Restrictions on Players with Big Wins – All You Should Know

In the recent few years, there have been quite a few cases when gaming companies and bookies have imposed various restrictions on people who made money from promo offers or who wagered in a way that is not commercially viable.

According to Guardian Australia, this correspondence fully straightens up with the facts presented to a parliamentary inquiry, which proposed some bookies limit bets from successful gamers. They followed the concept that it’s always the highest-risk players who experience the most harm and lose the most funds.

But what are the real reasons bookies and gaming operators use these restrictions against their customers? Let’s find the answer together.

The Most Common Reasons Behind These Restrictions 

According to some industry sources, who preferred to stay unidentified, the limitations were imperative as groups of players have the habit of targeting promotional offers, such as “deposit matches,” where the bookie matches the amount of funds a customer puts in a game. For this purpose, they can create multiple accounts in other people’s names and use them dozens of times to manipulate the market.

On the other hand, some said that these promos are used to keep bad punters playing. According to them, with escalated taxes that lead to adjusted odds, these deals can help offset financial losses and prevent those losing money from quitting.

When throwing a look at emails from 2016 to late 2022, we can see that they have confirmed that gaming firms actively use inducements to encourage bets from what they consider casual or “recreational” gamers. They can even categorize users as “professional” players in their own judgment and are upfront about stopping those costing them money.

If we are to bring an example, in 2021, the company Sports Betting, which has since closed, limited punters’ access to promotional deals and restricted the amount they could wager on regular markets. In an email, they inferred they had the right to call off or restrict accounts based on a variety of factors, covering heavy dependence on promotional markets and behaviors resembling professional gaming, which isn’t profitable for the company. This led to reduced betting limits on certain markets, covering enhanced odds markets.

In addition to these, emails obtained by Guardian Australia revealed that in 2020, a smaller gaming outfit informed a bettor that their promotions aimed to reward regular customers who loyally placed bets rather than primarily focusing on promotional markets. They explained that 80 people had opened accounts on the same day to exploit an offer, while 75 individuals made use of their generosity.

The company, being a small business, couldn’t afford to sustain such exploitation, and they raised their concern that this wasn’t the intended use of the promotion.

Another case is about Betr, a company backed by News Corp. Towards the end of the past year, Betr restricted an individual’s account after an internal review. They notified the customer that he would no longer have access to “bonus bet and bonus cash promotions, double-your-winnings, early payouts, and deposit offers.” As the company explained in its email, while any active promotion bets would be honored, any future bets on promotional markets would no longer be acceptable. The email to the bettor, however, did not specify the reason for the restrictions.

To Sum Up

It’s a proven fact that the number of people engaging in gaming activities and spending their free time on online pokies and various gambling activities is constantly increasing. But apart from the entertainment side, there is also a darker side to this tendency.

If you dive deep into this topic, you will see that there were dozens of cases when gaming companies preferred to use the method of restrictions in order to solve some actual-time issues. Sometimes, this decision is entirely rational and serves a fair goal. But sometimes, imposing limitations can be the shield of betting sites to stop successful players from making more profits. 

So, if you want to know if the reasons behind restrictions are reasonable or not, you will have to learn all the ins and outs of a specific case.