Daily Archives: February 21, 2022

We just passed the biggest gambling event of the year in the Super Bowl and were about to enter the second biggest gambling event of the year in March Madness. As a more relevant topic than ever and as a growing practice for many sports fans around the world, Cale spent a segment of The Cale Clarke Show diving into the concept of gambling and his experience with it.

As the gambling world has evolved with the age of technology by introducing apps and digital sites for betting, so too have the bets themselves evolved. You can bet on the length of the National Anthem, the outcome of the coin toss, the number of penalties, the color of someones shoes, the length of the halftime show, and a million other things. Its an attempt to get as many people involved in sports gambling as possible, whether they follow sports or not. And its working.

But thats not immoral on its own. As a business, you want to attract as many customers as possible. Thats understandable. But when discussing the morality of something like gambling, you need to look at factors like the intrinsic nature of gambling, the methods of attraction, potentially predatory practices, and just what stakeholders in gambling companies are doing to assure the well-being of all users.

Cale actually worked in the gambling industry for a while in his early 20s when they introduced a casino to his town of Cole Harbor in Nova Scotia. Out of the hundreds of people wrapped around the block looking to apply for a job there, Cale was one of the select few to get hired. While he started humbly in the parking lot, he was soon bumped up to a position on the in-house marketing team.

He remembers being trained to begin a promotional campaign inside the casino itself and one of the superiors told him that he should not be surprised if he witnesses people refusing to leave the slot machines to eat or go to the bathroom. Its so addicting that people posted up there for hours. Throughout his time in the casino, Cale learned the tricks of the casino. He noticed that there were no windows and there were no clocks. They purposely wanted people to lose track of time and spend as much time as possible inside.

And, as everybody knows (or should know) the odds are always in the houses favor. To misquote The Hunger Games, the odds are [never] in your favor, said Cale. Theres no such thing as a sure thing, and if you stick around betting for long enough, youll end up in the red. Thats why casinos owners want you in their establishment for as long as possible. But, as Cale pointed out, its a money-making venture. You should know the risk going into it and thats why youre required to be 21 to gamble.

When Cale first started his position at the casino, he saw gambling as just another form of entertainment. For instance, people pay to go to sporting events. They pay to go bowling or to a movie. People are similarly paying for this gambling experience (unless you win money). However, the more time Cale spent there, the more he realized that theres nothing entertaining about losing your money. And, he said, the majority of people he noticed going to bet their hard-earned money were people who could not afford to do so.

The ironic part was that in the end, gambling has absolutely nothing to do with money. People dont get addicted because theyre chasing a win or trying to keep a streak going. People get addicted because theyre obsessed with the feeling, the thrill. Its an artificial trigger of dopamine that makes you feel good. Eventually, Cale began getting uncomfortable with his role in the casino and he turned to his spiritual director.

Do you think gambling is wrong? Cale asked Father Mike. Well, he said, I think gambling and this whole industry plays on an inherent weakness of human beings, which is the temptation to fall for the love of money. One of the most commonly misquoted passages of the Bible is in 1 Timothy. People often say that money is the root of all evil when the passage actually says, For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains. (1 Timothy 6:10) Money is not the cause of problems, but an inordinate love for money is.

Games of chance(card games, etc.) orwagersare not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement. Unfair wagers and cheating at games constitute grave matter, unless the damage inflicted is so slight that the one who suffers it cannot reasonably consider it significant. (CCC, #2413)

Listen to the full segment below:

Is Gambling Sinful?

Tune in to The Cale Clarke Show weekdays at 5pm CT

Read more here:

The Trouble with Gambling - Relevant Radio

Among issues confronting the US legal sports betting industry, particularly the web-based segment, is the test presented by offshore sportsbooks. The American Gaming Association (AGA) is calling for government intervention to target the unlicensed market. This segment, it asserts, is hindering the growth of the legal market. At the same time, while other countries are clamping down on gambling advertisements, the AGA cautions that advertising is the only thing that can separate the good from the bad.

Most operators yield that the offshore sites actually control most of the advanced games wagering market. Thus far, theres been no significantly viable counter-methodology to prevent bettors from going to any alternative where they might feel theyre improving their odds, regardless of the legal status of the site.

AGA President Bill Miller responded to media inquiries on an assortment of themes last week after providing an update on the state of gambling in the US. He asserted, when asked about federal government involvement, that the government should crack down on offshore gambling like it did online poker in 2011. He suggested that the Department of Justice, the Department of State and other agencies should be involved.

Miller added, This is the one area where we talk about what can the federal government do to help our industry. This is (a) really important (one).

For some time, theres been a decent measure of conversation that the forceful feel of sports wagering in TV advertising could cause consternation on the part of consumers. This would, in turn, lead to greater federal intervention in gambling advertising.

In Europe and the UK, guardrails, regardless of whether willfully or forced, have been put in place for betting advertising. This, regulators assert, is due to a perceived inappropriate or overpowering nature of the commercials. Similar restrictions are expected for the US market, as well.

However, Miller cautions against it. He explained that getting legal sports wagering right is about moving clients from the offshore sites and into the protected, legal market. He asserted, Look at New York and Louisiana (where online sports betting launched just prior to the Super Bowl). Does anybody reasonably think that millions of people just decided to try out sports betting for the first time last month? Of course not.

Miller added, Raising the awareness and attracting players to legal sportsbooks is how we protect consumers, generate needed tax revenue for states, and how well stamp out the illegal market and advertising has helped to fuel this change.

The AGAs boss is using a commonsense approach to manage an issue. However, whether that approach can be understood by lawmakers remains to be seen.

See original here:

AGA Wants Government Intervention for Offshore Gambling - GamblingNews.com

The NHS has confirmed the opening of two new clinics this year to specialise in gambling addiction treatment as it cites record demand for specialist support.

Opening in May, the two centres, located in Southampton and Stoke-on-Trent, will join the five current NHS clinics in London, Leeds, Manchester, and Sunderland, as well as the pilot childrens and young persons clinic.

Gambling addiction is a cruel mental health condition that can devastate peoples lives our pilot clinics are already having a lasting impact in helping people to take back vital control of their lives, expressed NHSs Mental Health Director, Claire Murdoch.

The opening of two new gambling clinics in May, as a part of our 2.3bn investment into mental health services, will mean we can help even more people with the most serious gambling problems.

In addition to the aforementioned, the service also plans to initiate a Gambling Harm Network and Clinical Reference Group later this year, with the goal of consolidating expertise together and enabling clinical teams to share best practices on the treatment of problem gambling.

This comes after the NHS made the decision to cut its financial ties with the gambling industry, stating that it will no longer be accepting contributions from operators and fully funding its treatment services including the newly planned clinics via its own resources.

Patients and clinicians asserted through feedback that they had reservations about the potential for conflict of interest from the gambling industry, due to the sector generating 14bn annually whilst funding treatment for addiction.

In an open letter to Zoe Osmund, CEO at GambleAware, Murdoch revealed that the NHS will cease accepting RET contributions from the betting sector, a development that had been anticipated by industry stakeholders.

Murdoch noted: It is also absolutely right that the NHS now funds these clinics independently, recognising the harmful effects this addiction can have on the nations mental health, and that predatory tactics from gambling companies are part of the problem, not the solution.

See the original post:

NHS to open two additional gambling addiction clinics - Casino Beats

Its a fact that we are living in turbulent times and its no wonder why more and more prominent companies are trying to help as much as they can. One example could be found in Merdianbets policy of helping different organizations for human welfare.

Licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority, Meridianbet represent both online and land-based casino, where players can enjoy the most popular games as well as place a wager on their favorite sports events! In the last few years, theyve managed to build a reputation of a pretty enviable humanitarian organization as well.

Since the very start of the pandemic, the company donated to DAR Bjorn a Maltese organization, a member of ALS Malta Foundation that strives to help people with ALS, MS and other neurological conditions. The word was about the Newer & Bigger DAR Bjorn project.

Furthermore, this company stepped up yet again and joined forces with iSoftBet for another good cause collecting funds for the Movember camping. Together they supported this humanitarian event by raising 10.000 for a charity run that was held on Ghajn Tuffieha beach, Malta. It was led by the athletic Steve Sammut Nurminen.

Loads of prominent companies are always ready to help when it is most difficult, locally as well as globally. Both financial and technical support was provided by the Meridianbet group to residents of endangered areas, hospitals, day-care centers in Cyprus and the Balkans.

On the other hand, globally speaking, Merdianbet Group did its best to help even those who are most affected by all negative aspects of the pandemic itself. Considering being one of the most populous countries in the world, it was expected that India will suffer the most. Thats why they joined the ranks once again with a significant donation to UNICEF in order to help them prevail in this extremely unfair battle.

It is always good to see that those who can are still willing to fight for the right cause and this companys commitment should not go unnoticed in the eyes of the public.

Meridianbet is licensed by the MGA. Licence number MGA/B2C/134/2007. Play responsibly. For help visit http://www.rgf.org.mt. Players must be over 18. Terms and conditions apply. The odds may change since quotas are variable.

Independent journalism costs money. Support Times of Malta for the price of a coffee.

View original post here:

Merdianbet more than just a gambling and casino company - Times of Malta

On any given Saturday, Rory would spend several hours glued to a screen flickering with hundreds of football and horse racing bets placed by customers of the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.

One of multiple insiders from firms including Paddy Power Betfair, Ladbrokes and William Hill who spoke on condition of anonymity, Rory was part of an obscure corner of the gambling industry that exists to maximise profits by clamping down on successful punters.

The volume of customers they had, you could afford to get rid of anyone you thought wasnt going to be profitable, he said.

Punters know the house usually wins, but most have no idea that bookies sharpen their edge via something called stake factoring, the process by which winning customers are dialled down, while losers are allowed to bet more.

It works like this: when a customer opens an account, they might be given a stake factor of 1, meaning they can bet 100% of the normal maximum stake, for example 500.

As soon as people start winning or losing, that gets adjusted, said Cameron, formerly of William Hill. It starts with 50% and if they keep doing it [beating the bookie], itll keep going down. At William Hill it went down to 25% to 10% and eventually down to 1%.

Sometimes, such decisions are determined by other factors.

Wed make judgments based on what job you do, who youre friends with on Facebook, said Steve, who works as an odds trader at a well-known betting website.

Its particularly true of any account with a female name, he said, explaining this was often someone who had had their stake factor reduced on their own account and was posing as a spouse, sister or friend.

A manual, handed out to employees of Paddy Power within the past six years and seen by the Guardian, offers further insight.

It advises staff to restrict customers who look like bad business and to increase stake factors for all customers that are regularly hitting their max [maximum bet]. Those customers with a stake factor above 1 can wager more than 100% of the normal maximum figure.

The guide also suggests traits that supposedly indicate someone is likely to be bad business, including eastern European customers, apparently based on concerns about locations in which past suspicious betting patterns have been identified.

For the bookies, stake factoring is seen as a legitimate way of levelling the pitch against punters who they argue are resorting to unfair methods.

One former trader at William Hill explained how the firm would be targeted by latency cheats, people who exploit the small delay between events at a match and the bookies TV pictures, either by accessing a faster feed or attending the event.

You see a bet come through from a brand-new account on a certain cricketer to score less than 25 runs, and theyve put on as much as they can. You look up at the TV and hes out that ball.

There is, too, always the risk of the stablehand or kit man with inside knowledge of a lame horse or a star striker with a tummy bug. Other areas, though, are less clear cut.

Some insiders complain of bonus abusers: people who milk the offers that companies send out to lure in new gamblers.

Much more common are the arbers or arbitrage gamblers, who scour gambling websites for obviously wrong odds. By identifying an event where the odds are clearly priced wrongly, arbers can place a conflicting bet with another operator and make a return regardless of the result.

The practice can even be automated by using bots to place multiple small wagers, flying under the radar of systems designed to spot the practice.

However, some traders fear that bookies have become trigger-happy, targeting not just cheats but canny operators, known in the trade as warm or shrewd punters, or simply as bad business.

It tends to happen now that everyone that beats the price gets put under the arber banner, which is unfair, said Fintan, who has worked at multiple operators including Ladbrokes. Id say its probably 65%-70% of punters that get factored where its definitely the right decision.

One ex-Paddy Power employee showed the Guardian a menu of stake factors that suggest the company was more than happy to restrict people who were simply canny. New customers were set at 1.0, the document said, unprofitable customers at 0.3, and warm customers at 0.1.

The people running these businesses are answering to shareholders, said Connor, who works in the gambling industry. The guys in the trading room didnt want to be answering on a Monday morning why they didnt close an account that was winning.

One gambler, Bernard Henry, shared the results of a demand sent to Coral to see what data it held on him, known as a subject access request.

It showed he had won just 38 over four years but had been prevented from placing sports bets after the bookie realised he had beaten their odds 73% of the time. He was still allowed to bet on casino products where the house never loses over time.

Henry believes bookmakers shared data about him with other operators, via software that companies are permitted to use which is intended to prevent fraud but might also be used to shut down a smart better.

Everyone the Guardian spoke to said accounts were rarely closed completely, for good reason.

According to Paddy Powers manual, warm customers are of use to us as marks, meaning they are worth monitoring to assess if your prices are wrong. Even arbers, seen as cheats in the industry, would be set at a factor of 0.01.

One former employee of Betfair believes this is about satisfying City investors, who see customer numbers as one measurement of success. If they close all the bad customers, you go from 50,000 active users to 10,000, he said.

The flipside of factoring down winners is that losers have, over the years, been given more leeway to place ever bigger bets.

The biggest stake factor Rory recalled a customer being allotted was 40. Hes allowed to lose 40 times what anyone else was and it was astronomical what he was punting. There was no conscience to it.

In response, Paddy Power said its safer gambling checks would always override stake-factoring decisions.

All of the sources who spoke to the Guardian said stake factoring was increasingly automated at the more tech-savvy companies. This, they said, meant there should be fewer arbitrary decisions made by bookies playing it safe.

But Brian Chappell, founder of Justice for Punters, said he did not trust the industry to do right by its customers and feared unintended consequences.

Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

Following intrusive, secretive profiling, only losing customers are allowed to choose how much they bet, he said. This is facilitating an unsafe and unfair UK sports betting market where unprofitable customers are more likely to consider the black market.

A spokesperson for Paddy Power owner Flutter said stake factoring was common practice across the industry but that it did not wish to restrict customers unfairly. They said the practice was also critical in protecting the integrity of sporting events where we believe a customer placing bets has inside information.

None of the other gambling companies contacted by the Guardian returned a request for comment.

The rest is here:

Revealed: how bookies clamp down on successful gamblers and exploit the rest - The Guardian

The Forest County Potawatomi Community has signed a compact agreement with the state of Wisconsin that will allow for sports gambling at its two casinos, including Potawatomi Hotel and Casino in Milwaukee.

The tribe plans to open a sports book venue at Milwaukee's Menomonee Valley by the end of the year, according to a statement released Friday.

The amendment with the state is similar to compacts signed with the Oneida Nation, which started sports betting in Novemberand the St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin.

The signed amendment was sent to the U.S. Department of Interior, where it will undergo a 45-day review.

Forest County Potawatomi Chairman Ned Daniels Jr. said the compact will allow the tribe to compete with other tribes.

"We appreciate Governor Evers and his Administration working with us in a government-to-government manner to provide our Tribe the tools needed to compete in the marketplace and giving us the business certainty to continue our investments in Milwaukee and throughout the state," Daniels said in a statement.

Potawatomi Hotel and Casino spokesman Ryan Amundson said theyre elated by the decision from Gov. Tony Evers.

Stay informed with WPR's email newsletter.

"Sports betting is a form of wagering that is gaining increased popularity across the country, and being able to offer it here will allow us to remain competitive," he said. "We're happy our guests wont have to travel to place that bet."

The Forest County Potawatomi has been one of the most profitable tribes in the state thanks to the Milwaukee casino. But, like every other entertainment venue, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant a hit for the business.According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the tribe won about $100 million less than the year before the pandemic hit, tax records show.

The casino won at least $293 million from gamblers during the 12-month period that ended June 30, 2021, more than 28 percent below its 2019 total. The casino won at least $292 million in 2020, according to the Journal Sentinel.

In a statement released Friday, Evers said the new compact will allow people to enjoy sports and other event wagering while benefiting the tribes economic growth.

"I look forward to continuing our partnership together to find new opportunities that support and bolster the tribes success and our states success for years to come," Evers said in the statement.

The amendment extends the term of the current compact to 2061.

Follow this link:

Potawatomi Hotel and Casino to launch sports gambling this year - Wisconsin Public Radio News