[vyomguy]

This place is filled with trolls now looking to grab sbr points for pizza, daily meals, paying rent with points

This place went down hill after the introduction of SBR points.

I say remove the SBR points and all the trolls that come with it.

What say John Walker?

[onetrickpony]

what u gonna do, walkers money before points

now walkers money

[I/O]

there are other forums

[blackbeSSt]

hey vyguy, lemme get 75 points

[beerman2619]

get rid of points terrible idea son.

[RogueScholar]

I don't know if I buy into your assessment of SBR's cash flow pre and post Points Era, Tricker. All of the actions that SBR has taken in the last 18 months or so tend to suggest that they're feeling as much of a pinch as anyone in this recession/crackdown on offshore gambling.

• The Points system has undergone massive inflation since its implementation
• The ability to buy sportsbook FPs/cash has been discontinued
• The Bash was moved to CR to curtail attendance and costs associated
• They used to hire Americans and start them at $30k/yr or more, now they hire Costa Ricans and start them at $4.25/hr
• The SBR Pro program has morphed from being an elite membership tier to the basic membership tier, with non-Pros excluded from many things and their points now worth nothing, according to SBR John
• They abandoned their stand-alone office in Escazú to move into the CRIS building
• Rollovers introduced for Poker and Sportsbook
• Transfer tax for moving points between posters and the restriction of points movement for non-Pros

Put all of this together and you paint a picture of a business that is having to be extremely deliberate in how it spends cash in order to remain solvent. This doesn't affect me one way or the other nor am I claiming to know exactly what SBR's financial situation is, but I think it bears on the original topic that the Points led to the community being overrun with deadbeats rather than serious gamblers.

In my opinion, the Points were a brilliant concept implemented way too late in the game; pre-UIGEA they would've crushed the other major affiliate sites' ability to attract new sign-ups, but now they just attract brokesters that have nothing more to do with their time than gamble virtual currency. Said brokesters actually disenfranchise serious gamblers from sticking around on SBR by flooding the board with nonsense and childishness and behaving in such a degenerate/addictive manner that decent people feel uncomfortable being lumped into the same group with them. I think SBR has finally realized this and we'll see them remove non-Pros from the points system altogether sometime in 2012, as well as restrict them from posting in volume or in certain subforums. Sadly I think it will be too late to resurrect or restore the quality of the community, but I hope I'm proven wrong about that.

[mighty maron]

Black Friday and the fallout from it either contributes to the sbr point program downgrade or was a convient excuse to trim the fat

[Glitch]

1. theres no more transfer tax
2. i think they are just trying to keep an eye on all the free stuff they give and keep it "worth it" from a business perspective. like sbrjohn says, it is a new program and they are tweaking it to see what works and what is good and what is bad etc. people are very critical sometimes but i think we forget that this thing just sorta started.


yeah there are 100-point contests now and rollovers etc. but if you can already give away what people would consider a lot- why would you want to give even more? one sbrpro signups stop or slow down then they will adjust back the other way.
......................

posting quality is way down. this part is not debatable.

[daneblazer]

Did somebody say points?

[SBR_John]

RS you need an SBR refresher. If this was school you would get an F because your points are inaccurate.

The points program is an excellent loyalty program. We continue to tweak it so it rewards those who should be rewarded the most.

Everyone in this industry has felt the down draft due to a lot of reasons. This has been an excellent year at SBR despite the conditions. Sometimes poor conditions provide an opportunity. This is one of those times.

[onetrickpony]

RS you need an SBR refresher. If this was school you would get an F because your points are inaccurate. The points program is an excellent loyalty program. We continue to tweak it so it rewards those who should be rewarded the most. Everyone in this industry has felt the down draft due to a lot of reasons. This has been an excellent year at SBR despite the conditions. Sometimes poor conditions provide an opportunity. This is one of those times.

show us the books

[Hoja Verdes]

The fix is simple, and I've said it many times: eliminate points altogether for non-pros, and create different levels of pro status for various larger deposit amounts at sponsor books. This would solve so many of the problems that plague this forum and make it hard to read for the most part now.

[tofuman]

uhm.. newsflash.. you don't need to post to get the daily points anymore..

[compaqDikk]

I don't know if I buy into your assessment of SBR's cash flow pre and post Points Era, Tricker. All of the actions that SBR has taken in the last 18 months or so tend to suggest that they're feeling as much of a pinch as anyone in this recession/crackdown on offshore gambling.

• The Points system has undergone massive inflation since its implementation
• The ability to buy sportsbook FPs/cash has been discontinued
• The Bash was moved to CR to curtail attendance and costs associated
• They used to hire Americans and start them at $30k/yr or more, now they hire Costa Ricans and start them at $4.25/hr
• The SBR Pro program has morphed from being an elite membership tier to the basic membership tier, with non-Pros excluded from many things and their points now worth nothing, according to SBR John
• They abandoned their stand-alone office in Escazú to move into the CRIS building
• Rollovers introduced for Poker and Sportsbook
• Transfer tax for moving points between posters and the restriction of points movement for non-Pros

Put all of this together and you paint a picture of a business that is having to be extremely deliberate in how it spends cash in order to remain solvent. This doesn't affect me one way or the other nor am I claiming to know exactly what SBR's financial situation is, but I think it bears on the original topic that the Points led to the community being overrun with deadbeats rather than serious gamblers.

In my opinion, the Points were a brilliant concept implemented way too late in the game; pre-UIGEA they would've crushed the other major affiliate sites' ability to attract new sign-ups, but now they just attract brokesters that have nothing more to do with their time than gamble virtual currency. Said brokesters actually disenfranchise serious gamblers from sticking around on SBR by flooding the board with nonsense and childishness and behaving in such a degenerate/addictive manner that decent people feel uncomfortable being lumped into the same group with them. I think SBR has finally realized this and we'll see them remove non-Pros from the points system altogether sometime in 2012, as well as restrict them from posting in volume or in certain subforums. Sadly I think it will be too late to resurrect or restore the quality of the community, but I hope I'm proven wrong about that.

RogueScholar i would like to hear your opinion on silkRoad (and bitcoins for that matter since you are the master of virtual currency) if you are familiar. sellers must run rampant in CA or no? i bet it doesn't end well. tyia

[shaunovery]

Believe there should be some other way than points there should be super pros and pros , I've deposted into 2 books that were ok and a+ and now they want me to deposit into books that don't have as many lines and not as always trusted.

[Pew Pew]

I don't know if I buy into your assessment of SBR's cash flow pre and post Points Era, Tricker. All of the actions that SBR has taken in the last 18 months or so tend to suggest that they're feeling as much of a pinch as anyone in this recession/crackdown on offshore gambling.

• The Points system has undergone massive inflation since its implementation
• The ability to buy sportsbook FPs/cash has been discontinued
• The Bash was moved to CR to curtail attendance and costs associated
• They used to hire Americans and start them at $30k/yr or more, now they hire Costa Ricans and start them at $4.25/hr
• The SBR Pro program has morphed from being an elite membership tier to the basic membership tier, with non-Pros excluded from many things and their points now worth nothing, according to SBR John
• They abandoned their stand-alone office in Escazú to move into the CRIS building
• Rollovers introduced for Poker and Sportsbook
• Transfer tax for moving points between posters and the restriction of points movement for non-Pros

Put all of this together and you paint a picture of a business that is having to be extremely deliberate in how it spends cash in order to remain solvent. This doesn't affect me one way or the other nor am I claiming to know exactly what SBR's financial situation is, but I think it bears on the original topic that the Points led to the community being overrun with deadbeats rather than serious gamblers. In my opinion, the Points were a brilliant concept implemented way too late in the game; pre-UIGEA they would've crushed the other major affiliate sites' ability to attract new sign-ups, but now they just attract brokesters that have nothing more to do with their time than gamble virtual currency. Said brokesters actually disenfranchise serious gamblers from sticking around on SBR by flooding the board with nonsense and childishness and behaving in such a degenerate/addictive manner that decent people feel uncomfortable being lumped into the same group with them. I think SBR has finally realized this and we'll see them remove non-Pros from the points system altogether sometime in 2012, as well as restrict them from posting in volume or in certain subforums. Sadly I think it will be too late to resurrect or restore the quality of the community, but I hope I'm proven wrong about that.

Not to mention their 10 point trivia questions are hard as fuuck now.

[EaglesPhan36]

Points don't destroy forums, stupid posts do.

[davidchong]

hits guy live in another world

[Mr. D]

I don't know if I buy into your assessment of SBR's cash flow pre and post Points Era, Tricker. All of the actions that SBR has taken in the last 18 months or so tend to suggest that they're feeling as much of a pinch as anyone in this recession/crackdown on offshore gambling.

• The Points system has undergone massive inflation since its implementation
• The ability to buy sportsbook FPs/cash has been discontinued This decision was made under advice from legal counsel. Offerings to Non-US posters were not discontinued.
• The Bash was moved to CR to curtail attendance and costs associated The Bash was moved to CR primarily to provide a more memorable experience for attendees and secondarily to become much easier to logistically manage. According to those posters that have attended more than one Bash the primary goal was very succesfully achieved. True, attendence was down significantly. However the increased cost per attendee certainly precluded any major savings by SBR.
• They used to hire Americans and start them at $30k/yr or more, now they hire Costa Ricans and start them at $4.25/hr Average starting salaries this fall for sportsbook customer service reps here in CR was $3.45. SBR pays our cleaning ladies more than that amount. The personnel we are hiring in CR are all degreed and experienced and are offered starting salaries well north of the 30k mark.
• The SBR Pro program has morphed from being an elite membership tier to the basic membership tier, with non-Pros excluded from many things and their points now worth nothing, according to SBR John
• They abandoned their stand-alone office in Escazú to move into the CRIS building SBR moved from an office in a strip-center that we had rented for over 6 years into a facility that we purchased and remodeled over the course of nearly one year. While we do visit the CRIS building on occasion, we are not now nor have we ever been located under a roof owned by a sportsbook.
• Rollovers introduced for Poker and Sportsbook
• Transfer tax for moving points between posters and the restriction of points movement for non-Pros

Put all of this together and you paint a picture of a business that is having to be extremely deliberate in how it spends cash in order to remain solvent. This doesn't affect me one way or the other nor am I claiming to know exactly what SBR's financial situation is, but I think it bears on the original topic that the Points led to the community being overrun with deadbeats rather than serious gamblers.

In my opinion, the Points were a brilliant concept implemented way too late in the game; pre-UIGEA they would've crushed the other major affiliate sites' ability to attract new sign-ups, but now they just attract brokesters that have nothing more to do with their time than gamble virtual currency. Said brokesters actually disenfranchise serious gamblers from sticking around on SBR by flooding the board with nonsense and childishness and behaving in such a degenerate/addictive manner that decent people feel uncomfortable being lumped into the same group with them. I think SBR has finally realized this and we'll see them remove non-Pros from the points system altogether sometime in 2012, as well as restrict them from posting in volume or in certain subforums. Sadly I think it will be too late to resurrect or restore the quality of the community, but I hope I'm proven wrong about that.

Hi Rogue Scholar,

As always very well written and thought provoking. Several of the concerns you raise are speculative and lack the metrics to either prove or disprove. A few of your contentions are factually inaccurate. Kindly see my comments in red in reference to those points which i personally can refute. We look at the points program as part of our advertising budget, and in order to remain financially stable our advertising budget should remain at the forcasted percentage of expenses.

Best regards,

Shannon

[pavyracer]

I don't know if I buy into your assessment of SBR's cash flow pre and post Points Era, Tricker. All of the actions that SBR has taken in the last 18 months or so tend to suggest that they're feeling as much of a pinch as anyone in this recession/crackdown on offshore gambling.

• The Points system has undergone massive inflation since its implementation
• The ability to buy sportsbook FPs/cash has been discontinued
• The Bash was moved to CR to curtail attendance and costs associated
• They used to hire Americans and start them at $30k/yr or more, now they hire Costa Ricans and start them at $4.25/hr
• The SBR Pro program has morphed from being an elite membership tier to the basic membership tier, with non-Pros excluded from many things and their points now worth nothing, according to SBR John
• They abandoned their stand-alone office in Escazú to move into the CRIS building
• Rollovers introduced for Poker and Sportsbook
• Transfer tax for moving points between posters and the restriction of points movement for non-Pros

Put all of this together and you paint a picture of a business that is having to be extremely deliberate in how it spends cash in order to remain solvent. This doesn't affect me one way or the other nor am I claiming to know exactly what SBR's financial situation is, but I think it bears on the original topic that the Points led to the community being overrun with deadbeats rather than serious gamblers.

In my opinion, the Points were a brilliant concept implemented way too late in the game; pre-UIGEA they would've crushed the other major affiliate sites' ability to attract new sign-ups, but now they just attract brokesters that have nothing more to do with their time than gamble virtual currency. Said brokesters actually disenfranchise serious gamblers from sticking around on SBR by flooding the board with nonsense and childishness and behaving in such a degenerate/addictive manner that decent people feel uncomfortable being lumped into the same group with them. I think SBR has finally realized this and we'll see them remove non-Pros from the points system altogether sometime in 2012, as well as restrict them from posting in volume or in certain subforums. Sadly I think it will be too late to resurrect or restore the quality of the community, but I hope I'm proven wrong about that.

Very well said. Points do not attract deposits from players with cash to spend at offshore. What SBR attracted is every high school graduate without a job and every college student who doesn't have $10 to buy food and instead it relies on parents allowance to survive and will not send dad's money to CR to gamble so instead gambles with points which are free.

[vyomguy]

Points don't destroy forums, stupid posts do.

stupid posts come from tons of free-loaders who come here for sbr points.

[zsr]

The fix is simple, and I've said it many times: eliminate points altogether for non-pros, and create different levels of pro status for various larger deposit amounts at sponsor books. This would solve so many of the problems that plague this forum and make it hard to read for the most part now.

The problem with this is who wants to put 5k or 10k offshore where your money is far from safe.

[bigboydan]

The problem with this is who wants to put 5k or 10k offshore where your money is far from safe.

I can't dispute your comments at all if you reside within the U.S. and play offshore however, that's just merely a small percentage of the overall marketplace. Like I mentioned to management long before I retired way back in 2009 the main focus should be in the Euro and Asian sectors due to the fact that I foresaw what was coming long before the problems everyone sees today.

[pavyracer]

The offshore industry for US players is dead.

[bigboydan]

The offshore industry for US players is dead.

Maybe, maybe not Mr.Pavy.

It just all depends if somebody out there actually has the knowledge to know how to revive it or not. I feel it's definitely an obtainable goal but their are a lot of factors that need be considered as well as addressed before even attempting it.

[stevenash]

I just called Soverign Bank, instead of $1280 next month for my mortgage, they'll gladly accept 14,500 SBR points instead.

SBR is like an ice cream sundae, the points are like the cherry on top.
I'll still order the ice cream sundae, even if the cherry was not included.

SBR is a nice site, the yuks here never stop, the points are not the reason why I come here.

[SBR_John]

Very well said. Points do not attract deposits from players with cash to spend at offshore. What SBR attracted is every high school graduate without a job and every college student who doesn't have $10 to buy food and instead it relies on parents allowance to survive and will not send dad's money to CR to gamble so instead gambles with points which are free.

There must be some kind of syndrome that defines the pavy and RS mind set and comments. Something like Iwishyouwouldfail syndrome or something

The sponsors are thrilled with the site especially the Pro program. Can you name another site that sends even half the number of real money players?

Every business is hard. When you create instead of copy its doubly hard. When you copy you benefit by learning from the mistakes(and successes) of the originator. Innovation as a whole is what has made SBR successful from Sportsbook Review on down. Later this year we will introduce the first real time spreadsheet that will show you where you are at with your bets in real time(no need to enter scores). It will grade bets and keep an organized history. We are also working on Fantasy Points for next year. That will be really good stuff.

[taxer]

I love how all these guys that read forums think they know everything we dont know shiat

[frostno98]

SBR Points was the best thing ever to happen on the internet.