Scam Sportsbooks to Avoid

Although most online sportsbooks are trustworthy and offer an excellent service, there are also many scam sportsbooks that should be avoided at all costs. These companies have built a reputation for bending the rules to make it an uphill battle for customers to profit or withdraw winnings.

Read on to learn how to identify scam sportsbooks and review our list of dishonest books to ensure you never join any of the sites in our hall of shame.

What Is a Scam Sportsbook?

The advent of online sports betting has brought the convenience of being able to bet from the comfort of your own home. In most cases, this process is a simple one.

A customer finds a reputable bookmaker and deposits their hard earned cash. After reading the rules and regulations on the types of bets the online bookie offers, a customer places a wager expecting to be paid, if the bet should win. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

Scam books have many tactics to defraud and mislead bettors. Some online betting sites can’t pay players because they have fallen on hard times financially. While this is not an outright scam, it still leaves bettors with lost funds. Others are designed to use tactics like the ones below to lure bettors into depositing, only then to never payout.

Professional Image

If an online bookmaker operator is a scammer, he has to look the part of a reputable book.

This means a professionally designed site with all the bets available for players, plus extra incentives. This could include better odds for parlays and teasers, the availability of a racebook, poker room, casino or other features.

The prospective scam book wants you to think that they can meet all your needs as a bettor! These sites will even have live chat operators that talk you through depositing, knowing full well you will never see your money!

Unrealistic Bonus Offers

Another scam book trick is to offer unrealistic deposit bonuses and reloads. Be wary of any deposit bonuses that are extremely high. Deposit bonuses of 80%, 100%, or 125% should be huge red flags.

These bonuses should not be looked at as an opportunity to “exploit” the online bookmaker, in almost all cases these are scams.

Sure, your account will be credited with a bonus, but it might as well be monopoly money. You will likely never see it and never get any of the winnings you might parlay from it.

Marketing Campaign

Scam book operators will often go extra mile to get players signed up at their books, this may include harassing phone calls and massive emails sent out to customer lists.

Needless to say, if you get an unsolicited call from a bookmaker asking to you to deposit, don’t do it. They might be pushy or promise you special treatment and/or bonuses, they are just trying to get you to deposit immediately.

The same goes for emails you may receive from a book you don’t recognize, the bookmaker may have gotten your name from another book or mailing list. They are just sending thousands of emails out hoping to catch a bite, don’t fall for it.

Ignorant or Complicit Affiliates

Affiliates generally earn a commission on players they refer to a bookmaker, this generally ranges from 20% to 40% of the players referred losses. Many affiliate sites write reviews on online bookmakers and are honest, but some are not.

These sites keep the scam books going by giving them great ratings and telling their readers to deposit into these books. Most of these affiliates sadly aren’t ignorant to the bookmaker’s crimes and know full well their referred players won’t likely get paid. Their greed is too powerful and they don’t mind leading sports bettors to the wolves.

Shady Business, Not Honoring Bets

Many scam books will bend their own rules and may void winning bets for ridiculous reasons. This is especially true with future bets, they may offer higher odds on a certain future bets to get action but then not honor the wager if it wins.

If other books had similar lines at the time of the event, it is just another tactic to steal from winning players.

Another tactic is voiding bets based on “syndicate” betting or professional wagers. If a player happens to run up a big balance at one of these books, they may decide to void the winnings because they deem the player as a professional sports bettor.

Of course, this is again, nonsense. They just got beat out of money and they aren’t planning on paying up. Sadly, it is a pretty common tactic among rogue books.

Football Season $

Around the start of the NFL season, there is a rush of money from bettors wanting to bet on the upcoming season. Unfortunately, scam book operators know this and are ready to take advantage of the uninformed sports bettor.

New betting sites will pop up around that time and willingly accepts deposits. They will soon disappear, just not pay or give the run around to those wanting to cash out.

All betting sites want players for the kickoff of the NFL, so beware of who deposit your money with.

Licensed? Regulated?

Scam books often operate against local laws or with invalid licenses. It is important to obviously check to see if your book is licensed, where it operates and to see if it playing players.

Many times rogue betting sites will get a license to operate and then lose it, once their home country realizes their business practices.

Do Your Research

Here at SportsBettingOnline, we profile scam books regularly to give bettors a warning about depositing with these suspect outfits. The stories and circumstances are different for each book but the situation is the same: they should be avoided.

Always read up on an online bookie before you make a deposit, use multiple sources, a few reviews or bookmaker watchdog sites before making a decision.