Bitcoin Forum

So, here is the story...

I was searching for a bitcoin sportsbook to bet, and I stumbled upon powerbet.io. It seemed great, and I was ready to deposit, when I saw this in one of their threads:
https://i.imgur.com/ZPRozQ2.png

I found the new thread they started, and posted this:

...and then, not more than 30 seconds later, I got an e-mail saying that my post was deleted because this was a self-moderating thread. See the beauty here? They simply delete all negative feedback without ever even commenting on it.

They might as well just take your money and run. There is nothing you can do about it... They'll just delete your comments.

Reading between the lines?

Did you intentionally leave out this part and than jumped to (not intended) wrong assumptions?

Quote from his post: "In matter in fairness: I don't have any problems with deposit and withdraws. Withdraws are instant."

The player limits were reduced to a decent amount simply because we have a non-hidden policy that our services are intended for recreational players only.

So, throwing away false accusations and assumptions brought you any benefits?

Decent amount? You put his limits to 50 mBtc, effectively equivalent to banning him...

My opposition is on your whole "I-lock-the-thread-and-make-a-new-one-in-order-to-avoid-replying" attitude, and the fact that you instantly deleted my post on your thread simply because it was negative for you.

Face the facts.

• You banned him because he won 3-4 bets with the excuse that he is not recreational. So, by your standards, anyone who wins is not a recreational player, right?
• You never replied to him regarding his unpleasant experience with your website. Very professional...
• You locked the thread and started a self-moderating one, so that other people who have a negative opinion of you never get the chance to post it.
• He literally wrote over 20 lines of post describing how you did not treat him right, and your only reply/complaint here is that I did not mention that he found deposits and withdraws instant? What a joke...

Hahahahahahahaha I just got a message from Powerbet here in this forum, telling me that they banned me on their website because "I am not a recreational player", and I had simply just made my first deposit and bet some money on X and some money on 2 on a specific game.

The funny part is that I have a different username here than I used in their website, so this proves they went to great lengths just to find me and ban me.

This shows how unprofessional they are...

Everyone stay away from PowerBet.

When his account was limited, we also sent him this message:

"Hi,

Unfortunately, we do not allow arbitrage or any other forms of professional betting on our website. As mentioned before, we provide our betting services to recreational players only.
Therefore, a betting limit has been placed on your PowerBet account.
Now we understand your attitude on bitcointalk forum, you were trying to force us to accept your arbitrage betting by spreading out negative warnings and lies about us. We will not tolerate such a behavior.


PowerBet


P.S. As you already probably know, limiting/rejecting arbitrage players is a common procedure with all major sportsbooks."


Also, his registration details and IP was provided to Cloudbet (the sportsbook he used for arbitrage) so they can also take measures against his account should they consider it necessary:

"Hi,

We've identified a player doing arbitrage between our websites.
His email is m********0@hotmail.com
used IP's: ******
location: Greece
forum username: bestgr

We've closed his account and considered appropriate to inform you about this issue so you could take actions against him should you consider it.


Kind regards,
PowerBet"

Nice try steering the conversation away from the fact that you randomly ban people and you delete all negative feedback from your threads at will, without even replying.

And as for the arb part, it is so sad that both you and other bookmakers fail to realize that the more bets you have on your websites, the more you will grow. Why does it matter so match for you if I bet on X on your website and at the same time lay X on FairLay? Since you offer the odds, a "recreational player" (as you seem to define anyone who just loses on your website) could just bet on X without laying, how is that different?


Edit: As for snitching my IP and username, how hard do you think it is to restart my router, get a new IP and create a new account? Heck, you could even ban all of Greece, and I could simply use a VPN. See where I am getting at? Instead of spending so much time and effort trying to avoid the unavoidable, and naming each and every of your winning players a "non-recreational" one, you can just embrace the circumstances and make them work in your advantage.

LOL. Quoting for future reference...

Disclosing client personal data to 3rd party... I would never-ever but a single satoshi into your site.

Yeah, that too... When I saw the post, I went straight to their privacy policy, but then I thought "It will take me 10 seconds to restart my router and get a new IP. Another 30 seconds to make a new e-mail, and another 10 seconds to create a new account if I want, so why bother?"

Yeah i too never saw any gambling site posting personal information publicly without permission
That's unprofessional and only non-experienced admins do.

Title: "PowerBet.IO are SCAMMING, LEAKING sensitive info,and CENSORING negative feedback"

- "SCAMMING" - who? Feel free to open a thread in scamming accusations if you feel you or anyone else was scammed.
- "LEAKING sensitive info" - Are you referring to your country? That's not even close enough info to identify you, is it?
- "CENSORING negative feedback" - you were quoting from a locked thread that is otherwise available for anyone willing to search for that info, you found that info yourself, right? So we considered useless to re-post an already posted information.

"It seems that you arbitrarily limited this guy just because he won a couple of bets.
Furthermore, you NEVER replied to him."

Actually, it wasn't an arbitrary decision and we did reply to him through a private message as he chose to contact us that way. In fact he posted our answer.

"telling me that they banned me on their website"

We didn't tell you that we "banned" you. We announced you that your betting limits were greatly reduced due to our policy against arbitrage betting. This is an open policy, not hidden. Your access to your funds was in no way restricted - yet we are "scammers"?

"The funny part is that I have a different username here than I used in their website, so this proves they went to great lengths just to find me and ban me.

This shows how unprofessional they are..."

Again, the "banning" thing? And the fact that we don't allow arbitrage betting is unprofessional or the fact we are able to identify it?

"They might as well just take your money and run."

A very harsh assumption, with no evidence to support it. Again, if you feel scammed, please open a thread in the proper forum section.

"Nice try steering the conversation away from the fact that you randomly ban people and you delete all negative feedback from your threads at will, without even replying."

We don't "randomly ban" people. The previous player was given a clear explanation of our action (his daily betting volume exceeded a threshold on which a player can be considered in a common sense as "recreational player"), while you were also presented with an explanation for limiting your betting stake (your arbitrage bets were against our policy).
Also, we deleted from our current thread a quote that is already publicly available to anyone interested in founding it. You didn't post any new complaints regarding our website or yourself, complaints that would be, of course, backed by some evidence.

So far you posted a series of accusations without evidence, a series of assumptions without any support, all this because we do not allow arbitrage players (such as yourself)?
It seems you did everything you could to place us in a bad light, without even trying to support your harsh accusations with any kind of evidence.

You 'missed' to response again to the post where you are sharing CLIENT PERSONAL INFO to 3rd party, even without anyone requesting it!

This is the most unethical, most unprofessional stuff I see lately from bitcoin operator. That it. Like public doxing in anger

You are offering odds, client is betting. What this or other client is doing OUTSIDE your site /eg arbitraging, laying, shitting - it's clients business, not yours/. And you cant prove what particular client is doing in other sites.



vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Did he confiscate your fund and scam your deposits? If only limit your betting amount, it will be ok, and for arbitrage, some bookies don't like the clever making money way, but how can he know you bet on others? I support you, don't play here any more.

This answer pretty much covers it.

@Powerbet:
1) You shared my information with Cloudbet without my consent. And when I say "information", I mean my username and my e-mail address. This is a breach of privacy, even if you try and steer the attention to just sharing my country here in the forum.
2) Even if you directly replied to him in private message, other people have the same concerns like him, and the fact that you simply locked the thread and started a new one shows that you can't answer those questions sincerely. The fact that it is a closed thread and anyone CAN see it, does not mean that anyone WILL see it, which is also your intention. I had to search specifically for it, others won't bother.
3) I had a different username on your website than here. Even if you detected arbing on your website (which you couldn't possible detect since it was just my first bet), how did you know it was me, and private message me here? Doxing much? Another violation of privacy... Way to go!
4) You are indirectly scamming, since you only allow players who lose and limit players who win.
5)

So you tried to violate their policy by arb-ing, got busted and came here crying? That's what I understand from your thread :)

You're lucky they let you walk away with your money, other bookies confiscate funds when players break terms

Nope. I saw their thread, found the guy who was limited for no reason, posted in their new thread to ask why they limited him, they deleted my post, I made this thread so they can't delete it, hoping they will answer. Then, I signed up on their website (with a different username than here) and placed my first bet. Some hours later, I got a message from them here, saying that my account was limited because I was not a "recreational player", which means they tried to find who I am and limited me out of hatred because I started this thread.

You are right, I hadn't described the chronological order of events so you can understand what happened. Hope this makes it clear.

Can someone help me understand why arbitrage betting would not be allowed? If an operator is accepting bets at specified odds, does it really matter if the bet is a regular one or an arbitrage bet?

I'm thinking the same thing whatever should be the outcome of the match the bookie should still profit cmiiw. The only reason I could think about is to lessen the risk that they will face in their site.

Yes this is quite frustrating to see from sportsbook no any good platform should disclose their users detail and private info. Privacy is quite big thing for  gamblers and gambling platform should respect it, this things suggesting us to bet only on anonymous betting platforms like directbet.

Thats why we should not trust those new site who came here.and rather trust those site who are well runned for a long time, and actually people can file a case for the owner since it can make the peoples identity to be compromised, and to bad since the bastard dev spread it already and the worst thing well be happen on that is they can encounter some problem for that leakage im this coming future.

Imagine how easily they limit people that simply win, if they so easily distribute sensitive personal information...

Wait so you're saying they deleted your negative post and you say you haven't deposited?
if you haven't tried their service but have bad things to says they are 100% right to delete your dumbass post

Dude... Read the thread before commenting please...
I merely quote a negative feedback from another thread where they never replied and they locked the thread. I wanted to get their comment on this topic too, but instead of replying, they simply deleted my post so that the negative feedback is nowhere to be seen in their thread.

And there is more... you can read the rest of the thread if interested ;)

"I merely quote a negative feedback from another thread where they never replied and they locked the thread"

So, if you insist on the CENSORING aspect, than at least present the facts about the censoring as they are:

1) You didn't quote the player that actually played on our website (debuni), you quoted a quote of his original reply from s1lverbox, who, in his turn, wasn't our player (but jumped to conclusions), also a quote that left out the positive aspects of debuni's comment, while using bold-red letters to underline what the original player considered we did wrong against him.

2) s1lverbox (again, not our player) expressed his negative comment somewhere in the middle of the old thread (page 5 or so), not that easy to find. So you decided it's a good idea to quote a negative non-player comment into our new thread. By all means this is a Mal-intended move and we had no reasons to let it in our new thread (s1lverbox didn't play on our website, he wasn't writing about HIS own experience with us, he just red-bold his own conclusions based on someone else experience)

3) You posted the opinions of a non-player (are they valuable to new players?), while yourself were not a player at the moment of posting - again, no reason to let you (a non-player) post a comment from another non-player.

4) You are right we never replied to s1lverbox, but WE REPLIED TO OUR PLAYER, debuni. Yes, we tend to ignore negative comments from non-players based on someone else experience, especially when they seem to be well targeted at PowerBet image (leaving out the good aspects of debuni's conclusions on purpose)

For everyone's information, here's a link to the original thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1663357.80 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1663357.80)
And here's a quote of debuni's (a player that actually played with us), we put in blue the part where he quoted our reply to him:

"Edit for my experience with them:



I want to share my experience with PowerBet.IO and my opinion

My first impression was: Great, a Bitcoin bookie with good looking and intuitive site, good odds and good limits.

But then read about their TOS: One account per person and requiring documents for KYC (ID + Utility bill). Then they decided to remove the KYC procedure so they become one step closer to a real Bitcoin bookie.

And I moved a part of my bets there - I have a series of big losing bet and series of big winning bets in last 3-4 days.
Till today: when my account was limited to 50 mBTC in bets per event, including tonight's Championship League.

When I ask why? I got their response:

Quote from: PowerBet.io on December 06, 2016, 07:42:55 PM
Hi,

I'm sorry, but your account activity exceeded the limits within which a player can be considered as recreational. We're a service dedicated to recreational players only. Your account has not been suspended, you can still enjoy our services within the current limits.

So till I was losing with big bets, I was recreational player. When I won 4-5 big bets, I become an problem.

My final conclusion: Don't bet there! Because at every point you could become "not-recreational" and get limited. There a lot of bookies like NitrogenSports and FairLay where you could have as many accounts as you want and never get limited!

In matter in fairness: I don't have any problems with deposit and withdraws. Withdraws are instant. The problem here is that PowerBet are bringing fiat practices into bitcoin world - like restricting players to one account, limiting anonymity and limiting accounts. Their odds and site are good, but more and more bookies like PowerBet.io and Coinbet24 are trying to screw the whole bitcoin principles. And I cannot support this.


========"

Than you started a new topic in the wrong section (should be under Scams Accusations threadhttps://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0)), where you started by accusing us of censoring. Well, you are entitled to your own opinion on our action of deleting your post from our thread, so feel free to post it in the proper section, with the proper line of events.

Minutes later, you actually sign up with our website and start placing bets that we immediately detected as arbitrage bets - an activity we do not accept (out of principle - betting for fun it's GAMBLING, and services such as ours belong to the Gambling section of this forum, arbitrage betting it's pure math and profit, people practicing it are not even "gamblers"). So we cancelled your bets, INFORMED YOU about our policy and ALLOWED YOU TO WITHDRAW YOUR DEPOSIT) - yet you added "SCAMMING" to your thread title?

None of our players was EVER scammed with a single satoshi!

You're mad we don't allow non-gamblers like yourself to bet with us, we can't help you with that, sorry!

In conclusion, you, a non-gambler, tried to pose as the gambling community defender - warning them about our service not being at your own liking? You, a non-gambler accuse us of censoring and scamming, while every single satoshi of your balance was returned to you?

So, anyone who has not already played with you and needs to know how well your support is and how you treat your players in order to decide IF he is going to play with you, is not allowed to ask questions?

I wanted to know how easily you limit people and what your response to these accusations would be, in order to decide IF I will bet on your website. But instead, all I got was a locked thread and a deleted post on your self-moderated thread...

I didn't care about the fact that he didn't have problem with deposits/withdraws... I consider this to be the bare minimum for a bookmaker... Yet, you seem so attached to this ONE specific tiny positive comment, that you keep re-hashing it. Makes me think that this is the ONLY thing that you have to offer to your players.

So, anyone who wants to get a response on "Why do you arbitrarily limit people who were losing in the past but started winning now?", should also quote the "No problem with deposits/withdraws" comment? Are you kidding me?

"So, anyone who has not already played with you and needs to know how well your support is and how you treat your players in order to decide IF he is going to play with you, is not allowed to ask questions?"

What was the question? It was a quote from a non player, full of hate and false accusations, made by a non-player. That quote was in no way relevant to any normal player, it was made on purpose as a hate post in the first place!

"I wanted to know how easily you limit people"

We do limit very fast arbitrage punters! Explanation: out of principle - arbitrage is not gambling. YOU were limited for being an arbitrage player, no other reason - to make this clear to the public!

"So, anyone who wants to get a response on "Why do you arbitrarily limit people who were losing in the past but started winning now?""

The limit was about the amount of betting he was doing, regardless of his bets being winning or not! His betting activity went up to several thousands of EUR/USD equivalent daily, which we considered to be way out of recreational/normal limits.
Why don't you frankly admit that you were worried about us limiting certain amounts of betting stakes JUST BECAUSE you were intending to do arbitrage betting, against our policy? And your arbitrage activity requires high limits.

"I didn't care about the fact that he didn't have problem with deposits/withdraws... I consider this to be the bare minimum for a bookmaker..."

We consider this to be actually EXTREMELY important for players. They can bet with the ease of mind that their winnings will always be paid out INSTANTLY!
Also, what about this part from Debuni: "My first impression was: Great, a Bitcoin bookie with good looking and intuitive site, good odds and good limits." These are not good aspects?
Your only concern is about not getting limited for arbitrage betting?

The quote involved a complaint about a player, quoted by a non-player, asking why you limited him, simply because you never publicly replied to the player.


I was limited on my first bet. The amount was 200mBtc, which is your advertised promotion. And when I was limited, instead of e-mailing my account through your website to let me know that you canceled my bets and limited my account, you chose to private message me here (where I have a different username and you STILL haven't explained to the public how you connected my accounts) and gloat about it. Quit using excuses.


So, anyone who bets large amounts is not recreational? I know people in NY who bet $10k-$15k per day on single events (recreationally) simply because they enjoy it.
Also, the original player said that he had no problem while he was losing, but once he won 3-4 bets, you limited him.


Once again, you are paraphrasing my words. I never said it is not important. It is indeed extremely important. I merely said that it is THE BARE MINIMUM that a bookmaker needs to offer to their players, so, I do not think it is a marketing tool. If everyone speaks English, the fact that you speak English too, does not make you any better.
As for the other aspects, look at my initial post. I, too, admitted that you have a nice looking website with good odds and I was ready to start betting on it, when I realized that it is a trap, and you don't actually let people bet on those odds.

"The quote involved a complaint about a player, quoted by a non-player, asking why you limited him, simply because you never publicly replied to the player."

I don't see any question mark in the quote from s1lverbox. He just took a part of debuni's post and posted it out of context, only for the purpose of attacking us without even being our player and trying out our services. As for replying to the player himself, HE POSTED OUR REPLY TO HIM (given him as pm), therefore there was no need for us to reply again.

"Once again, you are paraphrasing my words. I never said it is not important."

This is what we understood from your statement: "I didn't care about the fact that he didn't have problem with deposits/withdraws..."
Again, this is extremely important for any gambler. For non-gamblers (arbs), this probaly comes in second after concerns about arbitrage activity not being permitted and high betting limits (to make the arbitrage profitable).

You still don't get it. For arbers too, it is very important to have fast and reliable deposits and withdrawals, BUT, it is the minimum service that a bookmaker can offer. If you can't offer that, then you are not even worth checking out your website. The fact that you DO have it, does not give you any advantage over other bookmakers, since they ALL have it (at least the decent ones that are worth checking out).

Question for Powerbet.io,
Why you have shared his e-mail address? It is clearly said under your Privacy Policy that it is "Personal Information." And sharing e-mail together with IP and username with other company(companies?) is breach of privacy. So you have given his personal details to third party...doesn't look very good in my eye!

That is common practice, we can't do much about this. Self moderated  threads were invented to fight trolls or idiots. But it also gives the power of censorship to the original poster.
It is way easier to just delete unfavorable comments than trying to answer them directly. I am not familiar with PowerBet.io and can't tell if they seem fair enough service.
All I know that deleting valid concerns and problems of users is not the best way to conduct business and will create doubts instead.

I, too, am tired of arguing in this thread.

You are stuck on the "If you are not our player, I refuse to comment on your concerns" approach.

My whole opposition to your approach is based on the fact that people need a better definition of your "non-recreational player" conditions. You mentioned that you limited the original player (I don't recall his username) because he started betting large amounts daily.

In my opinion, if you are going to limit people for placing large bets, you should simply have automatic and well defined "max bets" that people know of in advance, or you should at least define "large" in your rules so that people can know in advance where they are getting into and not be limited out of the blue.
For example, I would consider it very honorable and highly acceptable if you mentioned something like "Each player is allowed to wager a maximum of X BTC per day" or something like that.

No player (recreational or not) likes the idea of betting blindly on a website and wondering "Am I going to be limited?".

Better structured rules lead to less ambiguity which in turn leads to more certainty which leads to more players on your platform.

So, if I come now and place a single 200mBtc bet on your platform, am I a non-recreational player? If yes, how do you define it? If I know it in advance, I won't even bother placing it. It will save time both on my side and yours, and I won't break your rules due to ambiguity. See my point?


PS: I can't comment on the mobile version as I haven't used it.

I placed a bet on powerbet on Spartak Moscow +1.5 Asian Handicap, the game ended in a draw (1-1), yet the system showed that I lost.

https://i.imgur.com/fj0lZ3g.png

The image is not edited in any way. I bet on +1.5 and then the support team argued that I had placed a bet on -1.5 and that it was an error of the system, and canceled my bet.

DO NOT TRUST THEM WITH YOUR MONEY. They find ways to lure you in and take your money using shady techniques. In my case, they displayed fake odds, and when I won, they quoted their bullshit Terms of Use that it was an error and canceled my bet. Plain and simple.

"Gambling is an exciting adult leisure pursuit and, at Powerbet, we want our customers to enjoy betting and gaming with us. We are committed to
fair and socially responsible service."

How is if "fair" if you don't let people win?

Your customer service is dismal. I haven't heard a thing from you since making a 400mBtc payout request on March 20th.

I have sufficient info and documents to file criminal complaints at the police or start a court case if required, but I personally think that they will simply process your withdrawal, because everything else will become unlike more expensive for them.

Discussion thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1535816.msg18598520#msg18598520

Seems PowerBet.io is offline now. Did they finally take the rest of the money and run?

Considering that no one of the victims was willing to go after them in Swiss, I do not think that they run.

I agree. You would think they would be happy for the action and the commissions. If they are confident that they always and consistently post good lines, (which I think they do) then no one can take advantage. I think what happens though, is that arbitragers will eventually catch them with some bad lines and beat them. Pinnacle welcomes arbitragers because they are confident that their lines will always deliver them a profit in the long term and they will never get caught with a bad line.

Does anyone know if Powerbet.io closed up and ran off with all customer balances? Or did they refund some account money before closing?

My bet is on the former.