3 things to check before joining a crypto bookie (KYC, Provider, Reserve)

[AB de Royse777]

This topic is not about AdkinsBET however, AdkinsBET has used only for referencing since the experience was earned by dealing some cases against them and some cases against other sportsbooks on the forum.

The recent experiences of observing and dealing some cases against AdkinsBET.com (random proven cases: 1, 2, 3 etc and  a discussions about their reputation) should teach us some lessons.

Before joining and depositing a large amount and bet high with the hope of winning big on a new gambling site, check:
(Soft reference: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5309454.msg56125594#msg56125594)

1. Who does KYC for the bookie?
Every single bookie will ask for KYC if you win Big. So do not get very excited after seeing any clause that stats that they do not have KYC. So prepare yourself to be KYCed at any stage, but it is important to know their KYC providers/verifiers.

If this is an in-house team instead of any reputed third-party KYC verifier then do not submit your personal documents. Do not trust a casino who just popped up without having years of fairly clear experience. Your personal details are not safe with them. They can use your personal details against you in anything.

So, only give your personal details if a reputed third-party KYC provider is working with them otherwise move on.

2. Who are their game providers?
It is important to know the game providers. The provider of 1xBet are really shady if I am not wrong. I am not sure if adkisbet has the same provider. There are people who know 1xBet providers. I would suggest people who know well about providers to mark the shady providers. I will update them in this post. Hopefully this will help many people in their researches and save them getting scammed by a shady sportbookie/casino.

3. Know how much money they have in reserve to run the gambling business.
A casino should have a large reserve of bitcoin so that they can pay any high winnings and run the business smoothly. In the case of AdkinsBET, some of us are pretty convinced that they do not have money to pay their clients.

I am considering all these for a crypto bookie, if you are with a fiat bookie then verifying #3 is out of scope.

Spend some time in the above references also the references left in the feedback left for AdkinsBET. This may help you to not get scammed by a bookie who has not established them yet in the community.

Self moderated topic to prevent the following users and users who have similar posting habits. These users have no value to provide but blatantly defend the casinos they like or get paid for or whatever reasons they have.
sempak, Cacingkemi, MI6, BitcoinAccepted, deadthings, aomakun, BTCGOLD, imutlinda, cutesgirl, codegnome, coin.princess, MonsterV, BlackFor3st, ronaldo40, wildan88
A soft reference: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5308700.msg56126109#msg56126109

[AB de Royse777]

More check list and thanks to the following user/s.

4. Check scam accusations against a bookie and how they respond to it.

[kryptqnick]

Interesting points, op.
I've never worried about such stuff because I don't spend much on gambling and because I've never had issues.
I've known that it's important to read about the KYC policy, but I haven't thought about the importance of who does the procedure... Could you mention where such information is usually available for top crypto casinos? Or do you mean that one should contact support and ask before making a deposit?
And the same goes for the reserve of money the casino has because while I agree they should have enough, I haven't seen such info on the websites (maybe I wasn't paying attention though).

[Yogee]

1. Who does KYC for the bookie?
Every single bookie will ask for KYC if you win Big. So do not get very excited after seeing any clause that stats that they do not have KYC. So prepare yourself to be KYCed at any stage, but it is important to know their KYC providers/verifiers.

If this is an in-house team instead of any reputed third-party KYC verifier then do not submit your personal documents. Do not trust a casino who just popped up without having years of fairly clear experience. Your personal details are not safe with them. They can use your personal details against you in anything.

So, only give your personal details if a reputed third-party KYC provider is working with them otherwise move on.

I would completely agree with this if the team is completely anonymous but would it make any difference if they are licensed? I mean there are still certain standards that they have to comply with even if they got it from Curacao or from more shady license providers. They are also covered by the GDPR am I correct?

I'm referring all and not just the casino used as reference.

3. Know how much money they have in reserve to run the gambling business.
A casino should have a large reserve of bitcoin so that they can pay any high winnings and run the business smoothly. In the case of AdkinsBET, some of us are pretty convinced that they do not have money to pay their clients.

Has any bookie actually done this? Every company would try to hide their true assets for security [and tax] reasons.

.......

1.
2.
3.
4. Check scam accusations against a bookie and how they respond to it.

[AB de Royse777]

Could you mention where such information is usually available

I have not seen any bookie to have this information on their site. Maybe you can individually ask them through their support or if they have a ANN thread on the forum.

I remember when I was dealing with a case against sportsbet.io, Steve was saying some third-party KYC providers (after googling I learnt about them, I can not remember them now though). Maybe once you have a name then contact those KYC providers and ask about the Casino.

Regarding the reserved fund, you can simply ask them to sign a bitcoin address that is holding a large amount of BTC for their business. If you are here to business in Bitcoin then accept the bitcoin ideology. A business is not personal. Cloudbet or some other bookie was once questioned, and they did not have any problem to prove their reserved.

I would completely agree with this if the team is completely anonymous but would it make any difference if they are licensed? I mean there are still certain standards that they have to comply with even if they got it from Curacao or from more shady license providers. They are also covered by the GDPR am I correct?

I have no idea how these licence providers work, never really dealt with them to judge their service. My experiences are limited to involve in scam accusations against the bookies only on this forum.

If you we consider the common TOS the bookies have - most of them are just plain BS and there for to protect the bookies only. As a punter a client always at risk to lose money when bookies have bad intentions.

Besides, I see a crypto bookie should not have a centralized authority, what's the point of those licence providers when they only can suspend (I guess) your licence if you turn out to be shady. I do not think many punters seek aid from the court too. Have you seen many cases that were in the court. A bookie should grow up by the reputation they have in the crypto community if they are a crypto bookie. Most of all, they need to be transparent to the community. In bitcoin, we verify don't trust.

4. Check scam accusations against a bookie and how they respond to it.

Good one. I will add in the reserved post.

[leea-1334]

I feel like the third requirement is almost impossible to look at unless you are a pure crypto bookie. This is where p2p is kind of the best in my opinion, since the market makers already stake their bankroll there and it is all smart contract or escrow funds, you win the bankroll, or they win your stake. Most casinos would be uncomfortable sharing it.

[Yogee]

....
Besides, I see a crypto bookie should not have a centralized authority, what's the point of those licence providers when they only can suspend (I guess) your licence if you turn out to be shady. I do not think many punters seek aid from the court too. Have you seen many cases that were in the court.

I doubt punters would bother filing a case against casinos too unless it's hundreds of thousands or millions. What I'm thinking is this same scenario can be said to third party KYC verifier also. They can pretend that they are handling your personal information with utmost care but who knows if they are also doing something shady? I bet none of the punters [or a few] would complain if there are breaches too.

[Darker45]

Regarding the reserved fund, you can simply ask them to sign a bitcoin address that is holding a large amount of BTC for their business.

I very highly doubt users can just do this and be accommodated with a very transparent response from the gambling sites. Unless there is a very convincing reason for these platforms to reveal their reserve funds, I doubt they will just open it to everyone interested. A starting betting site may do so, though, to earn the trust of potential clients.

I would completely agree with this if the team is completely anonymous but would it make any difference if they are licensed? I mean there are still certain standards that they have to comply with even if they got it from Curacao or from more shady license providers. They are also covered by the GDPR am I correct?

From what I've read, the foremost reason why a very high percentage of all gambling sites are getting their licenses from Curacao is that licenses there are as cheap and accessible as peanuts. While there are standards, they're mostly in the letters only and never implemented in reality.

I'm afraid Curacao is beyond reach of GDPR. Please correct me if I'm wrong but GDPR's scope is only EU.

[ralle14]

I feel like the third requirement is almost impossible to look at unless you are a pure crypto bookie.

Even if they're pure crypto you're still unlikely to find their reserve of most bookies unless there's a website that actually verifies it similar to how dicesites confirm the bankroll of certain gambling sites.

3. Know how much money they have in reserve to run the gambling business.
A casino should have a large reserve of bitcoin so that they can pay any high winnings and run the business smoothly. In the case of AdkinsBET, some of us are pretty convinced that they do not have money to pay their clients.

Has any bookie actually done this? Every company would try to hide their true assets for security [and tax] reasons.

The only bookie I know that does this is Fairlay and they have it under their FAQs.

Our cold storage address is 1EV8YeieYEZ7iksGT9jS7KdcbE12pk4FwZ.

The sum of all issued credit to our customers will always be less than the amount of Bitcoins in that address

[Lorence.xD]

I feel like the third requirement is almost impossible to look at unless you are a pure crypto bookie. This is where p2p is kind of the best in my opinion, since the market makers already stake their bankroll there and it is all smart contract or escrow funds, you win the bankroll, or they win your stake. Most casinos would be uncomfortable sharing it.

I think so too, this seems to be a private matter for me because AFAIK reserves are part of internal management of a website.

Adkinsbet is getting grilled for the controversies that they are facing right now, no matter what OP says about this checklist not being Adkinsbet, in my personal opinion, if you are used as an example be it good or bad, you deserved that position.

[leea-1334]

I feel like the third requirement is almost impossible to look at unless you are a pure crypto bookie.

Even if they're pure crypto you're still unlikely to find their reserve of most bookies unless there's a website that actually verifies it similar to how dicesites confirm the bankroll of certain gambling sites.

What I meant to say is that only pure crypto can show this (by giving the address and signing from the holding address) as this is really the only way to prove bankroll. Even if you have other people verify it for you,,, this still means trusting another authority who could possibly be colluding with the casino. We all know self verification is the only way, so this is a very unrealistic expectation:)

[kryptqnick]

Thanks for replying about the info availability.
I have another problem to point out, though, and it's related to the amount of reserved money. Let's say I ask a casino about the reserve, but how much is actually enough? 10 BTC is a huge amount of money for me, for instance, but I don't know if it's enough to run a casino. Moreover, doesn't it largely depend on how popular the casino is and what's its traffic? If it's a new casino with small maximum bets and about 20 players, having 1 BTC in reserve might be good, but if it's a casino with thousands of people playing daily, it's another story. How is this "enough" supposed to be calculated?

[ryzaadit]

-snip-

That's why some casinos limited your winning based on how much bankroll they have.

This to prevent some users who really lucky to win over the bankroll of the casino, most casinos 80% will be always have limited winning based on the bankroll they have. The max win will be always volatility if their bankroll increase the max win was also increase but when the bankroll decrease the max win was also descrease.

So, IMO 10 BTC not gonna be a problem for some new casino as long they limited the max win based on their bankroll but they should have some other reserve money just for some case.

[Pmalek]

I have not seen any bookie to have this information on their site...Maybe once you have a name then contact those KYC providers and ask about the Casino.

Question is, are they allowed to revel that information to the general public!? Maybe it would be considered a contractual breach of some sorts with the casinos and business partners?

I took a quick look at BlockPass for example.
https://blockpass.org/about/

Although they mention plenty of names, mostly cryptocurrency exchanges, not a single casino is mentioned by name there. But they do provide services for casinos as well.

@sempak
You are breaking the local rules by replying in this thread.

[blockman]

KYC is something more common. Have the suspicion that this has to do with the licensee from the country concerned. If they require it from a gambling site, you have to stick to the rules to avoid problems. because of this anonymity is disappearing more and more

You have no choice but to follow it. There were gamblers who have won big and they were required to do it and they don't want to follow, they can't get their money if they won't do that.
That is why it's very important to know where you gamble. The suggestion is right about choosing where you can safely follow and comply with KYC, new gambling sites can't be trusted with our identities.

[AB de Royse777]

I feel like the third requirement is almost impossible to look at unless you are a pure crypto bookie.

I am considering it only for Crypto bookies. If it's not crypto bookie then this is out of scope.

I doubt punters would bother filing a case against casinos too unless it's hundreds of thousands or millions.

And casinos take this chance to mess up with their clients when they win big. I have seen users with a few thousand amounts scammed (as per their claim) but they did not go to the court.

What I'm thinking is this same scenario can be said to third party KYC verifier also. They can pretend that they are handling your personal information with utmost care but who knows if they are also doing something shady? I bet none of the punters [or a few] would complain if there are breaches too.

True, but at least it's better not to trust a new bookie with your KYC. A reputed KYC verification service would be more meaningful. You are actually making a choice to trust a party with your personal information.

Thanks for replying about the info availability.
I have another problem to point out, though, and it's related to the amount of reserved money. Let's say I ask a casino about the reserve, but how much is actually enough? 10 BTC is a huge amount of money for me, for instance, but I don't know if it's enough to run a casino. Moreover, doesn't it largely depend on how popular the casino is and what's its traffic? If it's a new casino with small maximum bets and about 20 players, having 1 BTC in reserve might be good, but if it's a casino with thousands of people playing daily, it's another story. How is this "enough" supposed to be calculated?

Let's say I am a high roller, the site has no limit of max bet,
- I want to be 3 BTC on an odd of 3.25. In this case I will have to be convinced that that site had 9.75+ BTC in reserve so that they can pay me if I win.
- I want to be 50 BTC on the same odd means I will need to have a convincing response with substantial proof that they have 162.50+ BTC in reserve.

It really depends on how much money you are risking and if the casino has the ability to pay you in full without losing their business.

Question is, are they allowed to revel that information to the general public!? Maybe it would be considered a contractual breach of some sorts with the casinos and business partners?

Not sure asking about who is their provider, who does the KYC and how much fund they have reserve will create any contractual breach. A casino is a company and a company must need to have an annual audit of their business. Considering a crypto bookie - I do not see any problem to prove that they are solvent to run the casino. We would not need any of these if we would not see casinos popping up and scamming innocent users.

[dothebeats]

First point is important and one should really try and read the bookies' ToS in order to be sure that they are really doing a legitimate business and not trying to screw up their players by placing some of the clauses that they will handle the checks in case of a big win, or even in registration in general. Most of these questions would be answered by skimming the terms and conditions provided by the platform, without having the need to ask customer support thus saving time right even before a win is recorded, or your account is created.

The third point IMO is hard to actually know, given that not all crypto bookies provide such information in the open.

[Lanatsa]

1.
2.
3.
4. Check scam accusations against a bookie and how they respond to it.

Might be that much of a good add up but I do consider this thing too;

5. UI/UX

You would able to see a new platforms/bookies seriousness in the business by means of the effort that they had put out on the websites design and interface.

You can eventually tell if they do just put up a small effort or really serious when it comes to this manner.Hope this one is a considered reply.

[fiulpro]

Honestly it's really helpful for the people who are forever looking for a good bookie. But I do think that we do have good opportunity right now to actually "be our own bookies" since the online gambling businesses have not just been successful but also is legal in many places. The bookies on the other hand are not that reliable.
You should always go though their :
"Reviews"
The best recommendation can only be given by a common person who used their services. Plus I have seen many bookies who have purchased advertisement on the Google and if you search for a particular name many will appear and most of the times the probability is it's a scam so I believe don't just go and search on the Google for them.
Plus in many countries it is indeed illegal to gamble so if a bookie says he can help you "DON'T". They can be a part of a big scam and can also be hidden police lol who knows. But take matter in your own hands and just use a normal gambling website.

[johhnyUA]

1. Who does KYC for the bookie?
Every single bookie will ask for KYC if you win Big. So do not get very excited after seeing any clause that stats that they do not have KYC. So prepare yourself to be KYCed at any stage, but it is important to know their KYC providers/verifiers.

If this is an in-house team instead of any reputed third-party KYC verifier then do not submit your personal documents. Do not trust a casino who just popped up without having years of fairly clear experience. Your personal details are not safe with them. They can use your personal details against you in anything.

So, only give your personal details if a reputed third-party KYC provider is working with them otherwise move on.

I'm not sure, but as i know, there is no trusted KYC providers for any crypto service. Maybe except those that located in USA and EU. So you should check registration of your crypto book. If ti's not EU, maybe you should better to use fiat books?