Originally Posted by
indio
this is truly sad news. Sbr has taken the money and sold themselves out to the machine. For some of us that have been using and reading sbr's constant and sharp industry update's and sportsbook ratings for almost 20 years, this indeed is a sad day. This is almost as monumental as pinnacle leaving the us in '06 and pokerstars leaving the us on black friday after being extorted by the feds in 2011.
Sbr's entire existence was catering to the player and the gamblers who wanted to exercise their liberties, and play freely with offshore bookmakers, the only viable option that they had. This meant every offshore operator from the top honest large companies, to the sleazy dishonest scammers, were researched and kept tabs on by constant player feedback and sbr's invaluable research and reporting. Players knew if they had a problem of any sort with an offshore book, sbr would at least be a place they could express it, and often times they'd have a great and powerful friend or at least a fair mediator with sbr, and one that the major books respected and took seriously when it came to player disputes. Those were good days, but like almost everything in life, nothing lasts forever i suppose.
Sbr has now officially gone from one of the last bastions of quality information and mediation for players and offshore bookmakers (who actually function like bookmakers), to just another marketing outlet for foreign owned corporate recreational entertainment places that call themselves "sports books" (as if with hundreds of those already we needed another one). Can't fault them entirely, since the offshore business model has dried up for many reasons, and they have bills to pay just like everybody else, but it's still somewhat tragic to see them join a collection of usury vultures who exploit players, and who lobbied with their powerful allies to crush the smaller and less powerful innovators and players that sbr spent decades helping and defending. Sad days indeed.
So no longer can we even have ratings and updates on the last few old time offshore books who stayed in the market ,innovators, real bookmakers, loyal stalwarts, and long time loyal operators. No longer are the line services there to share the prices of those real markets that are left. Now, it's just a site to promote corporations owned by israeli and british billionaire's, and majority stockholders like larry fink's blackrock financial and other banking houses. These are the corporate houses charging ridiculous holds and margins, horrible product offerings and services, and business models designed to completely limit or shut off completely any player or trader that has the "gall" to actually have the ability to earn a profit, or bet intelligently.
Sad to see you join forces with the enemy, but all the same, i'd like to thank you sbr for your great and insightful presence over the years. You were like having a powerful advocate and industry watchdog in my corner for 20 years. Thanks to your ratings, and warnings, i was able to bet a lot of wagers at a lot of places, and even with transactions totaling figures too large to even speculate what 20 years worth ended up being, i never had even a single dollar stolen or forfeited at any of the many sportsbooks i used over the years. A couple times, your red flags persuaded me to not deposit or keep money with some sportsbooks beginning to be in distress, and those warnings proved prophetic and saved me thousands. Your listings and recommendations helped me build long and fruitful relationships with companies that gave me a lot of great action, a lot of fun, and some profitable and memorable scores over the last 20 years.
You were great sbr. You will be missed.