9th January 2018
Hello
Wanted - Body with good teeth
For some time now I have been arguing that none of the protection in place for the ordinary punter is really effective and that there should be some form of regulation for all types of betting services not just bookmakers.
And sitting at my desk last Saturday, keeping tabs on the FA Cup (what a brilliant win for the Tigers!) I thought I would tidy up my emails. As you may imagine I am on a fair few lists which is a necessary evil to allow me to try and check what is happening across the board. But one invitation that I saw made me really cross – take a look at this:
Now I know that the headline and the text are unlikely to bear any relation to what follows but even some experienced punters may have been tempted to take a look at this. But when you click through you come to a standard marketing page for a service called Win Wizard which is supposedly a win betting software program picking out winners on the horses 70% of the time. It is promoted by one Mark Summers who has the usual sort of story about how he got where he is today with the pictures of his house/family/villa/car and the obligatory bank account extract. The claims are not remotely verified and despite saying he personally responds to emails within 24 hours I am still awaiting a reply to my request for past results 4 days later.
But if you look closely at the page there are several clues as to why this product might not be all it seems and the most obvious one is the bank account extract
This is supposed to be a Nat West account but not only is the sort code not a Nat West number but it does not even exist in the UK system
So if we have one falsehood there may be more! And as it all sounded a bit familiar I checked on Mark Summers and found he was responsible for a service back in 2013 called Quids In Betting which is still showing as a live marketing page at http://www.quidsinbetting.com/ And lo and behold the wording and imagery is almost identical to the current Win Wizard offering – the only change on the bank account is the pence on the balance!
Now accepting that Mark Summers does not exist I can only assume that this service has been recycled by the Marketing Mafia and the current promoter has drawn the short straw. If I can pick up on all this in less than half an hour then many more of you will do the same and his sales are not likely to be in any great volume. The source of the original email is also a give away – part of the infamous Circle Media connection.
So you can now see why I think regulation is due sooner rather than later. If all vendors of services had to register and provide verifiable identity details in the process that would allow some comeback it would hopefully reduce the number of these near fraudulent sites. No honest tipster or service provider will be concerned at such a requirement and the ones that are should not be in the market anyway. We can only cover the UK market but as most such services rely heavily on promotion there it should still have a positive effect. None of the current bodies that might be concerned at the blatant misinformation being passed around are in fact remotely bothered. Each passes the buck to the next and nothing ever gets done unless there can be shown to be criminal activity and even then it takes a great deal to generate any interest.
What we do need is support from the ordinary punter to push forward the chances of such a scheme being established. I am happy to act as a collection point for this but I need you and your fellow punters to provide the ammunition. Please drop me a short email saying something along the lines of
I am a sports bettor and am concerned at the large number of products offered for sale in the industry which have no provenance. To help reduce the problem I would support the establishment of a registration process which would be a legal requirement for promoters and that has significant penalties for non compliance.
It may take a while but I do not think the current unregulated minefield is sustainable for much longer. Any thoughts or experiences are very welcome too.
Peter Philipson
Editor
