Avoid Toxic Online Sportsbook www.SBGGlobal.com
SBG Global was established in April of 1999 and claims they are “the world’s most respected online sportsbook” a statement that couldn’t be further from the truth. In Costa Rica, SBG Global is known as wannabe mafia, a term given to foreigners who open up betting shops and then decided they’d rather steal money than win it. Now to be clear, 90% of bettors using their website do so without problem or complaint. This is because these bettors are small timers never winning more than $2,000 cumulative. However, if you’re a savvy bettor or just happen to take advantage of one of their generous promotions or lines they plan to renege on, you just might find your entire bankroll at held hostage or confiscated by this toxic company.
SBG Global has a long history of complaints dating back more than a decade. From 2001 to 2006 their most common scam was confiscating account balances of winners who had an account with one of their sister sites. Today, their company owns just two additional brands BetRoyal, Sports-Gambling, but in the past had a half dozen additional sportsbooks they operated. What they did was inside of their “too many words to read terms and conditions” add some small print that stated players were prohibited from having more than one account at SBG Global networked sites; listing the other sites this applied to. Many bettors were unaware of this term. From here SBG Global freerolled… meaning, anyone who lost was free to continue wagering. Anyone who won had their deposits refunded to them and told their winnings are void because they broke the duplicate account rule.
Rule 106-B Winners Not Allowed
Knowledge of SBG’s freeroll scam caught on and in time there were massive warnings and in turn less potential victims for SBG Global to steal from. So what they did at this point was add a wiseguy rule which just simply stated it is against the rules for professional players to use their site. This gave them the ability to steal at will from any client they suspected would not be profitable. Reports of these thefts are archived in this SBG Global Complaints Page of Sportsbook Review. Here you’ll see it started in June 2006. The first complaint came from a bettor who deposited $10,000 and ran it up to nearly $29,000 betting steam on NHL hockey. SBG Global told Sportsbok Review they “zeroed his account because he is not someone we wish to deal with”. From here it took almost three months of bad press to get back only the $10,000 he deposited, as their intent originally was to steal this too.
In August 2006 SBG Global confiscated $3,000 from a player for being too sharp. In November that year a player had an account balance of $56,000 zeroed out and after much complaint he was given a onetime take it or leave it offer of $21,000, while another player had $13,500 zeroed, and yet another over $100,000 confiscated late into the month. You can visit the linked to SBR reports to see the madness of it all, but the company continued to steal in 2007, and their 2008 reported thefts exceeded $1 million USD.
Scam Targeting Smaller Bettors
In addition to scamming big winners, SBG Global has also cheated average players as well. In 2009 a Formula 1 racing future for Jenson Button at 70:1 was offered. When it appeared Button had won SBG Global voided wagers or offered players a chance to settle for a 10:1 payout. This was absurd because other sites were offering around 50:1 on this future and 70:1 was not an obvious line error. What players didn’t know is this is a common scam – bump the payouts on a driver extremely unlikely to win with no intent to pay if he does. Most times they upset no one, but the times the driver does win they get keep 100% of the bets they took on this, less mere refunds to the winners, by claiming it was a bad line. This is an old school betting scam and one of the many unethical business practices of SBG Global.
Other SBG Global Complaints
Years back many players lost their balances following a radio handicapper. After a hot streak, SBG claimed that these players were part of a “betting syndicate” and zeroed their accounts. One player in this situation had a balance of 80,000 dollars which has still not been paid. A quick Google search of “SBG Global Complaints” will show hundreds of complaints from bettors, in most cases customers were not paid winnings and in some cases lost their original deposits. Now to be clear SBG Global is reported to pay a decent number of clients but think of it as the Mafia paying out a winning numbers bet. Occasionally, they have to make it look good. SBG Global has stolen the balances of wining players with no explanation. Management at SBG Global has a very poor reputation and has tried to lure in players with large deposit bonuses, better teaser and future odds, to only turnaround not pay winning bettors.
SBG Global is a terrible choice for even the embattled US online sports bettor and is an example of what happens when extortionists open an online sportsbook. There are much better options than SBG who is basically mafia outfit masquerading as a sportsbook. We suggest not giving a dime of your money to these criminals and instead use our Sportsbook Rating Guide to find a more legitimate alternative. Please understand SBG Global is not legit.