"The List"

[buckeye]

ray, refresh my faulty memory, please. I remember that late last year SIA ( aka sportsinteraction ) was unavailable for several weeks. Many posters said they had been beat up and were going under. SIA responded that they were having technical problems and outlined when they would be back up and offered bonuses for those that didn't bail. This prompted even more wild speculation about what was happening - in this forum. When they came back up, about when they had promised, and honored the bonuses and paid those that bailed, all the wild BS speculation stopped, as I remember!

While this wasn't that great of an event, being down for an extended period, I have never heard of anyone not being paid by them. An outage might be enough for some people to stay away from them, but it is no proof of anything neferious! All of the wild speculation was proven FALSE, IMO, by their honoring their statements and continuing to pay their customers. If you have personal knowledge of REAL beefs, I'd like to hear them. I have no real allegiance to them and I will stop recommending them if others have had REAL problems, first-hand, not speculative third-party rumor BS. They have always paid me promptly and been true to their word, as far as I'm concerned!

[buckeye]

I said my memory was faulty. SIA outage was actually about a week, I think, from searching the posts back then ( early December ). They had server problems that several posters turned into "made up" cash shortages and all kinds of speculative crap. This hysteria was unfounded and I think it unfair to still attach a stigma to them over the incident.

Good luck all!

[ray]

You know, I will never bash a book here without any facts to back me up.

Of course many of us will remember how SIA had "disappeared" for about a week (or 2?) last year and later they did come back.

Many people will have different views on the reasons for that, of course you can believe that its their software or server problems or some people may say thats financial problems because they got killed on those inflated favors lines.

I don't want to discuss the reasons anymore, BUT I do want to talk about how they handled that whole mess.

If you read back all those posts and if you remember that situation, you will find out there were a lot of question marks if you really believe they were having server problems.

They didn't willing to TRY to let their customers know about what had happened after couple days they have disappeared and didn't really wanted to reply our emails.

Also, I still remember that when they were back, all our account transactions were gone while most of the other functions remain normal.

They allow you to deposit while YOU CAN'T REQUST A PAYOUT the first several days after they were back.

Yes they gave a bonus to their customers but I definitely don't like the way they have handled the situation.

Being a customer, no matter what had happened, my feeling is I haven't been treated fairly, or I felt that I haven't been told the truth.

Maybe its their way to do business, fine.

But this just keep me away from playing there often.

Be prefectly honest with you, I did make a small deposit and played with them couple months ago (cause I saw some very good lines that I can't find anywhere else).

And not because I never won a buck there so I keep bash them, just because I trust my judgements.

[buckeye]

ray, your displeasure with the way they handled the outage is understandable and justified. I just thought it was a little unfair to suggest and hint that "what happened" was definitely more than a server outage, without anything to base that on but guesses. If all that speculation crap was true they wouldn't have answered any queries and wouldn't be in business months later.

I am also leery of some books, I just hate seeing "guesses" and speculations by posters in this forum taken as de-facto fact. ( I especially laughed at the suggestion that because some "close" IP addresses on their subnet were still working this was evidence it couldn't possibly be server problems ).

I, personally, don't see that anyone was that "wronged" by them over that outage, some books take 3 weeks to send funds as a matter of course and others make you request on Monday only. A small delay, that was a one-time event, seems petty compared to no pays and true slow pays that many have experienced. They tried to make it up with a bonus. Just seems like one big "conspiracy theory" evolved, and I find it stupid and slightly unfair, in retrospect.

Just giving my take on the incident!

But hey, I actually get nervous when my balance reaches 4 figures at any book, so I am as skittish, and skepticle, as anyone! And I would have screamed bloody murder if they hadn't come back up!

Peace!!

[The Guesser]

I feel SIA (Yes they are the
Same as Sports Interaction, not sure
what Heath is talking about) handled
the situation last year more than
adequately. I exchanged several E-
Mails with them at the time.
They gave all customers a 10% bonus
of the money they had available +
any money committed to futures. The
existing bets (futures) were not on
the current bet screen for the first
week or 2 after they came back
online, but they had records of them
and paid off on them with no
problems. My biggest problem with
them at the time was lack of a Toll
Free Phone Number, since rectified.
The innuendos going around at the
time were both unnerving and
ultimately disgusting and unfounded,
and were usually passed along by
people with agendas, but with no
proof of any wrong doing on SIA's
part. Sure, there was cause to be
nervous at the time, but SIA came
through it very well and has
remained as solid as can be from
then on, as far as I know. I don't
really understand the AFL thing in
this thread, but if people were
wronged or stiffed, they certainly
have a right to gripe about it, if
indeed SIA was to blame. Would be
intersted in SIA's side of it, also.

[STING]

SIA should not go on "the list" for the simple reason that they are now based in Quebec.


Under Canadian law, only the provinces and some charities can run gambling operations, although none of them are currently online. The provinces could run their own computer-based betting if they wanted to, but neither they nor Ottawa can authorize anyone else to do so, said Hal Pruden, legal counsel for the federal Justice Department.

Pruden said that in two separate cases before the Supreme Court, aboriginal groups have been denied the right to run large-scale gambling operations on Indian soil without government approval. Neither of the
cases, however, dealt with online gaming. <<<


>>> "Applying the Criminal Code to see whether it's legal would be up to the band's lawyers or up to the attorney-general of Quebec," Pruden said.<<<


The Guesser and others, you are treading on some dangerous ground playing with SIA at this point in time. I agree this company many have been a victim or poor management last season but in all fairness, they did make ammends. I would certainly want to learn more about Boris' and Aussie Vamps' stories related to SIA before entering them on the List, but even so....there is no way based on where they are presently operating from that they could appear on the List. Although from what I have heard, the Quebec government is very close to allowing places such as SIA to operate from this reservation. At the present time, however, this is simply NOT the case.

[The Guesser]

STINGer.
Since SIA was safely and happily doing business in Ireland, don't you think they thoroughly researched this and were given some major assurances and incentives to make this move? Besides, I wonder just how much of the operation is actually based in Quebec. It could just be the servers that switched to Quebec from the Dominican Republic. I don't know the answers to the above questions, but it just sounds sensible to me, because it's not like they HAD to move, as far as I know.

[mls]

As far as SIA is concerned, I understand customers funds are kept in Ireland with only the servers in Canada. And a backup of all transactions is copied to their computer in Ireland. So, although I am confident that SIA did their homework of Canadian law, I fail to see ANY risk to SIA customers regardless of what happens in Canada in the future.

Certainly SIA must expect a tremendous improvement in internet service (I for one could hardly access any of the offshore books anywhere near crunch time today).

[STING]

I suppose the worst that can happen is Canada shuts down the servers. In the back of my mind I would fear them freezing our accounts as well. At the same time I would imagine they did do their homework in regard to this matter. Maybe the best thing would be for them to offer their explanation regarding this move. We have not heard anything from THEM and there in lies part of the problem. When last year's problems took place, posters were left to speculate for a number of days with Easy Bets coming on to the scene responding for Sports Interaction. Did they notify clients prior to the move? Also, I am curious how many Canadians would feel comfortable playing with a sportsbook located on Canadian soil?
This is not to say Sports Interaction is a bad book, just would not feel confident having them appear on The List.

[Lou_Covers_Com]

Hi guys,

Just thought I'd let you know that I did a little digging into Sports Interaction and
found out some legal information that we
got straight from the RCMP.

Found out:
1) They are operating illegally, at least according to Canadian law.
2) The political situation in Canada makes it very unlikely that they will get closed down anytime soon. There's a big brouhaha right now between the government and the native Indians.
3) The RCMP says that they aren't even sure about the laws regarding betting online. In other words, Canadian bettors are safe for now.

I've got a lot more info in my column at covers . com .

By the way, as I mention in the column, I think it's imperative that we all try to support Sports Interaction and make sure that a sportsbook thrives in Canada. It could only put pressure on then American government to open up the doors.

Either way, I think it's worth a couple of dollars of risk.

And no, I'm not being paid by Sports Interaction.

Later,
Lou