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When you walk into a casino, you do so knowing you’re probably going to walk out with a lower net worth than when you walked in (although you can minimize your losses if you know which games to play).
A few months ago, the Supreme Court gave degenerates across the United States a reason to rejoice when they ruled the Founding Fathers didn’t have anything against betting on sports, opening up the doors for states around the country to allow sportsbooks to function within their borders.
When you consider Delaware raked in over a million dollars in the first month after legalizing sports betting, it’s not exactly shocking that everyone— including Buffalo Wild Wings— is scrambling to get in on the action.
First Buffalo Wild Wings will be taking bets, then before you know it you’ll be putting parlay & teaser cards together at Denny’s Sportsbook.
— BeatinTheBookie.com®️ (@BeatinTheBookie) August 8, 2018
Of course, sportsbooks can only operate if they stay profitable, and it appears some places employ an interesting strategy to assure they stay afloat: banning gamblers who are too good at betting on sports.
According to ESPN, a growing number of bookmakers in the U.K., Las Vegas, and beyond are doing what they can to help their bottom line by narrowing in on bettors who are costing them too much money.
The practice isn’t technically illegal, but neither is card counting, which hasn’t stopped casinos from booting out people (and, in older days, beating the crap out of them) for eating into the house edge.
The report says one of the worst offenders seems to be William Hill, which operates a number of different books across the country.
William Hill should change their slogan from “William Hill: more ways to bet, more ways to win” to
“William Hill: more ways to bet, more ways to get banned”
— Eric (@EPSports22) May 30, 2018
However, the company provided an explanation for suspending bettor’s accounts, saying:
“In the rare situation where we do prohibit someone from wagering with us, there are a variety of reasons why. They include the sharing of accounts (usually tied to someone who previously has been banned), betting on behalf of third parties, screen scraping and other efforts to ‘game’ the system, as well as compliance reasons or being offensive to staff and/or other customers.”
Thankfully, based on my past experiences, I don’t think I’ll ever be at risk of being banned for being too good.