New to the forums and online books

Went to Sportsbook.com and was thinking about placing some bets, but then decided to do some research first and it's a good thing I did because all I found was complaints. I'll likely be betting (casually, less than a few hundred $) mainly on MLB, NFL, and playing some poker. Looking for good MLB/NFL futures lines too. In the US and would like fast processing both ways. I know SBR has all the reviews but I'm always paranoid about review sites and how unbiased they actually are. And how do you guys deal with your taxes, just keep a tab of your total winnings? What sites do you guys use/recommend?

if your betting casually taxes wont be a problem. Spreadsheets are a good way to keep track of your winnings. If your paranoid about being ripped off by the book you may want to keep a hard copy of your transactions

Welcome gharper.

I am not in the US myself,but I have been playing with enough sportsbooks to know which ones are good and which ones are bad. It is good that you are vary of review sites. There are certainly some sites that review bookies and think of themselves as a watchdog, yet they promote dodgy and semi-dodgy bookies.

You will never agree 100% with any review or affilliate site, but in my experience SBR is as close as you can get to the truth. Even so you can see which bookies the users here at sbr consider to be the best bookies below the banners at the top of this page. The full results can be found here (results are from september last year). The best thing you can do though is to read up on recent experiences in the forums around the net. Due to the nature of the business there are a lot of false reports out there, but you will soon enough learn how to sort the actual player reports from the shills and scammers complaining and holding a bookie hostage by posting bad things in the forums.

Since you say that you are new to forums and online bookies you should make it a routine to always use the search function on the front page whenever you want to join a new bookie. I did a search for Sportsbook.com and a few things that you would be interested in (since you wanted to play poker) came up. There was a situation last year where sportsbook.com froze a players account due to alleged fraudulent poker play, but it was later resolved. But would it have been resolved without the help/pressure from SBR?

That said, I think you would be fine with sportsbook.com. I would consider 5Dimes though as you can get the reduced juice lines on baseball, as well as probably all the same options as that of sportsbook.com. But obviously I don't know what type of banking method you will be using and that could be the reason you were interested in sportsbook.com in the first place.

I know there are some threads up right now bashing 5Dimes, but don't worry about that.

As for taxes I wouldn't know (again, I am not in the US), but as long as you keep your withdrawals under $5k you will probably not get flagged and you will be fine.

The US facing sites that are A and A+ rated are all top notch if financial security is your predominant concern. They all have strengths and weaknesses and the best book(s) for you really depend on what you are looking for. Based on what you have said, I would agree with Chopsticks, 5Dimes may be the way to go.

As Chopstick mentions, the vast majority of posters in the Sportsbook & Industry forum will call things as they see it in terms of their opinions but there are always going to be a few whose opinion is slanted for whatever reason, in time you will mentally filter those out.

I am not in the US either so and taxes on winnings are not a concern for me but I do track every bet/trade I make in a database.

hey Dunder, just curious as to what country you are from that doesn't tax winnings? I might have to move there as well ;)

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Originally Posted by superjeff24

hey Dunder, just curious as to what country you are from that doesn't tax winnings? I might have to move there as well ;)

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I am from the UK, superjeff.

They may not be alone but the only one I know of which taxes (non-business) gambling winnings is the land of the so-called free!

No such nonsense in Oz :)

and the guvmint tries to keep us from online gamballz

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Originally Posted by gharper

Looking for good MLB/NFL futures lines too.

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It's rare to find a single book that has good future lines. There are off lines, but there's one here and then one over there and so on. I don't know that you're going to find one particular books that offers good future lines.

5 Dimes is not bad for futures.

If your in the US. 5 dimes, Greek, Bet Jamacia, bookmaker, betphoenix to name a few.

Anyone ever play poker at pokerstars.com? I know they're a more popular site and heavily advertise pokerstar.net(the play for fun site), but that doesn't always mean they're secure and pay out quickly.

Oh thanks for the advice guys.

pokerstars.com is THE most popular online poker site with the most action anywhere on the net. they just advertise .net because they can get away with that on tv as it is only play chips.

bodog has decent-traffic/software poker and sports but their sports betting options are somewhat lacking. they are legit and secure though.

Congrats on researching the Jazette family of books (Sportsbook, Superbook, etc) before jumping on board. They're getting better but I wouldn't play with them. All the best my friend.

i would vote for BoDog if you want to play poker and bet from the same account

Bodog sucks IMO but I have heard they are getting somewhat better, I would suggest 5dimes for sports betting and Pokerstars for poker.

For me 5 dimes. And for asian books 12bet they have casino but I guess they don't have live games for poker.