[bubba]

I am far from an expert in the industry but this is just the vibe i am getting the last few days. wsex and cascade robbed their customers and they advertised at sbr. but they were established gambling companies (to a degree) with a following long before they began advertising at sbr. They were going to rob/scam many people with or without the help of sbr.

with betislands, they were not established before they began advertising. without sbrs help in promotion, there would have been no betislands. i think conservatievly 90% of the customers at betislands (probably higher) and 90% of the player funds (probably much higher) was by people who found betislands through this very website. this is why people are so upset. am i accurate here? Any other similarities differences?

ps: i filed an sbr complaint about betislands a few weeks ago. have not heard anything back other than "we are looking into it".

[Hankwins]

were else did betislands advertise?? I have seen alot of SBR sponser books all over the net and have not seen betislands many other places. I am leaning towards your observation to be correct.

[shari91]

bubba, I agree with a lot of what you say. But BI wasn't an advertiser here until a year ago. Before and after then we had ppl hammer us for not giving them an A or A+ rating and they were voted #5 in the poster's best books ever poll. Again, not disagreeing with you but that book was built outside of SBR for a year before. If you want proof, when I get home I'll post links verifying all I've said.

[Isaiah]

I had never heard of Bet Islands and never would have considered using them had it not been for SBR and its promotion of them. SBR has lost a commodity more precious than gold - their credibility and the public's trust. Both are now gone forever and that will cost them much more than the short term gains they realized with the Bet Islands larceny.

[raiders72001]

BI stiffed a lot of affiliates for over a year. It's not just SBR. BI just got a lot of loving from posters here at SBR. A lot of people should be looking in the mirror.

[shari91]

I had never heard of Bet Islands and never would have considered using them had it not been for SBR and its promotion of them. SBR has lost a commodity more precious than gold - their credibility and the public's trust. Both are now gone forever and that will cost them much more than the short term gains they realized with the Bet Islands larceny.

I'm sorry you feel that way and if I could I'd get all of your cash back from that book. I'm still hopeful you will.

But just out of curiousity, was it the bonuses that attracted you there? It was one banner out of 10. I'm just trying to figure out why someone chose that one out of 10 banners vs a 5Dimes with reduced juice for instance.

[raiders72001]

From AK

DON'T TRUST BetIslands.com (now .ag), in September we'll update this thread with an interesting story about their marketing strategy to cheat affiliates and to pay just a small % of their earnings only after months of repeated complaints ... Tons of promises of a prompt payment but it has been very, very hard for us getting paid a couple of months of earnings ... They still own us over 50% of our JAN 2012 balance and all matured earnings from March until today.

Many promises but nothing has been done yet and every time we need to send a dozens of emails before getting a single reply and a new promise of payment (next week, next month ...) still again: nothing happens and new emails once again.

[shari91]

From AK

So SBR didn't make out with a ton of loot? But posters are saying they did. Come on now Raiders.

[raiders72001]

I try to see the best in all situations, but this is one instance where I should've listened to my gut right at the start. BetIslands.ag, was .com, opened last year. The name has been around, but it was purchased by Jon Kreta, formerly of WagerChief. Their sportsbook has received great feedback from players, which led me to pursue an affiliate relationship with them. Their T&C's were a bit wacky, but I still began to promote them heading into the 2011 football season (American). All of their banners were MLB only, and my first red flag was that Jon was really terrible at answering emails. He always had an excuse when he would finally answer. He would smooth things over, and promise the world...but only when I removed their links from my sites.

I got a few players there, and got my balance up to to a modest $250. These commissions were removed from my account balance, and flagged as 'under review'. Hmmm. Another email...more silence...remove links...get a reply. Commissions restored, I was holding out for payment prior to replacing the links. Promises...no delivery.

Football season ended. Then BetIslands.com transitioned to the .ag tld. The affiliate program link was still at the bottom of the page, but it just directed to the home page. Then, magically, the link and the affiliate program was live again...one week before the 2012 NFL season was set to kickoff. Jon had always been cordial and continually expressed an interest in developing a business relationship. So I reached out, put the past behind me, but I wasn't going to promote without certain conditions being met. I was ignored. Then a couple of days ago, I received a sales email from BetIslands. The email opened with a catchy "Basketball playoffs are heating up...". I replied to this message with "Have Jon return my emails". No answer from Jon. So I sent Jon one last email asking for a response...and a response I received! I will copy/paste it below, followed by my response.

The bottom line is that BetIslands only opens their program to syphon new players for football season, apparently without any intention of paying commissions. Mr. Kreta may be loved by players, but eventually the way you treat your affiliates will trickle down and eventually catch up with the players, as well. Stay away!

..............

[raiders72001]

The posts above are from 10/12 and prior.

We would like to also response. We got 20+ players to sign up as well with Nick and Jon.... Well time went by and they said they were having some software issues so they were tracking our players "manually". Well time went by (3 months or so) and their software was back up and working. After 5+ emails to Jon and BetIsland they finally gave us a working link to log in. When we logged in not a single one of our new people were listed there. We wrote to Jon right away and he "CLAIMED" that those users didn't play any more so their accounts were 'inactive' and thats why we couldn't see their statistics and such. When we very well knew that 6 of them for sure had played and deposited as they had posted in our gambling forums at our website that they did. I sent a message back to Jon (Now 4 messages) on why they were closed when we know they are active players and he has failed to respond...

[raiders72001]

I have emailed you several times, Jon. You still haven't paid me a single penny...EVER. Old server, new server...not a single cent.

You said you closed the affiliate program, yet the site is still active. http://affiliates.betislands.ag You want to close the program? Great, no problem but close the site too! The only reason you would have to keep it live, is to get free traffic. There is no other viable excuse. You are a smooth talker, but your actions speak louder than you posts.

............

[raiders72001]

Looks like BI went from site to site.

[raiders72001]

So SBR didn't make out with a ton of loot? But posters are saying they did. Come on now Raiders.

lol. It's been a fun few days of blaming SBR for all that's evil in the world.

[raiders72001]

BetIslands’ failure is particularly galling for the SBR brain trust, who are being called every name in the book by irate bettors left holding empty stockings this Christmas, especially since SBR upgraded the sportsbook to a ‘B’ rating in November 2011 after BetIslands “verified their backing,” which SBR argued was proof of their “financial security.” For the record, there’s no evidence to suggest anything like the BetED/Covers fiasco, in which BetEd took the fall even through the Covers’ boys are widely presumed to have been BetEd’s beneficial owners via a lucrative revenue sharing deal with their former #1 recommended sportsbook. Regardless, it’s a sobering reminder that trust is that rarest of commodities, difficult to obtain and even harder to regain once it’s been lost.

http://calvinayre.com/2012/12/19/bus...n-for-bettors/

[Easy-Rider 66]

were else did betislands advertise?? I have seen alot of SBR sponser books all over the net and have not seen betislands many other places. I am leaning towards your observation to be correct.

BI was rated as an elite shop up to a couple of days ago at another industry watchdog site. SBR was not the only platform BI used to sell the fraud.

[Easy-Rider 66]

I'm sorry you feel that way and if I could I'd get all of your cash back from that book. I'm still hopeful you will.

But just out of curiousity, was it the bonuses that attracted you there? It was one banner out of 10. I'm just trying to figure out why someone chose that one out of 10 banners vs a 5Dimes with reduced juice for instance.

A key reason many players posted up at BI rather than a shop like 5D was Jon's accessibility on the forum and BI's rep for customer service. Players would bash 5D for their CS and praise BI constantly for their superior service. Now it looks like that was the bait that brought players into the scheme.

[JasonDC]

BI was rated as an elite shop up to a couple of days ago at another industry watchdog site. SBR was not the only platform BI used to sell the fraud.

offshore gaming association had them rated in their highest category which is osga elite..been in business at least 4 years, no outstanding payout complaints etc..its obvious now these ratings mean very little.

[shari91]

A key reason many players posted up at BI rather than a shop like 5D was Jon's accessibility on the forum and BI"s rep for customer service. Players would bash 5D for their CS and praise BI constantly for their superior service. Now it looks like that was the bait that brought players into the scheme.

You make perfect sense. Thank you for the explanation.

[JasonDC]

A key reason many players posted up at BI rather than a shop like 5D was Jon's accessibility on the forum and BI's rep for customer service. Players would bash 5D for their CS and praise BI constantly for their superior service. Now it looks like that was the bait that brought players into the scheme.

I just came on to SBR recently to read about this betislands situation..in looking thru past posts i was surprised to see just how popular Jon was..for some of these guys it was damn near hero worship..a few of the posts were pathetic in how bad they were kissing Jon's ass.

[raiders72001]

14 September 2012 5:47 pm

#7

Betislands
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Hello GPWA,

Betislands has decided not to do business with affiliates because honestly all we get is low conversion or close to nothing and sites like the one from the gentelman above , asking for special no deposit freeplays for his clients.

We are one of the best sportsbooks out there we rather deal with one or 2 sponsors and that works for us , I urge affiliates to stop promoting us any active players you have you will get credit for but we do not need or want to deal with " affiliates " anymore this is nothing personal but something that we have decided after a series of unfortunate events by some of the other " affiliates ". After we moved facilities we changed to new servers and some data could not be retrieved everyone has always gotten paid from us we are one of the fastest payout sportsbooks on the net.


My personal email is my name jon and our domain ( betislands.ag) feel free to contact me there directly.

...............

[Easy-Rider 66]

I just came on to SBR recently to read about this betislands situation..in looking thru past posts i was surprised to see just how popular Jon was..for some of these guys it was damn near hero worship..a few of the posts were pathetic in how bad they were kissing Jon's ass.

Jon had me convinced BI was legit as well. But never posted up at BI because 5D was clearly superior in many ways and the supposedly great CS that posters raved about is not a priority for me when I choose a book. Now I wonder how many of those posters were compensated in some way by BI to make those posts.

[JasonDC]

Jon had me convinced BI was legit as well. But never posted up at BI because 5D was clearly superior in many ways and the supposedly great CS that posters raved about is not a priority for me when I choose a book. Now I wonder how many of those posters were compensated in some way by BI to make those posts.

I have played at both and unfortunately got kicked in the nuts with this BI situation..i agree with you about CS not being a top priority..im not looking to make friends with the staff at the book, i dont care if they call me by name or ask how the weather is in my city..all i want is to get paid when i win.

[bubba]

bubba, I agree with a lot of what you say. But BI wasn't an advertiser here until a year ago. Before and after then we had ppl hammer us for not giving them an A or A+ rating and they were voted #5 in the poster's best books ever poll. Again, not disagreeing with you but that book was built outside of SBR for a year before. If you want proof, when I get home I'll post links verifying all I've said.

when did they become an advertiser? when did they become b- at least?

please dont use the poster poll as justification. posters can judge a lot of things but we rely (relied) on sbr to judge one main thing. Is our money safe? posters dont know this. 1 picture of the betislands office would have probably answered this question for us to at least "i am not so sure".

Did sbr ever endorse a book as as small as betislands was?

[Mr. Jones]

bubba, I agree with a lot of what you say. But BI wasn't an advertiser here until a year ago. Before and after then we had ppl hammer us for not giving them an A or A+ rating and they were voted #5 in the poster's best books ever poll. Again, not disagreeing with you but that book was built outside of SBR for a year before. If you want proof, when I get home I'll post links verifying all I've said.

Just more BS. When you get home just stfu!

[Mr. Jones]

I'm sorry you feel that way and if I could I'd get all of your cash back from that book. I'm still hopeful you will.

But just out of curiousity, was it the bonuses that attracted you there? It was one banner out of 10. I'm just trying to figure out why someone chose that one out of 10 banners vs a 5Dimes with reduced juice for instance.

Ever consider that a lot of us have accounts with most or all of the decent "banners" already. I don't even take bonuses, but same day payouts and strong SBR endorsement of an easy to beat square out was worth a small deposit. Easy to beat made the small deposit grow faster than it would have otherwise. Look at my join date and my number of posts. I have a life outside of this fu*king place. I always saw SBR not as a place to bullchit with young kids , but rather a place to help one judge solvency and safety of sporksbooks. SPORTSBOOKREVIEW get it?

I see banner flying and I see "B" rating so I did not see the necessity of paring down small 4 figures to small 3 figures or running for my life. SBR is a bunch of thieving fu*ks

[Hankwins]

read an article betislands NO PAY on a s k t he b o o k i e . c o m

[KTnamja]

a $2 whore shouldn't cost $2,000.

[PAULYPOKER]

So SBR didn't make out with a ton of loot? But posters are saying they did. Come on now Raiders.

BI Jon>we rather deal with one or 2 sponsors

And guess what? I'm All in on SBR being #one

[dark star]

Man Shari is a stupid person

[pimike]

I'm sorry you feel that way and if I could I'd get all of your cash back from that book. I'm still hopeful you will.
But just out of curiousity, was it the bonuses that attracted you there? It was one banner out of 10. I'm just trying to figure out why someone chose that one out of 10 banners vs a 5Dimes with reduced juice for instance.

This is a great response and great question!!!!

[RonPaul2008]

Yes, there was much less reason to trust BetIslands then there was with WSEX and Cascade. WSEX was one of the best books for a long time before their collapse. Cascade was a bit different...they were established but not all that highly rated for a long time. Then they came out with -105 juice and went to A and that lasted for quite a while. Eventually though Cascade stopped paying everyone within several weeks of being rated A and many peope got screwed (I would guess a lot more money was stolen then with BetIslands). And actually, WSEX isn't quite the same as they very slowly paid people even after everyone wrote them off and, I think, are still sporadically paying people.

[raiders72001]

Man Shari is a stupid person

You were one of the strongest backers of BI. You're just pissed that you were wrong.

[BranchDavidian]

I'm sorry you feel that way and if I could I'd get all of your cash back from that book. I'm still hopeful you will.

But just out of curiousity, was it the bonuses that attracted you there? It was one banner out of 10. I'm just trying to figure out why someone chose that one out of 10 banners vs a 5Dimes with reduced juice for instance.

Most of the posters here have no inside knowledge of this industry or any way to judge the stability or managerial expertise of any book. That is why we come to the industry watchdog. Now, what you are telling us here is "posters need to figure out which of our recommended and verified bannered books are really safe." So, it is the posters fault if he chooses BI instead of 5dimes? We are fools then if we chose both or all of your books with banners? Insert paragraph here. We have a bunch of posts from raiders here showing that affiliates were not getting paid and were trying to warn people. You seem to think that this somehow makes SBR look good. Just the opposite is true -- our watchdog also knew since at least one of those affiliates claim they e-mailed SBR. Justin now admits that he knew the financial backer of BI was arrested in September. Even without all this evidence of SBR's complicity --- what good is SBR if all of Costa Rica knows this but not SBR?