SBR- slots input- THESE BOOKS NEVER EVER STIFF!

[slots]

Looking at SBR, there are some obvious changes IMO which deal with the books owned by public/ large multinational companies... To rate these lower than some of these small or hard to figure out the status of books is not right. These companies all list their results at least bi-yearly, have audited accounts, report turnover, margin, customer numbers, etc etc. The risk of no-pay from these is almost nil.


Betandwin (C+)- This is a very established public company on the Austrian stock exchange. Stock up big, good market cap, huge increase in turnover and customers....Easy to be at least a B-!

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BetDaq(D)...This is an exchange, owned by two of the richest men in Ireland. All players funds in a seperate account. Bookmaker license in the UK. No pay risk here is NILL! A (D) grade is simply inacurate IMO.
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Betdirect(D+)..There is another Betdirect at www.betdirect.co.uk which is Littlewoods bookie site, one of the uk's largest public gaming companies. They dont take bets from the USA, but in terms of solid, they have a MASSIVE market cap on the stock exchange..so there could be confusion over these two and the one I mention is the site which is solid as a rock, and deserves to be a least a B-.
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Betinternet-(C). Used to take USA bets, no longer does. Based on the Isle of Mann, they have a £2 million pound BOND as per the law there, are a public company(BET.L), and you wont get stiffed there period.
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Bluesquare(C+)- Recently purchased by RANK group, one of the UK largest public gaming companies who own land based casinos and bingo halls, are a very large public company with a market cap of over half a billion bucks, and you chances of not getting paid her are ZILCH!
They dont take USA bets. They are easily a B or higher.
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Ladbrokes (A-) Yay, got one right!
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Totalbet (C+) Doesnt take usa bets, owned by ukbetting(B-), public company, books purchased from the UK Tote (govt bookies like the OTB), never a no pay ever.
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Totebetexpress(C) The new Tote(uk) site put up after totalbet was sold to ukbetting plc. The Tote is owned by the UK government, and there has never and will never be a no-pay! No usa bets.
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Unibet(B-), I agree on this one, and they are very good a solid, but not a public company.
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You've missed several other large public companies on your list where there is no reason to have less than a 'B' and where not getting paid has never and will never be the issue.

Skybet- Owned by SKY(as in Murdoch..Fox, etc)
Coral-One of the big '3' in the UK alongside Ladbrokes and William Hill
Victor Chandler(UK)-never payout problems here ever
Stanleybet- Owned by Stanley racing, landbased shops etc etc- solid.
Paddy Power- Ireland largest land based bookmaker-very very good and public company
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My fingers are hurting so Im going to stop there, and if anyone cares, I'll continue.

 

[PatrickMcIrish]

Slots - you are my hero man!! I love this sort of stuff. Not to be pushy if your fingers are sore but please go on with this if you have more information. Thank you very much Slots.

 

[slots]

And BTW, just found this about Betandwin today, and this is why I'm saying to give it anything less than a 'B' is crazy compaired to some of the books. press release:

BETandWIN.com Interactive Entertainment AG's (BWIN>BE) latest financial report for the third quarter and first nine months of 2003 indicates that the company has had a lot of success this year. BETandWIN's quarterly turnover from betting, casinos operations, and lottery games for the quarter has risen 70.7 percent from last year's 3rd quarter mark of $61 million to $104 million this year. Net winnings for the quarter are up 45.1 percent to $6.1 million, and revenue is up 64.7 million to $7.7 million. EBITDA for the quarter is also up at $1.1 million. The company's turnover for the first nine months has risen 70% compared to last year, while net winnings after commission has risen 107 percent.

 

[hanover00]

SBR has accurately predicted several blow-ups and has saved me and others mucho dollars by paying attention to the rating changes. That's good enough for me. I'm not playing at any shit "D" book even if the Pope owns it along with the two rich Irish guys.

 

[933412]

Slots,

Great post. It is exactly this problem with SBR that has recently seen me nearly being stiffed by Gamblers Avenue.

Paddy Power are rated at C+ at SBR. Now I know (and I guess you know as well) that Paddy Power is a massive bookmaker with shops all over Ireland and is solid as a rock. Gamblers Avenue had the same C+ rating so I assumed through SBR it was a similar sized operation and send a decent sized deposit there.

In the course of Gamblers Avenue folding it emerged THEY ONLY HAD 200 ACTIVE CUSTOMERS!!!

I COULD NOT FVCKING BELIEVE IT. Paddy Power has hundreds of active shops never mind customers. To have these two bookmakers rated as C+ was unbelieveable.

I think SBR has little to no information on European books and to use direct comparisons between their ratings and the Carribean books is clearly misleading. I never imagined in my wildest nightmares that Gamblers Avenue would only have 200 active customers. There is a danger when sending money offshore of imagining these books as you want them to be rather than how they actually are. My funds would have been safer with the local pub crook who has more than 200 active customers.

Interesting results from Bet&Win. If they are making so much money maybe they can raise my limits higher than the $75.00 currently imposed.

 

[Buzzsaw]

Thats a good list. For a long time many if not all of those did not take bets from Americans (a requirement of SBR). Slowly that's starting to change.

Do you know which ones besides the ones you mentioned thant don't, actually take action from Americans?

Thanks for the ratings help...SBR gets very little feedback on those books and a lot of times its when there is a problem. It's an area SBR will improve.

 

[slots]

Yea thats what I'm saying. I'm not saying anything outright negative about SBR, just a suggestion to make it better for everyone.

If a UK book isn't signing up 100 new customers A DAY, they arent on the map lol. And Paddy Power are public, huge, and very very good operator.

 

[slots]

Yes I do, but if you don't list books that don't take USA bets, you need to remove a lot of them now. Ill be happy to say, but Im off to bed now, so perhaps later.

 

[D2bets]

Does anyone have, or could anyone make, a list among all these Euro-based books as to which accept American customera and which don't. I'm sure it would be helpful to many.

 

[THE SHRINK]

I have known slots for a long time.

If he says something, you can usually take it to the bank, period...

THE SHRINK

 

[Buzzsaw]

Thanks Slots! I did not see any copyrights on your post so I used them

. Hmmm SBR Euro?

 

[slots]

Glad to be of service.

 

[smoothie]

betandwin does not accept U.S. residents, correct?

 

[SkyMasterson+]

I agree generally with what Slots has to say but some of the info in his post is inaccurate. Here is my take:

Betdaq - agreed. If Dermot Desmond who funds this ever stiffs anyone I will be amazed.

BetandWin - your money is good you will just never get a chance to win.

BetDirect - Littlewoods are a public company granted but they do not have a "massive market Cap" At the moment their market cap is around UKP20m up from as low as UKP8m recently. For those that would like to research them their code on the London Stock exchange is SPO and the PLC's name is Sportech. The betting division only had a handle of around UKP53m this year and is losing money at a Net level. Their money is good but there can be no certainty that they won't shut this side of the business at some point in the future.

Betinternet - again I agree that they are public but that means nothing at all. It is only two years since the publicly listed (in UK) Firststake.com went broke and couldn't pay their creditors or customers. Betinternet has recently parted with its ops director and put out profit warnings. If you are going to play there then you simply need to be wary but they appear to have a good business model.

BlueSq - They are 100% and the money behind rank will ensure they never stiff anyone. That said they did reduce my limits on NFL this week after losing UKP13000 with them last weekend in my first weekend betting with them.

Ladbrokes - There is no A- about it. They are A+++++++. They are worth over UKP1bn and have bigger profits than any book I know of. Have over 2000 betting shops in the UK.

Totalbet/UKbetting - publicly listed and solid but not doing huge amounts of business and you could probably compare the amount of business they do with a smaller US book maybe a VIP or something like that (I am guessing a bit here but they are nowhere near the size of an Olympic or Pinnacle). may be profitable soon and seem to have savvy people running things and yesterday acquired www.oddschecker.com. They own a lot of sports content sites.

Tote - as solid as Ladbrokes but watch for developments here as they may be privatised soon and then they need to become commercially viable. All of their profits go to fund UK horseracing.

UniBet - I have heard they are looking for investment to grow to the next level. From the figures I have seen they have a mid sized business and have come a long way in a short time.

SkyBet - v.solid but you won't get the chance to win much.

Coral - if Ladbrokes deserve multiple +'s behind their A then Coral can't be far behind and neither can William Hill for that matter.

Victor Chandler - Never slow paid anyone and I doubt they ever will BUT for some reason ENIC (a plc in the UK) backed out of an acquisition after a few years due dilligence. I think they will always pay if only because Victor is such a gentleman but I am not 100% certain their business model is viable anymore and the Hong Kong Jockey clubs entry into the soccer betting market must have hurt what was once their most lucrative market.

Paddy Power and Stanley - Very solid with listings and a huge number of assets behind them in shops.

Didn't mean to be a pedant but I do think describing smaller plc's as solid by virtue of their listing is somwhat misleading.

 

[jip]

Sky Masterson,

I agree with your point about small plc.'s.

I have sent funds to sportsbooks in many locations around the world but the only place to flat out stiff me (so far) was a UK based small plc.

The one named in your post in fact, firststake.com. There was a bailout agreed with Sportingbet but I was waiting for a withdrawal transaction to be processed of my entire account balance. Of course it never arrived and the owners of Firststake.com told sportingbet my account was empty. The liquidators have now told me I have no chance to see my funds again.

Good info. in your post though.

 

[TheGeneral+]

Welcome to The Rx.com jip

 

[slots]

The point I was making, and still feel as correct is I'd take ANY of the smaller plc's in the UK for safty over most ANY of the books offshore where you know almost zilch about their finacial state. If all one can point to is one or two failures against the 100's of small offshores, then it makes it own case. In your point about Littlewoods, if sportstec decided to close the internet site, everyone would get paid period! You disagree with that?

Slow pay is a non-issue here, I for one have never had it happen, and I play at every book on that list.

But back to your point, in essence in general we agree.

 

[raiders72001]

Slots- Great info thanks. Do you have any info on the Australian books?

 

[slots]

Yes I do. Having gone into the process of getting a licence in the ACT among other states in AUS, I'd say almost any book is fine because of the laws there. Your not going to be stiffed or messed about there. I have particular praise for Centrebet (even though they were just purchased by SuperOdds).

 

[raiders72001]

Slots- Do you have any big disagreements with any other ratings by SBR? Also any feelings about the books in CR that are basically unregulated?