What a bunch of whining crybabies you all are!

Crooks in the gambling industry?? Wow! Imagine that! For crying out loud - GET OVER IT ALREADY!! Guess what? This crap has happened many times before and - hold onto your hat - it will happen MANY TIMES AGAIN!! It is the nature of the business. It's the price of having a free market. Some businesses fail, and when they do, customers get hurt. Its a shame, but it sure beats the alternative - a totally regulated environment. I think they call that communism. Some of you posters seem to want that. Be careful what you wish for. Mark my words - You'll end up with nothing but clone after clone with little or no line variation and 20 cent lines everywhere.

Some of you are willing to gamble on newer sites with great promos and bonuses. That's fine. But if you do, realize that sh..t like this can very easily happen. Well I'm one of the gamblers that likes playing at these riskier sites. I weigh the risk vs. the reward, determine if it is worth the risk, and if so - I accept them. If things go wrong, I say oh well, I gambled and lost, and then I move on. On a side note, I think it is somewhat hillarious that one of the sites (SIA) that for years now, has gotten nothing but bad press, just keeps plugging along, while other sites that are praised as "books with solid standup guys in charge" disappear at the drop of a hat.

Some of you, on the other hand, sit there all smug and say "Y'all got what you deserved - playing in a book like that. You'll only catch me playing in 'top tier' books myself". Give me a break. Today's "top tier" book is one bank run or one midnight change of management or one bad Super Bowl away from becoming tomorrow's Ace's Gold. Planet Pinnacle is universally hailed as the definitive bedrock solid book, yet it is well known that they gamble there. They're darn good at it, but what would happen if they suddenly had a long string of bad luck on some big events? Isn't that exactly what brought Aces down? Wasn't Aces considered one of the industry's bedrock investments right up until the day they suddenly disappeared without a trace? Several other "top tier" books have had some rumors passed around about them recently, too. How long does it take a rumor, whether it is factual or not, to cause a panic stricken bank run?

I remember a thread a couple of years or so ago asking everyone to rate their top 20 books. Six months later half the top 20 were either gone or had serious finacial problems. It was comical. Here's a prediction for y'all: At least one "top tier" book will go under within the next 12 months. I'll even lay some odds on it happening.

"Top tier" book going under < 12 months...-250
No "top tier" book going under...+200

I'll even define "top tier" as as the top 20 books as rated by a poll of Rx posters.

Anyone wanna lay some money on the dog here??

For what it's worth, here is my recommendations to you whiners: Be damn glad Royal bailed out GA and accept the 5x rollover gladly. I know I am. If you wanna get your money in a hurry, play scalps or middles at the maximum at Royal and somewhere else until you reach the rollover req'mt. You can even play scalps that lose money and still come out ahead because of all the huge bonuses you got for signing up at GA in the first place.

As for a long term solution to the problem of crooks stealing our money, I thought Buzzsaws idea of a trust account was a step in the right direction. However, I don't think it went far enough. I would recommend that instead of Rx, MW, SBR and the books contributing to this account, why not the gamblers themselves. All books could have a rating, determined by the market, and if you wanted to play at a book with a AAAAA rated book and have insurance, your premium paid to the account would be say $100/year for every $2000 of your balance. If you wanted to play at Flybynight.com with a C- rating, and be covered by the insurance, your premium would be $1000/year. I haven't got all the details worked out, but the point is - the player must pay for the insurance instead of/or in addition to the watchdog sites.

Anyway, my point of this rant is to stop the useless whining and start some constructive talk on solving the problem. I'm I wrong or what?

Post of the Week.

Post of the YEAR IMO...

Logical post

Never invest more money in any book that you can't afford to lose or will cause you serious financial heartache if you awake and they are gone.

Well spoken. I agree we all including myself complain at times too much but it is important to get the information out so others don't make the same mistakes at these casinos or casinos run by the same individuals. This is what is great about the prescription is that we can find out about some of the offshore casinos both good and bad.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>The General

Chief Executive Officer of Morale Control GeneralPete@Hotmail.com
posted November 06, 2003 11:43 AM
Logical post

Never invest more money in any book that you can't afford to lose or will cause you serious financial heartache if you awake and they are gone.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

General....that was deep!

MD Kid- Overall a very good post! Thanks for taking the time to do it.

I like some of your points, but to sarcastically proclaim 'GET OVER IT ALREADY' when this just happened this week is ridiculous. I'd hazard a guess a number of people had one very long day thinking they were going to get stiffed, some of them for the first time, and I'm sure that though they are grateful to Royal that didn't happen, don't expect them to just recover and grow a thick hide like you and veterans have.

I agree it's a balance of risk - I personally played at SIA until booted last year because it was impossible for you not to make money if you even had a clue as to what you were doing.

I'll let others respond to some of the other comments, but asking the players to take even MORE of a hit by 'donating' to the fund is not a good idea - it was meant as a way for books to encourage players they'd be handled in the event of a bad apple in the industry - NOT the other way around.

Mad,

I have always felt that way and think it is very safe to apply. NO sportsbook can convince me they are beyond the scope of a possible bad situation.

Thanks for the props, fellas. Just trying to inject some sanity into an insane situation.

Jazz,

I didn't mean to come off as sarcastic. Indeed, I too, was quite worried - I have almost 3 dimes in there myself. But searching for some useful information and seeing nothing but thread after thread telling me that Mike and Freddie are nothing but worthless crooks was getting tiresome to me. To me, getting bought out by Royal was great news, and IMO it should've ended the Mike and Freddie hatefest. But it just continues. Alright already - They're scum. Now lets move on.

I have to respectfully disagree with you that the gamblers shouldn't have to pay any premiums. If you're a bad driver or if you drive a car with a history of problems you pay higher premiums to drive. So if wanna play at sites that are riskier, AND WANT INSURANCE TO DO SO, you should contribute toward a fund that will bail you out. The key here is you are not REQUIRED to pay into this fund, but you are only covered if you DO. That's even better than car insurance. At least here, you got a choice to pay for it or not!!

I can see your point about the vast number of different topics - I'd prefer they be consolidated to one long 'Eat Shit and Die, GA' topic, but people are aren't yet in a 'healing' mode (God, don't you HATE that phrase???) - it'll subside.

As to the insurance, for some reason I thought it was mandatory - re-reading I see the concept is optional. Fair enough. And you do say the details are of course not worked out yet - but a major problem I see right off the bat is this 'rating' agency. The overwhelming, fundamental problem with most offshore books is that they are not regulated, and are fiefdoms unto themselves. This fiefdom has its share of stand-up guys, lay-down guys and guys you would just like to see buried. So this rating agency would have to be a completely independent agency, dealing with unregulated books, and would have to rate them - anyone see a problem where a (gasp!) sleazy or desperate sportsbook owner would grease some palms at this agency to avoid getting a bad rating, which would most assuredly result in less business for their book? Look at Moody's ratings - you know how they affect borrowing costs for those entities who drop even one grade - these ratings would become the de facto sportsbook rating system, and would be a fat target for corruption. Not to mention the principals of THAT agency taking off with the money.

But, at least you have come up with an alternative to be kicked around, and I appreciate that.

Jazz,

How about the "insurance company" doing it's own ratings! They would have a self interest in coming up with proper ratings since they would be making payouts at disproportionate amounts if their ratings were scewed. Its the free market at its best - Don't you love it? Lets show the feds that we don't need their stinking FDIC!

Well, again, that doesn't prevent a top-level bastard from getting heavily bribed and making a fortune while the 'insurance company' loses money - for recent examples, see Enron and Worldcom: the CEOS made out like bandits while they ran their multi-billion dollar companies into the toilet. You have to get around this problem for it to work.

That was a fun read. One thing is for sure, we need some new ideas and new solutions so that player confidence is rock solid.

MD, I like your bet, its fair and shows good gamesmanship. I would be willing to bet that the 15 or so A rated books on SBR will not stiff anyone in the next 52 weeks. I will even take +150, down from your +200 offer, because it's 5 less books.

The real "top tier" is really, imo, only about 6 books.

Expanding on this thought - the Insurance company could be RX or MW or whoever. They would be in the business of making a profit. Therefore, it would be in their best interest to give the best ratings possible. This in turn would make it very likely that they would visit any site that gamblers wanted insurance with. Every stone would be overturned and book managers and owners would be investigated thoroughly. In addition, no palm greasing would occur because the insurance company (ie. RX) would only be screwing themselves.

Jazz, just read your reply before posting this one. It seems you wanna 100% guarantee. Their ain't one. But this idea would be a vast improvement over what we got, no? I mean right now we got assurances that Shmedly and Diffledorf are stand up guys. I kinda want something a little more tangible.

Buzz,

Would you be willing to wager at +150 that the top 6 won't stiff their customers sometime in the next 5 years? Makes you think, no? Point is, even rock solid, well run books with managers with the highest integrity can (and probably will) eventually run into trouble in this industry.

Oh yeah, you're right - for 5% of my post-up if I play "with a AAAAA rated book and have insurance, your premium paid to the account would be say $100/year for every $2000 of your balance", and far more for less-well rate books, I want iron-clad insurance. Right now I'm paying only 3.53% for my house insurance every year - lol! But I realize you were just throwing out examples without giving weight to the underlying numbers!

Frankly, I would definitely not want to take insurance with the Rx, MW, Covers, or any of the other forums out there either. I don't think any forum accepting advertising revenue from books would be a very good choice to police the industry.

So who DO I think could do this? Answer: perhaps a major bank in someplace with strict gaming laws, for instance the UK or Australia, who would setup an escrow fund where the insurance money would go, and an independent group there consisting of professional arbitrators who would decide the merit of each claim. But naturally you'll only go so far in any scheme like this as the books themselves are willing to go, meaning a lot would probably not be willing to open their books to settle disputes. Even in the case of your insurance company idea, all books covered and rated would have to open their books and be willing for such a company to invesigate a player's claim (say they got stiffed but the book did not go under) - how many do you really think will do this?

Back to the main problem: this industry is unregulated and I think they'll resist any attempt for an overseeing control, because they are far to used to doing whatever they want to, even if a lot of books do so honorably. Books expecting to get bad ratings would say 'go fvck yourself, we ain't gettin' rated and you ain't lookin' at our books', and those are the ones you'd MOST need to be covered.

Catch-22, as far as I can tell.

MDkid, if you call a regulated environment communism then I sure am a commy and it seems to be implemented in Australia.

With the commies running things I got back every cent of my money when Betworks out of Australia went out of business.

btw, I'm outta here for most of the rest of the day, so don't think I'm being rude if I don't answer back for quite a while

MD Kid - Some very interesting "food for thought." Very good post. Thanks for taking the time to share your ideas!