Thanks for the link Surf...this is a VERY good read by Sting, and needs further exposure...sure paints a very gruesome picture of FF, and their shady business practices...I hadn't seen the publication, so I'm shocked that FF ignores the betflamingos of the world and goes after bodog, sos, cbs, sportingbet, etc., for their shit list...
Sports911.com Says Shame On You First Fidelity Sports Book
Christopher Costigan, Sports911.com
If you are a sports bettor chances are you received an issue of The Official Offshore Football Betting Guide. The magazine in and of itself is not bad at all, in fact it is full of great stats and analyses just like last year's edition.
What we find troubling, however, is the way in which an offshore sports book has used this magazine as a vehicle to needlessly attack its competition. In the case of The Official Offshore Football Betting Guide, we are speaking of First Fidelity Sports Book out of Costa Rica.
While some will argue it is wrong for a sports betting company to put out a magazine under the guise of an independent source while touting itself as the number one sports book, the marketing concept behind such a vehicle has proven successful throughout the years (just look at the Millennium Sports published Insiders Betting Guide for starters). Misleading? Yes. Harmful? No.
There is simply nothing acceptable about listing good companies as "Dangerous to Your Financial Health", however, especially when the folks who put out this magazine approached at least one of these "bad books" to offer them a slot in their Top 5 World Class Sports Books for 2003.
First Fidelity Sports Book approached Sports911.com specifically to get them in touch with BoDog Sports to participate in the production of The Official Offshore Football Betting Guide. We find it ironic that BoDog was promptly summoned to the dog house after declining the invitation.
But it's not just BoDog Sports that has fallen victim to this distasteful marketing campaign.
Sports Off Shore has enjoyed a nearly spotless reputation in the world of offshore gambling ever since their humble beginnings in 1995 on the island of Antigua. Yet for whatever reason, this magazine elects to list SOS as a sister book of Aces Gold. Absolutely not true and there has never been any suggestion of this. In fact, Aces Gold (a book that shut down owing substantial monies to clients) was not even located on the same island as SOS.
Casablanca Sports (BetCBS) has also fallen victim to this magazine, which claims they have been plagued with continuing internet problems. It does seem odd that 911 was never alerted to such problems.
How anyone can throw Sportingbet into a heep with books such as Score, Aces Gold and Camelot is beyond being a disgrace. The magazine claims financial problems which simply do not exist.
Sports Interaction we can argue might not have the best customer service in the world, but they are hardly dangerous to anyone's financial health. Nonetheless, SIA is listed among the dregs offshore.
The magazine claims to have gathered this information from various websites including Sports Book Review and Majorwager, however, none of these websites list Sports Off Shore among their "rogue" companies nor can we accept this list as legitimate in light of the fact that First Fidelity Sports Book had requested BoDog to participate in putting this magazine together. I seriously doubt we would be seeing BoDog among this group had they chosen to be part of the Official Offshore Betting Guide.
It's one thing to warn the betting community about clear cut "no pay" operations, most of which just happen to take wagers in the same community as First Fidelity Sports Book, it is quite another thing to take a jab at companies whose reputations are no worse than that of this magazine's number one "World Class Sports Book". If the shoe were on the other foot and First Fidelity were listed among those companies "dangerous to one's financial health" based on the fact that they cold call people at 8 in the morning, I doubt they would be very happy.
Shame on you First Fidelity and shame on this publication for taking the low road!
