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At the very beginning of the coverage of this story I decided to mention the facts but not the name of the book.
This generated an extremely vital discussion at offshoregamblersdigest. This happened on May 4th. Hard for me to believe other forums had not "lurked" in. As a matter of fact The Major from MW jumped into that thread believing that the matter was concerning Royal Sports.
Between May 4th and May 5th I confronted the book with the situation. The book confirmed the story, but also mentioned their suspects about foul play. The book however confirmed they had no evidence to support such suspects.
On May 10th the book's main man stated "I stated that I would do whatever Rick and Ben and the Lawyer who handled the setllement would agree upon. I am staying out of it as I beleive he was paid in full previously."
The same day, May 10th, I talked to the book's lawyer. His position was clear: the player had willingfully entered a settlement agreement. The issue, in his opinion, was dealt with.
However the lawyer also said that this was his legal advise, but the final decision was to be taken by the book.
On May 13th SBR covered the story for the first time.
The book stopped responding.
On May 15th SBR covered the story for the second time.
On May 24th, after contacts through Mybookie's linesman, I was told that the book would have allowed a three way conference call between the player, the lawyer and myself. Object of the call was to determine if there had been duress or not.
The same day the entire situation dramatically escalated. MW posted this thread with the intent to minimize the issue and pretending that the player was a scammer:
On May 25th SBR posted its harshest comment about the story:
SBR said...
SBR COSTA RICA OFFICE REPORTS: GrandCentral Sports(SBR rating D+) dba Mybookie proves why private oversight of the offshore sportsbook industry is insufficient to protect players.
MyBookie forced a player, allegedly by suggesting they may stiff him out of his entire balance, to accept .30 on the dollar, a move that cost the player $85,000. Except for SBR and little known TOW(TheOffshoreWire), none of the so-called player advocate sites have even reported this incredible theft. This is easily the largest sportsbook theft case of 2005. Lawmakers in North America will undoubtedly use this theft as an example of how vulnerable players are to unregulated sportsbooks. SBR has repeatedly called for GCS to pay the player or show cause why he should not be paid. Sources in Costa Rica have told SBR that because the only major website that took up the players’ cause was SBR that GCS felt they got away with minimal backlash.
However, many respected operators here in Costa Rica are disgusted with the forced theft. More than one sportsbook operator has complained publicly and privately that even SBR was not doing enough to pressure this book to settle in full with the player. Operators here recognize that these types of theft will be the beginning of the end for the sportsbook industry.
SBR’s position is clear: Pay the player or show cause as to why $85,000 was confiscated. Failure to do so will result in the possibility of an SBR Scam Warning press release as well as a possible downgrade to the SBR Blacklist.
The same day the story was posted at The Prescription.
At the same time I was waiting to hear from Alex Powers, who was the person incharge to OK the three way conference call. His OK never came.
I was asked by Shrink to provide him the player's phone number, and so I did. Ken asked me to inform the player that he would have been calling him shortly, and so I did.
From this point onwards many details have become hard to put together.
On thing I know for sure. I called the player that night at around 11pm to verify that the situation had been solved.
I am not at liberty to disclose what I had been told. All I will say is that even half of that is true even the most navigated man would feel like puking. As a matter of fact I puked twice.
I was then called at 2.59am.
From that moment on the main focus had been brought from the settlement of the dispute to the false allegations about a 50% commission I would have agreed with the player in case of success.
Whereas the player admitted having reported confused information to both Shrink and General, I shall say I was saddened not to be confronted with such, but rather smeared instead.
I did today what I maybe should have done BEFORE. I had the person who introduced me to the case, the same highly respected individual within the industry who had initially contacted Sting and Shrink contact the latter, and tell how this tout thing really was (I knew the player owed the tout, but thought it was for the guy's picks):
xxxx said...
After speaking to xxxx about the situation that my contact in xxxxxxx told me about, I called Roberto and asked him to look into it and he NEVER asked for a penny from the player or my contact at any point, even though my contact (The Tout) was charging xxxx 50% to help get the money back. Before xxxx suggested that I call Roberto he had already informed you and Chris about MYBookie since they were an advertiser of both TheRx and Gambling911. XXXX agreed to paying the tout 50% because he thought it was a dead issue due to the settlement!! Once again Roberto NEVER asked anyone for a penny, and was only looking for the truth. These are the facts.
Note: I never talked nor met the tout.
The rest is recent history......
In my opinion there should be no mistery over this story. The book had done something wrong, a player raised his voice several times until someone listened to him. The story kept brewing for weeks until it finally came to everyone's attention.
Others jumping on the bandwagon was not only natural, but also positive and welcome. The latest spins however brought back in my mind the facts I know and I may not (yet) disclose.
I don't care what cheerleaders have to say, nor I care if the player will not honor his debt with his tout. Its their business, and totally unrelated to the very core of this situation IMHO.
What I DO care about is that the player receives his FULL payment. It was his money. It is his money. This is why I want to make sure that a trusted third party (and not anyone involved in this situation) to be in position to verify that indeed the player received his payment in full.
I still recall the content of the conversation I earlier mentioned. And want to make sure it was false.
This is not only owed to the player, but to the entire gaming community.
I truly wish an happy ending to this incredible mess.
Post Edited (TOW) : 5/28/2005 8:12:03 PM (GMT-4)
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