One of the most controversial betting sites of all time, Sportsbook.ag have always been surrounded by payout disputes. This gained steam last month, when they refused to pay a large portion of their customers due to reasons that did not make much sense. But as a sportsbook that accepts American customers (who are not suppose to be gambling outside of Nevada or New Jersey), they hold the power of tyrants.
When I am on Twitter I am always monitoring certain keywords incase there is an incident that warrants reporting. Sure enough, I encountered a user (who will remain anonymous) sending complaints to Sportsbook’s official Twitter handle. I approached him via direct message to collect more information:
Anonymous claimed that he had $2,500 US tied up in a payout. This is a significantly large amount. We are not talking about a small withdrawal request, which any sportsbook would honor to keep the village people satisfied. He stated that he has received funds from them in the past, and that this was the first time that he was running into any issues. This is consistent with the recent scandal that Sportsbook.ag was involved in. They claimed that all withdrawals are processed in 6-8 weeks, and that the reason for his payout being delayed was due to their third-party handler being backed-up. Oh yeah, and my bookie ate my homework.
6-8 weeks for payouts is ridiculous in the first place. There is absolutely no reason for that to ever happen at an honest operation. The logic behind slow payments has nothing to do with whoever is handing the money. It is actually one of the most dirty moves a sportsbook could do. During the time that your withdrawal request is pending, there is a very high chance that you will lose the small amount of funds you have remaining in your account, developing the urge to gamble. Rather than making another small deposit, most betting sites will force you to cancel your pending withdrawal. Now you have yet another opportunity to lose money, and if you ever get the chance to request another payout, your timer has been reset to zero weeks passed.
It is a horrible thing to do, and any sportsbook that has the slightest ounce of respect for their customers would never do it. And even if your sportsbook had that policy, they should damn well stick to it. If I am going to beg my teacher for an extra week to complete the previously referenced homework, I am not going to tell her to fuck off after I refuse to hand it in one month later. If you demand extra time, do something with it.
But thats not the purpose of this article. I asked Anonymous if he could send me information regarding his situation so that I could include them in an article. I have noticed many users complaining about their payouts all of a sudden not being processed, which is very concerning as we are not far removed from their most recent incident. He sent me a picture of the payout request, which was dated June 26th.
It is currently August 27th. Sportsbook appears to be playing a one-sided game of chicken with Anonymous. They are daring him to cancel his withdrawal so that he can place a few bets. “C’mon, you know you want to!” sings the Devil.
Anonymous won’t give in. He sent me a copy of an e-mail exchange they had one week ago, after his payout request eclipsed the upper-limit of their projected time cap:
Anonymous states that they indicated in a prior e-mail that they have never missed a payment outside of the projected 6-8 week processing range. We already know this is false due to past incidents of Sportsbook.com withholding payments from customers for no reason. Their discussion continued throughout the week, with some notable responses from the betting site’s customer support department:
First of all they cannot count (this was seven days ago, which marked the middle of week eight). Secondly, they indicated that he would be receiving a payout confirmation soon. One week later, outside of the insanely slow projected processing range, still nothing. Except, you know, a ton of excuses…
Sportsbook.ag puts all of the blame on their third-party payment processor. In the next e-mail, they indicate that all of their withdrawals are processed in batches which vary in size. The support team tells Anonymous that he will be contacted as soon as his request has been sent to the third-party.
Still, one week after the last e-mail, nothing has happened. This means that not only is he potentially weeks away from getting his payout request included in the “batch”, but also weeks away from actually receiving his funds. I know Americans are limited in their options, but it is absolutely unacceptable to have to potentially wait four months to get your money.
Is it possible that there is some truth to Sportsbook.ag’s side of the story, where it actually is the third-party processor’s limitations? Perhaps. No one can doubt that it is suspicious that this comes immediately after their latest scandal. You would think that they would make an effort to up their processing outs to ease the angry mob from last time. However, it is more likely that this is just another case of an American sportsbook abusing their customers because they know they have no other options.
What is Anonymous to do… Call the police? And tell them what? That an illegal sportsbook stole the money he was illegally gambling with? These sites know that they have you by the balls, and they take full advantage. The goal of this blog is to give everyone a voice, in an effort to bring some form of honesty to this cancerous industry. If you would like Frostbet to write an article about a situation you are having with your sportsbook, please contact us via Twitter or E-mail.