BetDNA.com Review and Warning

BetDNABetDNA.com is an online sportsbook that our research indicates first went online in 2013. Since then it appears they have racked up many payout complaints. They are rated D- on our Sportsbook Ratings Guide. We recommend our readers avoid their website and choose a safer alternative. However, for purpose of letting players make their own decision, we provide a review which includes everything we know about them.

BetDNA Brief Bio

When not familiar with their reputation, BetDNA.com appears legit. They offer accounts in USD and EUR and accept players from most countries including the United States. Deposits can be made using credit card, cash transfer, Neteller and Skrill.

Their sportsbook operates with high margins such as a 30-cent line (-115/-115) base on popular 2-way markets. Though this means less value can be found, one has to wonder why they do this. If a pure scam with no intentions of processing payouts, why not rope players in with competitive odds? Further making the sports side appear legit is live in-play betting on hundreds of matches per day with odds updated in real time by the second.

The casino also looks impressive. It has live dealer games, a ton of RNG slots, and RNG table games. It appears to be powered by Topgame Technology using their games as well as games from BetSoft.

Customer support also appears to check out. It is available via both live chat and an online ticket system that is accessible when logged in.

Betting rules are in place. Restricted Countries are Costa Rica, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Serbia and Ukraine. Specific rules by sport are listed, as are bonus terms.

Any player looking at this site fresh would have a hard time suspecting they are a scam. Everything about them makes them appear to be a legit operation.

Where the Site Came From?

As of March 2015, there is still nothing found on the web to suggest BetDNA.com is a well-established sportsbook. It is not rated by SportsbookReview.com nor BookmakersReview.com. It is not listed by online.casinocity.com. It can be seen via archives that they did spend a short time being marketed by covers.com but were pulled. Outside that, the only references to them on the web mostly come from tiny sites using affiliate links, and past forum posts. Our research largely comes from forum posts.

The earliest references to them on forums date to late 2013. What happened then is players started posting that they were mailed a generous bonus offer by BetDNA but have never heard of them. Such posts asked for feedback. Is this site legit? Has anyone heard of them before? Anyone used them before? Now on very active forums such as SBR no responses came from anyone indicating they had even so much as previously heard of them. Again be reminded, now 1.5 years later, they are still not listed most places that have comprehensive lists of gambling sites.

BetDNA Complaints Start

What followed after those late 2013 “has anyone heard of this site” posts, is ongoing payout complaints. Some that we found are listed below:

  • Posted at Ask Gamblers on 16 April 2014: Player requested withdrawal on 10 March 2014. On 28 March 2014 he provided NETELLER details. 16 April 2014 still no payment. This is marked as unresolved.
  • Posted at SBR on 12 May 2014 – player states “Been trying to withdraw from here for about 4 months. One excuse after another. Anybody actually withdrawn from these scammers?”
  • Posted at SBR on 19 Aug 2014 – a detailed post about waiting for a low 4 figure withdrawal for 2 months. Being told he is in queue. Getting no reply for 3 weeks, etc. An SBR mod responds that he has seen a few threads like this about bet DNA promising payment tomorrow for many weeks, but he has yet to see a soul post about being paid by them.
  • Article by ThePogg.com from Nov 2014: lists the site at 1.5 out of 10, mentions pay out complaints, non-responsiveness and potential association with rogue casino software. Note that SBS is not familiar with thepogg.com, we found their site for first time Google searching BetDNA.
  • Posted at Casinomeister on 28 November 2014 – Player has been waiting 2 weeks for a €100 withdrawal, includes his user name and is looking for advice. None given and no update ever provided.

Now to be clear there is at least some possibility a few bonus abusers were not paid for legitimate reasons and that these complaints are smear attempts. This is possible. However note, we could find barely any information on the web about BetDNA. All we could find digging on them is people asking in late 2013 if they had ever heard of them. This was triggered by a large bonus offers sent via email. The next traces of them mostly all involve complaints throughout 2014 of players not getting paid. They are not listed on popular sites, yet their website claims a major presence in the online gaming community since 2007. So…

Who Owns BetDNA

This is where concerns start to compound. But to first start with the basic information, according to their website BetDNA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Operia Corp Limited, The Apex, 2 Sheriffs Orchard, Coventry, CV1 3PP, United Kingdom. This is the only address they list on their website. However they are hosted in Costa Rica. Their betting rules also state:

All wagers and other transactions will be taken into account as if they are originated from San Jose, Costa Rica. Thus, said transactions are ruled by Costa Rican law.”

Thus it appears this is a Costa Rican gambling site that has a UK address. The UK address is a parent company of some sorts. It could be a flow-through or could be a trading entity, we don’t know. What we do know is that they are not forthcoming regarding details of the Costa Rican entity that actually runs their website.

The concern now comes when asking…

Who is Operia Corp Limited?

Searching around the web we easily found that, in addition to BetDNA, this company also owns Pamper Casino, AC Casino (Always Cool Casino), and Moneystorm Casino. Those casinos are much more established and have a very long history of payout complaints. For help researching and seeing some of these, enter site:casinomeister.com Pamper Casino in to Google. This will show all references to them at casino forum casinomeister.com. Start reading and you will find many pay out complaints from 2009 to 2015 as well as posts about other issues regarding their casino.

There is also a potential link to the I.O.L. International Group, which way in the past operated scam sites AnyTimeWager, BringMeVegas, OSWbets, and Wager123. They also at one point hosted a sportsbook some forum regs would remember LazerWager. That company was promoted on forums such as TheRX and many were scammed by them. Well the connection comes from 2011. A book called Betdog.com popped up using the same phone numbers the I.O.L. International Group had previously used. Also on the same server as BetDog there were dozens of other domains one of which was betdna.com.

Whether or not BetDNA is associated with the I.O.L. International Group, the group that may have come later, or LazerWager, all probably matters little. There is plenty of reasons beside that to avoid depositing with them.

In March 2015, the existing version of BetDNA.com is still mostly unheard of as is. The little mention of them around the web all relates to either “who are these guys” or “warning this site is not paying me”. Of course both not good signs. But then what we do know, because they say it right on their website, is they are owned by Operia Corp Limited which has a very bad history. Thus most players can probably gather that no matter how generous of a bonus offer this book might put out, BetDNA.com is probably not a legit sportsbook. At bare minimum they should be avoided due to past pay out complaints from the same ownership.