Industry dilemna

**tomcowley** · 03-21-09, 09:02 AM

If the books weren't willfully ignorant, what percentage of players who get caught would get caught before placing a bet, and how many get that part right (signup/deposit/ID), but screw up only after getting money to the site and verifying identity?

**Santo** · 03-21-09, 09:14 AM

The problem is that books could do identity checks at the time of deposit, but they know it will lose them recreational business. So you have to somehow offset that business decision (they could catch the bad cheaters at this stage if they wanted to, 'good' cheaters probably never get caught if they stay on top of technology) against the freeroll also.

I'm not sure on the answer; normally with fraud you try and put the victim back where they started, and penalise the offending party with a fine or somesuch. Is that not more or less what's happening here, except the fine is the deposit and thus varies according to the size of the attempted fraud?

**tomcowley** · 03-22-09, 07:28 PM

At the point that the book does know, or reasonably should know, then they start acting worse than the player. The player is intending to honor all bets. The book isn't, and can passively scam an unlimited amount of money by taking repeated deposits when they know they'll never have to pay out.

When somebody signs up, they're presenting the book with personal information and IP/computer information. At LEAST by the time of the first deposit, it's the book's job to verify that they actually want action from whatever has been presented to them. Any action that the book takes after it reasonably should know who is betting with them should stand. In most cases, that's all the action on the account.

The tricky case is when somebody cheats well, but then slips up after some number of bets. When the book couldn't reasonably know it was being multiaccounted, I can understand measures being taken. Of course, it's in the book's best interest in every way to let players they've tagged as deposit-only play for as long as they want until they try to cash out, so unless SBR goes on a mission to enforce signup checks with a huge rating downgrade for noncompliance (or for making a claim when they should have known better), it's never going to happen, and it might not happen even then.

**Casi** · 03-23-09, 07:04 AM

I would confiscate all winnings of everyone who is caught with multiple accounts, every time.
Only way to stop it is setting examples, and those people should learn to know the risk.

**headgames** · 03-23-09, 10:20 AM

If you open multiple accounts to circumvent limits or take multiple bonuses from a book then every cent of your winnings on those duplicate accounts should be confiscated as you've forgone the right to be paid out like a fair player.

Unless a book wishes to showcase themselves in the same light as the cheat, then I do not feel confiscating whole deposits is correct. However, as the book has probably absorbed fees for any deposits made on the account, I do believe it would be fair to remove a portion of the deposits to cover these fees if this stipulation is made forthright in the rules.

Where a player opens a second account but has not done so to benefit from a bonus or to circumvent limits on his 1st account, then the book should simply notify the player of his duplicate account, close one but pay out as normal. I think it's important to remember that genuine players can make the mistake of opening a duplicate account.

**Arilou** · 03-23-09, 10:51 AM

The incentives of such a sutuation are crucial. If the player can't be punished beyond being thrown out, then he has no reason not to try to circumvent the rules of the book. Any alternative would have to involve a way to punish those who cheat, and for the moment there don't seem to be any such alternatives that wouldn't be far worse.

**tomcowley** · 03-23-09, 11:32 AM

And conversely, if the books never have to pay, they have no incentive to prevent this on signup, since they get a freeroll. How do you punish a player who gets caught on signup? It's impossible in this environment. (Prosecuting international computer trespass with no damages? LOL). Books could prevent a lot of it if they wanted to, but they have no incentive to decline the freeroll, since they currently suffer zero negative consequences for taking it.

**Data** · 03-23-09, 11:34 AM

I agree with everything what headgames said, yet Arilou makes a valid point. I think that the books should have in the rules that if a player caught cheating the book reserve the rights to share that player's personal information with the other sports books. It seems that blacklisting the cheaters should benefit the whole industry.

**Karla** · 03-23-09, 03:52 PM

If a player has multiple accounts, the book should suspend all the accounts. But, the books woudl only do this if and only if there is bonus fraus and/or the player is winning a lot. I know someone who experienced this case already. Surprisingly, he was lucky enough that the book did not ban him and left one account open for him.

What they did? Like headgames mentioned here, the winnings are confiscated together with the bonus then combined whatever is left (if there is any) in just one account. Which I think is fair enough.

**tomcowley** · 03-23-09, 06:12 PM

It's pretty stupid to take any winnings if the player hasn't scammed a bonus or exceeded a limit. The book is taking exactly the action they would take if it came from a combined account. And as far as books "only doing this if the player is winning a lot".. um, read the first page of this forum. There are at least two threads where money was taken when nothing shady was going on.

**Casi** · 03-23-09, 08:11 PM

Originally posted by tomcowley

It's pretty stupid to take any winnings if the player hasn't scammed a bonus or exceeded a limit. The book is taking exactly the action they would take if it came from a combined account.

I disagree, if an account was banned/limited there was a reason for it. So the book clearly does not get the action it wants, if that person opens another account with a diff. ID.

**tomcowley** · 03-23-09, 08:21 PM

I'm not talking about that case- signing up a new account to dodge a collar is exceeding a limit. I'm talking about cases like the BetGun one on the front page (where even if he is multiaccounting, it doesn't matter), or where a player has an old dormant account, or a player is playing at sister books and combined bets aren't exceeding limits.

**Dark Horse** · 03-23-09, 08:40 PM

The book could state very clearly in the rules exactly what risk the player exposes himself to if he opens multiple accounts. That would avoid all confusion. Just stating that it is against the rules, even though that should be enough, can result in freerolling situations.

A case where the book would be at fault is if this is a family of books and that is not known to the player. In that case the player should be paid in full.

**tomcowley** · 03-23-09, 08:46 PM

The rules basically don't matter. If somebody opened an account and never funded it, or made one deposit and quickly busted, and then years later forgot and opened another acocunt, stealing winnings is never appropriate.

**Dark Horse** · 03-23-09, 09:06 PM

That's true. You could solve that with a time period, after which a previous account expires, or by checking the new player against the player database. So if you want to avoid all confusion, the book should be very clear in the rules plus check its database (it could even state that it will do so, as a service to the player). Of course, an even remotely informed player would double check with the book before depositing.

**Mark Shark** · 03-23-09, 09:21 PM

Why should an unexpecting player lose all his money just because he happened to open up an account with two different books that happened to fall under the same umbrella. Some people would not be aware of this situation and they should not be held accountable for this. As I see it, if the book wants multiple sites to take our money then they should pay up if someone bets at both books regardless. Sure they can stop one of those accounts when they realise what is going on but they should not be given a free ride to take our money. There is enough thieving of our money by books already with stupid rules that favour them but to give a book a free shot to see what a player does before they cancel their account and steal their money is ridiculous.

**BouncedCheck** · 03-23-09, 09:43 PM

I think it's a good idea for books to share information and blacklist known cheaters. I also agree that the player should always be given the benefit of the doubt when it's unclear whether he knew he was depositing and accepting bonuses from two or more sister books.

When a clear cheater (not someone who had a dormant account or has a second account that was never deposited into, but someone who clearly has circumvented limits and/or abused bonuses) is caught, the oldest account should be the "primary" account. All wagers on secondary accounts (win or lose) should be canceled, and all bonuses on all accounts (including the primary one, if applicable) should be confiscated. Then all real money deposits made to the secondary accounts should be combined into the primary account. If the book wants to pay out the full amount and then ban the cheater, fine, if they want to let him keep playing using only the primary account with whatever limits they set, that's fine too.

I think people should be allowed to have multiple accounts as long as they tell the book up front what they're doing. Not all beards are placing bets for someone who has been limited or banned. Some people just don't have a computer and don't want to go to the trouble of finding a local. As long as they don't exceed limits on what they'd be allowed to do on a single account, and they don't take any bonuses on the secondary account, I don't think a book should have a problem with it. Of course, most will have a problem with it, but they shouldn't. When there's a legitimate reason, it's just easier bookkeeping for the player.

Also, I think multiple people at the same address, using the same IP, should be eligible for separate accounts and separate bonuses. As long as they provide individual photo ID with separate names and different pictures, the books shouldn't give people trouble for that. Of course, that would require the books to request ID on deposit, not on withdrawal, which is a separate issue.

**Mark Shark** · 03-23-09, 10:05 PM

I am not sure if I have ever read on any site that they were a sister site of the following books........and it was illegal to open up an account on any of these other sites . So if they don't state the rules, why should anyone be punished for betting with two different books. If these books have a problem with this why don't they close all the sister sites and just open one book with the one name. Problem solved. No this is not how they operate. They like to create grey areas which give them opportunities to take our money. And they have even convinced most of you that this thieving is acceptable. How can you come to this conclusion is beyond me.

**reno cool** · 03-23-09, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by Mark Shark

I am not sure if I have ever read on any site that they were a sister site of the following books........and it was illegal to open up an account on any of these other sites . So if they don't state the rules, why should anyone be punished for betting with two different books. If these books have a problem with this why don't they close all the sister sites and just open one book with the one name. Problem solved. No this is not how they operate. They like to create grey areas which give them opportunities to take our money. And they have even convinced most of you that this thieving is acceptable. How can you come to this conclusion is beyond me.

That's about right. I never knew that you can't get bonuses at sister books. That seems ridiculous. Some players will win, take advantage of promotions. It's a legit advantage play, as it has been in casinos forever. If you don't want anyone to benefit don't offer it.

If someone is caught with multiple accounts or bonuses, take away the fair value of bonus and close the account. Ultimately if the promo is too easy to advantage of, then cancel it. That's what casinos do. Canceling bets retroactively is unacceptable.

**Wheell** · 03-24-09, 12:40 AM

Any players who attempt to violate the rules and chase multiple bonuses via multiple accounts should simply have their accounts transferred to Cascade. That removes the problem of the book befitting from the players bad actions and also disincentivizes the players from breaking the rules. Eventually if this happens enough Cascade will become liquid and be able to pay me what they owe. This seems to me to be the only perfect solution to the problem.

**BouncedCheck** · 03-24-09, 02:30 AM

Just to be clear, I think the same person should be allowed to collect sign-up bonuses at every sister book under the same umbrella without penalty. Given the nature of the internet, is it ever really possible to prove that someone knew he was signing up at multiple sister books? Giving the player the benefit of the doubt virtually always, with rare exception, means allowing him to collect several bonuses from different books under the same umbrella.

But I also think that opening multiple accounts at a single book just to get more bonus money is clearly an abuse and should not be tolerated. This is over the line and ultimately hurts other players because it stifles the book's ability to pay out.

**BouncedCheck** · 03-24-09, 02:32 AM

Originally posted by Justin7

The effect is that only bad cheaters get punished. Good cheaters get away with it. Bad cheaters get free rolled. The cheater is still very much in the wrong... But is it OK to freeroll bad cheaters?

Again, I think the answer is no. Any and all wagers on "secondary" accounts should be canceled and the actual real deposit amounts should be consolidated into the player's primary account. All bonus money should be confiscated, even if rollover has been met.

Free-rolling is never acceptable on either side.

**spongerat** · 03-25-09, 12:05 AM

justin: i'm gonna take a page from poker sites after being a "semi pro" for a few years after college.

to prevent or atleast impede bonus abusing through multi-accounting, how about not giving the bonuses up front. This can be done in a couple different ways but the effect is the same, one can not simply sign up several times to recieve multiple bonuses. They would be forced to actually make wagers and possibly have the effect of making it adventageous to have a single account.

Having a wagering requirement prior to receiving a bonus would be one way of implimenting this, such as the 5dimes bonus policy. Multi-accounters would then have to actually wager through several bets before a bonus and they might decide it is not worth it.

The other way would be similar but not any set bonus at all. A wager related loyalty system whereby a bettor would have to accumulate points which they could then cash in for a bonus. There would be no guarentee bonus at the time of sign up, only through repeated wagering. This makes having a single account much better than having several so that one could accumulate "points" or whatever in order to get the best bonus.

The downside of these proposals are that of marketing. This type of system would not be as attractive to the casual bettor as an instant up-front bonus and new signups would decline. Free market would dictate that those books that want to risk multi-accounters in favor of possible more signups could possibly win out over books that did use the measures described here.

Ultimately, I think its the books problem. They are aware of the risk of multi account cheaters when offering the types of bonuses they do but perhaps they have already taken that into account and have decided it is better than an earned type of bonus. In reality I think the real solution is probably some sort of balance, with offering smaller signup bonuses then also having an earned loyalty bonus. There are some books that already do this and I suspect they have less a problem of multiple accounts than those which offer an up front bonus.

**bad_ass** · 03-25-09, 01:56 AM

"Headgames" was absolutely right! If you only have multiple accounts but didn't break any rules (except having duplicate account), fraud the bonus, etc., then you'll just probably ask to close your duplicate account and remain your preferred one.. But of course, discretion will always depends on the Books..

This is just a great possibility though... Good luck!

**Hohol15** · 03-27-09, 01:07 PM

Sure books have the solutions and they often implement them.
To my mind the best is where a book just cuts down the limits significantly, so you can't bet and also roll over your bonus, in this way, you loose your bonus, and it is all fair when the book can proove you are cheating, if not then it's not serious.
And the last one, good book never cuts down client's limits. Otherwise it should better find the new team of sports analysts, because smart cheaters-players will always find the way to make book's horrible odds work for them.

**Casi** · 03-27-09, 01:21 PM

[quote=Hohol15;1682210
And the last one, good book never cuts down client's limits. Otherwise it should better find the new team of sports analysts, because smart cheaters-players will always find the way to make book's horrible odds work for them.[/quote]

You live in a dream world, or bet small

**Karla** · 03-27-09, 04:19 PM

Originally posted by Hohol15

Sure books have the solutions and they often implement them.
To my mind the best is where a book just cuts down the limits significantly, so you can't bet and also roll over your bonus, in this way, you loose your bonus, and it is all fair when the book can proove you are cheating, if not then it's not serious.
And the last one, good book never cuts down client's limits. Otherwise it should better find the new team of sports analysts, because smart cheaters-players will always find the way to make book's horrible odds work for them.

cutting the limit won't be the answer for this books nor the players. its like cutting your own balls. lol its not as if the player will give good revenue for the book. come to think of it, no matter how many times the book lists the TC for multiple accounts, there are just really some hard headed stubborn players that still open multiple accounts.

Some people here have valid points. it will always be the books discretion on what will happen. Surely, these books won't mind a player having multiple accounts provided that there is no fraud where the player is getting money.

**shipitkthx** · 03-27-09, 09:28 PM

Another solution would be for books to learn how to ****ing book properly and then they wouldn't have a bunch of banned/collared players to begin with.

**Thremp** · 03-28-09, 11:17 AM

Originally posted by shipitkthx

Another solution would be for books to learn how to ****ing book properly and then they wouldn't have a bunch of banned/collared players to begin with.

Unpossible. Then you wouldn't have some middle age jerkoff bitching at you.

**JoshW** · 03-29-09, 09:11 AM

There has to be some potential risk to multiple account players. And for me that means that if the book has good evidence that it is a beard account, then they have to have the ability to keep deposited and won funds. This should be written into the book T&C, and in an ideal world would include some standards for judging what is enough evidence to confiscate.

**tomcowley** · 03-29-09, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by JoshW

There has to be some potential risk to multiple account players. And for me that means that if the book has good evidence that it is a beard account, then they have to have the ability to keep deposited and won funds. This should be written into the book T&C, and in an ideal world would include some standards for judging what is enough evidence to confiscate.

ROFL. I know you work for SBR, but are you ****ing serious? A book detects a beard signup, offers a higher bonus on a higher deposit, which the player will obviously take, and then the book steals the bigger deposit.. and you think this should be A-OK behavior. Get a ****ing clue.

**Casi** · 03-29-09, 12:25 PM

It is not an OK behaviour...but who cares, point is you give up all protection if you use multiple IDs.
Noone will help if a C or D book keeps everything, and they will have a rule written to justify it.

**Dark Horse** · 03-29-09, 01:35 PM

The fundamental flaw in the industry, in my opinion, is that funds are held by the book. This gives the book a type of leverage it should not have. So many problems come back to this. I hope to see the offshore industry evolve to where players have some sort of offshore bank account, that has agreements in place with books, so that money can be instantly transferred. In this setup the only funds the book can ever touch is the money wagered by the player. As soon as the wager is graded, the money goes back into the bank account. (The bank would be profitable in the same way that other banks are; it could even pay a low interest).

**Fizzz** · 03-29-09, 06:54 PM

Originally posted by Dark Horse

The fundamental flaw in the industry, in my opinion, is that funds are held by the book. This gives the book a type of leverage it should not have. So many problems come back to this. I hope to see the offshore industry evolve to where players have some sort of offshore bank account, that has agreements in place with books, so that money can be instantly transferred. In this setup the only funds the book can ever touch is the money wagered by the player. As soon as the wager is graded, the money goes back into the bank account. (The bank would be profitable in the same way that other banks are; it could even pay a low interest).

What about roll overs? Or fradulent credit card deposits? I do agree that would be a really innovative idea. As there are honorable customers, there are also scammers that would figure out a way to scam the book or even other "off shore bank accounts" to their advantage.

I do agree to the fact that multiple account checking is a responsibility of the book, but most books state that you can only have one account. Most books have a Fraud department working on every opened account, but as you might imagine, there is always some dude that is faster than the book, a scam artist so to speak.

Fraud such as charge backing for just the heck of it is usually posted in a "black list" that is shared by many books, which will disable the option of using credit deposits. At least CRIS does this.

Some times, we do allow that when you had another account opened LOOOOONG ago, and then you forget and open a new one, we give the option of choosing which to keep if you made deposits on both and funds were available. Then a simple transfer from one account to another is done. But this is just in the case when the account was opened without fraudulent causes, such as circumventing limits, charge back history, or any other thing the book might consider shady.