The ever expanding online gambling trend has many people understandably concerned about sending money to overseas Internet casinos that operate in regions with minimal regulations, such as Aruba, Belize, and Costa Rica. As a result, a number of watchdog websites have popped up all over the net claiming to objectively review online gambling sites and report on which sites offer fair play and which sites cheat the players. Most of these sites publish reviews of online sportsbooks and poker sites as well as a list of recommended online casinos, but many of these same watchdog sites are also receiving payments for advertising the same sites they are reviewing or for sending the sites customers. Unfortunately, online gamblers may not be aware of this inherent conflict of interest and blindly trust the reviews of the gambling sites. One site, MajorWager.com, even owns one of the sportsbooks it recommends. This creates a situation where some online gambling sites that have advertising or business relationships with the watchdog website receive rave reviews while other sites that don’t have such a relationship get very poor marks. Alistair Assheton, chief executive of Leisure & Gaming PLC, which operates gambling sites such as VIPsports.com and VIPpoker.com. and is publicly traded in London, accused some rating sites of basically saying “if you don't pay me money, I will write bad things about you". Assheton said that his company had been approached by ratings sites offering positive reviews in return for payment, but did not name which companies. It's very flattering to be very high on these lists, but it is not very flattering to pay $10,000 to be on the list," said Assheton. According to research firm Christiansen Capital Advisors LLC, revenues from Internet gambling will reach twelve billion dollars worldwide this year. About half of that will come from Americans even though online gambling has been explicitly banned in several states and the U.S. government has declared online gambling illegal. Recognizing consumer fears about betting on the web, sites such as MajorWager.com, SportsbookReview.com and OSGA.com -- the "Offshore Gaming Association" are making money off those concerns by offering their own suggestions and recommendations about where players can gamble safely. The watchdog sites base their ratings of the online casinos on a combination of the rating sites’ own analyses and reports from users on factors like how quickly a company pays out winnings. Some of the reviewers for the ratings sites say they visit the offices of the casinos in person. Conflicts of interest arise when the rating sites have business relations with the gambling sites they are reviewing. Such is the case with MajorWager.com, which owns MajorBetting.com, a small Internet sportsbook based in Costa Rica. MajorBetting.com was founded in 2000, by 39-year-old former gambler, Russ Hawkins. Hawkins now works out of his lakeside home in Southampton, Ontario and his Internet gambling site, MajorBetting.com is on his ratings site, MajorWager.com's list of recommended sportsbooks. Those who click through to the MajorBetting.com site are only informed at that time of the relationship between MajorWager.com and MajorBetting.Com. The recommendation page on MajorWager.com makes no mention of the relationship. MajorWager.com does, however, disclose to its visitors that all of its recommended sportsbooks are also advertisers. Royal Sports Group, a gambling company in Costa Rica, is also on the recommendation page of MajorWager.com and, according to Mr. Hawkins, manages MajorBetting.com and pays for advertisements on MajorWager.com. Hawkins, nonetheless, insists that the recommendations found on the MajorWager.com site are in no way influenced by his business relationships with online gambling sites. There are "conflicts of interest everywhere" among the watchdog sites, he said. "We try to show it. We don't hide it." MajorWager.com is paid a flat fee of $3,000 a month by advertisers. A look at other rating sites, however, reveals that Royal Sports Group gets mixed reviews. At SportsbookReview.com, Royal Sports gets a rating of "D-." Sites in that class have "poor customer service," with "some risk to players' funds," SportsbookReview.com says. When "players stop reporting that Royal will not pay them, we will gladly review their current rating," Shannon Donlea, financial controller at SBR Marketing Ltd., SportsbookReview.com's parent, said in an email message. Royal Sports Group does not advertise on either SportsbookReview.com or TheOffshoreWire.com. On the other hand, at OSGA, where Royal Sports Group advertises, the company is endorsed both as a sportsbook and as a poker site. The review says, "Royal has been through the ringer the last two years but, as a very established company would, has come out smelling like a rose." General Manager of Royal Sports, Kevin King, said that while it is true that the company has occasionally had problems with payment processors, which delayed payment to winning customers, SportsbookReview.com and TheOffshoreWire.com have exaggerated the issue. King also pointed out that during the period that Royal Sports paid commissions to SportsbookReview.com for linking customers to its site, SportsbookReview, maintained positive ratings on Royal Sports. In another twist, Roberto Castiglioni, the owner of TheOffshoreWire.com was a former executive at Royal Sports Group, but maintains, along with Mr. Donlea, of SportsbookReview.com that their negative reviews of Royal Sports were based on complaints from gamblers, and not their own dealings with the casino. The problem is not limited to just a few ratings sites either. Ratings of online gambling sites vary greatly from watchdog site to watchdog site. BetonSports.com, whose parent, BetonSports Plc, is publicly traded in London, is not rated at MajorWager.com but is endorsed at OSGA.com, where it is a paid advertiser. In contrast, BetonSports.com gets a “D+” from, SportsbookReview.com, with which it has no business relationship. SportsbookReview.com rates many of the Internet sportsbooks and it criticizes those sites that have a reputation of not paying winning bettors promptly. SportsbookReview.com also maintains that it does not advertise sportsbooks. It does, however, feature links to two other sites it owns: a discussion forum for bettors, where there are ads for sportsbooks; and another site where SportsbookReview.com earns commissions for directing bettors to sportsbooks. Mr. Donlea, of SportsbookReview.com, insists that these relationships don’t influence the company’s reviews and that the company takes “player complaints seriously and [has] a no-nonsense approach to rating sportsbooks." Other owners of ratings sites also defended the business practice of accepting money for advertising from the sites they review. "I wouldn't take money from an advertiser I wouldn't put my money at," said Jim Quinn, president of OSGA.com. Of the forty sites recommended on OSGA.com, most of them pay to advertise on the site. "We actually visit these places," he said, adding that he has met in person with executives at more than 100 sportsbooks located in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Related Links: Posted on: December 22, 2005
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