Elsewhere on this site you’ll be able to read about people who have been banned from online betting sites and whether or not that can impact their ability to place bets in person with the same betting chain.
Here, we’re looking at the reverse of that and whether being banned in person will have an impact on your ability to place wagers online. The answer in both cases is a complicated one. In reality, there is no way for the bookmaker that you use to know your online information, unless you have a link between your online account and your physical one.
Some bookmakers will know their clients very well, including their name and address. In such instances, it may be possible for them to put the person’s information into an online system that would see their online betting account get restricted or even shutdown completely.
In most cases, though, punters tend to have a much more anonymous relationship with their bookie, so the chances are slim that anything that has happened to them in real-life will have an impact to them online. That doesn’t mean it never happens, just that it’s unlikely.
How Much They Know About You
In order for you to be in a situation where a ban from a bookmakers in real life would have an impact to you online, the bookmaker in question will need to have a large amount of information about you. That is to say, with the biggest bookies, there are millions of customers that they will have in their online database.
Some of these customers will have the same name, whilst others will have the same date of birth. In some extraordinary cases, the punters will have the same name and the same date of birth, though this is understandably rare.
Barring some genuinely extraordinary set of coincidences that would be Hollywood movie worthy, two customers of the same betting shop are likely to have the same name, the same date of birth and the same address. That is the extent of the information that a bookmaker would need in order to be confident that they would be limiting the correct online account of someone that they have chosen to ban from their shop. With that in mind, therefore, the obvious question becomes about how much information a bookie actually has about you.
If they know your name, even if it’s your full one, they are unlikely to be able to put any restrictions in place for fear of it being an error that sees the wrong person’s account get restricted. If they know your date of birth then the same rule applies.
It really is only if they have all three of the key facts about you that they would feel confident enough to put any sort of ban or restrictions in place on your online betting account and even that would require them to have a great deal of confidence in what it is that they’re looking to do.
The other thing to remember is that some bookmakers run schemes whereby you can have a loyalty scheme with them, which links the shop to your online account. If you have signed up for such a thing then they would move quickly to find out as much and would be likely to be able to introduce restrictions to you online as well as in person. That isn’t a reason not to sign up to such a scheme, given the benefits that tend to exist to people that do, but it is worth bearing in mind when it comes to how much information they have on you.
What Have You Done?
Another question that becomes pertinent when worrying about whether a bookmaker would look to get your online account restricted is about what it is that you have done. If you’ve rocked up to a shop when in an inebriated state and urinated in the corner, for example, then it is likely that they would look to kick you out of the shop and stop you from coming in again at any point in the future. That, in and of itself, is unlikely to be enough for them to move to get your online account either restricted or banned in its entirety.
If, on the other, you have entered the shop and been abusive to members of staff that are working in there then that might well be enough of a cause for them to try to limit your account online as well as in person. Similarly, if you have been banned from the shop because you’ve lost too much money or have put a restriction in on your own ability to place wagers, that would also be a good cause for the people working in the shop to try to find out as much information about you as possible in order to restrict your online betting too.
There Are Plenty Of Online Betting Sites
Whilst people that are banned from a betting shop in real life might struggle to find one in their local area to attend, the good news is that there are plenty of betting sites online that you’ll be able to turn to if you do find yourself being either restricted or banned altogether.
That is to say, there are many reasons to have an online account linked to your physical presence in a shop, so you might well choose to do precisely that. Similarly, it is not uncommon for people to want to ensure that their in-person bookie knows who they are for some reason.
Whilst this increases the risk that your online account will have restrictions put on it if you are banned from a real-life bookmaker for some reason, you will at least be able to seek alternative options in terms of placing bets online. Many of the online betting sites are linked nowadays, thanks to takeovers and mergers, but not all of them are.
This means that you being restricted with one site doesn’t mean that you’ll find similar restrictions are in place with others. Though people tend to have brand loyalty, the reality is that needs must from time to time.