Jake:
I have called you in the past, more than once. You have not been available. You do have my phone number, if you wanted to talk to me, you could call me.
Now, the fact itself that you would rather communicate via forum, leads me to believe you're trying to draw attention on the SBR rating of SportBet and open the issue to discussion. Since it's your choice to discuss this openly, I would like to state my opinion regarding the business model of Sportbet.
Let's discuss this:
1. As Ken correctly states, your company has been one of the pioneers in the industry. However, the business model applied in the shop you run has not given room for tangible expansion. If you compare Sportbet's business model with shops that were established AFTERWARDS, you will see that these newer shops have outgrown SportBet. I believe you're running a well-structured organisation, I have personally tested your e-mail responsiveness
SBR Rating in Responsiveness for SportBet: A- and I have done so OBJECTIVELY. The grade shown above shows that.
However, I personally know what the work ethics of at least one of the owners of Sportbet are, and I understand that despite of being bound by a corporate contract, you will have to agree with me that he's not the sharpest business man out there. Behind the scenes, there are various things that would indicate that running a profitable business is really low in his list of priorities. I could post examples, but I don't think it's necessary and I would have to disclose information that has been given to me in confidence. I have comitted that mistake in the past and I not fond of making the same error twice.
2. Until earlier this year, your reputation as a resource manager allowed the owner of Sportbet to profit from you providing turnkey services to other companies. Up to recently, Sportbet was providing phone and bandwidth services to at least 5 other books, all of them part of the BetMaker umbrella. However, due to intestine disputes, the BetMaker family has moved into their own offices. Sportbet is no longer perceiving the revenue generated by this turnkey solution. This fact alone leads me to believe your index of Return On Investment has been affected negatively.
3. I currently possess information that would indicate these intestine struggles for power have prolonged. In my understanding, a house divided cannot stand. If you wish for me to disclose further info publicly, please let me know here; but I would strongly recommend that you check with your superiors before you make a decision.
4. You had discuss with John the possibility of disclosing the information on the books. To this day, this possibilty has not been concreted. If you want to do that, please forward all the info to
assistance@sportsbookreview.com. I can guarantee you we will report back the facts.
In short, SBR rates any given company based on:
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Bonus structure. In my opinion a 50% bonus is bad for business and bad for the industry, as it forces other companies to compete on bonuses rather than in quality of services and competitiviness of lines. Your offer of this type of bonuses right before NFL can be viewed as a sign of weakness, despite of how targeted the campaign was... and it was very targeted, I believe towards squares.
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Customer Service. I think I have made very clear my position regarding your ability as a resource manager. However, we get a lot of correspondence from players that were able to get their issues addressed only after they contacted you personally. I believe that's a sympton of inefficiency by your underlings. I have given your company credit where credit is due. The e-mail repsonse received by SBR was published and rated as one of the best responses we got.
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Financial Structure. Sportbet ownership has internal issues and they need to be addressed immediately, as they might have a very negative effect on your performance as a company.
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Ease of use of the website and the software that powers it. Your website could be enhanced to make it a lot easier for the average player to browse through it and place bets.
Once again, the sole reason for me to be posting here is becasue you wanted to address this issue publicly in the forums. I have no agenda against the company you run. As a matter of fact, I always believed we got along pretty decently. But I take pride on my work and it's my ultimate intention to remain as professional and factual as I can. I am working on creating a publicly available CRITERIA for players to understand where the Ratings come from.
However, I want you to rest assured that the team I lead applies this criteria uniformly. We make no exceptions and have no agendas. We investigate and post the hard-core facts.
I believe that by being 100% accountable for the job I do and my opinion and the fact that I'm always willing to openly discuss them with anybody in a rational way, is the only way to run a company of the nature of SBR. I understand my position as a General Manager in this company as a compromise with reporting ONLY the facts about this industry.
If you wish to address me personally, you can call me. I believe you have my digits or you can shoot me an e-mail to
will@sportsbookreview.com
on a borehog but then what could you expect from a brit trying to make decesions for an american based business. the other partners/owners excel in spending profits with condos on the beaches and lavish cars.
