Casino Cautions: Forty Plus, Connect to Casino, Venice Nights,
Bowman's sportsbook
English Harbour again taken to task over Forty Plus
It became clear that players were not letting up on English Harbour
over the Odds On - Forty Plus issue this week when the casino group
appeared at Casinomeister to answer criticism on a bonus issue.
Several players immediately stepped forward to again ask the EH
group to confirm or deny their ownership links with Odds On, and
to comment on the turnkey provider's appalling handling of the Forty
Plus failure late last year, leaving unpaid players. Odds On remains
tight-lipped regarding the identity of the people behind Forty Plus
but despite their lack of cooperation several players and journalists
continue to investigate in order to get the players paid.
Connect To Casino
RTG-powered
Connect To Casino.com has only been with us since mid-2003, yet
the arrogance of its management in customer relationships has become
almost legendary. Remember the "bonus whores" and other
insults? The growing number of negative posts on leading message
boards must be getting to CEO Keith Kane and his team because late
in the week a clumsy attempt to communicate and reassure the players
was made. Kane appears to be in denial regarding his casino's bad
rep for customer care, whining that his casino was being unfairly
bashed by malice-driven discontented players. With typical and belated
arrogance, Kane "declared" that from now on he would have
someone monitoring the message boards to deal with hassles, and
informed players that his alarmingly generous 250 percent bonuses
were well thought out and adequately funded. We hope so, because
too often in the past this has been the harbinger of cashflow hassles
and failure. Coordinated with Kane's post was a series of communications
from a PR guy called John Spears, who revealed that he had been
specifically hired to retrieve a bad situation at CTC and astonishingly
claimed that previous insults had been "in jest" and were
made by "an over zealous webmaster"! Spears went on to
assure another cynical enquirer that the questionable Danish disqualifications
made earlier had been addressed, with outstanding deposits and winnings
paid out as promised. Whether this is just another of those cosmetic
attempts to shore up a business, or a genuine effort to match positive
words to deeds and improve the service remains to be seen. Time
will inevitably tell. In the meantime the management attitude at
this operation remains in need of tuning.
Venice Nights
New arrival Venice Nights.com offers a combination of casino, sportsbook
and lottery action on an attractive site...but caution is urged
because they are being rather coy about the gambling software in
use, and there's an Interactive Gaming Council button which links
to the site. Only snag is - they are not members. Software secrecy
usually sets the alarm bells off when it is allied to generous bonuses
(30% bonus to $300 with only 3x bonus wagering) and deceptive watchdog
buttons. For the record the e-cash is mainly through ecashservices
but includes NeTeller, MoneyGram and Firepay. The site is presented
in five European languages, advertises three 5-figure jackpots and
has what looks like half a dozen multi-player capable Flash games.
Bowman's sportsbook
Bowman's sportsbook has been issuing denials to the contrary, but
it appears that the company is experiencing trouble in paying for
its advertising, and there have been slow-pay reports, too.
Sports911 this week reported that there have been rumors over the
past quarter that this British outfit is in financial trouble. It
says that the latest in a line of struggling bookmakers appears
to be Bowman's Sports, the long established British wagering company
with offices in Douglas, on the Isle of Man and a call center off
the coast of Africa on the island of Mauritius.
The report reveals that Gary Bowman had tried unsuccessfully to
sell his fledgling company and almost made it happen in late 2000
with the announced sale to a Malta-based group, FireStake. But the
latter corporation went down in a puff of smoke. Firestake dissolved
a month after announcing its forthcoming purchase of Bowman's.
Industry insiders insist that Bowman's has turned things around
with their current bookmaker, a well known figure from the Vegas
circuit.
"Bowmans may have the best hold percentage of any book
that deals North American sports," said one insider
who emailed Sports911.com and seems to know quite a bit about this
operation. "I doubt there is a book that has held a higher
percentage over the last three years."
That may be true, opines 911 but it doesn't change the fact that
three weeks is entirely too long a time to be waiting for a withdrawal.
It should be noted that other players have received payments, mostly
via NETeller, within a very short period of time.
