with legalization taking hold now bookmakers want to focus on taking money from the newbie that has no idea what they're doing, while banning or limiting the folks that have won long term. decent little article at https://www.theringer.com/platform/...rps-kicked-out-spanky-william-hill-new-jersey
excerpt:
The rest of the world’s sportsbooks, meanwhile, had grown stale. Johnny Aitken, who went from working as a runner for a major gambling syndicate in Australia all the way up to becoming CEO of the Australia-based sportsbook PointsBet, watched it happen. “I observed from afar some of the European management models,” he says, “with clients being banned or even limited on the Super Bowl for $20 when they’re trying to bet $20,000 on the favorite.” The European model looked a lot like the earliest days of sports betting in the United States, when bookies offered absurdly skewed odds and refused to take bets from anyone who showed an ability to win. This model depended on large numbers of “recreational” gamblers to work, since with such restrictions it would be hard to attract gamblers who were willing to bet large sums. But recreational gamblers either get lucky and win or they go broke, and if they get too lucky, too often they get banned. Either way there is a law of diminishing returns for the bookmaker who will tolerate no risk, unless that bookmaker can continually locate new, untapped pools of players, like an energy company constantly looking for new pockets of oil or gas buried beneath the shale.
These became the two prevailing models of bookmaking. On one side were the European-style books. On the other side were companies like Pinnacle, who offered lower odds and took on larger bets. Pinnacle and BetCRIS were known to let certain sharp players bet their lines before they went public. “It sounds somewhat counterintuitive,” says Pinnacle CEO Paris Smith, “but sharp customers are actually providing valuable information that feeds back into our pricing model to tighten our odds.” Their traders then adjust their lines based on how those gamblers bet before they offer them to the world. This helps Pinnacle make sure they’re on the “sharp side” of the action, so when the best gamblers win, ideally Pinnacle does, too.
excerpt:
The rest of the world’s sportsbooks, meanwhile, had grown stale. Johnny Aitken, who went from working as a runner for a major gambling syndicate in Australia all the way up to becoming CEO of the Australia-based sportsbook PointsBet, watched it happen. “I observed from afar some of the European management models,” he says, “with clients being banned or even limited on the Super Bowl for $20 when they’re trying to bet $20,000 on the favorite.” The European model looked a lot like the earliest days of sports betting in the United States, when bookies offered absurdly skewed odds and refused to take bets from anyone who showed an ability to win. This model depended on large numbers of “recreational” gamblers to work, since with such restrictions it would be hard to attract gamblers who were willing to bet large sums. But recreational gamblers either get lucky and win or they go broke, and if they get too lucky, too often they get banned. Either way there is a law of diminishing returns for the bookmaker who will tolerate no risk, unless that bookmaker can continually locate new, untapped pools of players, like an energy company constantly looking for new pockets of oil or gas buried beneath the shale.
These became the two prevailing models of bookmaking. On one side were the European-style books. On the other side were companies like Pinnacle, who offered lower odds and took on larger bets. Pinnacle and BetCRIS were known to let certain sharp players bet their lines before they went public. “It sounds somewhat counterintuitive,” says Pinnacle CEO Paris Smith, “but sharp customers are actually providing valuable information that feeds back into our pricing model to tighten our odds.” Their traders then adjust their lines based on how those gamblers bet before they offer them to the world. This helps Pinnacle make sure they’re on the “sharp side” of the action, so when the best gamblers win, ideally Pinnacle does, too.
