ben g.

Like many of my friends I have been excluded from Betfred because I won to much over the last few months. In doing so they also blocked my Totesport account. Betfred own Totesport so for the remainder of my comments you can freely exchange the term Betfred for Totesport.

This will happen if you are successful, Betfred have no interest in their sports book or the customers that use it, the majority of their money is made on FOBT's and emails will often try and tempt you into their casino arm. They do sponsor a few horse race meetings but this really is a smokescreen and all 'reputable' bookies do this for the publicity and pretense they take horse bets. If you are regular horse punter you will know that Betfred will not take sizeable bets, the abilities of their traders are confined to copying whatever the market is saying on Betfair. It is beyond me why they use traders, I am pretty sure I could write a software program to replicate what they do. I thought they may be more amenable to taking large bets on the EPL with the millions floating around on each game, but it only took 18 bets for me to be banned. Alarmingly quick!

So here is some advice for those who wish to take the matter further - use places like Trustpilot and the like, use social media, keep calling them out, create as much negative press as you can, remember a lot of the tabloids are paid a huge amount of money in advertising by these bookmakers so will rarely report too negatively on them. Betfred lies about the amount of people it bans, it says it is a tiny %, where as this includes casino only customers, and people they limit to a few pence per bet, the true figure for their sports arm is the highest in the industry, they simply do not tolerate anyone winning consistently, no matter how small that margin is.

Ask for all of your personal information, they have to give you this by law. See Data Protection Act 1998. If any of it is wrong ask for all of your data to be deleted, this again is the law. Betfred use snooping software called iesnare or msnare, check your hard drive and if it is installed this will be from Betfred. Ask for all of the information they have recorded from your machine. The law here is difficult as they claim its for fraud. This is nonsense its to stop multiple account holders and should you access Betfair whilst betting with them, they will have a record of this, and will lead to a greater (or quicker) way of you been banned. However Betfred offer no T&C's that tell you they are going to download this aggressive software, so I would argue that it is therefore a breach of your privacy and thus illegal. The more that question this and tell IBAS or the GC the more likely it is Betfred will be forced to stop cheating you and stealing your personal information. This information records every website you visit and reports back to Betfred, it really is that simple and that invasive. Its hard to believe it, but feel free to google.

Interestingly in NSW (Austrailia) they are forcing bookmakers to take bets upto $1000 and not cherry pick losers, an activity that is basically Betfred's commercial strategy. We can hope that one day the UK government forces bookmakers like Betfred to stop cherry picking and as the Australian government says, if your sole purpose of trading is for gambling then you have to accept bets (to a limit) from everyone, not just your small group of losing customers.

If you want to bet unlimited bets then try and get an account with Pinnacle, they actually use professional traders and use professional punters to shape their books - not currently available to UK citizens, but if you work abroad or have family abroad you may be in luck.

If you have an active Betfred account and use it, you either bet small sums, and please carry on, if you bet large sums and it is active then you are telling all your friends you are a loser! It really is that simple!
Lastly never use the Betfred Casino, this just feeds their pockets, make them sort out their Sports arm first.