BetCascade: If You Win, Don’t Expect To Be Paid

Good Start, Horrible, Horrible Ending

BetCascade has seen its ratings[2] on Bookmaker Review (SBR) rocket up and down like a roller coaster, touching every grade level from A- in February of 2006 all the way down to its current level of F, which lands it on the Do Not Play Blacklist.

At first, the book had great service, fair lines, and quick payouts, placing it on many recommended lists and Top 10 Bookmaker lists, ahead of such names as Bodog, Mansion, and Legendz.

Seeing BetCascade on the same recommended list as Pinnacle is, looking back, is quite funny. Pinnacle is, to this day, almost as safe as having money in a bank, while BetCascade is now only taking deposits and not paying out.

2007: The Year Things Went Downhill

In 2007, issues started popping up for BetCascade. The book starts the year as an A- rated book, which is an excellent show of support from SBR and a green light to deposit and play. Near the end of March 2007, players start reporting slow pays to SBR. BetCascade claims they are searching for a new payment processor, and will resume payments “next week.”

After this rating downgrade, BetCascade continues to string players along with promises of payment, payment plans, or excuses of processing delays and problems. The site is also still busy at work recruiting fresh money, offering via phone a 20% bonus on new deposits.

SBR, for its part, does its best to help players recoup money. They attempt to contact a lawyer based in Costa Rica, and also offer to set up a trust fund where players who can prove they were owed money can receive payouts every 3 months, as long as the book makes good on trying to pay back its debts, slowly and surely.

However, not much comes of this, as the book attempts to handle things on its own timetable, which is to say, not at all. A few players report minor payouts, but the bulk of the money is still to this day owed, even as the book spends time and effort bringing in new money. SBR says it best with their last comment in July of 2010, claiming “BetCascade should be avoided at all cost.”

All of these details, and more, from this fateful year can be found here.[3]

Bringing Playfast.tv Into The Scam

The web address Playfast.tv was used as a front to scam players and nothing more. The way it was used was a little creative and sucked in a few more players to this scam of an operation.

At first, Playfast was the location of a contest for BetCascade, which as we now know, is completely broke and unable/unwilling to pay customers. After a while, the Playfast site was used to steer players to PlayFast.com, which, in a strange coincidence, uses the same servers and phone number as BetCascade! Hmm. Imagine that.

As of this writing, Playfast.tv does not pull up a website, and Playfast.com curiously links to http://iis.net which appears to be a Microsoft webpage.

Fast Forward to 2012: You Can Get Money In, But Not Out (Or Can You?)

The complaints from customers seemed to stop in 2010. In 2011, players were asking questions on various forums, but it seems like this book is now officially toast.

We at Sports Betting Online tried to log on to BetCascade.com and were greeted with a message titled “ATTENTION” which was poorly written and advised us that customers will have access to “more” of everything (except money, of course). More props, more horses, and better support. They let us know that some account numbers have changed slightly, and then thanked us for my patience and understanding.

The site itself is shell of its former self, with a simple “Agent Login” form alongside phone numbers and an email address. You can also click a link called “Old History” that claims it is still under construction.[4]

It seems like this scam book has finally gone the way of 8 tracks, POGS, and bellbottoms, and will find itself forever relegated to the dustbin of history, a brief success story that will soon be forgotten, unless you were unlucky enough to be scammed by them or one of their affiliates. Which, come to think of it, is probably what actually happened.

BetCascade’s owners have probably figured that they have milked the maximum amount of funds from the most players, and have moved on to their next scam. The saying of “once a cheater, always a cheater” can be modified in this case to “once a scammer, always a scammer.” Always beware, and avoid BetCascade.

References

[1] Link to “BetCascade Bookmaker Review” – Link to Safest Betting Sites.

[2] Link to SBR Recent News on BetCascade – Near the bottom of the page, ratings changes are shown.

[3] Link to SBR Search Results for BetCascade – The details summarized in this section are pieced together from this page.

[4] Link to old Betcascade.com, blank shell of a page (page now offline). The current BetCascade site prompts players to click the link to view their old history.