On my way to the QPR game against Hull last Saturday, I was astonished to discover that Ladbrokes had made QPR the favourites. Eh? Going into this game, the Rs were 18th in the table, whereas Hull were sixth. They’d won four of their last six, whereas we were winless in five. ‘It’s almost worth putting a bet on Hull,’ I joked to Charlie, my 17-year-old son. Then I thought: ‘Why not? At least that way, if QPR lose I’ll make some money.’
But if I was going to do it, I might as well get the most favourable odds, so I did a quick trawl of the online betting apps, all of which I’ve signed up to, and discovered that bet365 was offering 3/1 – by far the best. I transferred some money from my bank account and stuck £25 on the Tigers to win.
Fast-forward 30 minutes and Hull scored the opening goal. Like most online gambling sites, bet365 immediately began tempting me to withdraw my bet by offering me £50 to ‘cash out’. For the uninitiated, this meant I would make a profit of £25, but surrender the chance of winning £75 if Hull went on to win the match. ‘Nah,’ I thought. ‘There’s no way that QPR are coming back from this.’
But, stone me, the Rs equalised in the 38th minute – and judging from the half-time stats, we were the stronger side. We had 15 shots to their one, four on target, and a healthy xG of 1.89. I turned to Charlie and said: ‘If Hull get another one I’m going to cash out. We came back from a goal down deficit once. We can do it again. I’ve got a good feeling about this.’ Admittedly, I’ve lost hundreds of pounds betting on good feelings. But when Hull duly got another goal in the 51st minute, making the scoreline 1-2, I took the bet365 offer and pocketed the £25. Charlie couldn’t believe it – ‘Are you insane?’ – but sure enough we went on to score two more and win the game. What a great afternoon! Not only had QPR chalked up a rare victory, but I’d won £25 betting on their opponents.
But it was all downhill from there. The following day, I got an email from bet365 that began: ‘As part of our ongoing customer screening we have identified that you are a politically exposed person.’ As a result, my account had been ‘restricted’, meaning it was inaccessible in spite of being £50 in credit. To get my money back, I’d have to go through an ‘enhanced verification process’ that involved ‘proof’ of my current income (wage slips or a copy of my latest tax return) and bank statements going back three months.
I was a bit miffed, to put it mildly. Why does my status as a politically exposed person (PEP) mean bet365 can accept bets from me, but not let me collect my winnings? Would it have suspended my account if I’d lost? According to anti-money-laundering regulations, a PEP is ‘an individual who is entrusted with prominent public functions, other than as a middle-ranking or more junior official’. Surely being a backbencher in the House of Lords doesn’t qualify as ‘prominent’? I have far less power than even an entry-level civil servant. But a bit of googling suggests being a peer can cause problems.
Caroline says that if this experience teaches me to stop gambling, it was money well spent
For instance, Baroness Kramer told a newspaper in 2023 that she was asked for details of her dead husband’s income when she tried to open a Chase bank account. Lord Sharkey, a Lib Dem peer, complained to the same paper that NS&I, the state-owned savings bank, had asked for proof of not just his income, but that of his three children as well, even though they weren’t customers of NS&I. Meanwhile, Coutts asked Lord Forsyth’s daughter if she could close her account because having a father who is a PEP made her ‘a pain to look after’.
All those peers are much more important than me – Michael Forsyth was in the cabinet – so hopefully bet365 is just being overzealous. I’m not going to bother with the ‘enhanced verification process’, partly because of privacy concerns and partly because it’s too much of a ball ache.
So I’m just going to kiss goodbye to the £50. Caroline says that if this experience teaches me to stop gambling, it was money well spent. But readers beware: if you have the slightest connection to politics, bet365 will happily take your money, but if you win, it may well keep it unless you’re prepared to hand over the kind of details that would typically be requested by a Nigerian prince who claims to have inherited a fortune and needs your help to get it out of the country.
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