OklahomaSportsbetting:
The General has been reporting on this new book for a while now. He's done a great job too. Here's the link:
Oklahoma Sportsbook getting "email praise"
After having read that thread by the General I went to contact them, in order to get feedback from their General Manager,
Michael Montanaro. As of today, he has failed to answer my e-mails or accept my calls. He seems to be out of the office a lot...
One of these nites, we had this very discussion at Pepe's. Let me quote the highlights:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Posted by Walk of Life on Apr 23 2004, @ 02:02 AM
OklahomaSportsBetting:
I think their bonus model is risky...
•10% Cash Back monthly
•25% Sign-up Cash Bonus
•20% Referral Bonus
•20% Re-load bonus
I'd tread lightly when it comes to dealing with this operation. If there's one thing I know is how to handle freaking percentages. Let me give you guys 1 example:
Mr. Joe Schmo signs up with Oklahoma Sports Betting and deposits $1000 via NETeller.
He gets the $1000 in his account + $250 in cash bonus (if it doesn't work like that, it's misleading marketing), he agrees to roll the funds 5 times over (a larger rollover it's just not gonna attract the forum players, seemingly their targeted audience; lets' not even talk about the squares).
Let's see some numbers:
$1000 + $250 x 5 = $6250 (rollover)
5% of $6250 = $312.5 (theoretical hold on that bonus promo, assuming there's not a Cecil or a Lander middling their ass to Pinny and IT IS MLB time)
$312.5 - $250 = $62.5.
$62.5 is a 1% POTENTIAL MAX. hold of the total rollover. Once again, just in the remote case the man in the hot chair knows what he's doing. If he's slow and his numbers sit out of the middle for 5 seconds, those are 5 seconds to long to get his ass middled. Then, the picture gets really ugly.
But that's not the ugliest. Let's just say Mr. Sick Gambler or Oldfriend wanna play at OSB. They sign up and they like the lines so much, they tell their "friends" about this place.
Subtract another 20% REFERRAL bonus to the calculations above. How big is the percentage of hold now?
Let's see:
Sick's "buddy" deposits $1000. On top of the low margin of hold displayed above, the "bookmaker" (ha...ha...ha) gives away another 20% of the original deposit in ref. bonus. Help me say "BONUS WHORE"... Now, the picture looks like Sting's bunghole.... savaged upon.
What if the guy is square enough to lose the money? Worry not, Sick my man... half of your middles get a 10% back... how sweet IS that?
What if those middles treated OSB nice for some crazy reason and all the losing legs stand at OSB?... Just send in another dime and you get an extra 20% to try and make up. Sweet enough? "Your welcome buddy, here at OSB we figured you'd appreciate it"
Fellas, there's a reason why the sound names of this industry have dropped these models
Be careful, th epicture looks NAAAAAAASTY, JUST NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASTY.
I have contacted Michael Montanaro, the GM of this operation, trying to get him to address these very issues. Oddly enough, he's never in the office.
They are in San Pedro, Costa Rica... but notin Mall San pedro (where all the BoS books are) or Torre del Este (where Hollywood is) or the Equus Building (where 5 Dimes is)... so where are they... I'll tell you guys... chances are these guys are running this operation from a little obscure place.... oh, how comforting... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Halifax agreed and added:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Posted by Halifax on Apr 23 2004, 02:48 AM
To paraphrase Walk of Life ... if there's one thing I know about, it's numbers ... and WOL is correct, the numbers don't add up to a profitable book.
Even if a book with this business model could find these elusive "squares" that everyone is looking for, remember this - it only takes one $1,000 scalp bet by a scalper to offset 15 or 20 squares. And if, as is likely the case, the book is populated only by the bonus whore scalpers, then they're all betting juice-free (or almost juice-free) each time they place a scalp bet, and you can throw the theoretical 4.54% hold out the window. Now it boils down to luck - most all of the bets are scalp bets, with the book receiving heavy one-sided action, and if the book doesn't get lucky and win most of these bets, they're up Shit Creek.
This book has the same business model as the old Gamblers Avenue had. I call it the Burning Match model - when you compare the risk/reward ratio, it might be worth it to risk playing with this type of book early on in the book's life cycle, but just be damn sure you're not holding the match when it burns to the bottom.
But then again ... AK says it's a good book, so Walk and I are probably thinking assbackwards on this one<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Poster
Scooter concurred:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Posted by Scooter on Apr 24 2004, 02:53 AM:
OSB's business model is even a little worse than Walk of Life describes.
They also offer a 14 cent line on Wednesday, and pay 3 team parlays at true odds on Wednesday.
On Monday, 2 team parlays are paid at true odds.
On Friday, they were charging 5 cent juice on NCAA - 10 cent line - don't know if they've carried it over to other sports/NBA.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
After all this discussion and knowing my percentages the way I do, I'd say these guys are catering to forum players and they probably do not have the square customer data base to offset the forum sharp action by all these angle-shooters like Lander...
I called Mr. Montanaro for a last time this morning (been calling for a week almost), he was out of the office.
This is SBR's report on this book
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>-04/24 OklahomaSportsBetting(SBR rating D) Refusing so far to take SBR phone calls or respond to SBR emails - Book runs a very high risk business model - At this point, SBR knows of no other bookmaker or anyone else in the industry that will vouch for them - Players funds at this operation could be at higher risk than the current SBR rating of D would indicate.
A- to A+ Elite, top 1% of all Sportsbooks, Guaranteed safety & quality
B- to B+ Excellent, fractional to no risk to players funds. Top 10% of all books
C- to C+ Good, minimal risk to players funds. Above average
D- to D+ Poor, some risk to players funds. Poor customer service, ect
F to F+ Caution, extreme risk to players funds. Possibility of a scam
F- Outright scam, book on brink of failure. No chance to recover funds<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
SBR will continue trying to contact Mr. Montanaro and have him comment on his business model. For all I know, the guys might be filthy rich and eager to give away it all... who knows... they're some exentric people out there...
Other things that might be worth of consideration is what type of operation is this.
Post-up exclusively?
Post-up and credit?
A long established credit shop launching a post-up end?
These are all things to consider. If Mr. Montanaro ever cares to address any of these issues, I'll keep you guys posted.
