Please beware of misleading ads

[Mr. Crazyhair]

I got sidetracked while doing some NFL research this morning, and boy did I end up in some interesting places.

I clicked onto one of these "Top 100" sites. This one, casinonet.net, really disgusted me. It lists what it claims is a "Real Time" list of the most popular casinos on the Internet.

I took five minutes to investigage. Get this - the top 5 casinos are all owned by the same guy! They were islandcasino.com, 5dimes.com, sportbet.com and a couple of others. (I stopped checking after the first five but I wonder how many of the top 100 are the same company. All?)

The casinos on the banner ads (alohacasino.com, balicasino, and others) were also owned by the same company. The company by the way is Perplexa S.A. of Costa Rica.

Maybe this company is legit. I'm not saying they're not. I was only alarmed at how easy it can be to be fooled into a sense of confidence.

It also raises huge problems with a company that would portray itself in such a decietful manner to its customers. Can you trust them? I would not!

This episode also provides a glimpse inside the culture of online gaming.
Man, can you imagine the kind of scum that is out there trying to start online gambling companies? And can you imagine the schemes they must pull to attract customers?

Again, I'm not alleging that these sites (some of which advertise here at BW) are ripoffs.

BE CAREFUL!

[Fred]

Are they really owned by the same guy or do they just share the same software?

[Mr. Crazyhair]

Fred,

The software made me suspicious in the first place. And yes, they're all owned by the same guy. That's what's scary about this.

Anyone wanting to check it out go to http://www.allwhois.com and run a book's domain name.

[Hartley]

Hmm.. Mr. Crazyhair they are all registered to Networksolutions which of course is just internic.

When you register a book with the owner just being the name of the site then it shows the owner as networksolutions.

Islandcasino.com and sportbet.com are both books that advertise on this site and books which are consequently respected and recommended. As for 5 dimes, one of the very highly respected posters works for the company and other than longevity there is no concerns about them.

There is no reason to be concerned about any of the 3 books you mention.

[Mr. Crazyhair]

Hi Hartley,

I'm not sure where you looked, but here's the registration for 5dimes.com:

Registrant:
Perplexa, S.A. (5DIMES-DOM)
Apartado 5173-1000
San Jose, SJ 1000
COSTA RICA

Domain Name: 5DIMES.COM

Administrative Contact:
Volk, Godfrey (GV1020) [email protected]
+506-283-3335
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Cheng, Antonio (AC4894)

Here's the registration for IslandCasino.com:

Registrant:
Worldwide Wagering N.V (ISLANDCASINO-DOM)
Apartado 5173-1000
San Jose, SJ 1000
CR

Domain Name: ISLANDCASINO.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Cheng, Antonio (AC4894) [email protected]
+506280-0932
Billing Contact:
Cheng, Antonio (AC4894)

I could keep cutting and pasting....but I'll save the space. They are all the same owners and the same administrators.

Trust me. I have no axe to grind here whatsoever. I've never put my money in any of these books.

I simply want to tell you guys that, in my opinion, this is a big red flag.

[ray]

Mr. Crazyhair,

we have discussed in here about 1 years ago on this topic.

If you click on the search button, you will find what we have said about those so called 7-11 books.

I pointed out before that I believe islandcasino and sportbet are owned by the same person and somebody told me that they are just working in the same buliding and sharing the same staffs.

And sometime, when I sent an email to sportsbet, a guy signed from islandcasino will give me a reply.

I was not very comfortable in the begining but after certain period of time. I started to think it in this way,

So what? They paid and with pretty good customer service, who cares if their real boss in behind is Bill Clinton.

FYI, don't be so suprised to know that sportsbook.com, acesportsbook and sportfanatik are all owned by the same person, thats not news in here, Patrick already told us before.

I believe one of the reason for many other chain shops for those software books (if you believe they are all owned by the same person) is to keep their customers. Look, most of them offer very good bonus (25% signup bonus).

$50 for $200 is huge, especially if you are a small player. If they will have several different names, at least they will have a better chance to get you reload your account (to open a new one but actually you are reloading your current account).

Its actually a pretty good marketing strategy.

[Polar]

Pretty good marketing strategy?

I call it selling out! Deception....

Open a book and take wagers like a man (or women).

Getting customers by any means seems to be the new STRATEGY in this industry!! Hide behind names!! These people can't even stand up like men and look in the mirror.

[ray]

Polar,

well I don't know how much will it hurt a sportsbook when he need to give out 25% bonus on every deposit, maybe you have a better idea than me.

But you cannot deny that this is a fast way to build a customer base for a new book.

Nowadays, the market is so different from several years ago.

Thats those days when I need to email GSC to place my baseball parlays every afternoon and wait for the confirmations.

I needed to because they were only one of the few online sportsbooks at that time.

But not now.

I can easily place a bet in any books within the next 15 minutes even I never played there before.

There are several factors that will affect my choice of the books,

a) the lines
b) will they pay
c) bonus
d) cost of transaction
e) services
f) extras

Most of the well heard names in this sites, they all pay and their services are at least OK.

If you will bet on American sports mainly, the line is not a big factor, so it comes down to cost and benefit, and thats why those 7-11 books can survive and rapidly expand in the last 1 year.

If you don't like the bonus idea, why not try to have something extra to gain more clients?

For example,

I played at Wsex because they have interactive that nobody have.

I played at Olympic because their exotic bet options are the most.

I played at 5dimes because their teasar odds are one of the best.

I played at DAS because they are the only one who offer Hong Kong racing.

I played at Itops because they are the only one who will offer some "give away money bets", like MJ return and some nonsense soccer matches.

I played at Acesgold because they are the 1st to provide online horse wagering back in April and now the no vig Friday on NFL.

To me, those are all pretty good strategies to attract new customers or to keep your customers to come back.

Not trying to bash you again, but why Looselines still afraid to go online is really beyond me, thats not a very good marketing strategy at all.

[Polar]

Ray,

We are on-line, but are only taking small wagers (200). We are looking into other options (systems) and will probably increase the limits soon.

I like your examples! They are great examples of what I would look for in a book.

The costs for an on-line book have to be alot less. This is just one reason some of these computor books can give such deals. Who knows this might change this industry even more than the Don Best service. Why pay hard working people who need jobs, when you can buy computors and start right up. Without all the bills.................

But then again, This is what the computor is doing to all sorts of people, in all sorts of jobs...........

Less jobs...............

[IslandMan]

Mr. Crazyhair and Mr Polar....

First off, all the casinos mentioned are all owned by differant companies. Perplexa S.A. is a management company in Costa Rica that provides bandwidth and services to over 25 differant casinos.

Either one or both of you are probably Feds, or just plain ignorant when it comes to marketing.

What was deception.....that all the casinos that Perplexa manages are smart enough to list themselves with hundreds of internet sites as well as advertise with all the major search engines and sports related sites?

If you would both be interested, I can send you the book, Internet marketing for dummies, as you both might find a better way to waste your time.

[skeptic]

I was going to stay out of this until the posting by Islandman.

Here is what is deceptive, sites that claim to rank companies based on service, features, and payment history that are nothing more than MONEY for HIGH RANKING sites. These are terrible for the industry. And they can be VERY DECEPTIVE to the newcomer to the net or the offshore gambling industry.

These "top 100" "top40" or "top XX" just register a catchy URL and then hit the phones selling position to anyone who will bite. These sites tend to be littered with the smaller less established places.

Those who take the ads from the books should be ashamed of themselves. They are part of the problem. No reputable book would see fit to knowingly partake in such a low form of marketing.

That's my opinion. Anyone else?

[Mr. Crazyhair]

Islandman,

Thank you for such an eloquent and measured reply to a polite post.
I don't know if you work for, or represent any of the books I mentioned. If you do, your demeanor speaks volumes about your company.

I stand by what I say. Skeptic has it exactly right. Is it coincidence that this company manges *EVERY SINGLE ONE* of the "top" books listed in the website I mentioned? Very doubtful.

Would I, as a customer, trust my money to a company that tries to lure people by appearing in one of these highly-questionable "Top 50" lists?

No.

As for your offering me the Dummies book... I'd take you up, but I have a feeling you're just used to offering stuff you have no intention to deliver.

Thanks.

[Count Zero]

Mr Crazyhair, if you are expecting a wave of outrage here over deceptive advertising or sleazy, self-interested marketing, my advice is don't hold your breath. Most people here have that Young Republicans/Ayn Rand attitude that no depredation (except not paying) is so loathsome or foul that it cannot be excused on the principle that absolutely anything is OK in the service of "building your business" or "reaching the maximum number of customers."

Examples: One place stole another place's ad copy for their own use. Somebody thought that kind of minor dishonesty might be a sign of possible major dishonesty further down the road; his thread was locked as though it was the rantings of a madman, and he was laughed off the board. Another poor fool complained that a sports book sent him material containing an endorsement they had paid for, material whose primary purpose they knew to be to direct gullible bettors to losing, fraudulent services; he was laughed off the board. I could go on at length, but the principle is always the same -- anything is OK if you are trying to Establish Your Bidness.

You would expect, with so many books to choose from -- and in an area where trust and utter scrupulousness are so important -- that more posters here would be at least tolerant of individuals who are concerned about such things, but no. Write that you got robbed, and you'll get a hearing; write that a guy with a mask and a gun is walking down the street, and you'll be the object of a lot of low-IQ derision. Weak-minded, amoral Reaganesque bullsh1t.

[warawara]

Gentleman,

What you are discussing I have found out myself also and was flabbergasted, I myself have a webdesign company that started a couple of months ago with 2 on-line gambeling sites. When I was going through "marketing stragedies" everybody around me could only give me the "bad stuff".
Some use Mass "spam" E-mail that was picked up by cookies, etc.; some use even as discussed multiple domain names with either the same design or different, but eventually the same database (program and/or server).
I personally am against the above mentioned.

I remember the old days, where one had to inscribe themselves in search engines, over and over and make sure that every single one out there had you, the keywords in the html had to be up and top, but also this meant that you had to pay for some of them to keep you amongst the top 10-20 and so on.

Why do this "not wanted" mailings? Actually, these kind of forums are excellent to start petitions, etc.

What I am getting at is that servers all over the world have multiple domain names come to the same data, as what is said about the casinos, this is just more ways of getting there. You think by seeing 2 different names in the search engine, they are 2 different entities, but they are not, actually this is a better way of marketing (although missleading, but better then other unorthodox methods).

Putting up a sports site has now become a whole different ballgame, you need to say how much juice and win something or get in for free to catch the customer's eyes. All this instead of receiving a beautifull and ausumn, yet fast downloadable, no plug-ins site which is eye-catching and with the thruth in images, not in words.

[Mr. Crazyhair]

I thought I'd bring this thread up in light of Boomer's dispair.

This is not an I told you so but, rather, a warning about the sleaze bobbing out there on the Caribbean.