This week I did something I promised I would never do…… I got into a twitter ‘spat’.

Well it was probably more of a ‘strong debate’ than a spat, but it was on a subject that matters a lot to me: bookmakers and how they treat punters.

The bookie in question was Stan James and my ‘opponent’ their head of PR – Rory Jiwani. Now for all intents and purposes, Rory is a nice bloke and he deserves credit for being one of the few people to actually try and discuss issues that few other bookie reps actually will.

My challenge to Rory was how can he defend his bookmaker (Stan James) who are routinely one of the most complained about bookmakers amongst our members. This is backed up by stats whereby they were ranked 26th out of 27 major football bookies and 16th out of 19 major racing bookies, according to 2 large recent SBC members surveys.

Part of the reason for their lowly rating is their apparent clampdown on winning punters accounts as 52.29% of respondents in our recent horse racing survey had their Stan James account closed down. This was by far the worst stat for closures and I was keen to find out why Stan James had so little time for anyone making a semblance of profit! Why were they so different from many other bookies and not keen to lay a bet?

Ultimately, my quest for answers was not fruitful (no big surprise!), but it helps raise a very serious topic once again…that the bookie is not your friend.

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