WagerWeb.com is an online sportsbook with a past that involves fraud and theft against their account holders. They are a member of the Bookmakers Review Red List and sportsbettingsites.org has recently posted a very detailed WagerWeb Warning at their website. At one point SBR also had them blacklisted; however, it was their subsequent removal from SBR’s blacklist that has triggered the latest chain of events 4Flush.com is now reporting.
WagerWeb News Report
One of the top consultants in the gambling industry is best known by his PokerAffiliateListings.com forum handle “Prop.” Recently he alerted the gambling affiliate community that WagerWeb affiliate department has been making false claims that they’ve settled all past disputes and that all players have been paid. 4Flush staff had chance to catch up with him on Skype, where he claimed he’s obtained email and chat logs, some recent and some dating back 10 months, where WagerWeb’s Marketing Director has alleged the complaints shared on the web about them are not legit and are blackmail attempts.
The one thing industry insiders KNOW about Prop is that he is an extremely committed advocate of fair gambling and his opinions are always backed up by his facts and research. He posted a Full Tilt Bankruptcy warning several weeks before they went offline and was the first to leak they were shopping for investors. Again, this was well before they went offline or news sites had posted news of their financial struggles; most other affiliates sites believed they would be fine.
He also posted a Bovada payout warning in early December when they were still called Bodog. The payouts had hardly even slowed at the time; he had reason to believe they would. Soon later they did and reached almost 2 months. Thankfully they’re now safe and even Prop says they are fine for recreational gamblers to use. The point is Prop has broken so many stories that it’s generally important to keep an eye out for what he posts.
Well his latest claim is that he’s obtained evidence that WagerWeb was lying about having cleaned up their act. One claim they made was that all complaints about them on the web were fabrications. The other claim was that all but one of their complaints at SBR had been resolved, and this is the reason they are now upgraded to D+ and another upgrade is coming soon.
Prop immediately took it to SBRForum where you can see that two posters showed up quickly to say their claim hadn’t been resolved. Proof that WagerWeb is lying showed up shortly later in this same forum thread. Pages 2, 3 and 4 are near must reads. As you can see they even lied to SBR. This thread contains enough reasons to avoid WagerWeb as is. However in case you’re not convinced we will cover their history in some depth.
WagerWeb History
The company we’re discussing began as a betting shop that was established in 1994 in what’s now the Westin Resort in Aruba. This was short lived as Aruba became less friendly to bookies. The owners and staff fled to the Dominican Republic setting up a phone-in betting shop here called Casablanca. They next moved to Costa Rica and launched the website betcbs.com in late 1999. With a 20% cash bonus for new accounts and one of the early affiliate programs for offshore sports betting they became a popular marketed online betting site.
Once BetCBS picked up steam, it didn’t take long for complaints to start pouring in. The first is as early as 2000 they began gaining the reputation as being a loser’s sportsbook. Players who showed any sort of talent had their accounts closed and banned. In time this practice became industry standard but was a relatively new debate back then. Where things started getting sticky was in 2002 when the company’s advertised same day payouts via Western Union came nowhere close. Several players waited weeks and in some cases over a month to be paid. This was however worked out and by early 2003 and they were processing payouts fast again.
Starting around mid-2003 occasional BetCBS thefts became serial-thefts. You can find their long time and now former CEO Dave Johnson’s justification of a dispute in this thread. A side note is Dave Johnson was the decision maker behind many future BetCBS and WagerWeb thefts and should not be trusted. He now runs SportsBettingOnline.ag a betting site we advise players avoid.
To summarize what BetCBS did here was freeroll a tennis bettor. They set a favorable line on the underdog and took a bet from a player under the conditions if he won – the bet was getting voided, and if he lost – they keep his money. Dave talks a good game in his explanations but he’d go on to cheat many more players in his days with BetCBS which was later rebranded WagerWeb.
The Rebrand to WagerWeb
The United States media conglomerate CBS Corporation had a rather embarrassing story that linked them to offshore gambling. Since sometime in the early 1990’s they were main investors into the website sportsline.com who also powered the sports scores and news on CBS media websites. They went on to purchase this in full in 2004, but prior they were a partner. Well it turned out other US media sources discovered the company behind sportsline.com named SportsLine USA was the owners of the domain name sportsbook.com which was being used as a gambling site. It was explained they were leasing the domain to an online sportsbook but were not involved in gambling. Of course, major news competitors had a field day with this story linking CBS to offshore gambling.
The embarrassment this caused sparked CBS to begin aggressive moves to disassociate themselves from gambling entirely. Although they had no association with Casablanca, the URL this company used www.betcbs.com was a huge threat to their image. They began a long series of lawsuits which they eventually won. BetCBS was then required to change their name. They did so in November 2004 taking on the new brand name and website URL wagerweb.com.
History as WagerWeb
Initially under new WagerWeb branding the thefts were light. They put a rule in place to stop players from playing too many props. This was controversial and discussed for much of 2005. If a player didn’t wager at least 5-times the amount on point spread bets as they did on props, WagerWeb would first warn them. If the player continued this betting activity they risked their account being closed. They also continued to void plays, target sharps and steal bonuses the same way they did as BetCBS, but a lot of their thefts were small time.
When a new United States law, Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was signed by George Bush in late 2006, WagerWeb stopped accepting US players. This didn’t last long as they reopened to the US just a few months later. From this time forward they began operating much more like a scam site than a legit online sportsbook. One of the biggest complaints of 2007 came late in the year when they confiscated $37,451 from a player. They did this by cancelling out more than 70 bets claiming he had stalled clerks on the phone in order to bet a game after it started. They however only ever shared evidence that the player had done so one single time. In this one time it was a question over a matter of minutes.
WagerWeb with a poor reputation then launched other sites they could use in the scam. While I can’t recall them all, a couple sites they owned were BetWorldSoccer and BetEpic. WagerWeb themselves continued to scam. There were many bonus thefts. In one case a player was given a $600 bonus. He made a bet and the next day seen his limits were cut to $250.00. He made some more bets and his limits were then cut the following day to $1.00. He was unable to meet the rollover for the bonus so they confiscated it. After some bad press this particular complaint was resolved. There were however many more that were not.
“TrixTrix” Correlated Parlay Theft
This is a WagerWeb theft that got the most attention because it was perpetrator against a sharp bettor who posted on various forums under the handle trixtrix. His posts were linked in the 2+2 Sports Betting FAQ, and he was well respected poster. What happened is trixtrix was betting “non-blocked” correlated parlays. In case you’re not familiar with this concept if you were offered bets of will it be rainy today and will it be cloudy today, there’s a correlation. Rather than making separate bets you could parlay the yes and yes, or the no and no for an advantage. The same is true in sports betting. In college football a point spread of -36 and a total of over 55 have a correlation. If the team covers 36 points it’s more likely the total score by both teams will be over 56. In this particular extreme example the software of all sportsbooks would block parlay wagers.
What trixtrix was doing was making correlated parlays which were allowed. There’s a huge difference between -36/o55 and -11.5/o41. The first one all sportsbooks block parlays for, where for the second some allow parlays because the correlation is less. TrixTrix started betting at WagerWeb on August 23, 2009 and by October 17, 2009 was down $11,000 betting ”allowed” correlated parlays. It wasn’t until October 24, 2009 that the he had a good day and by this point was up $3752 total of which correlated parlays accounted for $4300 net win. WagerWeb then decided that his play had violated their terms. They also accused him exploiting a software error. This was even though these same paralys were allowed by some other online sportsbooks. What they did was confiscate his $11,300 balance over this.
While this entire action was theft, he only won $4300 from correlate parlays. So WagerWeb confiscated his $4300 in winnings and $7,000 additional that was in his account. Now three years after the fact this remains unpaid. Due to SBR giving WagerWeb a controversial and highly suspect upgrade to D+, new conversations about WagerWeb’s theft of trixtrix’s balance have begun.
Who is “WagerWeb Dan”
SBR made a post that said WagerWeb’s new owner Dan is committed to resolving past complaints? This is quite odd as it does not appear they have made any effort to do so. Also odd is calling Dan the new owner. While it’s true Dave Johnson is no longer the “marketing name CEO”, Dan has long been involved WagerWeb decisions. In the late 1990’s he was billed as the Head of Marketing. Several years ago Dan was addressing player disputes. He has witnessed and been involved in many player muggings including the one perpetrated against trixtrix.
Remember earlier in this report I stated WagerWeb staff has frequently been guilty of making false statements. Well if Dan is the new owner, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. It’s quite easy to guess where his staff comes up with the lies. There’s another interesting lie told about the trixtrix muggings by Dan. That link tells of it in the own words of SBR’s most respected staff member Justin7 who disagrees with the WagerWeb upgrade. Also, if you search the topic (example: wagerweb trixtrix) you can find this discussed on many forums.
WagerWeb Closing Words
We could go on and on about WagerWeb’s thefts. The quick is there were a couple players scammed for $2,500 each in 2011, more voided bets, and more issues in 2012. The purpose of this report is to draw attention to many false claims WagerWeb has recently made.
- New Management – This is the same management that was head of marketing in the late 1990’s and has been calling the shots for several years now.
- The negative reports are blackmail attempts – Go ahead and search the web. These posters are real people the same as you and I. They are real victims and these are real WagerWeb thefts.
- All complaints have been resolved – Well we can see right after making that claim it became apparent this was a false claim as well.
Consider this: a Google search for the term Wager Web has two of the top three results linking to serious warnings not play there. The press that WagerWeb thefts have brought is considerable. But they for some reason won’t cough up $11,300 they’ve stole to resolve negative reports? They also need to continue to stack more lies on top? Also rather than paying their thefts they’d just assume lie and tell others they have.
To affiliates being recruited consider this: If WagerWeb can’t afford nor has no desire to clear up complaints that are covered at sites ranking tops for their brand name searches – what’s the chance they’ll be able to pay you long term? Given all the far better options out there our advice is players and affiliates should avoid – RUN, DON’T WALK. There is no reason to patronize WagerWeb.com.
4Flush is Calling for Help
This is a company making victims out of unsuspecting players. We’ve taken the time to write this detailed post and hope you’ll help us share it. Go ahead and rewrite this story if you’d like. Post it on forums, post it on blogs. The only protection fellow gamblers have is a heads up from people like yourself. How about a simple tweet on twitter or perhaps a share on facebook? Any help you can do spreading word of the WagerWeb scam could go a long way in helping someone else avoid the scam. You’ve made it this far in reading this entire post, please – it is so much appreciated if you’d take it one step further and share this news.
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