SBR Bill Dozer reports: slow pay BetOnStars

[jay88]

Pier0, Marc decided to close his account. He received part of his remaining balance today and the rest of it he will receive it in the next days.

By the way, MARC, I'm sorry that your personal info was posted in a public forum. I never gave any information to anybody, I really have no clue how Russ got to know about it and I'll personally request to take it down.

[marc]

Jay,

I spoke to sharon twice on sunday. And each time she told me that there weren't any managers around to proccess the request. Maybe the manager on duty left early that day. As for the **, I wish we could replay the tapes. It just never came up.

You are right, that even a 3 day slow pay from a new book like betonsatrs really isn't front page news. But betonstars isn't just any new book. You are one of the first books in TOW's rookie program. and of the books in the rookie program you hvae by far the biggest forum presence. Few books survive 1 full year in business. From my experience books who are active in the forums, have a very short life span. Betonstars in in the limelight. A lot of people are lloking at Betonstars as a symbol of the rookie program. So far all the books have recieved positive feedback. This was the first occasion where anyone had a question about one of the books in the program. That's imo is what made the episode so important.

My suggestion to you, is if you have players requesting payouts, just aks them to post how quickly they got paid. Your current bonus offer is one of the best. Roberto still vouches for you. All you need is for some of your current players to report how quickly they are being paid, and life should be good.

[jay88]

Marc, many players did post at start about our payouts, but they started getting bullshit from other posters and I felt bad for them, just look at previous posts on betonstars and you will only see that good feedback is coming from players. Many SBR posters have given a good feedback on us, but of course people only remember about one negative comment and not ten good ones.
How many players have betonstars helped here at SBR? Nobody remembers about it now, it seems forums are only made to talk about negative stuff.
Why don't all the players that got a bailout from us or received a quick payout are here backing me? They are probably afraid that some poster like raiders will end up talking bullshit about them.

I'm sure you are a good guy and I'm pretty sure you never intended in giving us any bad advertising. I just feel that Bill is having some issues with the rookie project and rookie sportsbooks. I'm sure that if Bill took some time to come down to Costa Rica and visit us one by one he would see things on a totally different point of view.
$2500 for a company with a financial backing like ours is nothing, but of course this are only words until Bill or any one from SBR comes down and meets with us.
Roberto knows it and that is the main reason he has so much confidence in us, but he had the opportunity of seeing the operation with his own eyes, he saw the kind of investment that is being made and he has an idea on what we are coming out with in the next months.
Like I said before we are not an A book yet and it will take some time, but I can definitely tell you that we beat everybody expectations, if you take a look at the ticket we write on a daily basis you'll see by yourself that we are bigger than many people can imagine a rookie sportsbook would be.
So please Bill, John or any other modarator can you please come down to Costa Rica for a few days we will be more than happy to pay for your ticket and hotel if you are willing to come and visit us and see what kind of operation we are.

[marc]

Jay,

the problem most new sportsbooks have is not with their vision, or thier business plan. And thier problem isn't with finding financial backers willing to support them. From what I've seen, the biggest problem new books have is maintaining the support of the financial backers. OFten times what seems to happen, is that the backers really don't appreciate or believe just how much money a new book can lose. Forget operating exspenses. Just in terms og gambling losses. Often times, especially in the forum world, the first group of players a book gets are often sharper players willing to try a new book. ANd those books will ultimately lose to those players. And while the backers are often prepared to eat operating exspenses and some bad weekends. They don't expect to be ebaten day after day. And then suddenly, the GM calls up and says "hey, we need to pay some more winners, can you wire some money to our neteller account." The managing partner calls the smaller partners,a nd tells them they have to pony up more cash. The smaler partners freak out, and wnat to know what's going on. WHy is thier sportsbook bleeding money. They lose confidence and want to pull out. Fight break out. Menahwile no money is being sent to neteller to pay anyone. 2-4 weeks later book closes down, players get stiffed.

That is not too uncommon. So any time a new book needs to reload thier neteller account, there will always be a bit of anxiety. As for player loyalty, I used to agrree with you. I used to think it was awful that books could bail players out, and those players were no where to be found when books were being attacked. ANd to some extent I still think some players could show thier appreciation better. But I can tell you that when primetime stiffed me, gamblersave bailed me out. And they were very good to me. And when rumours started flying that they were going under, I decided to be loyal and not request my money. I was naive, and thought because I had a good relation with the gm and head cs guy, that if they were really going under, they would put me in the fron of the payout line. Only reason I got paid was because Roberto bailed me out along with every other GA customer. And now when a bookie tries to be buddy buddy with me, I alwasy wonder, if his book is ever in trouble will he get me paid before he clsoes his dorr, or is this friendship just a farce.

We are in a business where no one really trusts the person they are doing business with. The money I make is the money you lose. If you keep paying people, keep helping people, slowly but surely players will ebign to rally behind you. But its going to take a lot of time. Remember, betpanam was heavily touted and din't even make it through their first football season. If you make it to the next football season that would be a huge accomplishment.

[marc]

Jay,

BTW, thank you for sending me the balance of my funds.

[JoshW]

Jay-

Saying that there was a manager Sunday so marc must be wrong when he asked twice for one, and then saying he was offered ** when you only think he might have been since your CS staff "should" offer it, is troublesome. Marc actually mentioned to me in passing on Sunday that you had no manager around and it was strange being a Sunday (I told him maybe it was just no customer service manager around, but either way, well before the slow pay, marc mention the no managers to me). Just because you have a system in place, doesn't mean you clerks are acting on it. In fact it seems they are not. All over this forum and others, you offering ** to the player is being quoted as fact like you know it to be true or offered it yourself. That doesn't seem to be the case at all and changes the issue significantly.

That said I think we can all move on from here. Hopefully, there won't be issues. If you intend to do a lot of advertising at other sites as has been reported, you will likely have enough players for people to see how you actually operate overall, but as Marc said, new books have a lot of issues and that doesn't stop even with the first year. Here is hoping yours is one of the books that makes it, but it won't be easy given the history of new postup books.

[raiders72001]

marc- Great posts. Thanks for sharing the truth on what happened and giving insight to Betonstars on how this business works.

I've been in the exact same situation with a book while I was a mod at OGD and didn't mention that to the book until weeks later as I wanted to see how they treated people not associated with the forums.

Jay- I've been trying to tell you some of the same things that marc said here but not as eloquently as he has put it. Take into consideration what he has said. Marc is one of the guys on the forums that I fully trust and knows this business.

Don't try and criticize everything negative said about Betonstars. Admit to your mistakes and correct them. We all make mistakes when we are new to something.

[AK]

betonstars is a solid shop

[Concorde]

EDIT

[raiders72001]

SBR will go visit them but what good does that do? That tells you nothing about the financial security of the book. Other books got positive feedback after visits and ran with player's funds. Whether you like Betonstars or not, don't put a lot of stock in someone's opinion based on a visit there.

[applepicks]

SBR will go visit them but what good does that do? That tells you nothing about the financial security of the book. Other books got positive feedback after visits and ran with player's funds. Whether you like Betonstars or not, don't put a lot of stock in someone's opinion based on a visit there.

During most visits to a book( if your a watchdog) you'll have alook at their books and thier finacial standings. I'll be down south in Febuary and have been invited to 3 books already and I'm only a nickel player. And before of all of the SBR bandwagon gets on board, I will visit Jay @ Betonstars and report back.

[raiders72001]

During most visits to a book( if your a watchdog) you'll have alook at their books and thier finacial standings

[raiders72001]

When I read a post like Apple's it makes me wonder why I even waste my time on the forums.

[SBR_John]

Raiders, come on down and you can go with us. Ask the books we visit how we do. Unlike TOW, who comes down here to sell these books, we know how to get the goods. Plus our contacts with the top Costa Rican books is a very valuable resource. I assure you we will find out who these guys are.

[raiders72001]

I'll definitely go some time down the road in the future. I can't get away for a while. 10 year old , 1 year old and another one on the way is going to keep me busy for a while.

[applepicks]

So what Raiders is saying is that if SBR goes down to CR that there will be no "open book" policy when dealing with them. Funny how Roberto gets to see any and all finacial records and background but they wouldn't have these available to another watchdog site. Come on my friend, they(the books) want to clear the air as much as anyone, so why wouldn't make their records available? Reading your posts make me wonder why I'm reading a SBR forum with your reply.APPLE

[pier0]

So what Raiders is saying is that if SBR goes down to CR that there will be no "open book" policy when dealing with them. Funny how Roberto gets to see any and all finacial records and background but they wouldn't have these available to another watchdog site. Come on my friend, they(the books) want to clear the air as much as anyone, so why wouldn't make their records available? Reading your posts make me wonder why I'm reading a SBR forum with your reply.APPLE

I may believe that a "rookie" book is willing to show its numbers to an established site like SBR or TOW...

But if you think an established book is going to show its numbers to you, me or Raiders, you are either very naive or have no idea of what you're talking about.

Beside that, a company may well show phony numbers...and I don't think any "watchdog" is doing audits on bookies' numbers.

I do agree that visits are good to build relationships, both for the business and to better serve players with problems, though.

[marc]

I think this whole episode demonstrates just how difficult it is to determine how much money is available to pay the players. a Book can show your their list of financial backers, but those backers could back at at any moment, f the bok begins to falter. A book can show you a fully loaded neteller account. But as we have seen, those funds could be used for exspenses that don't include paying players, like marketing exspenses.

There are very few books like mansion who are willing to burn through millions of dollars until they become profitable. I just don't think many people who invest in these start up sportsbooks appreciate just how much money thye can potentially lose in a short span of time. EVen if you were a well run book, that did a great job in marketing to squares, your book would have gotten killed just like every other book. It's got to be hard to keep going back to those backers and asking for more money.

[pier0]

This is something else that I don't understand:

almost every new book has external (not involved in the day-to-day business) backers.

Well, I don't believe for one second that there are so many "backers" willing to invest in the gambling business without a real plan...and obviously when they change their minds after few months or one season, there must be no plan behind.

What I do believe though is that the managers of most of these books are also the "backers", but for some reasons is better to have the people thinking the money is coming from external sources.

This is just my opinion...

[natrass]

So please can you please come down to Costa Rica for a few days we will be more than happy to pay for your ticket and hotel if you are willing to come and visit us and see what kind of operation we are.

I think if you read my previous review you will be impressed Jay

http://forum.sbrforum.com/showthread.php?t=2147

You'll see I dont back down from asking the right questions.

Im available, can fly economy and am a cheap date.

[isetcap]

i agree with pier.

i find it very hard to believe that passive investors are throwing money into these ventures without researching the industry and agreeing to a plan that demonstrates a valid "worst case" scenario. that means that most of the funding is coming from individuals who are internal and are in effect gambling in hopes that they will capitalize before a bad season hits.

an external investor wisely distributing his funds would know that his commitment represents a much larger figure than the first check he writes. if you are willing to commit 500K to the venture, there is no need to lessen your return by putting in the full amount. instead you would scale your investment because that is part of what is attractive about high risk high return venture funding.

therefore, going back to investors should not be difficult, it should be anticipated.

[RPM]

Raiders, come on down and you can go with us. Ask the books we visit how we do. Unlike TOW, who comes down here to sell these books, we know how to get the goods. Plus our contacts with the top Costa Rican books is a very valuable resource. I assure you we will find out who these guys are.

thats a lie, and a cheap shot john. is that how it is?

[SBR_John]

What exactly is a cheap shot? You think Roberto hits CR he is not selling??? The "rookie project" is a dangerous sales job that I think I mentioned would be risky.

Watchdogs dont make special trips here to visit new books and agree to promote them. Not a cheap shot.

My suggestion for what its worth: get back to being a real player advocate site, get back to promoting only the very best before its tooo late.

[acw]

and of the books in the rookie program you hvae by far the biggest forum presence.

We must promote this forum presence of the books. I will have to open an account now with this BetOnStars!

[RPM]

What exactly is a cheap shot? You think Roberto hits CR he is not selling??? The "rookie project" is a dangerous sales job that I think I mentioned would be risky.

Watchdogs dont make special trips here to visit new books and agree to promote them. Not a cheap shot.

My suggestion for what its worth: get back to being a real player advocate site, get back to promoting only the very best before its tooo late.

I challenge you to find one book to come in here and say that robertos visit to them was in regards to advertising.

meanwhile, your new office in cr says SBRMARKETING on the door....

[SBR_John]

meanwhile, your new office in cr says SBRMARKETING on the door

Did you figure that out by yourself? The company that owns SBR is called SBR Marketing Ltd. We are a marketing company...your point is??

RPM how do you think roberto gets those guys to advertise in the rookie/dangerous book project?? Does he use ESP? No, he goes down here and sells them on Tow because that's how he has choosen to generate revenue. RPM, this is not rocket science here.

[sharp_E]

Did you figure that out by yourself?

I don't think RPM did John because puppets don't have brains.

[SBR_John]

RPM is one guy I hate to rough up because his heart is in the right place and he is a hard worker.
Sometimes however, that can work against someone. He is passionate to the point where, like roberto, he gets incredibly defensive.
RPM calm down. Probably the RCS deal will fly and if not then opps, it happens.

[Illusion]

Did you figure that out by yourself? The company that owns SBR is called SBR Marketing Ltd. We are a marketing company...your point is??

RPM how do you think roberto gets those guys to advertise in the rookie/dangerous book project?? Does he use ESP? No, he goes down here and sells them on Tow because that's how he has choosen to generate revenue. RPM, this is not rocket science here.

It has to be ESP John. How else would he do it unless he's giving them free space.

[RPM]

john,

once again, your lack of good info has bitten you in the ass. I handle ALL marketing at the offshore wire.

so you see, your claim that roberto does marketing on his trips to cr is a complete LIE. there is a lot of that coming from sbr lately.

you guys need to focus on getting back on track here. You know from our past conversations on the phone that i do respect you.

[Illusion]

john,

once again, your lack of good info has bitten you in the ass. I handle ALL marketing at the offshore wire.

That would explain alot.

Are you brainwashing Roberto then?

[sharp_E]

That would explain alot.

Are you brainwashing Roberto then?

So this whole rookie project is your fault uh RPM? Why does that not suprise me.

[RPM]

SHARP E,

glad to see you are a fan of mine....

[sharp_E]

So, You are in charge of marketing ? Let me ask you this, Why do you keep dodging my question ????? Do you sleep well at night leading posters out to slaughter for your own financial gain.

P.S. Please don't dodge this question.

[SBR_John]

Originally Posted by RPM
john,
once again, your lack of good info has bitten you in the ass. I handle ALL marketing at the offshore wire.

Kind of like the info on the RichCoast story that we were breaking while you guys were trying to keep it quiete?

As far as info on tow, you got the wrong website. We dont care about who does what at tow.