Enjoy your betting this footy season, but don’t be expected to be allowed to win. I received the following message from the bookmaker Victor Chandler. Or to be more precise, from one of his drones, last year.

“Dear Mr Kaless,

We are contacting you today advise that a business decision has been taken by our Senior Traders and I must inform you that betting Account Number 363**** has now been closed and no further business may be executed on your behalf.

The total balance of the Account £***.** is currently in the process of being paid back to Card ending **** and can take 3-6 working days to reflect on your banking statement.

The balance of this Account now stands at zero with no outstanding bets.

As explained in our Terms and Conditions, a Traders decision is final and will not be over turned.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your past custom.

Should you require further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards

Account Queries Department”

My crime had been to successful predict the handicap result of a Super 14 match. I wagered roughly $600 on this match, and it had been just the second bet with this account.

The decision close my account seemed to be at odds with the statement on Victor’s website.

“It is no coincidence that Victor is known as The Gentleman Bookmaker. He hates to refuse anyone a bet and as the racing journalist and Channel 4 presenter, Alastair Down, once wrote “he is the acceptable face of bookmaking. All right, he is there to part you from your money, but you get a straight deal, a civilised relationship and a sense of humour that reminds you that this game is meant to be fun.”

It would seem that if you look like you might start picking a few winners, you don’t get a civilised relationship, but no relationship at all.

In fact, only Lord Monckton would seem to suffer from a greater case of self delusion. But maybe Victor is waiting before awarding himself a Nobel Prize or claiming to have single handedly ended a war.

But I shouldn’t be too sharp towards Victor, because in the world of online sports gambling, he is far from Robinson Crusoe.

Open an account with any of the likely candidates – Ladbrokes, William Hill, Centrebet, Bet 365, Stan James, Paddy Power or Boyles – and you’ll find that, despite their bravado, they’re less than keen to sustain anyone who shows the first signs of discipline, intelligence and worse of all, a winning knack.

It is now virtually impossible to get a bet of larger than $50 on any of my accounts, as they have all had the screws turned on them over the past few seasons.

My accounts first came into being after friends of mine who suffered the fate asked me to open them and place some bets on their behalf.

The sums of money wagered in these instances weren’t enough to retire on, but were probably much higher than your average punter.

The biggest difference was that we were winning with a greater strike rate than the average punter and we bet in a way which was different from a bloke who may have had six beers and wanted a cheeky punt on his team before cheering them on.

Many of the punters who are effectively barred might be looking to earn a wage from their betting, but will quickly looking for ways at which to simply get a bet on if they are looking for the market’s best possible prices.

Some may have the supposed inside word from a trainer or a friend’s friend as to who might be playing, others might be simply relying on their faith in their own maths based system.

The actions of these bookmakers certainly differ from the persona they attempt to put out into the public space.

“What’s your opinion worth?” “It’s better when there is money on it” “Bet big to win big” are all slogans which have been forced out into public space over the past few years.

But perhaps the best one would be “Losers welcome.”

Most punters who spend some part of their weekend agonising over a $10 multi imagine that if they were able to increase their bets a hundred fold and go behind the curtain, a smogasboard of champagne, first class tickets and maybe even first class women would be all laid on by the grateful bookmaker.

This would only be the case if they were highly likely to make very bad calls on those big bets.

We’ve probably all read the stories about the bankers and lawyers who had their hands in the till and spunked millions of other people’s money on crazed betting binges, all the while being fettered by bookies keen to see some of the whale’s action.

So if a Christmas hamper turns up courtesy of your friendly bookie, it is highly likely you paid for that ham a number of times over.

As a friend of mine, who also happens to be a very savvy punter, said: “If I every get a knock on the door from the bookies, I sure as hell aren’t opening it.”

Bookies will argue that they are simply looking to run a business and are perfectly justified to limit their business to only those who will bring them a profit.

Maybe so.

I’d argue that that line of thinking should be made clearer at the start of the business relationship. A point I made with perhaps a touch more venom when I had eight bets totalling $4,000 cancelled after the offending bookie had put his numbers on first on a Canberra Vs Parramatta match and his markets were at odds with his competitors once they had come out of the box.

“We reserve the right” and a $50 free bet was meant to fair compensation.

I ask you, in what other line of business are you allowed to agree to a quote only to cancel it on the grounds that others are more expensive?

Also, if bookies are spending hours studying spreadsheets to limit those who win, should they have a social responsibility to perhaps limit those who lose?

Maybe one home prevented from becoming another statistic about broken homes would make it worthwhile.

But hey, it’s a business.

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