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Sportingbet review
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The Sportingbet cruise liner is now firmly anchored in the Brazilian port of Stakersland bay with a legacy of illegal betting operations left behind the wheel from its infamous ex-chief captain, Peter Dicks.
Adventurous entrepreneurs openly disregarded the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 to carry on their betting quest in the US, but the eventual arrest of Mr Dicks in Manhattan did not deter them one bit. They simply weighed anchor, departed US waters, and cruised down the coast to moor up alongside the coast of the less regulated Brazilian staker market. The wagering vessel now caters to a community of almost one million with the largest group onboard now being the Brazilians along with Greeks, Germans, South Africans, and a few from the UK, too. It’s a good mix of stakers and the reason it works so well is that Sportingbet offers localised sportsbooks for each of their major staker groups. Brazilians will find a totally different set of sports and betting markets compared to Germans and Greeks. Across the markets, the popular sports are football, basketball, tennis, and ice hockey, but Sportingbet has also decided to actively offer casino and virtual RNG-based games. You will find these heavily advertised across the cruise liner and they are still depending on the Bwin design ideas for all their international promotions. Esports is an area in which they have not completely bought into and their focus on virtual sports is much more detailed and complete. However, there are betting markets available for the top football titles as well as the ever-popular CS:GO, Dota, and League of Legends. The major point to make though is that they don’t tend to offer many live in-play esports markets and this is most likely due to the tough compliance controls currently in place.
The Sportingbet payout limits are considerably lower than those same competitors that we compared at Betfair and Bet365. As it stands, the maximum that you can win within any 24-hour period is €250,000 which is obviously a long way off the top payouts of €2 million at Bet365. The actual winning limit per bet is a lot lower at €10,000 and so stakers really need to be aware of this fact before placing their bets down at Sportingbet. The only one positive that we can find from these low limits is the fact that Sportingbet will have the funds readily available within four hours of operating for the daily maximum limit, and it would only take ten minutes to balance that single bet maximum limit of €10,000. These limits are in good order when you look at them from a business sense, but they don’t hold much value for those stakers who like to bet to win big. Perhaps these low limits are linked to the loss-making GVC owners and them deciding to reduce their exposure by any means necessary.
Sportingbet’s dominant Brazilian staker community is currently generating an annual gross gaming revenue of €480M excluding expenditure. According to our ticket sales, these stakers are wagering up to €40-45 every month on the various Sportingbet markets.
The Sportingbet monthly gross gaming revenue generated within the virtual land of Stakers is estimated at €44 Million, with the average staker spend calculated at €40-45 per month based on our ongoing park ticket sales. As estimated by the financial team at Stakersland, Sportingbet generates an annual gross gaming revenue of around €480M, excluding expenditure. It therefore clearly brings a lot of much-needed cash to the loss making and bleeding GVC Holdings group, due to the result of recent compliance controls in the UK. One of the major competitors for Sportingbet is Bet365 with its 1.8 million crowd of Brazilian Stakers. Bet365 commands a total of 13 million stakers across Stakersland and from that gigantic community, Bet365 is generating €3.35 billion in gross gaming revenue. After various finance-related costs, their pre-tax profits stand at €890 million. The Bet365 Group are paying taxes of €120 million, and after taking in currency exchange losses and changes to property assets, the net profit for the year stands at roughly €765 million. The other community that is worth a mention is Betfair with a community of almost 400,000 Brazilian stakers. Flutter's PPB annual commission and gross gaming revenue from the Betfair operation at Stakersland is estimated to be €1 billion in total. According to annual reports, the Betfair profit for the year is around 10% and so they are making around €130 million but with a final yield of only €6 per staker. These significant expenses are down to the cost of sales and marketing and contributes to almost 60% of the total amount spent by Betfair.
Sportingbet Offers
Sportingbet can now truly be called a Brazilian betting site with their community of 995,000 stakers coming to wager on the local Campeonato Brasileiro events, and all the top international events as well. Sportingbet also maintains a strong and dedicated following from over 100,000 Greeks, as well as groups from Germany, South Africa, and a smaller band of stakers from the UK who are looking for their horse racing and greyhound betting deals.
| Brazil | South Africa | Greece | Chile | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| monthly | 3.6M | 104K | 86K | 28K |
| License |  | | | |
Social Buzz
A total of 54 reviews and 16 complaints can be found on Askgamblers, at the time of writing. Ten of those complaints have been marked down as resolved and only four of those contain official responses from the Sportingbet representatives. There is a long list of issues being mentioned here with lengthy withdrawals and account closures being mentioned a lot.
The LCB Sportingbet profile holds 347 votes and 44 comments with the majority of stakers marking the site down as ‘green’ with an average rating of 4 out of 5. There has been no drastic change with the ratings at LCB and again the issue of lengthy withdrawal issues come up along with a limited list of eligible staker countries.
Bonus clash
The Sportingbet bonus board is a detailed and focused campaign that provides stakers with a great localised design of the available promotions. Many of the offers are tailored as cashback deals with extra conditions throw in, but overall, you should find some worthwhile entertainment and bonus value. Let’s see what some of the stakers think about some of the main bonus promotions available here at the moment.
“I love to place accumulator bets, so this site is the best choice for me. There are three promotions I can use, the odds are low, and the rewards are decent, in my humble opinion.”
“The welcome bonus is just a standard refund and a great choice to save your bet as a new player. A €10 free bet if you lose your initial €10 bet, it is plain and simple terms.”
“I was confused a little bit when I saw the free bet mania promotion on their main page as it appeared that the offer is not available anymore. Another disappointing thing is the required qualifying odds for the welcome offer. Who is going to bet at odds of 2.0 with their first bet?”
“Unfortunately, their welcome bonus is not a standard one. It’s just a refunding promotion that requires you to lose. Almost all of the bonus offers require acca bets, which is just useless for many stakers. I’m not sure it’s even worth trying.”
Depending on the country, the identical bonus incentives are wrapped up as flyers that are most appealing to the standards of the local markets. Such as Brazilian stakers are being offered with ‘Freebet Mania’ on football matches, while British stakers are being offered with extra free bets on Horse Racing. Let us now take a look at the current run of promotions available at Sportingbet at the moment.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Up to £10 money back as a FreeBet!  | Welcome Bonus | Place a sports bets of up to £10 | Excludes Horse Racing |
With a little trick up the sleeve from the ex-captain Mr. Dicks, you are invited on board the good ship Sportingbet with a money-back offer. However, the deal is not a free bet but it is only credited if your initial bet is lost. To receive the reward, new members are expected to place a first bet of £10 at odds of 1/1(2.0) or greater. If the bet loses, the reward will be added and if you win, you receive nothing. The free bet will be credited to accounts within 48 hours and will remain valid for 30 days which is one of the true highlights of this offer.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
We Love Accas | free bet club | Bet €20 on 5+ Accas from Monday to Sunday | Minimum odds of 1.5 per selection |
Of course, they do love to tempt you with taking higher risks at Sportingbet and it should now come as no surprise. For those daredevils who are not afraid of the risk and are willing to place five bets to the total value of €20 on accumulators, they will be rewarded with €5 in the form of a free bet. All qualifying bets should have at least four or more selections with minimum odds of 1.50 per pick, and the offer is available every week for those stakers willing to take part.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Acca Insurance | acca insurance | Place an Acca with 5+ selections | Bets on football only qualify for the promotion |
Sticking to accumulator rewards, Sportingbet continues with an Acca Insurance deal. So, should one of the picks of your 5+ accumulator lose, then you would be given a free bet. The minimum stake of the qualification bet is €5 with all of the selections having odds of 1/5 (1.20) or greater. The maximum reward for this promotion is €10 which comes in the form of a free bet and is, of course, applicable to football markets only. Moreover, all of the selections must be settled on the same date and so it adds a little more risk to this acca bonus adventure.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Best Odds Guaranteed | Best Odds Guaranteed | Opt-in is not required and is subject to daily schedule of races | Maximum £20,000 per staker on horse races only |
For British stakers, Sportingbet is offering the market standard ‘best odds guaranteed’ deal, though limited to Horse Races only. Under the promotion, should the starting odds be higher than your odds when you placed the bet, you would be paid by Sportingbet at the highest odds up to a total of £20,000 per staker. Take note that the promotion is available for the Win markets only.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
European Challenges | free bet club | Place a €10 acca of 3+ selections on any of the selected leagues | Free Bet available once per league |
Here we have a supporting promotion to keep you tied in with the ongoing accumulator challenges. For those who are willing to wager on this European Challenges offer, Sportingbet has designed another free bet club with the rewards skyrocketing to €5…! To qualify for this promotion, you are required to place a €10 combined bet of at least three selections at odds of 1.50+ or more. Bets can be wagered on pre-match or in-play across any markets but must be on the specific list of leagues that is updated weekly. Unlike the 'We Love Accas' offer, the rewards for this ‘European Challenge’ promotion will be added as soon as the bet is placed which is something that stakers will definitely prefer.
Conclusion
Sportingbet love accumulators and they make it very clear that they reward those who are willing to take a bite on their high-risk promotions. The welcome bonus promotion is not the most virtuous of offers compared with the rest of the market and requires you to lose to be rewarded, so there isn't much left over for those with winning bets. On the other hand, should you enjoy the thrill of betting on multiple selections, then you will love the acca bonuses and acca insurances on offer here. This bonus campaign is very much geared towards the high-risk staker but there is variety on offer which means betting entertainment can be found on a regular basis here at Sportingbet (just as long as you don’t mind placing an acca or two).
Sports betting
Sportingbet takes advantage of its GVC union and makes use of the newly developed Bwin platform.
Examining the betting features available at each bookmaker is what our sportsbook technology team do best. We analyse each and every betting venue with maximum scrutiny, and in doing this, we can show you where to find the best betting entertainment here at Stakersland. It’s a challenging job but we love it. Read on to find out all about what we found inside the Sportingbet tech setup.
After the acquisition takeover from Bwin, the Sportingbet concept has been developed from the Bwin offices in Vienna. After some investigation, we found that it is more or less a clone of Bwin and works through the same cluster of servers. For those of you stakers who are nostalgic for the proprietary software that Sportingbet was using prior to acquisition, then search in Google for the ‘Superbahis’ mirror in the land of Turkish stakers. The current offering is being instantly blacklisted by the strict cyber police and so we could not share the link, however, the business is sufficiently legal from a Gibraltar point of view.
Sports
The bigger staker countries at Sportingbet get access to localised sportsbook markets. Brazilian stakers, German stakers, and Greek stakers all get offered different popular sports and bonus promotions. Across the board, we can see a strong focus on football, tennis, basketball, and ice hockey, with the casino and virtual RNG-based games being advertised across most pages of the sportsbook.
Betting slip
The Sportsbook bet slip is limited in terms of betting options, but it does offer a useful market status information section with odds and features to instantly accept low/high odds and to activate a bet settlement messaging service via SMS or email. You can’t select multiple picks from the same market at any one time with the combined bets, and system bets are also limited to eight selections, and so it again lacks a sophisticated edge, although they do provide a Bankers section which will please some stakers.
In-play stats
Video streaming and a visualisation widget are available for live in-play events and these contain action tracking, event breakdowns, and extra statistics from Sportradar. A detailed timeline of action is available for most of the major events. Extra information is also limited and so details like head to heads, line ups, and table standings are missing, as are general statistics, with the only available detail being the final scores for your settled bets.
Betting markets
Sportingbet gives their stakers up to 112 markets at the pre-live stage and around 51 markets during in-play events. For tennis, they provide roughly 85 live markets and 21 pre-live markets, and during something like basketball there are around 29 live markets and up to 49 pre-match markets available.
Margins
The Sportingbet margins are relatively close to the current market average in the park. For example, a top sport like football offers a pre-live margin of 5.4% and 6.91% for live event markets, for tennis the pre-live margin is set to 9.16% and to 8.63% for live, whereas basketball provides betting margins of 2.25% for pre-live and 4.65% for ongoing games.
Event results
There are no results or historical statistics being supplied at Sportingbet and the only available data is the final score used to settle your bets, which is found in the ‘My Account’ section. Stakers are supplied with prematch data which includes line ups, present form, head to head details, and the possibility to drill down into various player-specifics for the top leagues.
| Sports | margins | live margins | markets | live markets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| tennis | 9.16% | 8.63% | 21 | 85 |
| football | 5.4% | 6.91% | 112 | 51 |
| basketball | 2.25% | 4.65% | 49 | 29 |
| ice hockey | 6.64% | 8.27% | 77 | 66 |
The team sitting up at Stakers HQ found that Sportingbet offers a relatively consistent betting margin when compared to the average within Stakersland. The 6.0-6.9% margin range for football is a solid offering, especially when you consider the likes of Boylesports and Skybet who both offer margins with highs of over 12%. It is far from being the top betting value bookmaker in the park, but it does offer some value if you take the time to look through the available markets.
Financial Limits
It is our mission to provide you with 100% verified and checked information and this not only goes for the financial sections of each bookmaker, but for each and every betting section that you engage with when traveling through Stakersland. So, read on and we will talk you through all the important financial information presently available at Sportingbet.
Payment Method Restrictions
Which payment methods are valid when claiming my bonuses?
Deposits made via Skrill, EntroPay, PayPal, and Neteller will not qualify for any of the Sportingbet deposit-based offers.
The Influence of Third Party Agencies
What checks are being made and do they use any third party agencies?
The information provided by stakers are subject to verification and checks and this includes identity, address, and age, as well as other details too. The owners Bwin are not a private company and so they reserve the right to share data amongst other companies within the GVC Group, various third party agencies, law enforcement, and public authorities to enforce any terms of use and any other agreement between stakers and Sportingbet. Bwin are also known to incorporate Optimove which is an agency used to track and collect staker behavioral patterns. This type of data is then used to cross-sell and detect potential VIP players, and also let it be known that a soft footprint will be left in your credit history when using Bwin.
Personal Data Transparency
Will they inform me about the automated checks being performed?
Sportingbet do let their stakers know that their personal data might be checked via the use of third-party services, and these are within the frames of their internal security checks. However, there are no specific details given over the checks and the companies used to establish the identity of their stakers.
Social Media Communication
Will my financial disputes and complaints be answered on the social media profiles?
Sportingbet actively helps to resolve the financial problems of their stakers on Askgamblers with seven successfully resolved complaints so far. They do not reply to reviews on Trustpilot, but their Twitter account is available 24/7 to resolve all types of issues which is especially useful for the modern staker.
Gambling Anonymously
Are my banking transactions with the bookmaker private?
ElectraWorks or ElectraWorks Ltd will appear on your bank statements and this reflects the transaction between the Sportingbet operator and their stakers. Unfortunately, there is no way to change this from the bookmaker side.
Withdrawal Timeframe & Common Complaints
How fast are the withdrawals and what do stakers complain about the most?
All withdrawals at Sportingbet are approved by their finance department before release, and this may take up to 48 hours depending on the amount and other factors. After that, the processing time is up to the individual payment provider with the following timeframes:
- EcoPayz, MuchBetter, Neteller, PayPal, PaysafeCard, Skrill - up to 24 hours
- Maestro/Mastercard/Visa debit and credit cards will take 3-5 working days
- Bank transfers and Canadian EFT from 2 to 4 working days, and instant banking 1-2 working days
Player-Friendly Withdrawal Limits
What are the minimum and maximum withdrawal limits available?
The minimum withdrawal amount at sportingbet is €10 and there is no maximum amount on withdrawals at the current moment in time.
Withdrawal Options & Additional Costs
What are my banking options when withdrawing my funds and do they add fees?
Sportingbet provides players with the following withdrawal options: EcoPayz, MuchBetter, Neteller, PayPal, PaysafeCard, Skrill, Maestro/Mastercard/Visa debit and credit cards, bank transfers, Canadian EFT, instant banking.
Regulatory Check Transparency
Are they clear about the Source of Funds and Source of Wealth procedures?
Sportingbet do not describe the Source of Funds/Wealth verification procedure in their terms and conditions. The support representatives said that such checks are being performed randomly but they refused to disclose any further details. The terms and conditions do not directly tell you about the source of funds/wealth verifications, with it only mentioning about their ‘general security’ review.
Conclusion
Private data is the biggest concern here at Sportingbet and just like at their owners Bwin, your data is shared with a long list of service providers, contractors, and general third party agencies. The use of Optimove to track your movements is again something that will concern stakers and overall, there is a lack of trust when it comes to your own personal data. Sportingbet has a wide range of withdrawal methods with average processing times and the limits are well adjusted for all types of low and high stakers. However, there was little information based around the verification procedures and this could have been described more clearly to give stakers a better understanding of all the important checks involved.
Customer Support
The Sportingbet customer support deals with all sorts of queries as long as they are not technically based. We found the replies to be a mix of templates and their own explanations when in contact through their support channels, which are the 24/7 live chat and email options. You might find the live chat button a little hard to find but if you click through to the contact page then you will see it once you pick one of the listed topics. Additionally, there is no SLA available within the terms and conditions or in any other relevant section of the site.
Support Speed & Resolution
How fast do they reply to my general queries?
The live chat starts in about 1-2 minutes but first you will get connected to a chatbot. A support representative will join the chat in 2-3 minutes in any case where the chatbot does not manage to find a response, or upon the direct request from the staker.
Live Chat Access
Is the online live chat tool available on the site?
The live chat option is available for unregistered Sportingbet stakers, but they do not provide any ‘no deposit’ bonuses upon request. The average response time is 1-2 minutes and it takes them up to four hours to reply via email.
Support Team Competency
How quickly will the support team reply to complex queries?
The agents deal with complex requests in 7-10 minutes and they will be asking for additional information while looking for your solution. The chats are obviously supervised, and the decisions are under the control of the team managers.
Level of Technical Expertise
Are the support agents sufficiently trained to answer technical queries based on odds, margins, and markets?
The support representatives confirmed that all requests related to odds and margins are out of their area of expertise.
Unregistered Staker Support
Will the customer service team interact with unregistered stakers and will I get a free bet?
Most of the replies to our unregistered staker messages were mainly formal. After some conversation, they refused to credit a ‘no deposit’ bonus and then simply provided a link to their welcome offer.
Professional & Friendly Service
What type of response will I get when requesting a bonus from the service team?
The tone of the conversation was neutral, and their replies were generic and impersonal when we were talking about potential free bonuses.
Customer Service Knowledge
Will the agents provide the correct information about payment limits when compared to the terms and conditions on the website?
All the information about the withdrawal limits and fees that were provided by the support team were consistent with the terms and conditions on the website.
Willingness to Help Out
Will the support representatives help me navigate around their website?
The support team provided us with web links upon request for most Sportingbet information or for a particular page on the site.
Tolerance Levels
Does the support team have a high tolerance level for repeated bonus requests?
After repeated requests, the agents confirmed that ‘no deposit’ bonuses are system generated, meaning that they may be offered automatically according to the activity of each individual staker.
Onsite Support Efficiency
How efficient is their onsite Helpdesk compared to the competition?
The supporting Helpdesk information provided for Sportingbet stakers covers all major aspects of their operation and includes the details for things like payment processing fees to the bonus terms and conditions. There are a few troubleshooting wizards and it does look like those are ongoing developments.
Conclusion
The agents are fast and polite when dealing with general requests about the Sportingbet site. However, some of their explanations were unclear and misleading. The tone of the conversation depends on the assigned agent and it can range from impersonal to formal and customer oriented. There is apparently support training going on but due to the turnaround, this is clearly not for everyone and it is also not being provided in enough time to warrant a quality customer service. Similar to other bookmakers, the Sportingbet customer service is not technically savvy nor are the representatives trained to answer sports betting related queries. For most of the information being given, we found that it is just a rewrite of what is available within the onsite helpdesk.
Conclusion
The agents are fast and polite when dealing with general requests about the Sportingbet site. However, some of their explanations were unclear and misleading. The tone of the conversation depends on the assigned agent and it can range from impersonal to formal and customer oriented. There is apparently support training going on but due to the turnaround, this is clearly not for everyone and it is also not being provided in enough time to warrant a quality customer service. Similar to other bookmakers, the Sportingbet customer service is not technically savvy nor are the representatives trained to answer sports betting related queries. For most of the information being given, we found that it is just a rewrite of what is available within the onsite helpdesk.
If you do run into any issues or problems with the Sportingbet services, then this short FAQ should be able to help you find a solution:
Are you able to complain with Sportingbet?
Complaints should be raised with the customer service team first. In any case where a staker is dissatisfied with the initial decision, the matter may be forwarded to the customer service manager via complaints@sportingbet.com. A resolution should then be provided within eight weeks.
Where to complain if they refuse the withdrawal?
EU citizens may lodge a complaint with eCOGRA which is Sportingbet’s official ADR, the Online Dispute Resolution platform, or the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner which is their regulator.
How do stakers rate the Sportingbet customer service?
Stakers rate their support negatively because of the agents being unhelpful in the matters of suspended accounts and financial issues. Stakers also complain about generic replies being repeatedly sent.
Up or down
Step up to the Sportingbet entrance and it is very much like peering into Bwin through the looking glass which, in other words, is a consistent and reliable betting venue for most of the time. The uptime rate of 99.72% is a stable score and well above the average found across Stakersland. The optimisation results also show a steady score with the website page opening speeds coming in at 64/100 which again is higher than average. However, due to regular updates we do know that sometimes the whole of Bwin and Sportingbet is suspended for its members. It has also been mentioned by fellow stakers that the maintenance page has been displayed once every few months.
TECHNOLOGY
Bwin and Sportingbet is powered with ASP.NET for their backend and it uses the MS SQL database. Their frontend is built with an angular framework which is up to date and regarded as a fast solution. The communication is based on both http call-back requests, and web sockets connected to various local and remote platforms.
DATA CENTER
The Bwin/Sportingbet servers are hosted in a private data center in Austria with three subnetworks assigned to them by RIPE and mounted as ORG-BIEA1-RIPE. For the data protection from DDOS and security attacks, they use Cloudflare which is the market standard and they do engage with Akamai for parts of their content delivery, too.
SSL CERTIFICATE
The Bwin group uses a wildcard certificate from DigiCert with the required 256-bit encryption. The cost of a certificate is $1999 per annum and that internal encryption algorithm allows us to confirm the security of access for stakers using the site.
In conclusion, the technical development team behind the project looks to be strong and it is backed up with the recommended expertise to run this particular sports betting venture. The technologies are modern though the use of Angular, but our team did suggest that this could have been replaced with React to boost the overall productivity, especially with those lags during the live in-play events which would ultimately help to run the updates more efficiently.
countries where Sportingbet is licensed
The Sportingbet head office is located in London, UK, but they also have offices located in the Republic of Ireland, Costa Rica, and South Africa. The overall development office is based in Vienna, Austria, and this is the same development team behind the Bwin brand which is now commonly called the GVC team. Sportingbet is operated by the ElectraWorks Limited name which is licensed by the UKGC. ElectraWorks Limited is also licensed by the Government of Gibraltar under the same licence with LC International Limited. The Sportingbet signup form is therefore open to multiple countries across the world, which is proven by the fact they have Brazilian, Greek, and South African stakers walking through their virtual doors every day.
Sportingbet currently operates under both of the UKGC and GGC betting licenses. This setup helps to open their platform and sign-up form to staker communities around the world from Europe to South America.
The Sportingbet history goes back to 1997 and it was founded by the British-born businessman, Mark Blandford. The first major talking point of Sportingbet is obviously that arrest of chairman Peter Dicks in 2006, however, those warrants involving the company were cancelled a year later in 2007, but that particular piece of news still lingers on to this day. The fact that they operated illegally in the US and continued to ignore the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 goes to show their determination to succeed, or perhaps it merely shows the foolishness of ignoring the rules and what will happen to you as a result. However, fast forward to September 2010, the company openly admitted to disguising payments to players from the US and agreed to pay a total of $33 million over three separate instalments. In 2012, Sportingbet revealed a €530 million takeover bid from the UK bookmaker William Hill and the GVC Group from the Isle of Man. From the records, it looked as though Will Hill took over the Australian and Spanish operations of Sportingbet, while GVC paid the main staker community €67.8 million in the form of new shares.
The Bwin brand has been hit with fines in the past and the most apparent was the €350,000 financial penalty, this was due to the UKGC audit revealing a breach in marketing and advertising rules around improper ‘free bonus’ offers. We should, of course, also mention the arrest of Peter Dicks in Manhattan, the then Sportingbet non-executive chairman, back in 2006. The Louisiana arrest was based on charges in reference to illegal internet gambling and there were other warrants for additional members of the Sportingbet company. However, as previously mentioned, all warrants were withdrawn the following year.
Questions
What documents do Sportingbet require for account verification?
Sportingbet accepts identification documents such as passports, ID cards, and driving licences. In the case of driving licences, it is also enough to prove your address as well. For other cases, stakers will need to send a bank statement or utility bill from the last three months. The team also accepts council tax bills, HMRC tax notifications, tenancy agreement mortgages or home loan statements. The only issue is that they do not currently make clear the source of funds/wealth verification checks. All we found was that the checks are randomly performed and that there is a general security review in place.
How long does it take them to settle the bets and payout?
The Sportingbet team settles bets immediately upon receiving the results as a rule. The timeframe of 30 minutes has been set out by the trading team to settle the bets, but with the right information they often settled as soon as possible. Additionally, the live in-play events are all settled as they happen and are often settled instantly for many bets, but the only major delay might be when you are betting on lower leagues and lesser-known teams, as this may take up to 24 hours in total.
How to request a withdrawal and how long it may take?
All staker withdrawals are to be approved by the Sportingbet financial department before being released and they might take up to 48 hours depending on the total withdrawal amount and which method you are using. Methods such as MuchBetter, EcoPayz, PaysafeCard, Skrill, Neteller, and PayPal all take up to 24 hours. The traditional banking cards like Mastercard, Maestro, and Visa can take anywhere from three to five days. Bank transfers and Canadian EFT transactions will take anywhere from two to four days, and instant banking options take between 24 hours and 48 hours.
Are multiple accounts allowed?
Multiple account creation is not allowed in line with the Sportingbet terms and conditions. The team reserves the right to close all connected accounts if stakers are found to be opening multiple accounts, and if they have reasonable grounds to believe that they have been opened with fraudulent intentions. It is also possible that they will cancel any transactions related to such fraudulent attempts, so do tread carefully with your accounts at Sportingbet.
Is it safe to open an account with Sportingbet?
Sportingbet is a part of the huge GVC Holdings Group and the bookmaker is fully licenced in a number of countries. There were sanctions taken against them due to the UKGC licence regulations breach (misleading bonus advertisement), but they are known to perform all the necessary checks and verifications, although the full details are not provided on the site. The winning limits and generated profit revenue do show that the company will have enough funds to pay out the top bets within 24 hours, but it should always be noted that the GVC owner is currently a loss-making company.
VPN Usage - legal or not?
VPN usage is not regulated by Sportingbet but at the same time, using VPN to browse their website might be technically problematic due to the many functions and pages being unavailable during their periods of maintenance.
gross gaming revenue
customer base
time to make €250K
Social Buzz
Up or down
A total of 83% of the comments are marked down as ‘bad’ with many stakers complaining about the inefficient customer service and the instant closure of accounts. It is clear that most of the comments here are negative and they always have been since the creation of the profile, which Sportingbet are still yet to officially claim.