Safe Online Sports Betting – Don’t Get Scammed

A study once suggested that almost 17% of winning sports wagers placed online go unpaid. One reason for this is just how easy it is to start a sports betting site. These days any guy off the off the street can lease an online sportsbook from a pay per head shop, that has tons of markets, live betting, a casino, live chat support, etc. Meanwhile there are elaborate scam sites that will pay webmasters huge commissions to promote their betting site. The good news is this can all be avoided. Just stick to wagering with any of the 25 betting sites that Sports Betting Sites has rated B+ or higher on this sportsbook ratings guide. When wagering with these sites it is 98% likely you’re not going to have any issues. If you want to make it 99.8%, stick to the five sites that have achieved an A to A+ rating.

Sportsbook Ratings

A Rated Sportsbooks = The Elite, Not much risk involved.

B Rated Sportsbooks = Solid Option with minimum risk to players funds

C Rated Sportsbooks = Decent book with some potential risk to players funds involved.

D Rated Sportsbooks= Not a good option – moderately high chance of being cheated or stiffed.

F Rated Sportsbooks= Scam sites – deposit only, cheats, busto, etc. Avoid at All Costs.

Important Notice Regarding Sites Accepting US Players

The sportsbook ratings above merge ratings for US players and non-US players together. The US market is however unregulated. Most of the US friendly sportsbooks operate from the Caribbean and there is little to absolutely no recourse available when disputes arise. For this reason players outside the US should mostly avoid sites accepting US players. US players should understand there are risks even when playing with highly rated US books. I suggest reading our page US betting sites before depositing funds to any online sportsbook.

Sportsbook Ratings Explained

Site Not Listed? If a site is not listed here, chances are they are a very small betting site; perhaps a start up, invite only, or a skin. Examples of skins include playBAS.com, chinesebookie.com, islandcasino.com, sportbet.com and vietbet.com which are all part of the 5Dimes group. www.5dimes.eu is a US friendly site offers the best odds and wagering options on most sports. Considering players can have only one betting account with the 5Dimes group it would be foolish to open an account at one the skins as opposed to 5Dimes direct.

Feedback Requests – If you have an experience with a betting site (positive or negative) you’d like to share, please contact us.

Online Poker Sites – Our ratings guide does not include the online poker products offered by sportsbooks. However as service to Americans we do list the best US poker sites. If you’re from the United States and play poker online we suggest reading that page.

Online Casinos – Our founder (Prop) has discussed the topic of casinos with owners of other gambling guides. He is quoted in an article on safe USA casinos as liking DGS for video poker. That’s the software used by Bookmaker and others to offer casino games to their sports clients. Please note SBS finds that article worth reading but does not specifically endorse or recommend any online casinos here, or at any other sites quoting us or Prop.

In the past we covered news on a rigged craps game, and then later a rigged video poker game. Each were found to be the fault of separate software providers, each based in Panama and completely independent of one another. Now there are reports by 4Flush that major corporations might have flawed casino games. There were dozens of sportsbooks using the software of each provider.

We wish to make 100% clear online casinos are not part of our rating guide. If you play casinos online, do so at your own risk.

How Betting Sites are Rated

Please understand the SBS Rating Guide grades online sportsbooks largely on how safe player’s account balances are. From here adjustments are made based on user experience, betting odds, customer service etc. For example 888Sport.com is owned by one of the world’s largest publicly traded online gambling companies. There is little to no risk involved depositing with 888Sport and they’re certainly worthy of an A+ rating on risk factor alone. However, our rating guide also needs to distinguish some between bookies that will accept any bet and never give punters personal limit collars, and those who service mostly recreational players.

This brings forth the need to explain that A+ rated sportsbooks are those with BOTH a long term proven track records of timely payments AND extremely high risk tolerance. Currently there are only three betting websites receiving an A+ rating. Two of these, Pinnacle Sports and SBOBet I’ve never known to limit punters period. They have the lowest margins, highest limits and fastest payouts (neither accepts US players).

Bookmaker.eu (US Friendly) is willing to take many thousands of dollars per bet “on US Sports” (there limits are small on soccer, tennis, etc.). They rarely limit punters, but sometimes do so for live betting. Ultimately, you can win six figures here and not worry about being cutoff.

A+ coverage now said: the majority of sports bettors will be fine using any website rated B+ or higher. In fact in many cases it is wiser to use sportsbooks rated A, A- and B+.

A couple of examples where it makes sense www.bovada.lv has excellent bonus offers, accepts US players and pays relatively fast. Meanwhile outside the United States, players can often find great value at Asian bookies. Take for instance our #1 choice www.188bet.com. The guys are obviously a great choice for players from Indonesia and Malaysia because they’re one of the few reputable bookies that accept Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) and Malaysian Ringgit (MYR). They’re also a great option in the UK because they offer better odds than can be found with UK Bookmakers. Rather than the 1.91/1.91 decimal odds most bookmakers offer on odds or even bets, 188Bet offers 1.94/1.94. This means more money for each winning bet. 188Bet also has a spotless reputation and offers the usual banking methods Moneybookers (Skrill), Neteller, Ukash, credit card and direct bank transfer. Considering they also offer betting odds on the same sports and offer a £25 risk free bet to UK residents they’re certainly worth giving a try despite a conservative rating. Our concern here is longevity and we do suspect they’ll be upgraded in time.

For those living in the US who bet $500 or less per game you will be extremely hard pressed to find a site with better odds and betting options than www.5dimes.eu offers.

Currently there are 25 betting sites on our Sportsbook Rating Guide listed B+ or higher. All of them offer plenty of value and all come highly recommended by Sports Betting Sites. Understand our sportsbook rankings are far from an end all. For example if you compare our pages on NBA betting with our pages on MLB betting you’ll see the perfect illustration that some sites are better than others for certain sports.

An Important Message

Those in the sports betting and gambling affiliate industry know me as Prop (or PropPlayer). I think anyone that has known me long enough can attest – I’ve spent a decade practicing integrity in marketing and have invested a great deal of time exposing scam operators.

Many years ago I was earning a couple grand per month in affiliate pay from sportsbook.com and removed all links to their site once they started cheating players with the correlated parlay thefts. I once turned down a $30,000 offer to market SIA on another portal. When the Absolute Poker and Ultimate cheating scandals broke, I removed them from my sites and spent 100% of the revenue share payments I continued to receive on advertisements that warned players about their past.

Full Tilt Poker closed on June 29, 2011, however 27 days previous to that I posted a Full Tilt Bankruptcy Warning for OPS, a site I was the admin for until June 2012 (I am no longer associated with OPS). I am a long time player advocate, and ALWAYS with absolutely no exception have put players best interests well of ahead of my own, and well ahead of my advertisers. With all this said – I am an affiliate and do get paid by many of the sportsbooks listed here. The ratings have little to do with that. These ratings are my entirely sincere opinion, but for full disclosure purposes I decided to tell you this make sure that fact is known.

Why Do My Sportsbook Ratings Differ?

This simple answer to this is my ratings are not influenced by advertising cash. Most all betting review portals are designed with only one person’s interest in mind; the webmaster’s best interest. Of course, there are exceptions to this, two of which are mentioned below.

One site that delivers value is The Sports Geek. While I am no longer for hire as a writer, I know he cares about his visitors because on several occasions years ago he paid me top dollar to write for his website. This included weekly NFL picks, where he could have gotten a college student to write for 1/5th what he paid me. He paid extra because he wanted his visitors to have the best information. The other site is BettingOnTennis.net which is updated everyday with free tips (picks). While most portals dealing in tips/picks will sell advertisements to any sportsbook regardless of their track record, these two sites market only books we have rated B+ or better, and mostly are A- to A+ ones. These are of course rare exceptions in this industry and thus were worth the mentions.

I actually purchased the SBS domain with the internet to sell it for a profit. However a year later faced with a large offer on Sedo.com – I realized if I sell this it is going to be just one more shady portal out there ranking for betting sites, sportsbook and bookmaker terms that are going to lure players to join up with shady operators. Faced with that, I paid my partner based on the received offer to buy his share and got to work developing this site. That was my true, honest and sincere motivation for starting SBS.

I do not trust the ratings of most every betting portal. The one site worthy of taking a look at their ratings is SportsBookReview.com (SBR), which is by far the most known. However, if you still put stock in their ratings you should read this 2+2 thread.. Another I did link to in the past is BookmakersReview.com, but they are now owned by SBR. For all other I know of, most of these will market just about any sportsbook willing to pay. I might not cover as many sportsbooks as some portals, but I do have vast knowledge and stay closely turned to all sites rated on this page. Of course I am biased because all humans are. I however honestly believe using my sportsbook rankings as a guide is by far the best choice for all punters regardless of location.