Sky Betting and Gaming fined £1m by Gambling Commission

[acegooner]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/skybet-gambling-commission-fine-protect-vulnerable-customers-fun-stops-a8277101.html

I really hope this post is allowed to stay without the mods pulling it.

As a sky regular for many years, I am not surprised to hear this. Certainly, on the poker side, the issue of multi-accounting has not been taken seriously enough by Sky.

With regards to sports betting, Sky has very strict risk management and will not hesitate to stake restrict and or/promo ban people who are perceived as taking "value" from the sportsbook. But on the flip side, to turn a blind eye to people who need to be protected is unforgivable. This doesn't just apply to Sky but the whole industry in my opinion.

The Competition and Markets Authority recently pulled up several online gaming companies for shall we say offering flakey terms and conditions on various promotions they run, this is a good start but more needs to be done in the UK.

In the Financial Services world, the FCA has a principle that all authorised companies must adhere to called "treating customers fairly". I think similar principles should apply to bookmakers/casinos with a code of practice being drawn up. For too long the bookmakers have been allowed to make up rules to suit their own agendas.

[arbboy]

So funny that only yesterday Flint (skybet ceo) was bragging how they had passed through the 2m customer mark in press reports.  If you took out all the self excludes who re opened and all the 'lol new accounts' that were just the same person punting over and over again skybet probably have 500k unique accounts.  Some of his other quotes yesterday were funny regarding Cheltenham.  No mention at all of profits at Cheltenham so you know they did their bollocks but just 'record turnover' 'busiest cheltenham ever'.  Mr Flint some basics in bookmaking for you.  When firms do their bollocks you will have record turnover because the punters are playing with your money.  As for their claims to be Britain's biggest online bookmaker i would love to know what they work this out on.

Multi accounting on their poker site is rife and i know numerous people who have colluded on there for ages with virtually zero detection.

Skybet are everything that is wrong with modern bookmaking.  Full of senior corporate management types who have no clue/history about the game.  Flint is just another gravy train jumper who might as well be the CEO of M&S or a bank in the city.  If the arse fell out of online gaming these types would be gone like a shot.  Unfortunately the city seems to value companies on how many customers they keep signing up (alongside normal profit metrics) without actually realising they are just signing up mainly the same customers again and again as they get closed down and get their friends to sign up for them.

https://calvinayre.com/2018/03/26/business/sky-bet-cloud-nine-customer-base-revenue-soar/

[tikay]

I really hope this post is allowed to stay without the mods pulling it.

No reason for the Mods to remove it.

And yes, it's a hands up job, no excuses.

A bad day at the office today, for sure.

[Doobs]

So funny that only yesterday Flint (skybet ceo) was bragging how they had passed through the 2m customer mark in press reports.  If you took out all the self excludes who re opened and all the 'lol new accounts' that were just the same person punting over and over again skybet probably have 500k unique accounts.  Some of his other quotes yesterday were funny regarding Cheltenham.  No mention at all of profits at Cheltenham so you know they did their bollocks but just 'record turnover' 'busiest cheltenham ever'.  Mr Flint some basics in bookmaking for you.  When firms do their bollocks you will have record turnover because the punters are playing with your money.  As for their claims to be Britain's biggest online bookmaker i would love to know what they work this out on.

Multi accounting on their poker site is rife and i know numerous people who have colluded on there for ages with virtually zero detection.

Skybet are everything that is wrong with modern bookmaking.  Full of senior corporate management types who have no clue/history about the game.  Flint is just another gravy train jumper who might as well be the CEO of M&S or a bank in the city.  If the arse fell out of online gaming these types would be gone like a shot.  Unfortunately the city seems to value companies on how many customers they keep signing up (alongside normal profit metrics) without actually realising they are just signing up mainly the same customers again and again as they get closed down and get their friends to sign up for them.

https://calvinayre.com/2018/03/26/business/sky-bet-cloud-nine-customer-base-revenue-soar/

They reported enormous growth in their EBITDA in the article you linked to, and thar should feed through to net profits, so your assumptions seem wide of the mark.  The commercial side of SkyBet has been a huge success. 

The City very much focuses on profits rather than revenue growth in my experience.  Sure there are some lunatics around who invest using other metrics, but guess they aren't long term winners at the game.

They have obviously cocked up here, but there is a good chance they aren't even below average on this.

[arbboy]

So funny that only yesterday Flint (skybet ceo) was bragging how they had passed through the 2m customer mark in press reports.  If you took out all the self excludes who re opened and all the 'lol new accounts' that were just the same person punting over and over again skybet probably have 500k unique accounts.  Some of his other quotes yesterday were funny regarding Cheltenham.  No mention at all of profits at Cheltenham so you know they did their bollocks but just 'record turnover' 'busiest cheltenham ever'.  Mr Flint some basics in bookmaking for you.  When firms do their bollocks you will have record turnover because the punters are playing with your money.  As for their claims to be Britain's biggest online bookmaker i would love to know what they work this out on.

Multi accounting on their poker site is rife and i know numerous people who have colluded on there for ages with virtually zero detection.

Skybet are everything that is wrong with modern bookmaking.  Full of senior corporate management types who have no clue/history about the game.  Flint is just another gravy train jumper who might as well be the CEO of M&S or a bank in the city.  If the arse fell out of online gaming these types would be gone like a shot.  Unfortunately the city seems to value companies on how many customers they keep signing up (alongside normal profit metrics) without actually realising they are just signing up mainly the same customers again and again as they get closed down and get their friends to sign up for them.

https://calvinayre.com/2018/03/26/business/sky-bet-cloud-nine-customer-base-revenue-soar/

They reported enormous growth in their EBITDA in the article you linked to, and thar should feed through to net profits, so your assumptions seem wide of the mark.  The commercial side of SkyBet has been a huge success.  

The City very much focuses on profits rather than revenue growth in my experience.  Sure there are some lunatics around who invest using other metrics, but guess they aren't long term winners at the game.

They have obviously cocked up here, but there is a good chance they aren't even below average on this.

When your core product to a uk focused audience is football and mainly UK football given the football results this season it would be impossible not to report a huge increase in the 6 months to july-dec 2017 profit wise.  To say sporting results have been 'favourable' is somewhat of an understatement.

Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool have only won 87 of their 151 games this year.  Given the fact they go off huge odds on for most of them you don't need to be a genius to know football layers have had it right off this season.  When was the last time the layers had a serious 'acca' weekend when all the big boys copped?  

Real Madrid 'lost' 11 of their 30 league games this year.   Celtic 'lost' 10 out of 30 league games this year. Rangers 'lost' 13 of 31 games.  Check out the number of draws across the board in the English Championship this season.  Barring Wolves most of the 'big name' teams haven't even won 50% of their matches this season.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table

This is their core mug punter market to a predominately UK client base.

[Horneris]

Not surprised at all. A "friend" was recently able to open a new totesport online account with a new address and card about a year after self excluding.

[bobby1]

So funny that only yesterday Flint (skybet ceo) was bragging how they had passed through the 2m customer mark in press reports.  If you took out all the self excludes who re opened and all the 'lol new accounts' that were just the same person punting over and over again skybet probably have 500k unique accounts.  Some of his other quotes yesterday were funny regarding Cheltenham.  No mention at all of profits at Cheltenham so you know they did their bollocks but just 'record turnover' 'busiest cheltenham ever'.  Mr Flint some basics in bookmaking for you.  When firms do their bollocks you will have record turnover because the punters are playing with your money.  As for their claims to be Britain's biggest online bookmaker i would love to know what they work this out on.

Multi accounting on their poker site is rife and i know numerous people who have colluded on there for ages with virtually zero detection.

Skybet are everything that is wrong with modern bookmaking.  Full of senior corporate management types who have no clue/history about the game.  Flint is just another gravy train jumper who might as well be the CEO of M&S or a bank in the city.  If the arse fell out of online gaming these types would be gone like a shot.  Unfortunately the city seems to value companies on how many customers they keep signing up (alongside normal profit metrics) without actually realising they are just signing up mainly the same customers again and again as they get closed down and get their friends to sign up for them.

https://calvinayre.com/2018/03/26/business/sky-bet-cloud-nine-customer-base-revenue-soar/

I was going to post some thoughts but Arb abs nailed most of what I was going to say.

Firms are valued on how many customers they have. As Arb says having 2 million accounts means they probably have well under 1 million customers. The best way to multiply your accounts is to restrict most of your customers that bet more than 50 quid unless they prove to be useless. These are the exact types who will then try to open new accounts to keep punting and will just keep doing so each time they are restricted.

I was having a discussion regarding how many places to bet in the upcoming Masters with the firm I do some work for and put forward this point. Skybet are very clever in their position by offering outlandish place terms because all they are really doing is using their place book on a big sporting event as a recruitment tool. Their CPA costs thru regular acquisitions with sign up bonuses etc will be between 1 and 2 hundred quid. Of the new accounts they open with these kind of offers a decent % will be from punters that already have restricted Skybet accounts.

After the event these accounts will be weeded out and restricted if in same name, same IP address, found to be betting as groups. Same selections, bet times etc.

So you have again taken on more accounts, at a CPA that is cheaper then regular CPA costs and the individual punters have to get a return on their bets to gain any benefit.

One other clever thing too is where you have had an account that you haven’t bothered to use because in general the restriction on that account  means you can only get schrapnel on. Because the bet  limits will be higher than normal events on The Masters you can probably get a bet to win a decent amount even on your restricted account. If you haven’t used that account for ages and then bet in events with outlandish place terms but dont have any more bets in the near future there is a good chance you get restricted further because you have shown that you still want to a Skybet customer but only turn up when they are giving something away. So this works as a rectivation of dormant accounts too.

We decided on 8 places even tho that won’t be a great place book either.

The thing that struck me about all the high fiving  coming from Skybet in the last few days regarding account numbers and turnover is this.

Lil Dave used this line years ago and it fits perfectly here. Skybets biggest failure is it aimed too low and made it, instead of aiming too high and not quite getting there. They don’t understand that the really big firms in bookmaking would be distraught if their numbers fell to Skybet levels, they think of their numbers as a sign of success but in reality it shows they are still aiming too low.

[bobby1]

So funny that only yesterday Flint (skybet ceo) was bragging how they had passed through the 2m customer mark in press reports.  If you took out all the self excludes who re opened and all the 'lol new accounts' that were just the same person punting over and over again skybet probably have 500k unique accounts.  Some of his other quotes yesterday were funny regarding Cheltenham.  No mention at all of profits at Cheltenham so you know they did their bollocks but just 'record turnover' 'busiest cheltenham ever'.  Mr Flint some basics in bookmaking for you.  When firms do their bollocks you will have record turnover because the punters are playing with your money.  As for their claims to be Britain's biggest online bookmaker i would love to know what they work this out on.

Multi accounting on their poker site is rife and i know numerous people who have colluded on there for ages with virtually zero detection.

Skybet are everything that is wrong with modern bookmaking.  Full of senior corporate management types who have no clue/history about the game.  Flint is just another gravy train jumper who might as well be the CEO of M&S or a bank in the city.  If the arse fell out of online gaming these types would be gone like a shot.  Unfortunately the city seems to value companies on how many customers they keep signing up (alongside normal profit metrics) without actually realising they are just signing up mainly the same customers again and again as they get closed down and get their friends to sign up for them.

https://calvinayre.com/2018/03/26/business/sky-bet-cloud-nine-customer-base-revenue-soar/

They reported enormous growth in their EBITDA in the article you linked to, and thar should feed through to net profits, so your assumptions seem wide of the mark.  The commercial side of SkyBet has been a huge success.  

The City very much focuses on profits rather than revenue growth in my experience.  Sure there are some lunatics around who invest using other metrics, but guess they aren't long term winners at the game.

They have obviously cocked up here, but there is a good chance they aren't even below average on this.

When your core product to a uk focused audience is football and mainly UK football given the football results this season it would be impossible not to report a huge increase in the 6 months to july-dec 2017 profit wise.  To say sporting results have been 'favourable' is somewhat of an understatement.

Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool have only won 87 of their 151 games this year.  Given the fact they go off huge odds on for most of them you don't need to be a genius to know football layers have had it right off this season.  When was the last time the layers had a serious 'acca' weekend when all the big boys copped?  

Real Madrid 'lost' 11 of their 30 league games this year.   Celtic 'lost' 10 out of 30 league games this year. Rangers 'lost' 13 of 31 games.  Check out the number of draws across the board in the English Championship this season.  Barring Wolves most of the 'big name' teams haven't even won 50% of their matches this season.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table

This is their core mug punter market to a predominately UK client base.

Again, abs this. Skybets business plan is to mug football punters at between the 5 and 50 quid level.Their racing business will be good in those ranges too. Try getting a good bet regularly if you are winning on more minority sports/markets  and you have no chance of staying open.

Their dependence on the UK market staple gambling sports is too high. They recently opened a new Italian site but no firm has ever made good money from their Italian sites. Thus must have changed now as it’s been a few years since I read their numbers properly but they were then running at about 80% of their client base being from the UK, I guess that will be smaller now but it will still be far too highly weighted to UK customers.

The gambling market in the UK is big, but worldwide it is enormous. They have chosen to play in the smaller market and their ‘high fiving’ Of their numbers shows that.

[arbboy]

This is what happens when VC's invest in any business.  They are just looking to 'fiddle' the figures short term and flip the business for a profit.  This is exactly what skybet is doing and they are currently on the market being touted around at around £3bn if you got the spare change to buy 2m lol accounts most of which never have/can't have a bet.

The trouble is more and more gambling businesses are being run in this manner.  lolbrokes and corals effectively have for the past few years to get a buyer for the shareholders and VC's who invested in lolorals.  Firms love blaming bad sporting results when they under perform on any given period.  Lolbrokes did it for years even though every other firm was flying with the same results.  It annoys me when skybet do what they do and don't talk about cheltenham profits when they have lost.  Just avoid the subject and talk about turnover/busiest cheltenham/record account numbers then when they talk about how good the overall profits are make no mention of totally abnormal football results in a non world cup/euro's period as well which is the reason for the record profits.  If they did that though they wouldn't all get huge salary increases/bonuses.

Do you think Denise cares about writing this type of bollocks in her CEO report in the financial accounts?  She knows why the firm has made a fortune and just pays herself whatever she wants anyway.  when you are a corporate guesser like Flint is though you have to big up every positive and hide every negative otherwise you don't get paid by the shareholders at the AGM.

[bobby1]

This is what happens when VC's invest in any business.  They are just looking to 'fiddle' the figures short term and flip the business for a profit.  This is exactly what skybet is doing and they are currently on the market being touted around at around £3bn if you got the spare change to buy 2m lol accounts most of which never have/can't have a bet.

The trouble is more and more gambling businesses are being run in this manner.  lolbrokes and corals effectively have for the past few years to get a buyer for the shareholders and VC's who invested in lolorals.  Firms love blaming bad sporting results when they under perform on any given period.  Lolbrokes did it for years even though every other firm was flying with the same results.  It annoys me when skybet do what they do and don't talk about cheltenham profits when they have lost.  Just avoid the subject and talk about turnover/busiest cheltenham/record account numbers then when they talk about how good the overall profits are make no mention of totally abnormal football results in a non world cup/euro's period as well which is the reason for the record profits.  If they did that though they wouldn't all get huge salary increases/bonuses.

Do you think Denise cares about writing this type of bollocks in her CEO report in the financial accounts?  She knows why the firm has made a fortune and just pays herself whatever she wants anyway.  when you are a corporate guesser like Flint is though you have to big up every positive and hide every negative otherwise you don't get paid by the shareholders at the AGM.

Absolutely this again and one of the reasons why that firm will always be privately owned by the Coates family. It doesn’t need investment from elsewhere or restructure to expand worldwide. Skybet are taking their money and running instead of thinking big instead.

[arbboy]

I will give you an example about skybet and a new account.  In 2012 at the London games i opened a new account and had £2500 at 1/5 on the USA on probably the biggest team event of the games, the men's basketball event.  It was 1/5 pretty much all over oddschecker and was still 1/5 after my full limit bet was placed for days with skybet.  It copped as expected but only 4 weeks later did the account get closed when it won.  Why not close it straight after i placed my bet and/or move the price if the bet was such a danger to the firm to justify an account closure after just one bet?  It is just so results orientated with all these firms.  If the bet had lost the account would probably have stayed open because i started with a 1/5 loser.

[bobby1]

I will give you an example about skybet and a new account.  In 2012 at the London games i opened a new account and had £2500 at 1/5 on the USA on probably the biggest team event of the games, the men's basketball event.  It was 1/5 pretty much all over oddschecker and was still 1/5 after my full limit bet was placed for days with skybet.  It copped as expected but only 4 weeks later did the account get closed when it won.  Why not close it straight after i placed my bet and/or move the price if the bet was such a danger to the firm to justify an account closure after just one bet?  It is just so results orientated with all these firms.  If the bet had lost the account would probably have stayed open because i started with a 1/5 loser.

Month ending profit/loss report I guess. ‘ account name so and so won a grand, anything to worry about with his business?

‘Yes he won a grand from a 5k bet’

He bet 5k and it wasn’t in the Prem lge? Yeah better shut him just to be safe’

Obv you know all this but plenty won’t.

For balance tho and not to make it look like a Skybet witch hunt is biggest issue around at the moment is the level of knowledge of the people working in bet analysis departments. You would cringe at some of the notes I see added to bet slips. This trickles down to bet refs too, if a punter asks for a bet that is above their restriction it gets referred to one of the ‘traders’. Most of the time that will be a trader that has abs no knowledge of the event you are betting on as it’s not his sport(s).So their default setting is usually be safe and knock it back. I work about 8 days a month and the most time wearing element is correcting ridiculous bet notes from people not close to qualified enough to make the notes they do. I would explode if it was a full time gig.

If you were making that bet these days I’m 100% certain you would stake it in a way that made it less likely to lead to a restriction and split it between firms. The problem is even punters wanting 30/40 quid ew in horses, golfers etc are now having to split those stakes over various firms and in most cases it’s because they once had a bet noted on something that was deemed a ‘mover’ ‘betting at top price’  ‘possible tipping line’ or ‘ price shortened soon after’

The problem is these inexperienced staff have no connection with the idea that the prices are put out to encourage people to bet, but when punters try and bet they have to get past the least understanding people in the process to get laid. And if they win then they also have to get thru the after event autopsy too.

It’s getting to the stage now where you have more chance of getting a bet on in some sports once an event Is in play because the guy now in charge of getting the bet refs thru is the guy that specialises in trading that sport/event. Outside the edge feed guys and on courses edge punters I bet I didn’t knock  back more then 5 bets last year. If those markets were being overseen by the same guys that oversee the pre event markets, especially outside regular UK operating times there would a load if knock backs simply because they can justify it by pointing to the client has some note on his account that he can fall back on.

Skybet could have 2 million customers instead of just accounts  if they took away all the restrictions and started from scratch and then restricted accounts afresh that they didn’t like. That’s the same for all firms tho but nobody within firms seems to think that way. At the top level of punting good punters win about 5% of their turnover. Yet punters that are breaking even with firms are effectively shut for making a few half decent bets.



Once your account gets noted along those lines it stays there forever and it will always be used in the decision to lay them a bet or not pre game. There is more chance of the notes being ignored once in play these days,

[teddybloat]

sky bet also installs spyware on your devices when you use their services. it's called iesnare and it uploads information about you to a company called iovation who can then use your personal data. but dont worry the company was cofounded by two people who also co-founded ultimate bet and who allegedly siphoned millions of users funds out of the site during the superuser glory days of internet poker.

so it's in safe hands then...

[arbboy]

I will give you an example about skybet and a new account.  In 2012 at the London games i opened a new account and had £2500 at 1/5 on the USA on probably the biggest team event of the games, the men's basketball event.  It was 1/5 pretty much all over oddschecker and was still 1/5 after my full limit bet was placed for days with skybet.  It copped as expected but only 4 weeks later did the account get closed when it won.  Why not close it straight after i placed my bet and/or move the price if the bet was such a danger to the firm to justify an account closure after just one bet?  It is just so results orientated with all these firms.  If the bet had lost the account would probably have stayed open because i started with a 1/5 loser.

Month ending profit/loss report I guess. ‘ account name so and so won a grand, anything to worry about with his business?

‘Yes he won a grand from a 5k bet’

He bet 5k and it wasn’t in the Prem lge? Yeah better shut him just to be safe’

Obv you know all this but plenty won’t.

For balance tho and not to make it look like a Skybet witch hunt is biggest issue around at the moment is the level of knowledge of the people working in bet analysis departments. You would cringe at some of the notes I see added to bet slips. This trickles down to bet refs too, if a punter asks for a bet that is above their restriction it gets referred to one of the ‘traders’. Most of the time that will be a trader that has abs no knowledge of the event you are betting on as it’s not his sport(s).So their default setting is usually be safe and knock it back. I work about 8 days a month and the most time wearing element is correcting ridiculous bet notes from people not close to qualified enough to make the notes they do. I would explode if it was a full time gig.

If you were making that bet these days I’m 100% certain you would stake it in a way that made it less likely to lead to a restriction and split it between firms. The problem is even punters wanting 30/40 quid ew in horses, golfers etc are now having to split those stakes over various firms and in most cases it’s because they once had a bet noted on something that was deemed a ‘mover’ ‘betting at top price’  ‘possible tipping line’ or ‘ price shortened soon after’

The problem is these inexperienced staff have no connection with the idea that the prices are put out to encourage people to bet, but when punters try and bet they have to get past the least understanding people in the process to get laid. And if they win then they also have to get thru the after event autopsy too.

It’s getting to the stage now where you have more chance of getting a bet on in some sports once an event Is in play because the guy now in charge of getting the bet refs thru is the guy that specialises in trading that sport/event. Outside the edge feed guys and on courses edge punters I bet I didn’t knock  back more then 5 bets last year. If those markets were being overseen by the same guys that oversee the pre event markets, especially outside regular UK operating times there would a load if knock backs simply because they can justify it by pointing to the client has some note on his account that he can fall back on.

Skybet could have 2 million customers instead of just accounts  if they took away all the restrictions and started from scratch and then restricted accounts afresh that they didn’t like. That’s the same for all firms tho but nobody within firms seems to think that way. At the top level of punting good punters win about 5% of their turnover. Yet punters that are breaking even with firms are effectively shut for making a few half decent bets.



Once your account gets noted along those lines it stays there forever and it will always be used in the decision to lay them a bet or not pre game. There is more chance of the notes being ignored once in play these days,

You got it spot on with the in running angle for getting on imo.  They just think you are way more of a mug if you bet in running than pre game.  Their margins are higher as well which falsely gives them more insurance to take you on but you can usually end up with a better bet than pre game a lot of the time.

[Omm]

You two should get a room 😂