Payment solutions issue

[Justin7]

I might be out of my league here, so I wanted feedback on this issue.

Player "A" signs up for an account with a sportsbook. He sends a deposit from his father's checking account. The book's rules are crystal clear: you can't do this. The name on the depositing account must match the account holder. Many books have this rule. As a counter-point though, most non-gambling merchants would let a family member present a check or credit card for payment.

Is there an industry standard on this issue?

I'm looking at a case where this happened, and the book closed the account about 10 days later, as soon as the processor told them the two were different. The issue is whether the player keeps his winnings. I really don't know the answer. Anyone know how most sportsbooks handle this?

[HedgeHog]

Unless the kid forged his Dad's signature, the account should stand. They cashed a legit check, and they should have caught the name difference at that point, IMO. Sweat the game, not the deposit.

[Justin7]

Unless the kid forged his Dad's signature, the account should stand. They cashed a legit check, and they should have caught the name difference at that point, IMO. Sweat the game, not the deposit.

With an Echeck, you send in "supporting documentation". The book really has no chance to catch it until the docs were sent in 10 days later.

[robmpink]

I see you are reaching out to the people of late for opinions on cases you are working. I know you have done this in the past as well. Don't you feel that this sort of discredits you in any way shape or form? I don't know if you soley handle disputes, if not, your peers rarely ask the forum for their opinion. I could see all of the mods discussing it in private, but asking the forum for their opinion? It seems maybe you are unsure of your stance.

It is an honest question and you shouldn't be offended by it.

[St.Aquinas]

I might be out of my league here, so I wanted feedback on this issue.

Player "A" signs up for an account with a sportsbook. He sends a deposit from his father's checking account. The book's rules are crystal clear: you can't do this. The name on the depositing account must match the account holder. Many books have this rule. As a counter-point though, most non-gambling merchants would let a family member present a check or credit card for payment.

Is there an industry standard on this issue?

I'm looking at a case where this happened, and the book closed the account about 10 days later, as soon as the processor told them the two were different. The issue is whether the player keeps his winnings. I really don't know the answer. Anyone know how most sportsbooks handle this?

As a counter-point though, most non-gambling merchants would let a family member present a check or credit card for payment. -Generally this "family" member needs to be a singer on the account. This applies to both banking and credit card situations.

Thinking out of the box here, but why not get an authorization from the account holder which should release the funds. The problem is pretty clear however. If the true account holder see's the charge he will most likely dispute the e-check resulting in a charge back. Obviously, this is why books and merchants globally have these type of rules in place to hinder theft.

[St.Aquinas]

I see you are reaching out to the people of late for opinions on cases you are working. I know you have done this in the past as well. Don't you feel that this sort of discredits you in any way shape or form? I don't know if you soley handle disputes, if not, your peers rarely ask the forum for their opinion. I could see all of the mods discussing it in private, but asking the forum for their opinion? It seems maybe you are unsure of your stance.

It is an honest question and you shouldn't be offended by it.

Not to jump on Justin because he just posted the "don't bull shit me post", but it seems odd to me as well.

[Justin7]

I see you are reaching out to the people of late for opinions on cases you are working. I know you have done this in the past as well. Don't you feel that this sort of discredits you in any way shape or form? I don't know if you soley handle disputes, if not, your peers rarely ask the forum for their opinion. I could see all of the mods discussing it in private, but asking the forum for their opinion? It seems maybe you are unsure of your stance.

It is an honest question and you shouldn't be offended by it.

There are a couple reasons for posting questions. Some are slam-dunks. If a book doesn't see that, but 30 people all agree, they might reweigh it.

Two other reasons. Some are very interesting. Occasionally you get people saying "hmm, never thought of that". And then in this one, I really do want well thought out opinions because it's a new question that I've never addressed.

[betbetter]

Books have lost valued processors over ********** issues. Potential here is obvious. Close the account return the balance. Open another account with their own banking info.
Fraud is a top 2 issue facing the industry, huge.

[big joe 1212]

I would say that the book should do what they please in this situation, as if the customer had lost, the book may never had recovered the money. The rules are clearly stated!
Of course, the book should give back the original deposit.

[alf66]

The way this is handled here is, I am not interested in where the funds come from (i.e. the fathers account), as long as the betting account is in clear good standing (no multiple accounts or any other fraud suspicion).
Important is however, winnings will ONLY go back to the account used for funding and nowhere else. This way fraudsters won't have much fun with it and there is no problem with money laundering.

Not sure how others are handling this though.

[CS-Cedrick]

I might be out of my league here, so I wanted feedback on this issue.

Player "A" signs up for an account with a sportsbook. He sends a deposit from his father's checking account. The book's rules are crystal clear: you can't do this. The name on the depositing account must match the account holder. Many books have this rule. As a counter-point though, most non-gambling merchants would let a family member present a check or credit card for payment.

Is there an industry standard on this issue?

I'm looking at a case where this happened, and the book closed the account about 10 days later, as soon as the processor told them the two were different. The issue is whether the player keeps his winnings. I really don't know the answer. Anyone know how most sportsbooks handle this?

As soon as it is confirmed that the account holder does not match the name on the deposit that account would be cancelled until they both send a copy of their ID veryfing themselves and therefore authorizing any of those two for either making deposits or receiving payouts. The funds will be refunded to the card in the form of a ********** and would therefore be added to the negative data base (fraud prevention). Once, the ID's are verified, most sportsbooks will charge the fee according to the ********** for them to enable the account once again.

[Justin7]

And what happens to the winnings? What if the player won a lot of money in a short period of time, before the player provided documents showing the name mismatch? In this case, the book was not lax, and could do nothing ahead of time to prevent it.

[tomcowley]

What's the book going to do if the player went broke in the meantime? You have to assume that they're going to keep the money, unless they can document a history of (effectively) refunding losing wagers for this reason. I would expect the book to have a history one way or the other, and if they say they don't, it's probably because they kept the money. Given that they'd keep the money, and since there's no apparent fraudulent intent- the processor would likely have a record if they tried to freeroll/********** before- the book should ask for whatever paperwork it wants to feel comfortable that the transaction was authorized, and then pay in full.

The book voluntarily chose to enter into a situation where it can be accepting wagers without documentation. It needs to EXPLICITLY tell the player, not in fine print, and not in something that can randomly be clicked through, that the names have to match exactly, if it wants to make a claim on what's apparently not an attempt at fraud (and that a normal person would expect to be acceptable in other contexts)

[Sinister Cat]

Here is some text that might apply from the LasPalmas website:
"As a convenience to our customers, we will add deposited funds to the player account immediately. However, some depositing methods require up to 72 hours to be approved by your bank or by our processors. If for reasons outside of our control, funds are not approved, ALL wagers using unapproved or declined funds will be considered null and void, and ALL winnings or losses will be eliminated from the players' account."

I realize that this might not be a strictly approved/declined (by the payment processor) type of case, but you'd think the same rule should apply. There is a risk that had things gone differently here, the sportsbook could have been freerolling, but it isn't the case in this situation. I don't think the player should get to keep their winnings. You can't hold something that the sportsbook *could have* done wrong against it, when it hasn't actually done it. And there is obviously a large risk that the player in this instance was freerolling, and there was apparently no way to safeguard against it.

I also don't think you can assume that (non-gambling) retailers generally allow family members to use other family members' accounts. My personal experience with that has been mixed.

Edit: I should clarify-- of course, you don't actually know whether the sportsbook was freerolling or not. I'm just saying, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. They should be held to a standard where you'd expect them to do the "right thing" in the alternative, i.e., where the player lost instead.

[tomcowley]

When I get a hotel room, I generally have to initial a few places. 1) The rate, obviously. 2) That if I have a pet in the room, I will be charged X extra 3) That if I smoke in a non-smoking room, I will be charged X Extra. Why? So nobody can claim ignorance when they get charged. When I was renting a place, I had to inital several places to show that not only did I accept the contract, that I was aware of specific provisions.

If the book is going to make a claim against reasonable behavior, then it has to explicitly warn the player. I'm sure it didn't do that in this case. If the book can show that it had no intent of freerolling, because it had voided losing wagers in the same spot, then that's fine. The player's funds wouldn't be at risk, so the book's shouldn't be either. If the player's funds could have been (or actually were) at risk because the book has no history of refunding losing wagers, and the player didn't go against explicit instructions, then he has to be protected (paid in full once the transaction is shown to have been authorized). I'm never giving the book the benefit of the doubt in an ambiguous situation, especially when they could have reasonably avoided it.

[Sinister Cat]

Tom, Justin's initial post says the following:

Player "A" signs up for an account with a sportsbook. He sends a deposit from his father's checking account. The book's rules are crystal clear: you can't do this. The name on the depositing account must match the account holder. Many books have this rule.

I guess from your point of view; it's a matter of how clearly this rule was presented to the player at the time of deposit (or at least, prior to making wagers).

I think my own opinion is that this isn't quite reasonable behavior (on the player's part), regardless of how explicitly they were warned. I don't know.. from a player's perspective, I'd think it was pretty crazy if a gambling site allowed someone to use someone else's credit card or bank account, even if they had the same last name. I imagine that chargebacks, where a kid used his father's credit card, for instance (as in this case), are rather frequent. I think that context does matter here: how many fathers say to their sons, "sure, go ahead and use my checking account to fund your sportsbook".

It seems a little odd to me, however, that the payment processor couldn't notify the book about this in less than 10 days. That is unfortunate.

[robmpink]

There are a couple reasons for posting questions. Some are slam-dunks. If a book doesn't see that, but 30 people all agree, they might reweigh it.

Two other reasons. Some are very interesting. Occasionally you get people saying "hmm, never thought of that". And then in this one, I really do want well thought out opinions because it's a new question that I've never addressed.

ok, thanks

[tomcowley]

Tom, Justin's initial post says the following:


I guess from your point of view; it's a matter of how clearly this rule was presented to the player at the time of deposit (or at least, prior to making wagers).

I think my own opinion is that this isn't quite reasonable behavior (on the player's part), regardless of how explicitly they were warned. I don't know.. from a player's perspective, I'd think it was pretty crazy if a gambling site allowed someone to use someone else's credit card or bank account, even if they had the same last name. I imagine that chargebacks, where a kid used his father's credit card, for instance (as in this case), are rather frequent.

I took that to mean that the book's rules were crystal clear.. in the fine print. There's no need to use a different name to do an e-check freeroll. Deposit, go all-in, stop payment if and only if you lose. The wagering history can probably shed some light on this too.

[Sinister Cat]

[quote=tomcowley;1412884 There's no need to use a different name to do an e-check freeroll. Deposit, go all-in, stop payment if and only if you lose. The wagering history can probably shed some light on this too.[/quote]

good point

[Justin7]

Btw, my understanding is that an echeck deposit doesn't give the name of the account holder. The only way to find this out is through additional paperwork.

[CS-Cedrick]

And what happens to the winnings? What if the player won a lot of money in a short period of time, before the player provided documents showing the name mismatch? In this case, the book was not lax, and could do nothing ahead of time to prevent it.

The book does not have the right to void the winnings unless real fraud is proven, in that case, winnings are void and the deposit, will be refunded in most cases. If they succesfully complete the verification process succesfully the money stays there.

[CS-Cedrick]

Btw, my understanding is that an echeck deposit doesn't give the name of the account holder. The only way to find this out is through additional paperwork.

Most systems are now working differently, its a must to have the account holder full name in order to process an e-check deposit, plus, in most cases the player will be needing some previous history in order to be able to deposit this way.

[BigOrangeTitans]

Justin,

At Vip.com i used my wife's credit card. The only thing they required from me was to send them a copy of her state ID, Card(or in this case chekck), and signed authorization allowing me to use the funds signed by her. Within an hour it was approved.

[Karla]

I might be out of my league here, so I wanted feedback on this issue.

Player "A" signs up for an account with a sportsbook. He sends a deposit from his father's checking account. The book's rules are crystal clear: you can't do this. The name on the depositing account must match the account holder. Many books have this rule. As a counter-point though, most non-gambling merchants would let a family member present a check or credit card for payment.

Is there an industry standard on this issue?

I'm looking at a case where this happened, and the book closed the account about 10 days later, as soon as the processor told them the two were different. The issue is whether the player keeps his winnings. I really don't know the answer. Anyone know how most sportsbooks handle this?

The deposit should be honored provided that they receive an authorization from the account holder (in this case is the father) that this is a legit check that they are processing.

As for the winnings of the betting account, it should stand unless proven that the deposits made are fraudulent.