Online eSports betting is the last betting trend, but it is ‘old’ enough for us to have a look at the early days of eSports betting and the problems that many punters were facing. Namely, when online eSports betting became a thing, it was still largely unregulated and many operators were working in a, sort of, grey area.
Even today punters need to be careful when they’re choosing an online operator, because not all of them offer the same things. At some website you will be able to enjoy more benefits and more favourable odds, which in fact means that you’ll be able to earn more with less, whereas other operators can be less generous. The difference between placing the same bet at odds 2.00 with one operator and at odds 1.90 with another is that in the first case you will win more money. But, one if the operator decides to void your bet with no valid reason, or decide to withhold your withdrawal, even though you meet the requirements?!
That is of course a lot worse than betting with lower odds and such rogue betting sites should be avoided at all costs. Fortunately, it has to be noted that these days it is a lot less common for a website to declare your bet void, or simply withhold your money, but things like that used to happen more often in the past. Some would say that it is a part of the standard order of things, and that eSports betting went through a process of refining over the years.
It’s not that there haven’t been any rogue sites that offered conventional betting. There still are. However, it seems that eSports betting attracted a bit more shady operators. That has to do with the nature of the eSports betting niche. Namely, while sports betting has been around for centuries, even though high street betting shops appeared after the WWII, whereas certain forms of conventional sports have been played since the beginning of time, eSports betting and even eSports themselves appeared only several years ago.
The development of conventional sports were gradual, it took a lot of time before the first professional contracts were signed, and when it comes to betting, it took states and countries years before they draft, pass and implement laws that regulated betting. Even when the technological advances enabled the establishment of the first online betting operators, there was already legislation that applied to conventional sports betting and in most cases only minor adaptations were needed for the inclusion of online betting.
When it comes to eSports the situation was very different. Many people at first were reluctant to accept eSports as sports and therefore, it was unclear whether punters were legally allowed to bet on eSports. Secondly, the eSports tournaments and competitions weren’t as popular and viewed by as many people as they are today and the tournament winner prizes were significantly lower. Some reports suggest that this made the early eSportsmen a lot more prone to match rigging.
As if that’s not enough, eSports generally target and attract a much younger demographic and a majority of players and viewers are minors, which creates another problem, as people under the age of 18 aren’t legally allowed to bet anywhere. Whenever companies that operate in a certain branch (eSports betting in this case) are forced to operate in a sort of a grey area, due to lack of legislation and regulation, there will be rogue companies who are trying to trick and scam customers as there’s no authority that can legally protect them.
Rogue sites may look different and use different marketing techniques to lure customers that they intend on scamming, but in most cases they will do some of the things listed and described below.
Always check the terms and conditions on a betting website. The terms and conditions should be clearly stated and understandable. There are no rules regarding the length, but in general, they shouldn’t be too long or too short. If the site doesn’t display the terms and conditions or it is difficult to find the terms and conditions page, but there might be something fishy about the operator. Furthermore, if an operator changes the terms without any announcing it, and the changes disfavour punters, that is not a good sign.
Many rogue sites will force you into accepting a bonus, i.e. will not give you a clear option of opting out. Check your account balance once you register at a site, if you have received a bonus without knowing and customer support is not letting you opt out, or is trying to trick you into accepting the bonus offer even though you don’t want to, that is one strong indication that the site is rogue. When you have claimed a bonus you won’t be able to withdraw until you have completed then requirement, and that’s probably the reason why they are trying to force you to claim a bonus.
Most of the scams have to do with payments. Some rogue websites deny or restrict the punters’ right to withdraw their winnings, even if they’ve won fair and square. For example, they might limit the withdrawal amount and make the maximum withdrawal amount so low that it will be too expensive for you to request a withdrawal, especially if there are associated fees. In other cases, they might simply freeze your assets stating security reasons. But they will never actually do a security check, instead they will keep your funds frozen, hoping that you’ll eventually give up on your money. Other rogue sites alter the odds and the payment settings for players who are successful, so that they will eventually leave and only the ones who win rarely will remain.
There have been even cases of operators that just take a number of deposits and then just close the website when the first withdrawal requests are submitted. Some rogue sites have deliberately targeted minors, knowing that they are more likely to lose money.
Some rogue betting sites have managed to trick a few dozen people, whereas the more ‘successful’ ones scammed hundreds, even thousands of punters. The following are some of the most infamous rogue betting sites out there:
BetUS was founded in 1994 and they did a lot of things, including confiscating winnings without legitimate grounds, freezing assets and changing bonus terms and conditions after punters have already claimed the bonus. Later, this betting operator tried to improve its reputation and it seems that they no longer employ such rogue practices as they did before.
Absolute Poker was an online casino, poker and sports betting operator that had its fair share of cheating scandals. Founded in 2003, Absolute Poker was publicly accused of cheating 4 years later. The company had to pay its customer $1.6 million and was fined with extra $500,000. Absolute Poker later merged with UltimateBet, another operator that has also been found guilty of cheating.
BetCascade is a somewhat different example. This operator was quite fair in the initial period after it was established and then suddenly they started blocking withdrawal transactions, refusing payments and other shady dealing. Pretty soon, the company owed more than $1.20 million to its customers. Customers were allowed to deposits, but it was almost impossible to withdraw your winnings.
JazzSports is another betting site that was either late with their payments, or refused to pay its customers at all. At one point, even their own employees complained that they weren’t receiving their salaries.
