#1 RATINGS and REVIEWS of SPORTS BOOKS thread. Poster input appreciated.

[Rating Place]

My account was hacked into at Casinobitcoin. Someone asked for a withdrawal. The money was taken out of my account but Casinobitcoin caught it. They sent me an email asking if I requested the withdrawal. I told them it was someone else and I didn't lose any funds. They put the bitcoins back in my account.

Do you know anything specific re: how the hacking was accomplished?

Any tips specific to this incident or book to prevent others from getting hacked there?

I didn't ask and I'm not sure how it happened. They asked me to enable 2FA in the future with google authenticator. I haven't had a problem with any other book past as far as someone hacking into my account.

[Rating Place]

At the beginning, when this ratings thread started, there was a list of criteria that was used to determine the rating of each sportsbook. We were given a rating of B and Anonibet were the top rated sportsbook with a rating of A.

I went over the list of criteria, one by one, and proved that in each and every category we are as good or better than Anonibet. And so I asked Peeps why we are rated lower ?

Various ill-informed reasons were given, such as that we offer a smaller variety of bets, which I corrected.

If you'd like to read the full conversation, it starts here :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=448302.msg6137493#msg6137493

A few hours later, Peeps changed the ratings criteria so that Anonibet can be the only book with a rating of A. Not surprisingly, they retained their rating of A and our rating was downgraded to C. Furthermore, the list of criteria used to determine ratings disappeared. Instead, Peeps listed all top Bitcoin sportbooks by sorting them in the order in which they were opened.

My question to you Peeps is, what is the reasoning by which you rated Anonibet higher than all other Bitcoin sportbooks ?

And I'd like to put this up here for a debate with other users. Lets have a discussion. Do you agree with Peeps, that Anonibet should be rated higher than all other Bitcoin sportbooks ?

Posters wanted stricter revisions. One poster mentioned that new books shouldn't be given high ratings. He makes a good point. The changes in the rating system hurt Nitrogen while it benefited Anonibet. In another thread votes were taken and Anonibet was #1. The only book in existence longer than 2 years is Anonibet, They have been in business for 3 years. I'm not sure what your obsession is with Anonibet.

The ratings aren't perfect and have to be tailored to markets, offerings, etc for each individual player. The reason for poster feedback is so that we can all read experiences of others and share information. Poster opinion will make changes in the ratings, not you or any other book. That said, I hope that the books will continue to post and answer questions.

[Rating Place]

DirectBet - If you want to talk about your book, let's do it. If you want to talk about another book, leave that to us.

We're in a commercial break. Here's the odds on the total 183.5 Chi/Wash.

Over 1.56 (-156)
Under 1.83 (-120)

What do you think of this?

I'll edit and update this thread so as not to keep adding posts.

Mets total -227/+100
WSox total -156/-141
Tor total also -156/-141
Commercial break. Bulls total -370/+154
Yankees -270/+116

I think you get the point so I'll stop here.

[Legions36]

DirectBet- You are defeating the purpose of this thread. BitcoinzRulez is a respected poster that plays at the books. If he has a problem or dislike with a book, his opinion holds weight. We need experiences from all posters in this thread. We have questions for books in this thread. That's the purpose of the thread. Start new threads for personal squabbles.

BitcoinRulez maybe be respected by u and others by being truthful and such, but BitcoinRulez is by far the dumbest poster and better i have ever come across. Please Peeps Place don't condone people to max deposit and max bet at shops that are open 2 months this way they don't think its ok to do something as stupid as this poster, this way at least if the place turns out to be a scam they people won't lose out more then they should have.

GOD, you are just painfully ignorant to continue blaming me for a shady book.  NO ONE got paid, no matter how much or little they made.  the whole thing was a scam.  had i not won any money, people still wouldn't have gotten paid.  really, your stupidity is unmatched in the betting community and you should refrain from ever posting again.

I'm not blaming u for what happened I'm just pointing out to others posters to do the exact opposite of what moronic stuff u feel is ok too do. If u can't admit that ur foolish for trusting that kind of money in a new shop that would not be able to sustain that model they had then u have some serious issues and r just as dumb as that stiff shop. Just because I have the money to max deposit and max bet in a place doesn't mean I trust them to do it, I only tried them with a few hundred and glad I did.

[Legions36]

At the beginning, when this ratings thread started, there was a list of criteria that was used to determine the rating of each sportsbook. We were given a rating of B and Anonibet were the top rated sportsbook with a rating of A.

I went over the list of criteria, one by one, and proved that in each and every category we are as good or better than Anonibet. And so I asked Peeps why we are rated lower ?

Various ill-informed reasons were given, such as that we offer a smaller variety of bets, which I corrected.

If you'd like to read the full conversation, it starts here :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=448302.msg6137493#msg6137493

A few hours later, Peeps changed the ratings criteria so that Anonibet can be the only book with a rating of A. Not surprisingly, they retained their rating of A and our rating was downgraded to C. Furthermore, the list of criteria used to determine ratings disappeared. Instead, Peeps listed all top Bitcoin sportbooks by sorting them in the order in which they were opened.

My question to you Peeps is, what is the reasoning by which you rated Anonibet higher than all other Bitcoin sportbooks ?

And I'd like to put this up here for a debate with other users. Lets have a discussion. Do you agree with Peeps, that Anonibet should be rated higher than all other Bitcoin sportbooks ?

My question to u is what is the reasoning u feel u should be in the same category of another book that has been proven for years.? Do u have this good standing? Can u say u have been around more than 6months? I understand your concern but time heels everything and to think u deserve to be an A already is beyond my thinking. Maybe after u prove yourself in a few years of great bookmaking then u would deserve this.

[Rating Place]

We're still getting great daily feedback from the posters. Thanks again guys.

[Bismarckbkk]

I think it makes sense to give a max grade based on how long a book had been in buisiness.

Maybe to a startup book it seems unfair but to the customer its most important criteria. You want your money to be as safe as possible, that is the #1 criteria.

Directbet, do you have any proof peeps place is getting paid by anoni to tailor thread for them?

Lets assume peeps is getting paid, this thread depends on user feedback, that means his rating has to be congruent with user feeback. Personally I have used this thread to leave feedback and although I agree anoni isnt up to par with other books when it comes to odds and utility but they have proven themselves trustworthy and especially for new players I consider this most important.

I havent played at your book but if you have genuine reason as to why your book is unfairly graded you should tell us why your book deserves to be higher graded and not speculate is just because peeps gets paid by anoni.

[DirectBet]

DirectBet - If you want to talk about your book, let's do it. If you want to talk about another book, leave that to us.

We're in a commercial break. Here's the odds on the total 183.5 Chi/Wash.

Over 1.56 (-156)
Under 1.83 (-120)

What do you think of this?

You keep providing extreme examples and discrediting us for offering bets that are not available by your top rated sportbooks.

It is now obvious that you are getting paid to promote certain books here, which also happen to be on top of your list.

You should disclose that in the opening post.

Had you were unbiased, you would have also posted the offering of same bets by Anonibet, your top rated Bitcoin sportsbook, as a comparison.

During in-play, those who bet while watching the game have a tremendous advantage. There is also a great level of uncertainty and as a result odds are not reliable. To level this, books have to reduce the odds more than usual.

You might not find these bets valuable and can simply skip them, but others do find them appealing, despite the reduced odds.

Our gross profit to date from in-play betting is 3%, out of which we give back to players 1% as part of our VIP program and other promotions, leaving us with a 2% net profit margin.

This profit margin is just about right and a true indication that our odds are set up correctly.

[DirectBet]

You want your money to be as safe as possible, that is the #1 criteria.

It doesn't matter how long the book is in business. All that matters is what practices they are taking to protect users funds.

Bitbook was considered by many the most trusted Bitcoin sportsbook, it was their slogan and they never failed to pay a winning bet. Yet one day they too disappeared without paying all their customers.

You might argue that the more time the book is in business, the less chance there is for them to disappear. But on the other hand, the more time the book is in business, the more customers they have, the more deposits they hold, the more incentive for them to steal it and disappear.

Take for example Full Tilt Poker. They were the second largest on-line poker room for a decade, endorsed by dozens of top players, you would have rated them AAA+++ and players felt confident to keep there millions, yet they too stole hundreds of millions dollars from players deposits and had Poker Stars not buy them out, most of that money would have been gone. Same for Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, all top on-line poker rooms at the time with the exception Poker Stars.

If security is your concern, for rating purposes, you should dig deeper into what is done to protect users funds.

For your Bitcoins to be safe in a sportsbook account, the sportsbook needs to store all user-owned Bitcoins (deposits and winnings) in a separate account from the account used to pay for their daily operations, in a similar way that Poker Stars is doing for its Poker players. In addition, it needs to make sure that there is always more than enough funds in the segregated account to cover all user balances in the event that everyone will want to withdrawal their entire balances at the same time.

Furthermore, they need to prove that they control the Bitcoins in the segregated account, and allow an independent 3rd party to audit it at any time.

Finally, they need to demonstrate that access to the cold storage of Bitcoins is not limited to one or two persons, otherwise, in the unfortunate event that something terrible happens to them, the Bitcoins will be gone. For this reason, the sportsbooks need to provide a 3rd independent and trusted escrow service with an access to the segregated Bitcoins that are used to cover user balances, and an authorization to distribute them to their owners in unfortunate circumstances.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the Bitcoin sportsbooks follow this practice or a similar one, and therefore your Bitcoins are not safe in any of them, regardless of how long they are in business.

Stating that they have the Bitcoins in a cold storage is meaningless. They need to prove it, they need to allow an independent 3rd party to audit it at any time, and they need to show how you will get your Bitcoins in the unfortunate event that the people in control of it die.

Recently, there have been many Bitcoin sportsbooks that disappeared with all user balances. Unfortunately, as history has learned us, this will continue as long as there is no true protection to the users, similar to the one provided by Poker Stars in the poker industry.

Why DirectBet is the safest Bitcoin Sportsbook ?

We are the safest Bitcoin sportsbook for the simple reason that we do not take deposits and keep hold of your valuable Bitcoins, except during the lifetime of the bet and only the amount that you elected to bet. This period of time is kept to the minimum thanks to the fact that we settle all bets within an hour. Your Bitcoins are kept safe in your wallet under your control at all other times.

We are different than other Bitcoin sportbooks, who take deposits and keep hold of your Bitcoins for no good reason. By doing so, your Bitcoins are left vulnerable to theft or loss, and there is always the risk that the sportsbook will disappear, taking your Bitcoins along the way, or spend them on their operational costs, or use them to pay winning players, essentially turning into a Ponzi scheme, or otherwise prevent you from withdrawing for various dishonest reasons, as happened countless of times in the past.

In fact, to date, there hasn't been a single Bitcoin sportsbook that we are aware of, which ceased operation gracefylly and honored all withdrawal requests.

Currently, none of the other Bitcoin sportbooks take the necessary steps to truly protect deposits in a similar way that Poker Stars is doing in the on-line Poker industry for its Poker players, and therefore your Bitcoins are not safe in any of them.

[WhatsBitcoin]

You want your money to be as safe as possible, that is the #1 criteria.

It doesn't matter how long the book is in business. All that matters is what practices they are taking to protect users funds.

Bitbook was considered by many the most trusted Bitcoin sportsbook, it was their slogan and they never failed to pay a winning bet. Yet one day they too disappeared without paying all their customers.

You might argue that the more time the book is in business, the less chance there is for them to disappear. But on the other hand, the more time the book is in business, the more customers they have, the more deposits they hold, the more incentive for them to steal it and disappear.

Take for example Full Tilt Poker. They were the second largest on-line poker room for a decade, endorsed by dozens of top players, you would have rated them AAA+++ and players felt confident to keep there millions, yet they too stole hundreds of millions dollars from players deposits and had Poker Stars not buy them out, most of that money would have been gone. Same for Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, all top on-line poker rooms at the time with the exception Poker Stars.

If security is your concern, for rating purposes, you should dig deeper into what is done to protect users funds.

For your Bitcoins to be safe in a sportsbook account, the sportsbook needs to store all user-owned Bitcoins (deposits and winnings) in a separate account from the account used to pay for their daily operations, in a similar way that Poker Stars is doing for its Poker players. In addition, it needs to make sure that there is always more than enough funds in the segregated account to cover all user balances in the event that everyone will want to withdrawal their entire balances at the same time.

Furthermore, they need to prove that they control the Bitcoins in the segregated account, and allow an independent 3rd party to audit it at any time.

Finally, they need to demonstrate that access to the cold storage of Bitcoins is not limited to one or two persons, otherwise, in the unfortunate event that something terrible happens to them, the Bitcoins will be gone. For this reason, the sportsbooks need to provide a 3rd independent and trusted escrow service with an access to the segregated Bitcoins that are used to cover user balances, and an authorization to distribute them to their owners in unfortunate circumstances.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the Bitcoin sportsbooks follow this practice or a similar one, and therefore your Bitcoins are not safe in any of them, regardless of how long they are in business.

Stating that they have the Bitcoins in a cold storage is meaningless. They need to prove it, they need to allow an independent 3rd party to audit it at any time, and they need to show how you will get your Bitcoins in the unfortunate event that the people in control of it die.

Recently, there have been many Bitcoin sportsbooks that disappeared with all user balances. Unfortunately, as history has learned us, this will continue as long as there is no true protection to the users, similar to the one provided by Poker Stars in the poker industry.

Why DirectBet is the safest Bitcoin Sportsbook ?

We are the safest Bitcoin sportsbook for the simple reason that we do not take deposits and keep hold of your valuable Bitcoins, except during the lifetime of the bet and only the amount that you elected to bet. This period of time is kept to the minimum thanks to the fact that we settle all bets within an hour. Your Bitcoins are kept safe in your wallet under your control at all other times.

We are different than other Bitcoin sportbooks, who take deposits and keep hold of your Bitcoins for no good reason. By doing so, your Bitcoins are left vulnerable to theft or loss, and there is always the risk that the sportsbook will disappear, taking your Bitcoins along the way, or spend them on their operational costs, or use them to pay winning players, essentially turning into a Ponzi scheme, or otherwise prevent you from withdrawing for various dishonest reasons, as happened countless of times in the past.

In fact, to date, there hasn't been a single Bitcoin sportsbook that we are aware of, which ceased operation gracefylly and honored all withdrawal requests.

Currently, none of the other Bitcoin sportbooks take the necessary steps to truly protect deposits in a similar way that Poker Stars is doing in the on-line Poker industry for its Poker players, and therefore your Bitcoins are not safe in any of them.

You are all words, you have been in business for <90 days and you think you're to be fully trusted and such? WRONG. If you really want to be trusted, then you should have no problem entrusting a trustworthy member of this community to hold 20-50 BTC of yours then to prove you are here to stay. Say one day 5 huge bets come in and they all win, losing you 50 BTC. Some books would run especially newer books. Blockbet for example, user accepted 10 BTC bets was here for months and then poof ran.

You have been here for less than 3 months, your grade should be a C.

[DirectBet]

Say one day 5 huge bets come in and they all win, losing you 50 BTC. Some books would run especially newer books. Blockbet for example, user accepted 10 BTC bets was here for months and then poof ran.

We are very well funded and have never failed to pay a winning bet.

Our automated betting system will reject and refund your bet immediately if there is insufficient funds to pay it off at the completion of the event. Once your bet is confirmed, you can rest assured that we have allocated funds to pay it off.

That said, you don't have to take our word for it. We've created a thread dedicated to DirectBet here. If we ever failed to pay, or if there is any other problem, you will surely hear about it there.

Yes we are relatively new, we opened 5 months ago, but the point is that unlike others, we are not taking deposits, so there isn't much to "run away with" as you say.

[Rating Place]

DirectBet - Once again you are making untrue statements about lines that you have and those of other books. Would you like to take this argument to your Directbet thread and keep it out of here? I would appreciate if that could be done. I asked you to just talk about DirectBet but you continue to talk about other books. Other books abide by this request and have no desire to fight with a new start up book. Let the posters rip into Anonibet if they deem it justified.

[NitrogenSports]

The guys who run direct bet seem like good people, and I think they are filling a gap created by the Bit365 / bitcoinsports.eu meltdown.

That being said, just wanted to add to the conversation a bit regarding the safety of user balances on bitcoin sportsbooks.

Books that offer instant (0 confirmation deposits) and instant withdraws can have the best of both worlds. While users are free to keep a balance on our website, we have some users who send funds to the site seconds before a game starts, place their bet, and withdraw right after the game is graded. The funds are only on our servers for the duration of the bet, and only for the amount they want to bet with.

Again, not saying one method is better than the other, just saying that the formula to being the 'safest sportsbook' is definitely a complicated beast!

Happy Betting!

[Rating Place]

Nitrogen - Any time frame on the exchange? I know many are looking forward to it.

[NitrogenSports]

Nitrogen - Any time frame on the exchange? I know many are looking forward to it.

We did a limited launch tonight with some of the NBA Playoff games. We got a lot of great feedback from our users, and are going to continue to tweak and add features over the next few days. Hopefully will be fully launched sometime next week. Most likely we will bump our thread at that time. You can get some more information on the 'Exchange Information' page under the 'Exchange' menu if anyone is curious about the details.

[Rating Place]

Nitrogen - Any time frame on the exchange? I know many are looking forward to it.

We did a limited launch tonight with some of the NBA Playoff games. We got a lot of great feedback from our users, and are going to continue to tweak and add features over the next few days. Hopefully will be fully launched sometime next week. Most likely we will bump our thread at that time. You can get some more information on the 'Exchange Information' page under the 'Exchange' menu if anyone is curious about the details.

Thanks

[Bismarckbkk]

You want your money to be as safe as possible, that is the #1 criteria.

It doesn't matter how long the book is in business. All that matters is what practices they are taking to protect users funds.

Bitbook was considered by many the most trusted Bitcoin sportsbook, it was their slogan and they never failed to pay a winning bet. Yet one day they too disappeared without paying all their customers.

You might argue that the more time the book is in business, the less chance there is for them to disappear. But on the other hand, the more time the book is in business, the more customers they have, the more deposits they hold, the more incentive for them to steal it and disappear.

Take for example Full Tilt Poker. They were the second largest on-line poker room for a decade, endorsed by dozens of top players, you would have rated them AAA+++ and players felt confident to keep there millions, yet they too stole hundreds of millions dollars from players deposits and had Poker Stars not buy them out, most of that money would have been gone. Same for Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, all top on-line poker rooms at the time with the exception Poker Stars.

If security is your concern, for rating purposes, you should dig deeper into what is done to protect users funds.

For your Bitcoins to be safe in a sportsbook account, the sportsbook needs to store all user-owned Bitcoins (deposits and winnings) in a separate account from the account used to pay for their daily operations, in a similar way that Poker Stars is doing for its Poker players. In addition, it needs to make sure that there is always more than enough funds in the segregated account to cover all user balances in the event that everyone will want to withdrawal their entire balances at the same time.

Furthermore, they need to prove that they control the Bitcoins in the segregated account, and allow an independent 3rd party to audit it at any time.

Finally, they need to demonstrate that access to the cold storage of Bitcoins is not limited to one or two persons, otherwise, in the unfortunate event that something terrible happens to them, the Bitcoins will be gone. For this reason, the sportsbooks need to provide a 3rd independent and trusted escrow service with an access to the segregated Bitcoins that are used to cover user balances, and an authorization to distribute them to their owners in unfortunate circumstances.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the Bitcoin sportsbooks follow this practice or a similar one, and therefore your Bitcoins are not safe in any of them, regardless of how long they are in business.

Stating that they have the Bitcoins in a cold storage is meaningless. They need to prove it, they need to allow an independent 3rd party to audit it at any time, and they need to show how you will get your Bitcoins in the unfortunate event that the people in control of it die.

Recently, there have been many Bitcoin sportsbooks that disappeared with all user balances. Unfortunately, as history has learned us, this will continue as long as there is no true protection to the users, similar to the one provided by Poker Stars in the poker industry.

Why DirectBet is the safest Bitcoin Sportsbook ?

We are the safest Bitcoin sportsbook for the simple reason that we do not take deposits and keep hold of your valuable Bitcoins, except during the lifetime of the bet and only the amount that you elected to bet. This period of time is kept to the minimum thanks to the fact that we settle all bets within an hour. Your Bitcoins are kept safe in your wallet under your control at all other times.

We are different than other Bitcoin sportbooks, who take deposits and keep hold of your Bitcoins for no good reason. By doing so, your Bitcoins are left vulnerable to theft or loss, and there is always the risk that the sportsbook will disappear, taking your Bitcoins along the way, or spend them on their operational costs, or use them to pay winning players, essentially turning into a Ponzi scheme, or otherwise prevent you from withdrawing for various dishonest reasons, as happened countless of times in the past.

In fact, to date, there hasn't been a single Bitcoin sportsbook that we are aware of, which ceased operation gracefylly and honored all withdrawal requests.

Currently, none of the other Bitcoin sportbooks take the necessary steps to truly protect deposits in a similar way that Poker Stars is doing in the on-line Poker industry for its Poker players, and therefore your Bitcoins are not safe in any of them.

Thank you, I will use your book in the future. I also appreciate the promotion.

Full Tilt Poker had terrible customer service with email replies taking weeks and  nothing getting solved. Their cashouts took long as well. The reason I never played there.

Any company can go broke , nothing is ever safe but there is a degree of certainty that comes with how long a book has been buisiness. In case of Full Tilt Poker or MtGox the writing has been on the wall for anyone who wanted to see. If nitroen or anoni started to delay withdrawals they would be downgraded here as well.

Yes a perfectly well run sportsbook can one day disappear into sun but that doesnt mean theyre less trustworthy then startup books.

Imho you should aim to satisfy your customers and build a reputation, then you will see your customer bade increase. To be honest the ratings in this book are just for beginners and therefore I think the ratings are fair.

Maybe your rating is unjustified but it will improve. Best of luck

[Bismarckbkk]

By the way cloudbet hasnt graded my mlb wagers as of yet. Some games finished 4 - 5 hours ago. I understand some delay but this is really long.

[Bismarckbkk]

@ directbet after looking at your odds I have to say I wont play at your book in the future

Here are some odds for mlb compared to cloud bet: cloudbet red directbet blue

MIL STL  - 196 / + 142 - 175 / + 154

CLE LAA  - 182 / + 132 - 166 / + 144

NYM PHI - 238 / + 172  - 222 / + 192

SEA NYY  - 182 / + 134  - 166 / + 146


You accused peeps place of bias earlier finding extreme examples and not comparing anonibet lines.

Well these are standard mlb runlines, hardly extreme examples and theyre the first 4 games beginning from top of the list, not selective and even anoni who has arguably the worst odds among the best rated books has better lines.

[Cloudbet]

By the way cloudbet hasnt graded my mlb wagers as of yet. Some games finished 4 - 5 hours ago. I understand some delay but this is really long.

Hi Bismarckbkk,

Our MLB result data arrives later than most other sports so unfortunately at the moment they can take a little longer than we would like to grade. We're working on it though, and will grade faster as soon as we can.

Thanks for the feedback!

Cheers,
Cloudbet

PS we are launching some awesome new stuff next week!