The idea that this would be the reason is absurd. In poker, banning professionals (without cause) would be industry suicide (is it even legal?), and in sports betting, winning players are handled in a completely different way.
I can’t be bothered to read through the terms and conditions, but the only reason that comes to mind could be unusually strict bum-hunting (meaning extremely selective table choice, only playing against fish) rules that Pauli might not have followed. A fairly far-fetched reason could also be, for example, that Unibet offers a winner’s bet to the WSOP Main once a year, which Pauli has played.
Either way, these are reasons that operators sailing under Caribbean licenses might use, not European stock exchange companies. Something is rotten here.
The first thing that came to my mind was placing arbitrage bets or other unfair advantage abuse against the bookmaker, which is prohibited by the rules. Of course, there could be any other reason why the account was closed.
But almost without exception, in these cases, companies have a reason and a right based on their rules to close a customer’s gaming account and confiscate funds. These rarely happen by accident or have anything shady behind them.
Most often, players intentionally “forget” to mention what they have done wrong when they publish the matter on social media in such a way that the betting company is made to look bad. Betting companies, in turn, rarely comment on allegations publicly, so outsiders are surely often left with the impression that the betting company was in the wrong, even if this were not the case.
It’s an unfortunate matter, but I don’t believe there was anything unusual behind it. Gaming accounts are undoubtedly closed several times a week due to rule violations in a company the size of Unibet. For some, the funds in the account are returned, and for others, they are not. Depending on the type of violation that has occurred.
“c. not to be a professional player in any sport, competition or league where Unibet offers betting”
Without knowing more about the matter, this caught my eye in the account rules. Similar account closures have unfortunately been seen many times. The most recent example is Betfair and the freezing of accounts ~9 months ago after the US presidential election bets (there was more discussion about this on the stiedo side).
It’s hard to believe that the account blocking is in any way related to bumhunting, as Unibet has made it quite challenging with its anonymity-preserving tables.
e: and Pauli wouldn’t get much action there at the stakes he plays
I found the same. As I said, you can always find a reason for this if you want to, but usually, completely different companies are looking for them.
Betfair probably got mostly confused with money laundering investigations when that market grew enormously and thousands of random people dropped large deposits. They also handled the situation poorly.
Poker wouldn’t even run online without professionals, and drawing a line would be completely impossible anyway. Furthermore, it’s very difficult to imagine Fiilismies’s ban being due to bumhunting, as I understand him to be one of poker’s “end bosses” and certainly not lacking in playing company.
I can tell you from my own experience that even in European publicly listed companies, the customer’s position is really weak, and there’s practically no reasonable way to defend oneself. It’s truly a Wild West situation with arbitrary decisions without any burden of proof, and I’m 99% sure that, for example, Fiilismies hasn’t done anything wrong.
My accounts were frozen in one major poker network because I was suspected of being a bot due to extensive playing hours. The only evidence must have been the number of hours, as I’ve never used any illegal software. Customer service stated that higher-level teams had made the decision, but customers cannot communicate with higher-level teams, leading to a complete dead end. My salvation was a large affiliate site, where I was an important customer, and they managed to negotiate the return of my account balance.
It definitely has nothing to do with poker. In poker, a high-volume player (winning or not) generates a lot of rake, i.e., money, for the company. In betting, a winning player takes money away from the company.
This probably happens quite regularly on similar sites where winning bettors are banned.
Is this information based on something? As a beginner in the betting industry, I’m interested in how the whole industry even stays afloat if winnings aren’t always paid out?
Having spent years on various betting sites, I don’t consider this a very common problem, as long as we’re operating under Maltese licenses. This is strongly a matter of reputation, as players don’t want to be scared off by news that winnings can’t be withdrawn. Then there are the Curacao (Curacao) etc. casinos, whose casinos might disappear with the money like a fart in the Sahara.
The earning logic is clear: winning bettors are not favorite customers because they generate losses. For them, it’s normal to have so-called stake limits (panoslimiitit), which set maximum stake limits for players, making it significantly more difficult to make winning bets. This also quite effectively drives these players out of that casino.
Let me correct something: it’s true that generally, limits are lowered. This is probably about some money laundering suspicion. It’s hard to say anything for sure when we haven’t heard the other party. They have their own practices and cannot talk about them.
Pauli said that an even larger sum was stuck on another site. Betting companies probably find something suspicious in Pauli’s actions. Maybe he opens an account, immediately places a large bet, and then tries to cash out? Or perhaps he’s been looking for some arbitrage bets, etc.
Pauli’s main game is heads-up no-limit hold’em (huppi texu), and that can’t be played on Unibet. To my knowledge, he’s mostly played on PokerStars since the beginning of his career.
As a beginner bettor, you really don’t need to worry unless you’re placing bets of 1k+ and winning big right away. Even then, your limits would probably just be lowered.
The unfortunate thing in this case is that the player is well-known, the sum is large, and therefore it has received media attention. The effect of this is that now some ordinary punter fears that if their €10 ten-selection accumulator comes in, they won’t get paid. And that is definitely not the issue here.
From personal experience, I can say that Unibet is certainly one of the best operators in the industry when it comes to customer service. The biggest minus in their operations here is that it has taken an ungodly long time and nothing has happened.
Exactly. So, it’s important for everyone to understand that online casinos restrict “too many winners” from placing bets in the future. These players’ winnings are never confiscated, unless the players have violated the gaming company’s rules.
Unibet will never disclose publicly what they are accusing/suspecting their customers of. So, the only information we have is the customer’s word. And the customer (of course) says in 99 out of 100 cases that they haven’t done anything wrong.
*But it’s not just subcontractors like Evolution and Kambi who want to gain ground in the US, but also several Swedish operators. *
Marlon Värnik believes that Kindred has the greatest opportunities to succeed on the market, and according to analysts’ average target price, the stock should up by about 30 percent in one year’s time.
"Kindred has been in the US since 2019 and is running in five states, but has access to 12 pieces in total. They have a lot of experience from Europe and have themselves say that the United States will be one of their largest markets within a few years, which might correspond to 10-15 percent of the revenue "
The chance for Kindred to succeed, compared to the other Swedish players, is probably higher. But at the same time, no one will be any giant player in the United States, the competition from global giants like Draftkings, Fan Duel and Penn and more are too hard "
On the one hand, it’s good that the company continues to make money independently, but I would have welcomed a small cash increase with a premium in this market turbulence. Today, some parties hoping for an acquisition probably jumped ship:
I would think this only increases Kindred’s attractiveness as an acquisition. MGM Resorts will likely make a competing offer, given their existing collaboration with BetMGM being jointly owned by Entain and the resort. This offer seems to be either a confirmation that MGM Resorts won’t get it cheap, or just a tactical move that I don’t quite understand, as there would have been much cheaper acquisition targets if they only wanted to expand into Europe.
I interpreted today’s decline as being related to regulatory concerns in both Norway and the Netherlands. The acquisition news caused a huge buying spike and is perhaps a more positive signal.
Precisely. The stock was down over 5% and went to around -1% after that news. If you have to find something negative from that, it’s probably that DK isn’t buying Kindred anytime soon.
