Corporate Bookmakers convinced the NT Government that the problem with being forced to accept bets up to a certain level is that multiple punters will all get on the same horse at exactly the same time, which means their liability is increased beyond the minimum. That’s total rubbish. Modern technology allows operating systems to react within a fraction of a second… it would be virtually impossible for multiple punters to make a bet before a Bookmaker’s system could automatically react and reduce the odds or even suspend that horse while they make a decision on the new price.”
The law for on-course bookmakers is that they must take every bet from ever punter to lose a certain amount. The online corporate bookmakers used the above reason to allow themselves the right to close any customers accounts and not accept bets if they didn’t want to.
Why the NT Licensing Commission took the bookmakers word instead of doing the above test is beyond me. I could understand they would want to do anything to keep the bookies happy if they were making a large amount of money via taxes, but they have a cap of just $250,000 for each bookmaker. So there must be another explanation that I do not know.
I feel they won’t be changing any rules soon so if we want things to change then we need to have the sports and racing governing bodies creating these rules. Victoria racing just increased the taxes bookmakers must pay them. While this in itself is a terrible idea, it shows that they have the power to make a change that the bookmakers have no choice but to follow. They either follow the rules or stop accepting any bets on Victorian races. So we need these bodies to also state in their rules that if a bookmaker wants to accept bets on their sport, they must accept bets from every single punter up to a certain amount and not close accounts. If each sporting body added this rule then this problem would be solved.
Currently its like the wild west for online bookmakers and they are making as much money as they can before they kill their own golden goose. Once racing has been destroyed then these rules will be implemented, by then it will be too late.
Steve, it really is clear that the NT Commission is complicit with these cowards.
I had an account with Sportsbet and when told that I wasn’t permitted to take fixed odds on racing, I asked the Commission how that stood in relation to the then supposed obligation to take bets to lose at least $1,000.
The Commission agreed with me to a point, saying that if they post odds which are visible when logged into your account then they must lay them. BUT it seems Sportsbet had a technical problem which meant that they couldn’t grey the odds out. So the Commission granted them, I think it was a month’s leeway to fix it.
When after the time was up I still had odds displayed, I went back to the Commission and asked them if I am now within my rights to demand they lay the odds to $1,000.
The Commission came back saying they’ve given them another couple of weeks (or whatever, I can’t recall the exact time) to rectify the problem.
I still don’t know whether Sportsbet ever did rectify it because before the time was up I found that I no longer had access to my account with them or with IASBet.
Much simpler than fixing the technical issue to just close a troublesome customer’s account!
In most cases it is down to incompetence on behalf of the governing bodies. They employ people who have no real idea of the problem and who want to cause as little trouble for themselves as possible and go home with their pay check at the end of every week. If they did the right thing they could be out of a job as the bookmakers might move.
In regards to the graying out of fixed odds, the odds are still there, but when I click on them a big red sign comes up saying
Warning: The bet type Fixed Price is not permitted for your account