The barriers that punters sometimes need to overcome before they can withdraw their winnings from an online bookmaker-or even their opening stake for a winning bet-have emphasised in this standard with some regularity.
Doug Shelley’s tale, a northeastern businessman who since April 2019 had been attempting to remove £108,000 in stakes and wins from his Betway account, emerged last September and followed a familiar trend. An account is opened, a stake is deposited, a big win follows, and then the problems begin as the bookmaker starts to ask questions about the source of funds for the account that should have been requested and settled before accepting the bet.
The excellent news in Shelley ‘s case is that he was finally paid out in late May, more than a year after winning his bets. The bad news is that he was obliged to spend more than £ 10,000″ to gain access to his own money, most of which was spent on a “forensic” analysis of his bank account and finances, prepared by an independent accountant and certified. Once this was received, Betway finally agreed to pay out in three instalments, the last of which had arrived three weeks ago in his account.
The twist in Shelley ‘s tale is that the BHA is currently warning him against British racecourses. He was banned in January 2013 for eight years for his part in a corruption case involving former jockey Andrew Heffernan, who has been banned for 15 years, and two soccer players.
He states that based on information received from Heffernan, who rode horses of which Shelley had a stake, he lays a horse on Betfair, but he claims that almost all of his bets were to win and he claimed that “only part of it” was explaining how horses had performed. Nonetheless, being told off doesn’t mean you’re banned from betting and Betway opened a Shelley account in April 2019. Betway stopped logging him into the account at this stage. Betway was in the headlines in March after receiving a record £ 11.6 m fine from the Gambling Commission for customer protection failures and their checks to counteract money laundering.
The firm found to have failed to check the source of funding for a customer who had deposited £8 m and lost more than £4 m over four years. The exact reverse of the scrutiny Shelley received when Betway suspended his account, and he wanted to take his winnings out rather than depositing more money.
