[TLD]

No change with these crooks. Still operating and taking deposits, but not paying out. As of today they’re saying “at least two weeks” before they can resume payouts, but their story changes every time you talk to them. All that remains consistent is that it’s always lies.

Interesting that they went the route of being a deposit only book, while some books like Big Juicy Odds just go under all at once and disappear with the money. Not sure what all plays into the costs and benefits calculations of these books in deciding which path is better.

I know this sounds like a ridiculous question, but has anybody ever had any success going through legal or governmental channels when an offshore book steals from you? My first instinct of course when anyone suggests something like that in the forums is to shake my head at how naïve they are, but then I remember an experience I myself had long ago.

In the 1990s, long before I knew of these forums or really anything about the offshore world beyond what I’d read in a few ads in magazines and such, I had two or three accounts with maybe $500-$1,000 each in them. (I was pretty much a small, recreational player.) One of the accounts was at ESB, which—though I didn’t know it at the time—was one of the most notorious scam books. It would have been the poster child for F books if SBR had existed then.

Anyway, they decided not to send me my money when I requested a withdrawal, for no reason at all except that they could. I spent I think about two months calling three to four times a week for an explanation of why my withdrawal wasn’t being processed, and every time I was told that only a manager could address that issue, and unfortunately they were all in a meeting, at lunch, had left for the day, etc.

I saw on their website that they were located in the Caribbean. (Jamaica maybe? It’s been so long, I don’t remember the details any more.) So, not knowing what else to do, I started calling government agencies in that country that sounded like they might have something to do with gaming, or at least with regulating businesses in general. I eventually got hold of someone who told me in broken English whom I should write to about my problem. I remember his title was “Senator,” but I don’t remember anything more than that, or why she’d suggested him in particular. But she gave me his office address, so I wrote a detailed letter of all that had transpired between me and ESB, urging them to take some kind of action against a crooked business in their jurisdiction robbing their customers.

About a week later I actually get a call from the owner of ESB, one of the Atiyehs (Dennis, I believe). He’s very apologetic, gives me some double talk story about why there had been a problem with my withdrawal, and promises to take care of it immediately. The interesting thing is, as we’re talking, I can hear he’s kind of reading through some notes or something about my situation. And then I recognized some specific phrases that had been in my letter to the Senator, but that I had never used in any direct communication with ESB. So I knew my letter had been forwarded to him. Clearly the Senator had provided my letter to ESB, probably with some kind of prodding to look into the matter and take care of it.

I got the check for my full balance a few days later, along with a letter of apology from Dennis and a note indicating they’d put a free $200 (I think it was $200) in my account. I ran that up to about $1,000, requested a withdrawal for the full amount, got it without a hitch, and never played there again.

But just in thinking back on that, here’s a book that’s among the worst stiff books in the history of offshore, in one of the countries we’re always told has no regulation of sportsbooks, and just by sending a letter to the government I got paid in full and then some.

Was that just a total fluke? Has anyone else ever gotten anywhere doing something like that? I don’t know how you’d do it in a case like Big Juicy Odds where they shut down entirely, but Lazerwager is more like ESB—still around and taking deposits, but just not paying. Are there any legal or governmental channels to pressure a Lazerwager or Cascade type book that’s still in operation?