Are you a sports bettor who’s been unfairly treated? Appeal here:
What counts as being unfairly treated?
A sports bettor who is treated unfairly can fall into a few categories.
Although many losing sports bettors are unfairly treated, it’s much more obvious when winners are poorly treated.
Losers are welcomed back to the sportsbooks in open arms, while winners get the shop closed on them.
The most common form of unfair treatment is being limited by a book because you won money by betting on the wagers that they offered.
In this case, they put strict caps on how much you can win per wager moving forward (usually a very small amount, even a few cents in some cases).
On top of this, the sports books will spool your wagers for longer periods of time (long shot clocks of 10-30+ seconds), which makes it challenging to wager.
They will categorize you as a sharp player, which can result in challenges in getting paid. This can include additional identity verifications beyond what a typical player may be required to provide, poor customer service with egregious wait times, the loss of bonus funds and or promotions, and other hurdles that make getting your money a challenge.
Alternatively, the books may close your account or not allow any sports wagering of any kind.
On top of this, sports books have been known to claw back winning wagers, free roll players on bad lines (if it wins they void, if it loses they keep your money), spin wagers in after they’ve gained an edge on you during the spooling process and even change odds after the outcome of the event at their discretion.
What you can do
Regulation and legislation have been an ongoing process since the legalization of online sports betting in New Jersey in 2018. Many regulators did not realize just how aggressive the sports books practices were with respect to the lengths they go to promote losing players and limit winners.
As a result, existing legislation and regulation needs work. The good news is that many players have outlets to inform their local regulators of the discriminatory and malicious practices that have happened to them.
If you fall into one of the categories above and have been unfairly treated, there are a few things you can do to fight back.
Tools at your disposal include completing an appeal process, getting your story out into the public and supporting sportsbooks who respect winners.
We’ll walk you through each step below.
Step 1 - Contact Your Local Regulator
It all starts with contacting your local regulatory body and appealing your mistreatment through their complaint filing process.
We have put together a resource that includes where to contact your regulator and their appeal process for all current regulated North American regions.
Find your local regular here and start the appeal process now.
The steps for each jurisdiction are different, and yes the process could be tedious & archaic (as most things are with the government), but it’s critical you take the time to complete them.
As a general rule for most jurisdictions:
Screenshot, record and document all relevant details relating to the event or action taken against your account.
Contact the sports book first, informing them of the issue.
Provided that the issue is not resolved, ask the sports book for a complaint number that you will use to report the issue to the regulator in your area. This can take multiple requests as they do not want to provide you with this information.
Visit the regulators website listed in the link above and provide them with all details / evidence relating to your case.
Post your story and evidence to social media channels tagging relevant journalists and news channels.
Like anything, the old systems and processes will only change if there is demand and more cases get reported — so as more appeals come in, it will only force them to make things easier.
So contact your local regulatory bodies, explain what happened to you and advocate for a more fair betting landscape.
It’s imperative as a player that the discrimination you’ve experienced be reported — because as with cases of anything, most never get brought to light.
Step 2 - Tell Your Story To The Public
Next, contact local news reporters via social media, and even post and tag reporters on socials with your story to expose the books practices we are expxosing the practices of these books.
More and more reporters are starting to cover these stories since players have been following these steps.
Share your stories and change will happen.
Step 3 - Support Books Who Respect Winners
Finally, support books who are doing it right and don't limit sharp bettors.
These are books who respect winners and have designed their system to cater to all players. No discrimination allowed.
These books do a remarkable job of their handle, so that winning players can co exist in the sports betting ecosystem. Other offshore sportsbooks do use some sharp action to a certain extent, but they will eventually limit you.
Pinnacle, Cloudbet.io, and Bookmaker are some examples of where winners go to play.
We all have to keep fighting
To create long term change around protecting the player, we all have to step up and follow these best practices for appealing and reporting.
As well as getting others we know who are experiencing similar discrimination to do the same.
At inplayLIVE, we will also do our part by continuing to advocate for fair treatment of all players.
This includes working with regulators & legislators to be a voice for positive change around player protection and equal rights for players.
Mark Rodgman
Mark is a Top 30 Under 30, award-winning entrepreneur & the co-founder of inplayLIVE. He’s consulted some of the most famous companies in the world like Samsung, Cisco, Kickstarter, as well as many of the fastest growing Google-backed startups from Silicon Valley.
