Is Bodog in More Trouble Than We Imagined?
by Hillary LaClair, Senior Editor
More complaints about Bodoglife.com have arisen, as customers say their payments have slowed down significantly following the recent payment processing difficulties. According to Gambling911.com, the processing troubles that have hit the entire market have specifically hurt Bodog in the recent months.
“Processors won’t go near Bodog,” a source told Gambling911.com, regarding the Department of Justice’s recent seizure of Bodog’s funds. Payment has become a level of great concern in the online sports betting industry, with more eWallets being forced out of the U.S. market due to the UIGEA. The lack of options has forced many to close their doors to the U.S. or all together. Because of this, a great deal of the industry has utilized smaller payment processors who accept new clients based on a referral. These processors have had the capacity for mid to large sized gaming websites, and Bodog is certainly a large operation in the industry.
New processing options have opened in response to the crisis in the market, but unfortunately due to the controversy surrounding the online sportsbook, many steer clear in fear that they will also be shut down. Despite the decreasing availability of payment processors, Bodog has always managed to find new outlets for making deposits and withdrawals. According to the gaming news website, “Online gambling affiliated reported upwards of 50 percent conversion rates over the last month.
“The problem: Retaining these customers.” This is a growing concern for internet sportsbooks like Bodog, who continue to lose market share. The root cause of this, of course, is the slow processing time that new customers, especially those new to the industry as a whole, have experienced in the latter months with Bodog. Because of this, other gambling venues that have remained overlooked by the UIGEA and its enforcers are picking up the slack. Full Tilt Poker, the second largest online poker room in the industry, has 10 times the number of players as Bodog.
Moreover, SBR, an extremely useful and reputable online sportsbook review website, has dropped their rating of Bodog from an “A” to a “C,” and is considering a further downgrade. Things are certainly not looking good for the sportsbook, and it’s beginning to show.
The website reports, “At this point Bodog is simply telling us that everyone is in line for payout and they will pay as fast as their processors can put out payments. Unless a player has made person to person transfers as the primary deposit method, and is a long time customer, p2p isn’t being offered as a withdrawal payout.”
The person to person payment method has been reported as a means of receiving payment as a timely fashion, although customers have also complained about the costly fees that are tagged to it. While Bodog reports that its poor relationship with Sports Book Review may have led to their downgrade, it is not the online organization to have dropped its review of Bodog in the past few months. Users will notice a shift in review at SportsbookAdvisor.com as well.