I LOVE BOWMANS

[slowdive]

C'mon you bunch of pathetic losers...cant you find anything else to do with your spare time than bash a viable business...ive been with bomans for 5 years and NEVER ONCE have i had a bad experience!

[Polar]

I think that is great for you.

What you must remember is that most of us are really serious about sports betting. Meaning that most of us have more than 5 books to bet with. When we make bets we are only going to play the best numbers. When these books find out that you are one of these kind of players they will then start to slow you down, limit you, all sorts of things, even sending you your money back and telling you they don't want your business.

The new offices just want players to send them money and lose, lose, lose!! This is the new bookie. The new era of bookmaking. They don't want to be bookies. They wave their flag all over the place, but when a serious player calls them they %^$%$&^%%%*&^ their pants.

They all of a sudden are not taking bets from your kind!!!!!!!!!! Bull........

I would assume Bowmans doesn't even take action on moves. They hold up the Pros untill they see the game move. Then they say the new line. They should do the right thing and just tell these players not to call at all, That they really don't want their business!! Stop wasting everbodys time.

If you never called for a game that moves, You will not see this side of the business.

There are two type of players. The serious player, and the fun player. The fun player will not understand the constant bull we have to put up with!!!!!

P.S. I hope you never have problems with your betting. I will say there are some really great places to play, places that take all wagers from everybody!

In any walk of life this kind of treatment is unacceptable. You can not just pick the customers you want. Only in this sleazy industry is this an acceptable alternative.

And no! this is not a way of protecting your business. If you can't handle the action then get out of the business!!!!!!!!!! This is what is destroying the industry.

Soon through the constant changing of this business, There won't be any Cris's, DelMar's, WWTS's, as these little hole in the wall (computor) books with all these bull-s**t bonuses will take all the suckers business. And the big offices will have to make it against the sharp players. Or will be forced to come down to the level of the chickens**t bookie!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is where this industry is headed....

[Cons]

Slowdive, I would really like to be in your position and be able to say what you are saying.

Unfortunately for me, and for many others, this is not the case.

Bowmans is a dishonest book in my view, as at times they won't even honor the line they quote you! You'll get the line, you'll call your bet, and then they'll start their trickery... and "poof" goes the line they just gave you. Even on a futures bet.

I really feel good for you that you haven't run into their dark side. Until recently, I haven't either...

[Cons]

My reasoning behind this is simple. A decent operation will quote you a line and then procede to take a bet from you. It's always the same. Unfortunately Bowmans sometimes choses to quote the line, and then WAIT and see what side you want.

I haven't heard from one person who has had the line move his way. Bowmans claims to have "upwards of 150 people" calling at the same time. I wonder how many of them were pleasantly surprised to hear that the line has moved in their favor...

If you go to a store to buy something, the price of a certain product might change from time to time. Unfortunately this store seems to conveniently make those changes at the checkout. And it seems that if the price goes up, they are more than happy to inform the customer. But if there is a price-cut, they are more than happy to "overlook" this. At least that's what their response has now led me to believe.

My experience has simply been that they have failed to honor a line they had just quoted. For the consecutive time I'll add that it was a futures bet. This is not an honest way to do business, waiting till I call my wager and then deciding not to honor the line...

Hartley, can you email me at [email protected] cause I have a question to ask you.

[Hartley]

Come on guys slowdive is entitle to his opinion and to be honest I've really never had much problem with Bowmans' lines (outside of golf bets).

My problem with them has always been customer service and the runaround you get trying to get questions answered, deposits processed etc.

But I've been talking to Bowman's new p.r. man - Steven -and he seems like a decent guy who is trying to rectify a lot of the problems. I think the least he deserves is a fair chance. And the term "dishonest" is pretty strong. You can question some of their moves (as I have) but I think to actually come out and call them cheaters is unfair without proof.

BTW Polar if I didn't know better I would say it sounds like you're a little paranoid about being out of a job soon.

[bbuster]

Polar-
Sometimes the books close your account and dont even send you you r money back!

[chestrockwells]

Without rehashing, let me say this. Polar made some very good points BUT in fact when you're in business you can and do exclude the people or other companies that you do not want to deal with. Believing that this exclusion, whether it be by quoting a different line or not taking action from certain individuals, is some sort of unfair business practise is very misguided. Any one that has a financial stake in their own business understands this and whether they say it or not, reserves the right to choose who they do business with. I challenge anyone who has had their own business truthfully say that this is not the case. So bottom line....no offense Polar but if you ran and owned your own book you'd either sing a different tune or at the least you'd hardly be as successful i.e. wealthy as some of these books like Bowmans. Why? Because sharp players will come in and eat your lunch!

[MAXIMUM VALUE]

SLOW DIVE

This pathetic loser wants to hear any and all gripes or complaints regarding any sportsbook.

This is why many of us find this site valuble.

If you have a problem with a certain thread you always have the option to "click off".

[ray]

Yes, everyone can entitle to his opinion in here.

But when Cons came here to stay a fact and let us know about the truth of a sportsbook (something which Bowmans never denied it in their replies), and Slowdive call him a "pathetic loser"?

Get real!

BTW, don't let Polar confuse you, cause he won't waste any chances to promote his "REAL" ideas.

Real books, Real players, Real industry.

Whatever!

But the key of the whole issue is not about whether a book should be brave enough to take the hit and how to do better bookmaking.

The key is about the honesty of a book.

When you gave out a line on the phone and the customer told you which side he wanted and how much he wanted to bet, you should honor the bet.

It is that simple. It is a fair game.

If you want most of the bets to be approved by the managers to avoid the hits, then don't hire clerks to take the bets. Hire more managers to receive the phone calls.

Isn't it ridiculos to say that you will receive more than 100 bets at the same time and a lot of them must be approved by the manager?

What if I called in about 5 minutes before the kickoff and my bets was waiting for your manager's approval and its 10 minutes after the game started and maybe the clerk will tell me,

"Sorry sir, you are the 120th bet that called in, our manager is approving the 99th bet at the moment, please wait couple more minutes".

Sorry I'm not a Bowmans customer (I never used them before), but I don't believe most books out there will do the same when they are taking phone bets.

Not to mention Con's bet was ONLY a future bet on a F1 race.

Hey, since when we have the Porker players and Computer groups started to kill the books on F1 betting?

What's their next target?

Greyhound racing?

[chestrockwells]

Cons and Ray, you're right. Some of the "excuses" were rather pathetic and pretty insulting actually. My only general point apart from what I stated regarding Polar is that regardless of what we "want" or "believe", I think this illusion of fairness and level playing field is just that, an illusion.

[Hoopsguy]

I have an idea for active Bowmans customers.
Try calling in the wrong side of your bets for a while. If enough people do this it could be effective. Call out the wrong side
and see if they shade the number against you.
If so, turn around and say you want the other side ( oh, the line moved, darn it! Well, I guess I'll just take the other team instead ) What can they say to that? If they don't honor the line I'd bash them
without mercy! They would in my opinion become a total joke. Just a thought...Hoops

[boris]

The lines would suddenly become 40 cents.....

Mr (or Ms) Slowdive, I wish you only once bet more than $20 so this would have happened to you.

[Cons]

Yeah, line turned into a 43-cent line...

They must have thought about this one ahead of time...

[TheBlackCat]

I'm not a "pro" player by any means. I've rarely RAKED them for serious $$$ so maybe I just don't have a flagged account. I'm probably red with them lifetime. I don't know. I never thought about it. But here is my experience nonetheless:

I've used Bowmans a lot (YEARS), made some ridiculously large wagers, and never had any issues/line moves/whatever. Honest. It seems to me that most of their wager takers are no more sophisticated than your average telephone service rep, and many aren't even familiar with the Pro Football team names. They take wagers around the clock too.

I've had customer service issues and they have always been handled in my favor (save when I had a skins future over 8 and they insisted that a tie doesn't count as 1/2).

The 2nd half lines sometimes move in terms of juice while you are on the phone, but I think that's to be expected. They usually only move if I spend time hemming and hawing. When that has happened to me, I have done what others have suggested. I take the OTHER side!

I will say that credit card transactions there suck. They make you sign all kinds of forms to ship back, which is more wasteful of time than if you had just sent it over in the first place.

[TheBlackCat]

After reading some more posts, I guess I should add that I *have* had lines move in my favor (but I hadn't revealed my team).

I've sat on the phone as a good halftime team went to -120, -130, -140, -150. Then I'm like, "Okay, I'll take the other side +130".
And they put it in, no problem.

Maybe the situation involved is that you are trying to load up on the public's play-of-the-day? I'm NEVER surprised by which way the line moves. It's never like, "I can't believe all the other people are betting that way!"

But I haven't had anything like this happen during an offpeak time. I haven't seen a line move surprisingly since they started updating their web page regularly.