Account Limiting and Closing by Bookmakers. How & Why.

I was asked to write this article, to try and shed a little light on why certain accounts may be limited by a bookie, and others may not.

First thing to mention. Bookies don’t just limit any account based on how much they stake, or even sometimes how much they win. It is based on multiple factors. Frequent big wins are obviously taken into account but other things such as betting on niche markets or in lesser known leagues, staking patterns or even time spent on the site itself. If you tend to just log in and place your bet fairly quickly, This may be picked up by software that most online bookmakers now use. Anything that makes you look like you know what you are doing, and aren’t an standard punter, will flag up to them fairly quickly.

So why do they limit peoples accounts? First and foremost because they are a business and wish to protect themselves against people taking advantage or abusing them, and most importantly, costing them money. Of course we all want to beat the bookmaker but if you are doing it through the following methods, they wont like you and will soon restrict or even block your account.

Arbitrage Betting

As I have touched upon before, arbitrage betting is basically just playing outcomes off against each other, taking the best odds, as it takes advantage of imbalances between markets. That means if you place two bets at the right time, you can ensure you will make no loss and a slight profit on either outcome. Bookmakers hate this as you stand to never lose if arbing correctly and therefore you will cost the bookie money long term. You can arb in many ways, including using betting exchanges, or even in store.

Matched Betting

Matched Betting is effectively taking advantage of sign up offers or even existing customer offers on multiple sites and playing them off against each other, so that you stand to make a profit regardless of outcome. This is different to arbing in the sense that your taking advantage of “free money” to guarantee returns. Bookmakers obviously dont like this as again, your playing with no risk to yourself. People often sign up to the same bookies repeatedly under different information to take advantage of these new customer offers.

Winning

Sounds stupid, but if you are frequently withdrawing more money than you deposit, they will eventually pick up on it and limit you because you are a loss maker to the company and they dont like losing money. Once you are flagged it is likely the account you are using will be hit with either either heavy limiting restrictions or possibly even account closures. That is why it is advisable to split your bets over multiple sites so you are not consistently hammering the same one.

Syndicate Betting or Third Party Betting

This one simply just breaks their often iron clad T&C’s. You are not allowed to bet on behalf of someone else. If caught doing so you have contravened the terms and conditions of the site and you will be restricted. You may even lose any winnings from bets suspected to have been placed on behalf of someone else. I use a specific site for my syndicate betting which is tailor made for syndicate bets and therefore is different. https://www.colossusbets.com/
But 99% of bookies don’t allow it. Letting someone else use your account falls under this category too, as does betting using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to mask your location and creating multiple accounts for the same site. If your suspected of this the hammer will come down pretty quickly.

Another limiting factor is if your betting using insider information or fixing as fairly obviously your effectively breaking the law and committing fraud. This is massive within football with Daniel Sturridge becoming the latest high profile case to be penalised for doing it.

Finally as I touched upon previously, suspicious betting patterns will be picked up on, likely by computer algorithms, so sometimes it is wise to chuck the occasional ‘mug bet’ in with a rounded stake to in an attempt to confuse the algorithm. Most professional punters know they will go through multiple accounts. It’s just part of the job. So the times you see tipsters with high Return on Investment (ROI’s), or money won, it is likely they have gone through multiple accounts to do so. If they haven’t then you have to question why the bookies are still letting them play unrestricted. It is often because they haven’t been marked as pro or up to no good, so the bookie thinks over time and variance, they will make their money back and then some, on the punter.

You will know if your accounts been limited or suspended as you will recieve a message stating along the lines of the fact you are no longer eligible for promotions, or when you try to place a bet it wont allow you to stake more than a certain amount. Once they limit you there really is nothing much you can do and it is highly unlikely to be reversed. If you really want to continue betting with the operator then continue to use the limited account recreationally and after a period of time they may lift the limits or be more amenable to a request to do so. If you genuinely think you should not have been limited you can dispute it. If you have been limited or suspended the company can restrict your bets or stop you placing any more but they cannot hold your money from you without a valid reason. If you are suspected of fraud or you haven’t verified your account then funds can be withheld, otherwise you should be free to withdraw.

Lastly here are some tips to prevent/delay your accounts being limited or restricted found at https://www.onlinebetting.org.uk/betting-guides/limiting-accounts.html

• Place some bets not utilising offers
• Place some accas and other high margin bets
• Lose every now and again
• Use rounded stakes (£5, £10, etc)
• Do not use the same username with all bookies
• Do not use the same email address
• Bet widely with many non-connected operators
• Do not claim every offer
• Do not maximise the stake / reward of every offer
• Spend time on site and visit different sections
• Stream an event or use some of the features
• If you want free bets use offer clubs
• Do not withdraw winnings straight away
• Do not withdraw the entire account balance
• Avoid eWallets as these can be viewed more suspiciously
• If multiple bettors in the same household avoid using the same I.P.

Hope this is of some use to people and answers some queries people might have about bookmakers rights to restrict and close accounts and how/why this occurs.