The sad fact is that most punters do not make official complaints when an injustice has taken place, because they often believe they have no rights due to bookmakers citing their terms and conditions (T&Cs).
What most punters don’t know is that many of these T&Cs would not stand-up in a court of law as they would be deemed unfair. The gambling industry is now so big it should have an independent ombudsman, but it doesn’t, so punters are often faced with trying to work out who to complain to dependent on what their perceived injustice is. We always try to be honest, so we have to say the present outlook for the complaining punter is grim. Our personal experience is that you are likely to get nowhere fast and you will need to be clever and persistent to have any chance of winning a dispute. There are lots of reasons for this that space denies our covering them here.
Punters also need to campaign more. They are a disparate group, hence no strong powerful voice; all the more reason for contacting your MP, the UK Gambling Commission, whoever.
Of course, every punter and members of the public have a choice, they can either accept the status quo or they can complain and campaign. We would like to think that this website might empower you to do the latter. We fully accept that there are many good causes we can all support and punters, gamblers, bettors, mugs, whatever term you wish to use rarely top the list of good causes. The following video may explain why (click here). It reports on a recent large research study concerning perceptions of gambling and gamblers. It is only 2-minutes and 50-seconds long, but very enlightening, as it helps to explain why big corporate bookmakers can treat their customers (punters) like they do. Nobody would accept similar treatment when purchasing any other service. We like to compare society’s perception of gamblers to society’s perception of neurological and psychiatric conditions in the 19th and 20th centuries: Surely in the 21st century we can do better.
NEW – free leaflet – Know your rights when sports betting and casino gaming
Complaining: Where you can turn
Progressing a dispute yourself
Advice for winning a complaint
