Scam Book: BetOnline24/7

Please note: BetOnline247 is in no way related to BetOnline. BetOnline are a highly reputable sportsbook and one of the most reliable places to bet on sports online.

Using Bogus Excuses To Delay Payouts

A big part of the fraud that was happening at BetOnline247 was to use excuses, delays, and stall tactics to assure customers that “the check is in the mail” so to speak.

This started with the curious timeframe that was officially given to players who started seeing slow pays as soon as they tried to cash out some of their lucky winnings. A post on a popular online sports betting forum shows an official reply from BetOnline247 in regards to the unusually long time it was taking for withdrawals[1].

The site claims to be “working hard on decreasing that waiting time” which was up to 30 days for some customers. That high wait time should have served as a cautionary signal to anyone who was considering playing at BetOnline247.

The book claimed that delays could occur “based on their account history ” which is very odd. BetOnline247 did not reply to a follow up question regarding this strange policy.

Even using this extended timeline, BetOnline247 did not meet its own criteria for paying players in full. Many customers had fully verified accounts, did not break any rules or terms/conditions, and yet their payout dragged on for 5+ weeks.

This was a prime example of how the site simply used words, policies, and empty promises to string people along, all the while trying desperately to suck in new money.

Stringing Players Along Helps the Scam Continue

A key hallmark of any good scam (from the perspective of the scammers, in essence to keep it going as long as possible) is the ability to string the marks along as long as possible to keep new funds rolling in. This holds true for traditional ponzi schemes as well as scam sportsbooks. BetOnline247 was pretty good at using different methods to make players think they would get paid, when in fact, the evidence was clear that no full payouts would be made.

When I say “full payouts” I mean that if a player won, he would often not get paid on his entire balance. BetOnline247 was infamous as far back as the middle of 2010 for making payouts to players, but only in the amount of their original deposit, and leaving any winnings unpaid. This is just another variation on the time honored scam of freerolling customers.

In some strange sense, it would almost be better for customers if the book did not pay a cent, so that their fraud could be exposed faster, saving perspective bettors from depositing.

One chink in the armor, so to speak, was that BetOnline247 often had several complaints lodged against it at the same time, or within a few days to weeks of each other. As this SBR post explains, between 10-14 and 10-23, 2010, six players all reported slow pays. The amounts ranged from 300 Euros up to over 2000 Euros. This shows why it is crucial for all players to keep up with the latest news and customer complaints, especially if the book is of questionable character.

Checking search engines or sites such as SBR on a semi regular basis for new information is vital for anyone who wants their funds to remain intact. Better yet is to simply avoid books, such as BetOnline247 that find themselves on the SBR Blacklist. But anyone who did a simple search could have seen that so many players were reporting slow pays all at the same time, which is unlikely to be just a coincidence.

Regulated in Costa Rica? Someone Might Want to Let The Government Know

One final way that BetOnline247 deceived players was by lying outright about its location and/or its affiliation to the Costa Rica government. Since no sportsbooks are ever licensed or regulated by Costa Rica (at least as of this writing), this claim was made simply to give the site an extra air of legitimacy when it otherwise did not have it.

This would have been difficult to find out had it not been for reputable watchdog sites such as ScamBlog.com and of course SBR. Again, I can’t stress enough how important it is to do your homework before making a deposit, unless you enjoy gambling on both the game and your payout.

Even if you did do your homework in this case, it was tough to figure out because BetOnline247 mainly went after punters from the Eurozone and not the USA. So this sort of misdirection helped ensure the scam would keep chugging along for just a bit longer.

Most players who bet with books operating out of Costa Rica assume that everything is on the up and up, but in this case BetOnline247 used a slight twist to confuse players, since normally Costa Rica is not a landing spot for books that have their eyes on Eurozone players. This tactic may have thrown some players off, which was of course the intention all along.

References

[1] BetOnline247 Reply After A Player Complained of A Delay In Payment on Sportsbook Advisor Forums.