I posted something similar in another thread about the same problem.. and want to put this out there for the "the house always wins, you can't win betting rah rah ban it all" crew. This problem is bigger than the AFL but problem gambling is over represented in the AFL vs average community due to reasons I've listed below - the problem is exacerbated by their high salaries.
I don't find betting to be enjoyable anymore, but it's become my main source of income so I see it more as my job. Winning punters go through the issue of having accounts banned/limited etc. by bookmakers and are told "your business is uneconomical" or "you are not a recreational punter so we will no longer accept your business". They've gone as far as closing my accounts that weren't losing at a fast enough rate in the past. At these same bookmakers, losing punters are encouraged to bet bigger, bet more often & even given account managers to encourage them to bet with a specific bookmaker, load them up with deposit match bonus bets, tickets to marquees at races & corporate boxes at other sporting events. How often do you see groups of players at these events in VIP sections? It's not club sponsors giving them tickets and they haven't bought them, though I suppose they've paid for them in a roundabout way, they're tickets courtesy of Beteasy, Sportsbet or Ladbrokes. Young men with heaps of free time, plenty of disposable income & their own personal scumbag on their shoulder telling them to bet, what a recipe. It's criminal, if you're taking the bookmaker's money they close your accounts, if you're making them money they'll clean you out until you have nothing left. There is no amount you can lose that is enough for them, they'll always take more.
I've put thousands of hours in to collecting data & building models to predict outcomes & collate true odds to find spots that are profitable. These players don't do any research, they get a tip from their friend, they look at the odds and say "that looks juicy" and they put way too much money on it with nowhere near enough thought. To get bets on, I need to open numerous accounts under various names, use different devices with different IP addresses as these companies go as far as tracking this information, to link you back to you original account & close these accounts down too. There are only a couple of bookmakers in Australia where you can actually get set to win a decent amount of money when you're a winning punter. I see my mate's Sportsbet account and on the same event, he - a big losing punter, can bet to win $10,000 where I am only able to win $50.
The industry needs heavier regulation, minimum bet laws for winners & better management/support for problem punters. If bookies were forced to display a figure of your net position after betting with them (your account profit & loss basically) a lot of punters would notice their problem earlier & possibly seek counselling or set deposit limits on their own accounts. I track every bet I place in a spreadsheet so I know my exact position but 99.99% of punters wouldn't have a clue where they're at. If you ask anyone at the end of a day on the punt how they're going, how often do they say "yeah broke even"? It's rubbish. Plenty of people out there think that they're winning or that they haven't lost too much but they genuinely have no idea what they've bet across the years & what they've lost. There should be a stake limit you have set so you don't bet more than x amount on an individual bet & a daily bet limit with every bookmaker so you can't bet more than that. To increase these limits you must request to do so in writing & have 30 days before it's approved. I know there is something in place with this at the moment but it's not enforced/promoted enough IMO. None of this will happen unless it's forced upon them by regulators. If you self exclude from any bookmaker, you should be put in a registry with all bookmakers across Australia so that you cannot open an account at a new bookmaker when you feel like having a bet & if you wish to overturn this ban, it should be extremely difficult and have plenty of red tape. It's honestly a joke how bookmakers are allowed to run with these tactics and have free run at the moment to do as they please.
I thought PointsBet were one of the good ones? Who are the good ones then?