My point is that if you're having to contact support in the first place that indicates there has been a failing of some sort. My point is that I didn't need to contact Cloudbet because I didn't have any problems with them - I would have thought that's pretty obvious.

Don't get me wrong, I think what Directbet do is cool, and I'm surprised no one has copied them yet. I just find the number of ratings for them and comments about them to be a little suspicious.

As for that link above, that's an issue with BetVIP - from what I've read Cloudbet has been trying to help the guy and has kept him updated, but they have no obligation to help him, and they're not in a position to be able to help him as BetVIP won't give them the information he wants.

Sports betting and racing betting are very different - the knowledge and technology required for one is entirely different to what's required for the other. If you're specifically rating "sportsbooks" then horse racing shouldn't come into it at all, maybe you could start a new thread specifically for horse racing? People might find it useful, and you could get some sweet, sweet affiliate referrals! As far as the props you mentioned, it used to be possible to bet on those at some books, I wonder why it's not any more.

I see tonnes of people commenting about Directbet's great service, but why are so many people having to contact them in the first place? I went months at Cloudbet before contacting them for the first time, and in over a year of using them have only contacted them twice.

Cloudbet have better odds than Anonibet, more markets, and my payouts them have been instant for the most part - occasionally I have had to wait a couple of hours.

I suspect the reason Directbet gets so many people rating them is because of their giveaways, free BTC (even if it's only 0.01 BTC or less) is a pretty effective way of creating goodwill.

You know why people don't like you guys? It's because of spammy posts like this. It's a shame, because your product is actually pretty cool.

Anonibet used to have a 10% deposit bonus scheme for it's sportsbook that could put you at a mathematical advantage over the house, however they stopped it once someone figured out how to exploit it and started telling other people.

For the most part though deposit bonuses are designed in a way that in order to clear your rollover requirements you pretty much always have to lose your initial deposit and deposit some more. That said, if you're just playing for fun and want the BTC you deposit to last a bit longer then they're great.

It's to prevent money laundering. In order to comply with their licenses, gambling sites and payment processors are required to get KYC data from you as soon as you go over certain withdrawal thresholds - if they don't they risk losing those licenses, costing them tens of thousands of dollars (as well as risking prosecutions). Bitcoin gambling sites don't need to do it because for the most part they aren't licensed, and those that are are probably licensed in jurisdictions where bitcoin isn't subject to money laundering laws.

Which thread are you replying to? Because this one was asking if provably fair is the new industry standard... which it's clearly not, because as you said at the moment it's new and complicated. At this stage, I'm sure the vast majority of players (at casinos at least - dice sites might be different) don't care or don't understand about provably fair. In general I'm skeptical of any claim that a casino is unfair, just as I'm completely dismissive of people claiming that Pokerstars is rigged - casinos have a mathematical advantage already in their favour, they don't need to cheat players.

Whatever you choose, more people need to know about your site, it's by far the best resource around for BTC sportsbetting reviews and information.

Your content is excellent, would be great to have a place for people to discuss it - have you thought about starting a thread like Peeps Place's one?

I don't doubt your story at all - it's Peeps that I'm disagreeing with. It sounds like the issue is entirely with BetVIP, not Cloudbet (i.e. the information that BetVIP gave Cloudbet regarding your account balance was incorrect), as in an earlier post you said:

They [BetVIP] tell me that I was given four bonuses in my 9/10 months of betting with them......Absolute nonsense, I was given the one when I joined just like everyone else and turned it over many, many, many times.

This guy is correct.

I assume OP is talking about sites where you create an account, deposit to that account, then start betting (Cloudbet, Anonibet, Bitcasino, etc) not dice sites and sites like Directbet and Nitrogen where you don't need to make an account - generally on these sites (Cloudbet etc) you will be able to start betting as soon as you've made your deposit, with no confirmations required, but won't let you withdraw without three confirmations.

The reason is that when you make a deposit there's no double spend risk to the site - you can start playing straight away, and even if you have double-spent your coins they don't lose anything (the worst that can happen for them is that you lose your entire balance to them, but then it turns out your balance wasn't legitimate to begin with so they don't actually make any BTC from you). However, if they allow you to withdraw some of your balance, all of your balance, or your balance and your winnings, and then they find out that you double-spent your coins, they'll have paid you out without ever receiving anything from you in the first place. By waiting for confirmations before allowing you to withdraw, they're ensuring that your deposit was legit.

TLDR: There's no risk to a site in accepting a deposit and letting you play straight away, but if they allow you to withdraw before your deposit has been confirmed they expose themselves to people double-spending.

EDIT: I think I misunderstood.. is OP asking about non-bitcoin sites? If so, then the answer is pretty much the same. If you bet and lose all your money then there's not risk to the site, but if you try to withdraw then there's a risk that you're actually laundering money - that's when the KYC stuff comes into play (ID, bank statement, utility bill, etc), it's part of their licensing requirements in order to stop money laundering.

Unfortunately you're right - there's a few with good pre-live lines, but not so much when it comes to live lines.

That's brilliant.

It's so lame they're doing this - they've got an innovative product, they shouldn't have to engage in such blatant astroturfing - it makes threads like this one a pain in the ass to sort through to look for genuine comments.

Anonibet - 4
Been around for a long time and led the way for everyone else, so have to give them credit for that. They've got a pretty complete offering (with live betting), though their odds aren't very competitive and it doesn't look as though they're putting a lot of effort into improving their product - it's a pity as they are getting left behind a little bit.

Cloudbet - 5
Their odds are as good as any going, they've got the best live betting out of anyone, their limits are very high (not that I ever come anywhere close to them), they've got the best mobile site by a mile, and they're pretty consistently updating their site and adding new features. The only thing they're missing is live chat.

Nitrogen - 3
They do pre-live very well, with odds as good as Cloudbet and fairly high limits, however without live betting no site should bet any more than a 3 in my opinion - this is such a standard feature in online betting now, there's really no excuse not to have it.

Directbet - 1
I like that they're innovative and taking advantage of some of BTC's inherent properties to create a very unique product, but the way they clearly must encourage people to post positive revues (not sure how, I guess maybe it's a condition of getting the prize for their prediction contests) is ridiculous. Got to give them a 1 to cancel out at least one of those bogus ratings.

Jetwin I haven't tried, it looks OK, but have read that they're pretty open about cutting limits for winning bettors, and I've also read of them stiffing players in the past claiming that they were pros (even if they were, it's not an excuse to cancel bets they've already placed). Also they don't appear to offer live betting.

I just visited your site for the first time in a while, so glad to see that you've updated your homepage!

Yeah but they (Nitrogen) have been saying this for over a year and so far what have they had, two games? I haven't tried Betcoin so can't comment on them.


Seriously? You're complaining about 17 hours? I guess some people are just hard to please.

Cloudbet has taken over responsibility for paying out player accounts, but based on what tonyq has said the issue is with BetVIP saying that he didn't have any available balance to transfer to Cloudbet - this isn't Cloudbet's responsibility at all as the balance clearly hasn't been transferred to them. The issue is with BetVIP, unless you're suggesting that Cloudbet should pay out entirely based on tonyq's word, despite it obviously contradicting the information that BetVIP provided. As I said, he should complain to the licensing authority... that's what they're there for.

Cloudbet is probably your best option. Anonibet also have live betting but the interface and betting options aren't as good.

I don't really know much about SEO, but wouldn't changing your site URL mean you have to start from scratch? And it looks like bitcoin-betting-guide.com is ranking pretty well? Again, I don't know much about SEO, so please correct me if I'm wrong.