[epolanski]

I know few mathematicians that work in betting world and model data (both odds as well as user profiling).

It is not true that you get banned if you win too often, but it is true that you get banned, and flagged, if your winning patterns are suspicious.

It's essentially like in a casino. You can win more than once and big, good for you.

But if patterns emerge, you get banned.

E.g. Betting small sums on football and suddenly betting very big on a specific baseball game and winning. Do it few times and you're banned as it's obviously strange.

[Phemist]

In these cases one should apply the cybernetic principle. The purpose of the system is what it does.

The intention of the mathematician friends of yours may be to prevent money laundering and match fixing from being profitable (and thereby providing a public good). However, so many genuine sharp and/or plain lucky bettors are caught in these AML & Match Fixing cross-fires, it would be very naive to assume these are all just unfortunate false positives.

Sportsbooks are however legally hamstrung in what they can admit to of course. By doing so they would also admit to completely ignoring and even violating one of the core duties imposed on legal sportsbooks: the duty of care (in EU countries at least this is supposedly an important aspect of the legalisation).

By kicking someone off your platform, you definitely no longer have any way to nudge their behaviour into something less self-destructive. Some players might quit, but for those that do not: Illegal sportsbooks will try to take even more advantage of their players, and now you have also indirectly caused the financing of all kinds of other activities that AML regulation is specifically designed to prevent.

My hot take: your mathematician friends looking at suspicious betting patterns are a way for sportsbooks to greenwash and "legalize" their exploitative practices.

[epolanski]

> My hot take: your mathematician friends looking at suspicious betting patterns are a way for sportsbooks to greenwash and "legalize" their exploitative practices.

I have no clue, but I'm sure that it's meant to make money, not be a charity. If someone does show some suspicious alpha he gets banned.

Users with non-suspicious alpha are generally kept on the platform but they get limits (how much can they bet).

I absolutely believe that the betting industry is exploitative in any case. It's not a business where I would want to be involved.

[Phemist]

Of course I don't expect these businesses to be charities, but I do expect them to uphold their side of the bargain.

The basic bargain of sportsbetting legalization is that sportsbooks are allowed to legally operate (retain a license) in this lucrative market if they 1) ensure taxes are paid, 2) the money involved is not flowing to bad actors (e.g. through match fixing and other methods of money laundry), 3) the sports themselves are not corrupted (imo an impossibility, but a different discussion) and 4) gamblers are taken care of properly (i.e. nudged away from self-destructive behaviours).

Point 1 is one of those unavoidable things like death. Point 2 is actually in line with their own incentives: match fixing directly hurts their bottom line by paying out on essentially highly mispriced odds. Point 3 is a much bigger discussion, which I feel they are already failing on (for me as a sports viewer with the incessant ads, but also in protecting the athletes that are not in the top 0.01% of any sports).

Point 4 however is something they are claiming they are doing, but in actuality it is complete reversed: the illegal sportsbetting market is, by all measures, out-growing the legal one. In the current environment, the major thing sportsbook legalization did is to provide a gateway drug for the illegal market. Limits and bans in order to (POSIWID) protect margins are the strongest nudges gamblers experience to move from legal to illegal sportsbooks.

> It's not a business where I would want to be involved.

Good :) The fewer competent individuals involved in any way, the harder it is for (owners of) sportsbooks to claim they are upholding their side of the bargain, as this will stand or fall with the competent execution of the AML/Match fixing & duty of care controls. Now to actively discourage others from working there as well...

[ndiddy]

You're right that people don't get directly banned for winning too often, but they will get their maximum bets limited to something like $10 if they consistently place bets where they get a good deal on the odds (i.e. placing a bet at +100 when the odds closed at -200). This is one of the worst aspects of legalized sports betting IMO, and why I think it should be regulated. The companies running the sportsbooks are free to make errors on their odds without consequences because they're allowed to identify and ban anyone who takes advantage of the mispriced odds. This means they get to limit their customer bases solely to people who don't understand expected value, which turns the whole industry into a mechanism to take money from the stupid/uneducated. If you have an account at a sportsbook that's more than a few weeks old, and it's still in good standing, it's because the sportsbook knows you're a loser and that even if you win big a few times, you'll be profitable to them long-term.