As part of an ongoing inquiry into Australia’s online gambling industry, a number of representatives from the country’s leading mobile sports betting operators recently faced tense questioning from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs as to whether or not they have excluded players for winning too much.
Two such figures were Steven Lang, director of regulatory strategy and safer gambling at Entain, and Barni Evans, CEO of Sportsbet.
According to Inside Asian Gaming, Evans and Peta Murphy, chair of the committee conducting the inquiry, had a particularly heated discussion about whether or not Sportsbet excludes players who may be believed to have gained some sort of edge, such as through arbitrage betting or the use of bonuses.
The CEO retorted that the company “will seek occasionally to limit some forms of transactions, be they bets or deposits, in a number of circumstances,” and added that if “ people are betting on behalf of other individuals we will intervene there, if their behavior is deemed to be using privileged information and is therefore distorting the market and affecting the prices that other people can bet on we will intervene.”
“If they are in a cooling off period between setting deposit limits then we won’t allow them to transact at that point, and if they are betting into highly illiquid markets that are volatile and have very high fluctuations then we will reduce the available stake in those areas,” he concluded. “And if the model is predicting risk of harm then we’ll intervene.”
After Murphy questioned if Sportsbet has the same attitude towards players who do not seem to be utilizing some sort of advantage but win consistently, Evans replied that the company is “not opposed to mathematically gifted customers, but we do seek to look after the majority of our customers and when one customer is using information that might not be accessible to the rest of the market–like a trainer in a market–then we will intervene.”
As for Entain, which operates the Neds and Ladbrokes brands, Lang went a step further, admitting that “for some other events where there is less liquidity and less certainty in the markets, we may impose some restrictions on a small number of customers.”
However, he clarified that for most events, especially Australian racing events, “there are absolutely bets that we are required and we would take a bet from all customers in relation to.”
According to IAG, Murphy then posited that the practice of excluding advantage players “does happen,” and Lang replied affirmatively.
Responsible Wagering Australia Chairman Nick Minchin told IAG that “inevitably there will be occasions when a customer is excluded and there doesn’t appear to be any other adequate explanation other than they’re winning,” but added that he is “confident it’s not something our members adopt as standard practice.”
The inquiry, which was launched in September last year, is intended to “ look at online gambling and whether current laws, regulations, consumer protections and education and support programs are enough to reduce harm to gamblers,” according to a statement from Murphy at the time.
