Is the Offshore Industry InTrouble?

[bgeorgia]

Stop reading articles by misinformed alarmists who write for the sake of garnering frightened citizens into reading terriblt skewed views of the offshore industry. READ THE TRUTH!
Right Here :mad:

[SportsPlayer]

That was an interesting article. If Las Vegas or any other entity within the US ever has legal gambling the offshore shops would drop like flys. I would imagine some would continue to operate as a good percentage of the Sports Gamblers would probably want to continue operating outside of the US government which would undoubtedly be closly monitering the business along with the IRS of course.

What the article didn't mention is that the offshore business is in for a very ugly time. It seems like every day we see new books opening up. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants to be a bookmaker is flocking to one of the jurisdictions and obtaining some phone lines and an internet address and opening up shop either on their own or paying a fee to use some space at an existing book. Then they throw out some advertising dollars and hope they have a big enough bankroll to survive, or that the inflow of new customers can continue to let them operate on the float. There are just too many books out there for all of them to survive. Especially in this atmosphere of giving away everything AND the kitchen sink to obtain customers. With the cost of rent, 800 phone service, internet access, payroll, office expenses, licensing fee (or who has to get their palm greased), advertising fees, and many more unseen expenses, only the strongest books are going to survive. This fall if we get one of those predictable Septembers and Octobers we are going to see books fall left and right. Some books are going to get through their late spring/Summer expenses by the skin of their teeth. Many will probably not survive a bad Fall. Who is ultimatly going to be left holding the bag? John Q Sports Bettor.

I hope I do not sound like an "Alarmist" but I do not think this sceneario is far from what is destined to happen. If I was a betting man (which I am) I would bet that in a few years 25% of the books operating now will be handling 99% of the business, and 25% might even be a high number. All I can say to Sports Bettors is if you are going to sign up this fall to wager with a book, Stick with the tried and true books. Betting with any book that has not been aroung at least 3-5 years is just as big of a gamble as laying 7 with the Cowboys over the Chiefs.

[chestrockwells]

As a small business owner, boy have I made my share of mistakes. Looking back it's amazing I survived the first few years. No matter how many times you crunch the numbers, it always takes much more money than you think. I've always assumed that a lot of sportsbooks that start out fall into this same trap. The other thing I've always wondered is whether books (unlike other businesses) pretty much expect to turn a profit from the get go. I would assume so, otherwise it would be tough to explain the demise of places like Caribi and Dunes.......especially when we were assured by so many "reputed knowledgeable posters" that these places were very very well capitalized. So which is it? Was that bs or did they just expect to open the door and post a profit right away?? I would certainly agree with the previous poster as to really being careful where you send your money.

[Jeff]

Remember too, that this is actually a healthy time for this industry, simply because of the number of solid operations with long track records.

Point being, when a smaller shop does run into trouble, more often than not, there's a larger shop looking to take over.