GAMBLERS PAID TO KEEP BETTING
EXCLUSIVE UK’s top online gambling firm gives losers cash so they carry on spending
BRITAIN’S biggest online betting firm gives cash rebates to big losers to keep them gambling, a Daily Mail investigation reveals today.
Players who rack up huge losses at Bet365 are rewarded with weekly cash returns of up to 10 per cent so they can carry on playing, our undercover reporter was told. Campaigners say the scheme exploits vulnerable customers by keeping them locked in a cycle of betting.
The tactics are exposed today after the Mail became the first media organisation to infiltrate Bet365’s high-security base in the tax haven of Gibraltar. Our reporter spent three weeks training to work at the betting
giant’s customer service centre, where he encountered a culture of cashback incentives and VIP perks.
During a training session for new staff, a Bet365 worker gave an example to the reporter: ‘If they’ve lost, say, £15,000 in that week, then we’ll give them a weekly rebate, normally on a Tuesday, and we’ll give them maybe 10 per cent of that back.’
Another Bet365 employee speaking about cash bonuses said: ‘It’s like incentivising people to bet. It doesn’t look good.’
Although gambling companies are allowed to offer rebates to customers, campaigners expressed serious concern that the practice could encourage problem betting.
One top gambling lawyer said the industry is rife with cashback incentives, with some firms offering returns as high as 25 per cent on losses.
Last night campaigners and MPs praised our investigation for exposing a ‘ wild west world of online gambling’.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling (APPG), led calls for a sweeping overhaul of UK gambling laws.
He said: ‘Make no mistake – giving gamblers money to keep losing will turn them into addicts as sure as night follows day.’
During our investigation, new Bet365 staff were told:
nHigh- spending players are lavished with weekly rebates on their losses as part of a strategy to ‘reward loyalty’;
nCustomers who hit a ‘ net loss threshold’ can be turned into VIPs and given ‘incentives’ such as the chance to win FA Cup Final tickets;
nOnce they become VIPs, they are assigned dedicated advisors who treat them the same as celebrities;
nPunters are served with a ‘gambling addiction’ warning if they spend too long playing – but the minimum could be as high as eight hours a day;
nJunior staff are given free rein to hand out £50 cash bonuses and free casino spins to any player who rings the Bet365 customer service line;
But it is the practice of offering rebates to potentially vulnerable players that will cause the greatest concern.
The revelations come after the Mail exposed how betting giants openly advertise ‘VIP packages’ to keep the biggest customers spending.
Campaigners say as many as two people every working day
‘Preying on the vulnerable’
take their lives because of a gambling addiction. There are 480,000 serious gambling addicts in the UK.
Ministers are under pressure to curb the ‘predatory practices’ of online bookmakers. The Gambling Commission regulates the industry but its rules set no caps on rebates, saying only that they should be ‘socially responsible’.
Lawyers with experience in cases involving gambling com- panies said the ‘ vague and unspecific’ regulations are in desperate need of reform.
Richard Williams, of law firm Joelson, said: ‘ There is no legal cap on the amount a customer can be given back.
‘I’ve heard of rebates of up to 25 per cent. Rates of 10 per cent don’t sound unusual.’
The Mail’s reporter spent much of last month training to be a customer account advisor for Bet365, which is known for its ‘in-play’ betting adverts featuring actor Ray Winstone, which encourage viewers to wager on the next scorer.
Inside the six-storey building in Gibraltar, 14 new employees were trained in the mesmerising array of schemes Bet365 uses to ‘reward loyalty’.
Bet365 asks potential problem gamblers to complete an eight-point Yes/No questionnaire. But it has been branded a farce by critics.
Labour MP Carolyn Harris, chairman of the APPG, said: ‘Bet365 appear to be deliberately preying on vulnerable people and encouraging customers to rack up huge losses to boost their own profits.’
A spokesman for Bet365 said: ‘Bet365 prides itself on providing a safe environment for its customers and goes above and beyond its legal and regulatory requirements to do so, including those set out in the Gambling Commission Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice and we fully refute any allegation or suggestion to the contrary.
‘Bet365 is at the forefront of various industry initiatives to further promote and develop, safer gambling practices, including its participation in gambling treatment provider Gamcare’s social responsibility quality trademark scheme, the Safer Gambling Standard, which aims to recognise operators committed to safer gambling issues.
‘As the LCCP makes clear, operators in the gambling industry are entitled to reward their loyal customers provided they do so in a socially responsible way, as Bet365 does.
‘ Bet365 takes extensive actions to identify, monitor and assist customers who may be at risk of experiencing gambling-related harm, including suppressing marketing material to any such customers and ensuring they are not inappropriately incentivised to intensify their gambling.’
IF doubts persisted about the warped morality of Britain’s grasping gambling companies, they must surely be banished by the Mail’s exposé of how punters are being lured into ruinous addiction. Contemptibly, bookmakers hook customers by handing back money they have lost already, encouraging them to fritter it away again. Infiltrating Bet365’s office in Gibraltar (coincidentally, a tax haven), our reporter discovered how high rollers receive rebates of up to 10 per cent.
The more a punter bets, the more the incentives flow – and the deeper they risk sinking into a black world of dependence. And Bet365 is not alone; all the betting giants are at it. No wonder internet gambling is dubbed the ‘Wild West’.
But why wouldn’t they utilise such an invidious method? Even if amoral, it is perfectly legal. And it helps the industry rake in an eye-watering £14billion a year.
The unadorned greed is staggering. Yes, the rapacious firms took advantage of Tony Blair’s reckless 2005 liberalisation of the gambling laws to entice huge numbers into the perfidious world of online betting.
But the Tories haven’t covered themselves in glory. Last year, the Government – which pockets £3billion in gambling revenues – was embroiled in a damaging row after proposing to delay a crackdown on highly addictive fixed-odds betting terminals.
There are 480,000 serious addicts in Britain. And their numbers will rise as regulators struggle to keep pace with the technological sophistication of these ruthless behemoths.
Indeed, the industry-funded Gambling Commission is largely apathetic in the face of sharp practice. It should show some spine when betting firms play roulette with people’s lives.