My adventures with Futurebet, GDI, iGaming... etc
I only recently discovered this website and am absolutely amazed at the work some of the admins do here. Some people just want some information on what went on at this place and I will provide you with as much as I can.
This documents a period in time when I worked at this company from December 2006 to December 2007.
Before I knew about Futurebet, I was employed at a small csr office in downtown Vancouver that consisted of only 7 other employees. We provided email support for 2 online poker clients. One is massive, the other is a decent size but has no problems paying out and such. We were a great company that was doing just fine. I worked graveyards so I didn't see too much as I also was allowed to work from home. One day in the latter portions of 2006 I was told by my boss that a large company called Futurebet had bought us out.
The very first time I ever met people from FB was during a Christmas party where over 200 people were on the floor attending. It was a well organizaed event with valet parking, concierge, well catered food, open bar, and at the end of the night a Gentleman named "Joe" had a surprise for everyone.
All the Full-Time employees received a paid trip to Las Vegas for 2 while all the part-time employees received a well paid out cash bonus.
Everything seemed great, none of my tasks or roles had changed since the takeover as we were still only taking care of the entities that we had brought in and nothing more. All I knew by February of 2008 was that we had a sportsbook and a couple more casino clients with a lot of sales people in a very nice large building / office in Downtown Vancouver.
In March 2008 I decided to start working days which meant it was time to work in an office and no longer at home. In my department there were only at max 5 people working at one time. 3 of us working on our 2 large clients and the other 2 working on some other site. A site called SportsbookUSA - I remember saying something like hey this looks liek a neat site, I wouldn't mind checking it out and the CSR agent said probably not a good idea. I said yeah I shoudln't start betting yet and left it at that.
I didn't know anyone on the floor - out of over 100 people on the floor I had met or knew maybe 5 people outside of our original company. Something happened in the Summer of 2007, people started getting laid off, it was very hostile and very volitile, we didn't know what happened but only attributed it all to the legislation that was passed by George Bush. Everything was kept under wraps and from our peak of over 130 staff, by the end of what had to be September 2007, iGaming was now staffed by about 25. We lost over 100 people within a few months - it was devastating. It was during this time when things got really small did people start communicating more and I slowly heard ramblings of how shady Futurebet was. In a matter of 3 or 4 months we had started calling ourselves at one part Software Development - the floow we occupied could no longer be accessed unless you had a key card. I was in the lobby when our office assistant answered a call from an irate customer. I received a call in our support center meant for the other side with an irate customer wondering where his money was.
Every employee started getting their cheques bounced, and one day we received a serious threat that someone was coming to the building to settle a score with us. I walked into my CFO's office and asked him on the spot what was going on and he was very blunt - he told me that he had already quit and started looking for a job and said it's best that I do so as well. He said the company will be fine with the way it operates but he hoped it would change and came to the conclusion that it never will.
He ran down a list of the immoral and unethical things that have occured and were plannign to do including terminating my department and taking on our two large contracts themselves.
I quit 2 weeks later and informed my department boss - they were not successful in taking over my old department. From what I know of Futurebet now - they are very small but still alive.
There's so many details and so much information that is not told here - there's only so much I can type so if you have any questions - please feel free to ask.
Working there for a year I dind't know who operated things... either Joe or Ron...
This documents a period in time when I worked at this company from December 2006 to December 2007.
Before I knew about Futurebet, I was employed at a small csr office in downtown Vancouver that consisted of only 7 other employees. We provided email support for 2 online poker clients. One is massive, the other is a decent size but has no problems paying out and such. We were a great company that was doing just fine. I worked graveyards so I didn't see too much as I also was allowed to work from home. One day in the latter portions of 2006 I was told by my boss that a large company called Futurebet had bought us out.
The very first time I ever met people from FB was during a Christmas party where over 200 people were on the floor attending. It was a well organizaed event with valet parking, concierge, well catered food, open bar, and at the end of the night a Gentleman named "Joe" had a surprise for everyone.
All the Full-Time employees received a paid trip to Las Vegas for 2 while all the part-time employees received a well paid out cash bonus.
Everything seemed great, none of my tasks or roles had changed since the takeover as we were still only taking care of the entities that we had brought in and nothing more. All I knew by February of 2008 was that we had a sportsbook and a couple more casino clients with a lot of sales people in a very nice large building / office in Downtown Vancouver.
In March 2008 I decided to start working days which meant it was time to work in an office and no longer at home. In my department there were only at max 5 people working at one time. 3 of us working on our 2 large clients and the other 2 working on some other site. A site called SportsbookUSA - I remember saying something like hey this looks liek a neat site, I wouldn't mind checking it out and the CSR agent said probably not a good idea. I said yeah I shoudln't start betting yet and left it at that.
I didn't know anyone on the floor - out of over 100 people on the floor I had met or knew maybe 5 people outside of our original company. Something happened in the Summer of 2007, people started getting laid off, it was very hostile and very volitile, we didn't know what happened but only attributed it all to the legislation that was passed by George Bush. Everything was kept under wraps and from our peak of over 130 staff, by the end of what had to be September 2007, iGaming was now staffed by about 25. We lost over 100 people within a few months - it was devastating. It was during this time when things got really small did people start communicating more and I slowly heard ramblings of how shady Futurebet was. In a matter of 3 or 4 months we had started calling ourselves at one part Software Development - the floow we occupied could no longer be accessed unless you had a key card. I was in the lobby when our office assistant answered a call from an irate customer. I received a call in our support center meant for the other side with an irate customer wondering where his money was.
Every employee started getting their cheques bounced, and one day we received a serious threat that someone was coming to the building to settle a score with us. I walked into my CFO's office and asked him on the spot what was going on and he was very blunt - he told me that he had already quit and started looking for a job and said it's best that I do so as well. He said the company will be fine with the way it operates but he hoped it would change and came to the conclusion that it never will.
He ran down a list of the immoral and unethical things that have occured and were plannign to do including terminating my department and taking on our two large contracts themselves.
I quit 2 weeks later and informed my department boss - they were not successful in taking over my old department. From what I know of Futurebet now - they are very small but still alive.
There's so many details and so much information that is not told here - there's only so much I can type so if you have any questions - please feel free to ask.
Working there for a year I dind't know who operated things... either Joe or Ron...
