Stake holding my balance $70,000 claiming ODDS PROVIDER INVESTIGATION

[actmyname]

It's one example of what could be done.

I'm certainly no nuclear physicist, and it doesn't take anyone smart to come up with much more advanced strategies.

I have not hedged any bets man

If you are incapable of hypothetical thinking, state so clearly.

I am asking a simple question, is the investgation complete? The players are not guilty then please explan why you are holding my funds.

As the bets need to go through the sports provider and the casinos only manage wagers, while an investigation is pending and has the possibility of fixed betting, why would they release the funds?

I am placing some 100k xrp bets in a day and considering the house edge is around 15% normally for sports, I would be losing 15k xrp for hedging as per your claim, why would I do that?

Maybe for certain markets or parlays, but as far as I know the edge is nowhere close to 15%.

[Baskin198]

It's one example of what could be done.

I'm certainly no nuclear physicist, and it doesn't take anyone smart to come up with much more advanced strategies.

I have not hedged any bets man

If you are incapable of hypothetical thinking, state so clearly.

I am asking a simple question, is the investgation complete? The players are not guilty then please explan why you are holding my funds.

As the bets need to go through the sports provider and the casinos only manage wagers, while an investigation is pending and has the possibility of fixed betting, why would they release the funds?

I am placing some 100k xrp bets in a day and considering the house edge is around 15% normally for sports, I would be losing 15k xrp for hedging as per your claim, why would I do that?

Maybe for certain markets or parlays, but as far as I know the edge is nowhere close to 15%.

1- Why would they release funds? because there should be a limit of as of how long they can hold the funds, they cannot hold it for years, right? Secondly, they can void any bets they have proofs are fixed but how come they freeze the entire balance?

2- The house edge on sports is higher, please check out yourself

Would you feel amazing if whatever wallet/exchange/etc you use, blocks your balance and freeze it for a decade and only chance to release is to your grandchildren? Think of yourself in my shoes and you might realize (if you haven't been paid by them)

[100bitcoin]

Though I have never played at Stake, I have seen Stunna building it from scratch. With PrimeDice & Stake together, he is probably processing over a Billion dollar transaction every year. It's a bit difficult to digest that he'll suddenly scam someone for ~$70k. But, the whole situation that I understand, makes me ask a few fundamental questions to Stunna.


Let me first clarify if my understanding is right...

1. Stunna accuses Baskin198 of providing fake KYC docs.

2. Stunna accuses Baskin198 of being involved in Match Fixing.

I guess, on the basis of these two allegations, Baskin198's withdrawal is withheld by Stake.


If the above is true, I have the following questions...

1. Is it ethical to ask for KYC docs at withdrawal? Please don't point me to ToS. If you need KYC to stop AML, why don't you make it mandatory at deposit itself? If you don't need KYC for small amount, but need it for large ones, why not provide a clear warning on Stake wallet, that beyond X amount here, whether through deposit or winning, KYC will be required?

2. A match can be fixed. But, without police investigation, an user's involvement in it can't be proven beyond doubt. So, why not have a clear policy that if Stake is informed about a match fixing, all winning and losses will be refunded to individual users? Holding an user's winning as hostage, because of an event that can never be linked with him beyond doubt, is probably not ethical. Also, if Stake is informed, that the matches were fixed, along with freezing Baskin198's fund, will you refund the money to individuals who lost in those matches? If yes, will you publicly announce that refund, so that users can actually confirm the refund in this forum?

[cwil]

1. Is it ethical to ask for KYC docs at withdrawal? Please don't point me to ToS. If you need KYC to stop AML, why don't you make it mandatory at deposit itself? If you don't need KYC for small amount, but need it for large ones, why not provide a clear warning on Stake wallet, that beyond X amount here, whether through deposit or winning, KYC will be required?

It's probably illegal for a casino to discuss the exact values that trigger their AML procedures.

I do agree that KYC should be done up front and if a casino does not want to take a user's action for any reason, the bet should be refunded and allowed to be withdrawn. That said, I believe Stake is saying that they've had real losses from the match fixing action by this particular user and is holding the balance to recoup some of their losses. That seems reasonable.

If Stake has it wrong, Baskin198 should start arbitration. See https://stake.com/policies/terms#17._Arbitration.

2. A match can be fixed. But, without police investigation, an user's involvement in it can't be proven beyond doubt. So, why not have a clear policy that if Stake is informed about a match fixing, all winning and losses will be refunded to individual users? Holding an user's winning as hostage, because of an event that can never be linked with him beyond doubt, is probably not ethical. Also, if Stake is informed, that the matches were fixed, along with freezing Baskin198's fund, will you refund the money to individuals who lost in those matches? If yes, will you publicly announce that refund, so that users can actually confirm the refund in this forum?

You make a good point here. Casinos do seem to like to double dip with these unusual situations, keeping losses and refusing to pay out wins. I don't see any indication that this happened at Stake for these particular events. If someone could show evidence that they placed a losing bet that was not refunded on any of the events that Stake is saying were fixed, then maybe Stake would deserve some criticism. I think that they should codify how fixed matches will be handled in their terms of service to avoid any future confusion.

[Stunna]

Though I have never played at Stake, I have seen Stunna building it from scratch. With PrimeDice & Stake together, he is probably processing over a Billion dollar transaction every year. It's a bit difficult to digest that he'll suddenly scam someone for ~$70k. But, the whole situation that I understand, makes me ask a few fundamental questions to Stunna.


Let me first clarify if my understanding is right...

1. Stunna accuses Baskin198 of providing fake KYC docs.

2. Stunna accuses Baskin198 of being involved in Match Fixing.

I guess, on the basis of these two allegations, Baskin198's withdrawal is withheld by Stake.

This situation has little to do with #1 and everything to do with #2. OP is trying to make it seem like our actions are being based purely over KYC. The point is that this user attempted to deceive us with false documents to shield their true identity from their illegal activity in which Baskin along with his match fixing friends stung Stake for a significant amount of money. This isn't a situation of a unlucky user who placed bets on a couple matches which happened to be fixed, this is methodical match fixing where funds were even being sent from this individual to confirmed members of this match fixing syndicate.

There is legitimately no doubt in our minds that this user's winnings were illegally obtained. We do not give a damn about 70k, we even just sent $1M to the ukraine aid donation address. We will always stand up against cheaters and do what is needed to keep these types of individuals off our platform. This user unfortunately got away with a significant profit from their match fixing which is why I have negative tagged them, their balance in question is money they stole from us in the first place. This user has tried to lie and deceive and do whatever is necessary to maximize their profit here but they knew what they were getting involved in. This user has taken a significant amount of funds from us and we will be pursuing the return of these funds as mentioned.

There seems to obviously be a sensitive spot on this forum about KYC and terms and conditions being used to deny payments to legitimate players but this is not that type of situation and Stake has one of if not the best record in the crypto space for paying its users out.

I will re-quote what I previously stated here:

While I am having to greatly redact what I can share due to an ongoing investigation and not wanting to reveal our internal integrity measures. I will provide some insight into this situation. It is of our firm belief that user is engaged in match fixing and these concerns were echoed by our odds provider who independently warned us of your activity. On this thread you are witnessing some members of this match fixing ring all desperate to get their cut of this money.

OP found some information regarding fixed table tennis matches as he started taking maximum amount of profit from bets there where he never wagered before like that. His own XRP address had a transaction sent to a prior caught match fixer which looks like a payout for the information he got via him.

This link to the above match-fixing ring, in hindsight, likely gave the customer access to funds that subsequently increased staking - 75% of the accounts turnover occurred between Nov 2021 and 12th Jan after being operative since Nov 2019.

The customers Table Tennis activity on 8th Jan was flagged by our  team after the user suspiciously bet on a very precise result as the match went Live. Within 22s the user bet on the match to finish 3-0 for €6.5k at 2.0; 50s later €5.7k at 2.6 on there being exactly 3 games in the match; 26s later, another €700 on Correct Score 3-0 at 2.2; and then 2x more for €1.5k total on exactly 3 games 3mins later; total loss from user on this match was -€17.5k

This most recent example was backing against a player which user then proceeded to back against on two more occasions on the 10th and then 11th of January - another sign of match-fixing with a syndicate in contact with, or ‘having their hooks into’, a player.

During January on Table Tennis the customer had 32 bets, all on a specific Table tennis competition, winning 29 of them at avg odds of 2.23. We laid €266k of Table Tennis bets in this time - an avg of €8.3k per bet Vs an avg. of €423 (1,965% increase) per bet since the accounts 1st bet in Nov 2019. The 3 bets which lost saw us make €5.4k profit, but in total during the month of January on Table Tennis we lost -€229.4k to the user — highly suspicious activity. The players in question are being investigated by the organizers of the table tennis tournament.

This situation was made even worse by OP trying to pass a variety of suspected fake identification documents as his own, all of which were rejected by our integrity team. This resulted in a block of your account. You sent us 4 different ID's all of them with different names, different numbers, and even different nationalities and places of birth.

All the above mentioned facts in conjunction with the ongoing investigation that confirmed your links to a well known match-fixer, support our decision of blocking your account and we will be pursuing the return of any funds.

[Baskin198]

It has been more than 6 months now, I have been trying to contact stake via emails, forum, etc but they seem to not care. So I have re-opened the thread and want to ask stake, what's up with the investigation on the player? Was there any update and why is my balance still stuck? It says my account is in withdraw only mode but I am not even able to withdraw, does that make any sense?

[LoyceV]

what's up with the investigation on the player?

Stunna wrote this:

All the above mentioned facts in conjunction with the ongoing investigation that confirmed your links to a well known match-fixer, support our decision of blocking your account and we will be pursuing the return of any funds.

But in the same post he wrote this:

I am having to greatly redact what I can share due to an ongoing investigation

I'm also curious if the investigation is completed. I don't expect it'll be in your (Baskin198's) favour though, you're shady.

It says my account is in withdraw only mode but I am not even able to withdraw, does that make any sense?

I've seen that in a different thread too. It looks like the wrong wording is used when the account is blocked.

[Baskin198]

what's up with the investigation on the player?

Stunna wrote this:

All the above mentioned facts in conjunction with the ongoing investigation that confirmed your links to a well known match-fixer, support our decision of blocking your account and we will be pursuing the return of any funds.

But in the same post he wrote this:

I am having to greatly redact what I can share due to an ongoing investigation

I'm also curious if the investigation is completed. I don't expect it'll be in your (Baskin198's) favour though, you're shady.

It says my account is in withdraw only mode but I am not even able to withdraw, does that make any sense?

I've seen that in a different thread too. It looks like the wrong wording is used when the account is blocked.

Years back when I failed KYC they allowed me to play, withdraw, deposit everything because I was losing and now because I am winning suddenly failing KYC becomes such a massive issue?

[Baskin198]

Surprisingly I got an email from stake and it says "The investigation is still ongoing, we will contact you in due course." I don't know how long it will take because it's almost 6-7 months now if not more

Email - https://prnt.sc/-u-8p1szEsiY

Isn't 6 months enough for an investigation to commence?

[LoyceV]

Isn't 6 months enough for an investigation to commence?

Apparently not. But that's not surprising: match fixing is a crime, which means there's a criminal investigation, which means the government is involved. Or multiple governments. I can imagine this isn't a high priority to them, and from what I've seen in the news about (different) crimes, it can easily take a few years to bring the bad guys to justice.

[Baskin198]

Isn't 6 months enough for an investigation to commence?

Apparently not. But that's not surprising: match fixing is a crime, which means there's a criminal investigation, which means the government is involved. Or multiple governments. I can imagine this isn't a high priority to them, and from what I've seen in the news about (different) crimes, it can easily take a few years to bring the bad guys to justice.

Whatever job you do, would you justify your employer holding your money for 1 year because they "suspect" some match fixing? If they have any reasons to believe the game was rigged they should post the proof and if not then allow me to withdraw.

It's easy to come and look like a saint when others are struggling to get money from a giant casino scamming them but when it will happen with you, maybe you realize how it feels for others to come and say "yeah it's fine, investigations can take decades and casino will pass the funds to your grandchildren, why are you troubling them"

Would you be fine with Chipmixer not paying you for 1 year claiming they are doing some investigation with no details and no timeframe at all?

[LoyceV]

Whatever job you do, would you justify your employer holding your money for 1 year because they "suspect" some match fixing?

There's no employer relation here. You're a gambler, not an employee.

If they have any reasons to believe the game was rigged they should post the proof and if not then allow me to withdraw.

As Stunna explained:

We have a legal obligation not to pay out individuals involved in match fixing.

It's easy to come and look like a saint when others are struggling to get money from a giant casino scamming them

I don't believe Stake is scamming you.

but when it will happen with you, maybe you realize how it feels for others to come and say "yeah it's fine, investigations can take decades and casino will pass the funds to your grandchildren, why are you troubling them"

It's one of the many reasons I don't gamble, and if I would gamble, it wouldn't be on real world events that can be manipulated.

Would you be fine with Chipmixer not paying you for 1 year claiming they are doing some investigation with no details and no timeframe at all?

ChipMixer is in the privacy business. They don't do those things.

[Beparanf]

Surprisingly I got an email from stake and it says "The investigation is still ongoing, we will contact you in due course." I don't know how long it will take because it's almost 6-7 months now if not more

Email - https://prnt.sc/-u-8p1szEsiY

Isn't 6 months enough for an investigation to commence?

I’m surprised that Stake still investigate your case while Stunna already gave you a verdict here by sending you a negative feedback with detailed explanation. You spamming the forum by your case after you create another thread with this same accusation despite Stunna already gave you a solid answer. You are just using the Stake security team which Imo don’t have idea that Stunna already judged your case as guilty of match fixing. I’m they will just gave same answer like what Stunna explained here.

[saxydev]

Surprisingly I got an email from stake and it says "The investigation is still ongoing, we will contact you in due course." I don't know how long it will take because it's almost 6-7 months now if not more

Email - https://prnt.sc/-u-8p1szEsiY

Isn't 6 months enough for an investigation to commence?

I’m surprised that Stake still investigate your case while Stunna already gave you a verdict here by sending you a negative feedback with detailed explanation. You spamming the forum by your case after you create another thread with this same accusation despite Stunna already gave you a solid answer. You are just using the Stake security team which Imo don’t have idea that Stunna already judged your case as guilty of match fixing. I’m they will just gave same answer like what Stunna explained here.

If no legal action will happen, stake has no power to keep any funds of the user even if it is written in their ToS. You can write anything you want there, that doesn't mean they are like laws.

Let stake investigate, if more than 1 year passes go to court mate.

[TwitchySeal]

Surprisingly I got an email from stake and it says "The investigation is still ongoing, we will contact you in due course." I don't know how long it will take because it's almost 6-7 months now if not more

Email - https://prnt.sc/-u-8p1szEsiY

Isn't 6 months enough for an investigation to commence?

I’m surprised that Stake still investigate your case while Stunna already gave you a verdict here by sending you a negative feedback with detailed explanation. You spamming the forum by your case after you create another thread with this same accusation despite Stunna already gave you a solid answer. You are just using the Stake security team which Imo don’t have idea that Stunna already judged your case as guilty of match fixing. I’m they will just gave same answer like what Stunna explained here.

If no legal action will happen, stake has no power to keep any funds of the user even if it is written in their ToS. You can write anything you want there, that doesn't mean they are like laws.

Let stake investigate, if more than 1 year passes go to court mate.

Which of the fake documents should he use when going to court?  And which court? Curacao? lol

[spyrosc200]

[/quote]
Which of the fake documents should he use when going to court?  And which court? Curacao? lol
[/quote]

It is not that difficult to go to court in Curacao as it first sound.

If OP have a good explanation regarding fake ID's provided for KYC purposes, i can see him winning easily at the court.

Given that there is no police investigation for the so called manipulated game, a court most probably will treat it as a normal fair game.

Court judgement will be based on facts. They will not based their decision on the assumption that OP had inside information, or being a part of a syndicate, or his connection to manipulator etc etc, unless Stake proves otherwise. His betting pattern is not a proof of all those accusations.

Can Stake proves their accusations?

Unless i miss something from the story, the only facts so far is that:

- a user was a high roller bettor who had his account locked

- same user failed in KYC by providing many different ID's.

Haven't seen Stake providing any proof for their actions, haven't seen OP providing any explanation for the fake ID's either.

P.S If stake.com sent  $1M to the ukraine aid donation address, that doesn't mean that 70k means nothing for them and for sure, is not a proof that their actions are fair.

1xBet owner for example donated $1M to build a hospital for covid, yet we all know that 1xBet are scammers

''In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, the Bryansk billionaire, the owner of bookmakers, donated one million euros to the Nicosia Central Hospital in Cyprus.''

Source: https://www.bryansk.kp.ru/daily/27161/4261488/

[SSCEZAR]

There is legitimately no doubt in our minds that this user's winnings were illegally obtained. We do not give a damn about 70k, we even just sent $1M to the ukraine aid donation address.
- You provided this for marketing purposes and not to help anyone.

You owe this user 70k, and there are many more, according to current data, that number exceeds a couple of million - probably even more, because there are many cases where people, as in this case, were allowed to gamble, but they could not pay out their funds ( interesting, does anyone have an idea why this is done ? we all know the answer  ) . The situation here is clear -

1.There is no such thing as a fixed match in table tennis, and no one will investigate such players and no one will take them to prison (if the steak claims otherwise, let them prove who and where they are investigating these players) - except for that famous sentence our team is investigating and will
    let you know the results.
  The amount of money paid for a match is their proof that the match is fixed (?), but only if the match is won. I will give an example If you play a fixed match and win say 70k and another player loses 4k on the same match. Your account will be suspended and under investigation, the other player
    will not be refunded and his account will not be under investigation, he may possibly get less limits to play.
   Another question ? why is it given to someone to have such high limits for table tennis and for e-gaming and way ( We know the answer to this too, but let one of the representatives of the stake answer us) ?

2. KYC - and here the situation is more than familiar, you have a support who always gives you the same answer when you ask them what is wrong with your documents and you have accounts@stake.com. There are many cases where players have verified all 4 levels (it took several months) - and at
    the end they were told that they will not get their money back.
    As far as I understand here, the documents were rejected because they are not in English - and they probably told you at the support that they can't help anything there (you should have gone to a notary to get a stamp and help with that) , then you sent someone else's documents ( since they
     told you that the documents must be in English)  and they couldn't wait for you to do it, now they found a reason to take your funds.

    Nothing here is your fault (ok, it's clear that you started playing for someone, but it's not a violation or a crime, you're allowed to play tipsters or games that someone suggests). In some countries, processes are already being conducted so that acc may not be limited in the case of winning tickets.
    Here we currently have a situation where the stake will not pay the winning players ( a large number of accusations in the last 2 years ) and takes everything from the losing ones. So there is no way for someone win money.

I remember the time in 2018 when this bookmaker could become an example of how to do business and treat players -  but apparently the large amount of money made both the owners and other people within the company lose track of the direction they were headed


   @Baskin198 - contact me, since I can't send you a message
 

[IndependentGambler]

This is hands down the best scam accusation thread I have read. Better than a netflix doco!

I started reading in favour of OP, then stunna replied and I had my doubts maybe still on the side of the OP(I'm biased what can I say) then match fixing was suggested and claims a transaction is linked to a syndicate.
Just to add to the drama of this great series the Alt accounts came in with the appropriate aggression and emotion to add the final nail.   

The sad thing is accounts like this is what make it hard for legitimate players to be heard when things are accused incorrectly. Glad the community makes an example of such scammers.

my trust in stake and stunna is at a all time high.

[TwitchySeal]

I started reading in favour of OP, then stunna replied and I had my doubts maybe still on the side of the OP(I'm biased what can I say) then match fixing was suggested and claims a transaction is linked to a syndicate.
Just to add to the drama of this great series the Alt accounts came in with the appropriate aggression and emotion to add the final nail.  

The sad thing is accounts like this is what make it hard for legitimate players to be heard when things are accused incorrectly. Glad the community makes an example of such scammers.

my trust in stake and stunna is at a all time high.

Seems like it actually worked for a while.  For the past few months, maybe 6+ months?  I've seen the same story over and over.  Sports gambler finds a good spot, gets limited, makes a million accounts, gets warned, makes a million more accounts, has a deposit on new account frozen, creates thread on bitcointalk to play the victim card.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5423517.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5419674.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400984.0

Honestly I think it's time the major sites find a better solution because I don't see this stopping.  If they're going to offer competitive lines for tons of markets with decent limits for new accounts, they need to figure out a way to keep track of individual players or put some sort of gate keeper system in place for potentially exploitable lines.  

[IndependentGambler]

this is exactly what I need right now. Thanks twitchy