In most industries, you can sell or transfer things in your name provided both you as the seller and the buying party meet certain criteria. This can include the likes of both being of legal age to take part in the transaction, both interested parties having clean records and there being no suggestion of any wrong-doing taking place, such as money laundering. Whereas that is the case if you were to want to sell a car that you own or a house that you’ve lived in, indeed even a financial contact or product you have, but you are not allowed to treat a betting account in the same manner. Why?
When you sign up to place bets with a betting company, you agree to a personal contract with them that sees you agreeing to certain rules and conditions. If you were to sell your betting account, you might be doing so to someone that doesn’t realise that you’ve agreed to such things, therefore breaking the contract. Whilst it should theoretically be totally fine to sell or transfer your contract in much the same way as you would do in other industries, there are too many moving parts to make it something that betting companies will condone.
You Have Entered Into A Contract
Most people don’t realise that when they sign up with a bookmaker or a betting account, they have agreed to a contract created by the company that you’re working with. As a result, anything that you do comes under the rules and regulations stipulated in said contract, meaning that if you were to take the company to court then there would be a legal contract that could be turned to to help in figuring out the correct outcome for both parties. You might not be happy, but it will be covered by the contract that you’ve agreed to.
This sort of thing is often turned to by judges or arbitrators to decide upon the outcome of a legal battle between a betting company and a wronged party. In 2021, for example, Andrew Green won his legal battle with Betfred over a £1.7 million payout that he felt that he was owed for playing a blackjack game. Betfred said that there had been a malfunction and that this was covered by their terms and conditions, but the judge in the case, Mrs Justice Foster, said that the clauses that they were relying upon were ‘inadequate’ and found in Green’s favour.
Though in this specific instance the court sided with the bettor, there have been other examples in which the court has agreed with the betting company over the the specifics of their terms. The point being, the person taking out the betting account is the one agreeing to the contract. Had Mr Green bought the betting account that he won the money with from someone else, Betfred would almost certainly have won the case on account of the fact that they didn’t have an agreement with him, but rather the person that he’d bought it from.
Not An Exclusive Thing
Whilst there is obviously a temptation to compare this with something like a financial contract, which people can sell or transfer as they see fit, there is something a bit different about a betting account. For starters, betting accounts are not exclusive things. You might wish to sell a financial contract that was specifically written for you, for example, with the person that is buying it from you unable to get a similar contract of their own and therefore being willing to pay a large sum of money to get hold of it. The same isn’t true of betting accounts.
Apart from people that have been blocked from opening an account for one reason or another and other specific examples, the vast majority of people that want to open a betting account will be allowed to do so. For this reason, there is little reason why someone would want to buy a betting account off someone else. Perhaps more importantly, there is little reason for the betting company to go through the struggle and strain of moving the contract agreement from one part to another when the second part can just open an account of their own and sign their own contract.
Why Would You Sell An Account?
The obvious question that many will ask is why, exactly, you’d want to sell a betting account in the first place. Most people that open accounts with bookmakers or online casinos do so because they want to place bets that suit their own interests. Betting accounts are therefore very private things, meaning that it’s tricky to understand why someone would want to sell the account that they have cultivated to be filled with their own interests. That is especially true when you consider the modern world and the way that online companies can tailor accounts for specific users.
The answer, as is so often the case, comes in the form of the need to get an immediate payout. For many people, cash and the need to get hold of it can often be an urgent thing. It is not uncommon for people to have any number of long-term bets in place, wagered on the ante-post market but that have therefore seen their cash caught up at a time when they most need to get hold of it. The only way to release that money is to sell their betting account to someone else, allowing this other person to potentially benefit from the future winnings in favour of a short-term cash injection.
There are other reasons why someone might want to sell their betting account too. Perhaps, for example, they are going to live abroad and will not be able to legally place bets or access their account from their new country of residence. Maybe they have acknowledge that they have a gambling problem and therefore want to get rid of their accounts but don’t want to lose out on the money that they’ve got tied up in ante-post bets. Whatever the reason, it’s not something that you can legally do at the time of writing.