Former MP fears for betting after 'ridiculous' gambling checks following loss of just £30 over three months

Former MP Laurence Robertson has labelled overzealous bookmaker intervention as “ridiculous” after revealing his own challenge with restrictions following a loss of just £30 over the course of three months.
Robertson, a Conservative MP for 27 years who served the constituency containing Cheltenham racecourse until losing his seat in the summer, frequently raised the issues of affordability checks and restrictions during his time in parliament, even taking the matter to the then prime minister Rishi Sunak in April.
Robertson said he was prompted to air his frustrations following BHA chair Joe Saumarez Smith detailing in Monday’s Racing Post how his Betfair account had been suspended for nine days after he happened to mention his cancer diagnosis.
Due to his position as a former member of parliament, Robertson is classified as a politically exposed person (PEP) and, by law, is subject to enhanced financial checks, including by bookmakers.
However, the former member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Racing and Bloodstock said the questioning he received from bet365 via email and phone went beyond what he had previously experienced, straying into “crazy questions” such as whether he was kept up at night by gambling losses.
He said: “I did a lot of work on affordability checks when I was in parliament, including taking the issue to the prime minister. I have the same fears as the betting and racing industries on this that people are going to be betting on the black market as a result of them, or will just stop betting altogether.
“I saw the story with Joe Saumarez Smith and I contacted him as I’ve had a similar experience recently myself. I’m a PEP and remain so for up to 12 months after leaving parliament. As a result of this I have to go through enhanced checks, which I understand because it’s the law. I was contacted recently by bet365 and they started asking me questions and I was required to provide things such as my bank statements, passport, proof of wages, etc.
“I provided all of this information and I must have had six emails and calls about it all, but what really bothered me is that they came back towards the end asking me strange questions about all sorts of things that I had not experienced before.
“I’d lost about thirty quid in three months and I was being asked things like how had this loss impacted my life, was I lying awake worrying about it, or drinking more – these sorts of crazy questions. The way it moved on from PEP questions to these other ones before I could bet again was ridiculous, in my opinion, and it went way beyond what I would have expected to be asked as a PEP.”

He added: “There’s no way that the [affordability checks] process can be frictionless like this and if people are having this experience they are going to be turned off betting. I wanted to see how the system worked, which is why I went along with it. I have little doubt that if I was Joe Public I would not have gone through with it and I’d have found somewhere else to bet, or just not bothered anymore.”
Bet365 have been approached for comment by the Racing Post.
Robertson’s experience follows on from the issues raised by Saumarez Smith, who expressed his view that gambling operators were “becoming more restrictive and fearful rather than less” in contradiction to what had been said by the Gambling Commission and the government, and that it was “a real problem and not something mythical, which some of those who are helping shape the regulations seem to think is the case”.
In response to Saumarez Smith, Betfair said it had “specific controls in place to protect vulnerable customers, including those who tell us they are suffering from serious illness”.
Asked about the intervention on Tuesday, the Gambling Commission said: “We do not talk about individual cases.
“The Commission’s guidance to operators sets out example actions that are available to the licensee where there may be concerns that a customer is in a vulnerable situation – this includes reviewing the account for other indicators of harm, monitoring and encouraging the customer to set their own gambling management tools. It is important that the actions are proportionate to the risks.”
Read this next:
BHA chair sounds alarm after being ensnared by gambling checks
How a punter with average losses of 4p a day got caught in an affordability check nightmare

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