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sportsbook.com are thieves and should be avoided like the plague. They stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from me and other players by canceling college football parlays months after the fact. SBR has more info.

Wow. Skrtelfan and I have had a skirmish or two, but I think this is strong information and the sort of thing this board was meant to disclose and discuss. I'd like to hear details.

I know of two examples and will check SBR for more details. In October of 2006, shortly after the UIGEA was passed, sportsbook.com announced they were departing the US market and canceled all pending futures. Less than a month later, they announced that they were returning to the US market, but didn't reinstate the futures. The most blatant example of the theft was that at that time, the MLB playoffs were down to either 4 or 8 teams. They canceled the bets of anyone who had a remaining team to win the NL, AL, or World Series, while grading as losers anyone who had a team that was already eliminated. The second, and much bigger example, in the fall of 2007, I believe October 2007, they claimed that betting correlated parlays was against their rules and went back and canceled several months worth of wagers. (I mean same game side and totals, not stuff like Saints +5.5 parlayed with Saints +200 ML.) I wasn't personally burned for "hundreds of thousands of dollars," as I kept my balance there pretty low after I became aware of that futures cancellation issue, but the total amount reported on SBR was at least in the hundreds of thousands. SBR moderator Justin7 (who's been around the boards as "Daringly" for many years) estimates the figure may have been in the millions.

Additional info from some quick SBR searches... Regarding the first issue, the cancellation of future bets, around Oct 12, 2006, they announced that certain books under the sportsbook.com umbrella were departing the US and Canadian markets, canceled pending bets of the affected people, returned their money, and then invited them to sign up with a different book in the family. I was incorrect in my previous post that there was a month gap between them departing the US market and then rejoining. From SBR poster "Halifax" [I]I phoned them tonight, and was told that all pending wagers were going to be graded "no action". That's completely unacceptable. I have 5-figures worth of pending wagers there that are now in limbo, including some future bets that are virtually certain winners (such as Santana for Cy Young). I've already mentioned this at the Rx, since SportsBook.com is an advertiser, but SBR might want to look into it as well ... basically, they're stealing from the Canadian and other non-US players, as well as from the players in the banned states. It's one thing to discontinue taking any future business from a particular group of players, but they have to let the pending wagers play out ... they can't be allowed to cancel them.[/I] As I mentioned, they weren't even "discontinuing taking any future business," they were simply migrating these people to a different book in their family. From poster RickySteve: [I]Sportingbet has closed their US accounts, following the lead of fellow UK books Bet365 and StanJames. Unlike those reputable shops, all pending wagers at Sportingbet have been cancelled. In the MLB pennant and WS markets, they've collected all of the losing bets and then cancelled the pending winners. This is nothing short of theft.[/I] And from an alert on SBR's front page: [I]11.11.2006 (01:28 AM CST) Sportingbet (SBR rating D+) and SportingbetUSA (SBR rating D+) users complain of deleted pending future wagers. Prior to Sportingbet transferring account balances to Superbook.com, some bettors reported disappearing pending bets. While management has agreed to reinstate wagers for many of these account holders at sister sportsbooks, reports of canceled bets continue. Players who have had a pending wager canceled at a former Sportingbet property are invited to contact SBR.[/I]

Onto the big theft, the correlated parlay one. Here's the thread from the old board discussing it. I got my info about the future bets cancellation from the post in that thread by poster groovinmahoovin, and there's also lots of info about the CPs: [url]https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=255558&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=&STARTPAGE=1[/url] There were literally hundreds of posts to SBR about the issue, but a summary from moderator Justin7 [I]I spoke with the head of CS. He confirmed that 31 players had their net wins taken out of their accounts. All 31 players played exclusively correlated parlays, with no (or almost no) other action. According to Sportsbook.com, these players were "stealing", so it was fair to confiscate their wins. I also received a complaint from a player who lost playing correlated parlays. His wagers were not canceled, and he did not receive a credit. This was also confirmed by Sportsbook.com. The amounts seized were not insubstantial. Although they did not comment on this, I already have reports from about 6 accounts with close to $180,000 confiscated. This was a decision from "upper management", made after considering the long-term repercussions. They are not willing to refund any of the money confiscated. In a case as flagrant as this, I don't even have to suggest how I feel, or what "should" happen. I'll provide updates when I know more.[/I] In my case, it isn't true that I "only played CPs," as I played plenty of things there other than CPs. I'm also almost certain that between the handful of threads I read on SBR and that LVA thread, that I counted more than 31 people who reported money confiscated, so the "31" figure is almost surely low since there are plenty of sportsbook.com customers that don't post to SBR or the old LVA board.

And some final info, here's a case where they voided bets on an Angels game because they listed the pitcher as "JefWeaver" instead of "JerWeaver" when Jeff Weaver wasn't even on the Angels at the time, and people pointed out plenty of examples where they didn't void bets on misspelled pitcher names: [url]https://forum.sbrforum.com/players-talk/41867-stealing-sportsbook-com.html[/url] Another case: [url]https://forum.sbrforum.com/players-talk/48423-sportsbook-com-steals-10-000-player.html[/url] [I]Sportsbook.com (SBR rating D-) steals $10,000 from player claiming he abused bonuses. The player took offered deposit bonuses over a three year period from three different books that are hosted and serviced under Sportsbook.com. Sportsbook.com classified accepting these bonuses as "bonus abuse" despite the fact that rules against accepting offers from the multiple Sportsbook.com-service books do not exist and that the player followed the listed terms of service when joining. Sportsbook.com confisctated the funds shortly after the player's profit grew beyond what he had received in bonuses over the life of these accounts. All bonus requirements were met and previously withdrawn. Sportsbook.com terms of service do not refer to a rule allowing the book to audit account and bonus history to see if promotions were used "in the spirit of the bonus." This has been a reoccurring complaint from Sportsbook.com users over the past few months. Sportsbook.com has used other illogical reasoning to take money back from winning users. SBR is currently collecting data on a player case where over $150,000 was confiscated. The timeline of player and book activity will be published early next week.[/I] The above was mentioned in this thread: [url]https://forum.sbrforum.com/players-talk/48423-sportsbook-com-steals-10-000-player.html[/url] I can confirm that I was specifically told it was ok to have accounts at multiple books in that family. I never had any bonus monies confiscated but others did. And another case where another book in the family, Hollywood, told a player they wouldn't cancel his mistakenly placed wager and told him he had to eat the vig, then they canceled the winning one after the game started: [I] Hollywood Sportsbook (SBR rating D-) cancels player's $2000 winning wager A Hollywood player accidentally placed a wager on the wrong team. He asked customer service if he could cancel the wager, was told that it was not possible, and was advised to wager on the other side of the match to eliminate the risk and "only lose the juice." The player waited until minutes before the game's start time and made a would-be losing wager on the other team. Hollywood canceled the winning wager during the game. Despite wagering logs showing the book did unjustly cancel the bet after start time it denied the player's request to review the phone logs confirming the bet would stand. Hollywood initially told the player it would investigate the matter in February but is no longer responding. SBR has added the claim to the list of pending issues filed by the Sportsbook.com Group's players. Hollywood was acquired by Sportsbook.com in May of 2006.[/I] I also found numerous reports of lengthy slow pays from these guys.

[QUOTE=anthony;16019]I'd like to hear details.[/QUOTE] Sportsbook.com was owned by Paradise Poker. Note that poker rooms are cash cows that just hold money and rake pots. But sports books can lose. Paradise Poker left the U.S. market and considered shutting down Sportsbook.com. To save their jobs, the Sportsbook.com management decided to go independent. They basically turned over the post-up cash to Paradise Poker and got the website with all customer account liabilities. That's when the trouble started. The independent sportsbook.com had no money and no financial backing. Then they suddenly wised up and started stealing.