Geoff Banks

Geoff has had a couple of pops at matched bettors/arbers/value bettors on his blog recently. 

Unlicensed and untaxed layers. They are not genuine customers, and in actual fact their activities have an extremely damaging effect on the ‘recreational punters,’ by having their accounts unfairly factored. 

Right up there in the highest echelons of the Betfair forum. The place for unlicensed individuals to vent their spleen anonymously. Be as rude as you like and say what you like when no one knows your name can’t you? 

The last time I tested these laws was with one particular idiot who thought it would be amusing to describe me as a cokehead on Twitter. That little escapade cost him damages and expenses approaching fifty grand. That’s fifty grand for opening your mouth and letting your tongue wobble Rob. 

I’m not here to support their activities and I do not have to justify not laying them a bet, or restricting such traders to pennies because I see them as simple parasites on my firm. 

One final point in dealing with Rob, and the small army of Rob’s out there trading on Betfair in your underpants, forming your own bookie hating communities. 

There may be a fair point to be made here, and bookie's do have to protect their business and their recreational punters. One way to do this is to restrict and ban these sorts of accounts. But Geoff doesn't make this fair and balanced point. Instead he throws insults, labels and veiled threats at everyone who dares to take some value out off the bookie. The restrictions and the bans definitely do not fall on just professional gamblers. They go too far in my opinion and impose bans and restrictions on many many recreational punters.

I would class myself as a recreational punter, I am certainly not a professional. To me it is a game of wits between the bookie and the punter. Like every punter I am in it to win, I'm not in it to put bread on the bookie's table. I want to see a long term profit so I study form, stats and the markets. I am certainly not professional though. I don't make a full time wage on a small arb here on restricted stakes, or a €20 free bet there.

In this game of wits the advantage is always with the bookie. They set the prices which are always stacked in their favour. They have a team of expert traders, and expert analysts. They have tools and technology and access to stats and market trends that I can only dream about. They can ban and restrict you for no reason.  So yes I will use what tools I can to even out the playing field. I have some simple in-expensive tools that I use which help me study stats and markets.

I am not rude, I am not dishonest, I am not a parasite, I don't need a licence to lay a bet on betfair, I don't need to pay tax on gambling wins, I am not sitting in my underpants (and so what if I was), I am not professional, I am not a business. But why is it that the bookies (not specifically Geoff Banks here) want to restrict me to zero, and remove free bets from my account?  I am just playing the game fairly. Are the bookies?

Just to highlight the hypocrisy of Geoff Banks' underlying point about arbers. His prices (and all bookies prices) fall well short of what is a fair price. To lay a horse at at 6.5 when you can back him at 7.8 is every arbers dream, but the bookie has this opportunity every day, every minute, with every horse. Geoff can make €14 instantly on every €100 he lays on Ardamir in the race below. On Akavit he has more than a 20% margin. If Geoff Banks is not making money on these prices then maybe he should read some of his own paragraphs about arbing.

A more important way of protecting recreational customers, is to support Responsible Gambling initiatives.  There are still too many stories of bookies taking bets from known criminals to allow them to clean their drug money. There are too many stories of gamblers being encouraged to gamble their life and family away until the bookie has all their money. If you take Geoff's view that arbers are parasites, then they are parasites taking from the over rich bookie. Bookie's, however, are parasites on the most vulnerable of society.

The bookie's really need to clean up their image as stories like these appear way too often:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/20/william-hill-fined-62m-by-gambling-commission

http://www.thejournal.ie/paddy-power-problem-gambler-2634759-Mar2016/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bookmaker-fixes-race-odds-l77zwmbrd