It’s something that bookmakers don’t exactly advertise and for very good reason, but it’s not unheard of for customers to have their accounts limited or even suspended completely for doing nothing other than winning their bets. Bookies don’t like losing money, so as long as the bets that you’re placing are losing ones then they’re more than happy to keep taking your money and allowing you to place wager after wager.
As soon as you start winning regularly, however, your account will be flagged up on a system and monitored. If that winning streak continues then it’s extremely likely that your account will initially be restricted, meaning that you can only place bets with smaller stake amounts. If you still carry on winning after that then bookmakers have the right to suspend or closer your account altogether, whether you like it or not.
Can You Get A Ban For Being Successful?
To most sensible people, the idea of being banned for winning your bets seems like an outrageous situation to find themselves in. It seems as though it’s wrong for bookmakers to be able to take bets all the time when people are losing the wagers that they place but then put a stop to it the second someone finds themselves in a winning streak, but the terms and conditions of most bookies mean they’re allowed to do just that.
Because bookmakers make their own terms and conditions, they’re able to ban people for any reason that they see fit as long as it is not discriminatory. They have sophisticated algorithms in place to monitor every customer’s account, ostensibly for the purpose of stopping people from money laundering. What this form of account monitoring allows for on top of that is the monitoring of customers who are winning too much money with successful bets.
Ultimately, bookmakers are businesses and not charities, so if someone is regularly taking more money from them than they’re giving back then the business side of the company will kick in and stop that from happening. It’s clear to every bettor that that doesn’t feel particularly ethical, but there’s no question that it is legal. You can throw your hands in the air and issue a loud complaint, but all you can do is take your business elsewhere.
When Are Limits Imposed?
Unless you were winning tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds with every bet that you place, it’s highly unlikely that a bookmaker would move to ban your account at the first sign of you being successful. Instead, once it’s been brought to their attention that you’re doing well with your wagers, bookies will first move to limit the amount of money that you can stake on given markets.
Which markets you’ll have the limits imposed on will depend on your betting habits. If you only ever seem to bet on football and horse racing, say, then they’re the two markets that will be limited whilst others, such as tennis and golf, will have no restrictions put in place on them. Start winning on those markets, however, and you’ll soon find the stake that you can place on those markets restricted too.
If you’re the sort of person that spreads your betting around all sorts of different markets and you win at all of them, your bookie of choice will simply impose a limit on your stake amount across the board. If that doesn’t seem to be stopping you from winning on the regular then that’s the point at which you’ll find that your account is suspended altogether, meaning that you’re simply not allowed to place any bets of any worth.
Does Every Bookie Do it?
As a punter, the good news is that you have a wealth of options when it comes to which companies to bet with. The bad news is that all of them will move to limit your account or even suspend it altogether if you’re too good at taking money from them. The one thing that is worth bearing in mind is that some bookmakers are more generous than others, so if you shop around you’ll doubtless find one that lets you win more than others.
There is no hard and fast rule on this front, but a good rule of thumb is that the bigger companies are more likely to give you a little bit of leeway when compared to smaller companies. The smaller the bookmaker is, the less money they’ll be able to lose before it starts to have an impact on their bottom line, whereas bigger bookies tend to have more liquidity and can therefore absorb losses easier.
What Can You Do To Avoid Account Closure?
There are a few things that you can do to limit the chances of your account being either restricted or closed altogether. The obvious one is not to win very often, but that seems a little bit pointless in terms of the reason you’re betting in the first place. Given that you’ll almost certainly want to win as many bets as you can, the first thing to do is to be loyal to the same bookmaker as much as possible.
Obviously we all want to shop around to get the best odds, but if a bookmaker sees that you don’t bet very often with them and seem to win when you do, they’ll be quicker to close your account. The more often you lose bets, the more likely it is that a bookie will keep your account open and unrestricted because they’ll fancy their chances of taking the money that you’ve won back off you.
Another thing you’ll want to consider doing is betting small amounts often. The larger the wins are that you rack up, the more likely it is the your account will be flagged. Equally, bookies are wary of punters that opt to place bets with specific amounts of money, such as £8.77 or £103.54. Rounding up your bet will limit the chance of a bookmaker flagging it up for analysis, just as avoiding specialised bets will avoid the same thing.
Finally it is worth thinking about the parent company of the betting site you choose to use. If, for example, you bet with Coral you can guarantee that data about your betting and winning habits will be shared with Ladbrokes in the same group. Likewise Paddy Power and Betfair are part of the same company. It is worth choosing accounts with different companies.
If All Else Fails, Head To A Betting Exchange
Betting exchanges have virtually revolutionised the betting industry, allowing punters to bet against one another without the need for the bookmaker acting as the middleman. Instead, betting exchanges take a commission from the person who wins the bet, meaning that it doesn’t matter to them how much you’re winning or how often. In fact, most betting exchanges actually encourage punters to win.
If you’re successful betting with a betting exchange then there’s a good chance that they will offer you a reduced commission amount the more that you bet with them. This can be a massive difference maker to a punter used to their bookmaker limiting their account when they win all the time. Betting with an exchange allows you to not only bet on your own terms but also avoid being punished for your success.