Oddsmaker Ag
Oddsmaker is a scam book that has a long history of dishonesty and outright theft. Oddsmaker is the perfect example of how criminals can rebrand and continually rip off players in an unregulated environment. Oddsmaker.ag, formerly Oddsmakers.com is in no way a legitimate online sportsbook. Their parent company, FutureBet Systems has been running scams against gamblers since 1998. FutureBet has a large network of sites, several hundred, all facades in attempts to steal bankrolls from bettors.
Last updated: February 2021
Two Way Street
Unfortunately, if it were not for the affiliates promoting and profiting off this theft, there would likely be no FutureBet/Oddsmaker. Affiliates promoting Oddsmaker are doing quite well. Often times, they are making several hundred dollars per deposit for each player they refer. The affiliates promoting them will give Oddsmaker an A+ review and will recommend them to new sports bettors. Of course, it is easy to pay your affiliates well, when you are stealing every dollar your customers deposit. Are these affiliates just ignorant to OddsMaker’s scam? I wish that were the case. In mostly all cases, they are well aware. These affiliates are really the ones responsible for keeping the crooks at Oddsmaker in business. The affiliate portal used by FutureBet/Oddsmaker is www.referincome.com and if you check out their site, their program is quite lucrative. Once again, all of this is made possible by the deliberate theft of depositing players’ funds.
Sleek but Sleazy
A visit to Oddsmaker’s site www.oddsmaker.ag, would make one think they are a large legitimate online bookmaker. Their interface, the games they offer and the overall look would suggest Oddsmaker is great for gamblers who want to be able to bet sports, play poker, and bet at a casino. Obviously, this is not the case. They even try to entice players with a 100% sign up bonus, weekly reloads, and a 15% refer a friend bonus. Oddsmaker matches your first deposit, seemingly regardless of the amount. Seems too good to be true? Yes, it is. These types of outlandish claims are how Oddsmaker sucks in uninformed bettors. Your account can have $30,000 in it but it might as well be monopoly money. Oddsmaker has no respect for your bankroll or your rights.
Oddsmaker.ag is their flagship brand for sports, poker and casino betting. A trip to Oddsmaker.ag shows a well designed site with tons of bonuses and betting opportunities. B Bettors should not be fooled, once a player deposits into Oddsmaker their money is just as valuable as Monopoly money. What marketing strategies does Oddsmaker use? Get traffic statistics, SEO keyword opportunities, audience insights, and competitive analytics for Oddsmaker. OddsMaker.ag is one of the most reputable gaming sites online today. Offering you everything from Sportsbook wagering, poker rooms, casino games, fantasy games, all to better accommodate you.
Oddsmaker Ag Casino Tournaments
Most sportsbook watch dog sites such as SportsbookReview.com have Oddsmaker listed under the F rating or note it as a scam book. A quick search on SBR, for “Oddsmaker” will uncover dozens of complaints going back to 2007. Just this past February, Oddsmaker stole 45,000 from a recreational sports bettor[1]. What was his crime, you may ask? He simply, threatened to contact an attorney after they ignored his emails and continued to hold his balance hostage. SBR took a phone call from the man, who seemed completely distraught. The man is deep in debt and his life savings are stuck in Oddsmaker, with no hope of getting it back. Of course, attempts to contact Oddsmaker have gone unanswered and they are silent on the issue, what a shame.
Hard Numbers
Oddsmaker/Futurebet Systems is continually rebranding and looking for more players to scam. They confiscated $200,000 from players, whose only crime according to Oddsmaker was being part of a betting syndicate[2]. Oddsmaker spends about a million a year marketing their scam operation, which is of course funded by player deposits they receive and then never payout.
As far as a physical base of operations, Oddsmaker is an incorporated company in the Philippines. At this location, they operate their customer support center, including their live chat and phone service. They also have marketing offices out of Quebec and a server based in Canada. Oddsmaker claims they are licensed by the Government of Curacao Netherlands Antilles. SportsBookReview.com and other watch dog sites have proven this is not the case. Their license expired in September of 2011, yet on their website, they still claim they are regulated and are meeting the standards of their gaming sub-license.
In the mid 2000s, FutureBet began licensing their “brand” for players to invest in. This resulted in a business plan, which only benefitted Futurebet and left both the licensees and customers out in the cold. FutureBet charged a licensee standard $30,000 fee for building a FutureBet website. In addition, they had royalties on all profits, 30% on sports revenue and 40% on poker. They then never paid winners, nor did they pay licensees. Many licensees were good people, who simply just didn’t know FutureBet were just criminals. Many used their own money to pay out players when FutureBet was making up excuses. This left players and site owners at the mercy of FutureBet, who of course, ultimately never paid up.
A high profile example of this is in 2006, an OnGame network site called Pokes Poker was licensed by FutureBet. Unlike many other network sites at the time, FutureBet, not the OnGame network handled the cash outs. Overall, FutureBet is estimated to have stolen 1 million dollars from poker players through PokesPoker. There have been many threads over the years bringing light to this subject[3], and an ex-exployee of the company even came out and told his story in an expose of the sites business practices[4]. FutureBet, kept the money of course and to this date have not paid players. No one is completely sure how much these crooks stole from bettors since their inception. By most accounts, FutureBet has stolen at least $5 million from bettors across the world.
Continuously Rebranding
FutureBet and Oddsmaker have continuously rebranded themselves in efforts to find new groups of people to run their scams on. They’ve tried to distance themselves from the FutureBet name and have operated under many different aliases. These include but are not limited to: GDI Software Services, Steel Head Games, New Wave Marketing, and JP Gateway. Recently, they were known as IGaming Software (IGS) and in 2010 they once again rebranded as GameTech Solutions.
The FutureBet/Oddsmaker network has over 100 sites around the web, all taking deposits but never paying out. The most notable online sportsbooks are www.oddsmaker.ag and www.betonusa.ag. They also run a Merge Network online poker room called, Felt Stars, at www.feltstars.eu . Needless to say, these all should be avoided. For a more expansive list of over hundreds of sites, check out Casinomeister’s list of FutureBet related online sportsbooks and casinos[5].
Final Thoughts
Oddsmaker should not even be called an online sportsbook because that gives the criminals that run the outfit way too much credit. They are simply extortionists. Unfortunately, they are still promoted by many affiliates and until that stops they will continue to scam bettors. As always, research each bookmaker before you deposit. Just a few minutes of searching on Google would have likely saved thousands of bettors from depositing on Oddsmaker, don’t make the same mistake.
References
[1]Oddsmaker steal $45000 from US sports bettor – Reported on the SBR forums.
[2]Oddsmaker’s steal funds referencing professional bettors or betting syndicates as the reason – News report by SportsbookReview.
[3]FutureBet Pokes Poker complaint thread – Large collection of complaints on the 2+2 forum.
[4]Former FutureBet employee speaks out – Another 2+2 thread in which an ex employee reveals more about the shady goings on at FutureBet.
[5]Full list of known FutueBet sites – Regularly updated list maintained by the guys at CasinoMeister.
This site has a long and troubled history of ripping off
customers, and is blacklisted at just about every site I can
find. In fact, I had a difficult time finding anything BUT
negative reviews. I’ll get into the specifics of what this site
does wrong in a minute – but first, an introduction.
Introduction
Oddsmaker.ag is an all-in-one site offering poker, sports
betting, casino games, and a fantasy racebook. Licensed by the
Curacao Gaming Commission, Oddsmaker.ag runs on a blend of
popular software platforms and proprietary software, and is
headquartered “in Canada,” a vague reference I found right on
the site’s own About Us page.
Take note that Oddsmaker.ag is no longer accepting customers
from the US – if you had an account before, they cut off new
signups, your account is still valid.
I don’t like to start getting negative this early, but it’s
hard to ignore all the bad stuff floating around about
Oddsmaker. This site has to be one of the worst-reviewed
gambling sites I’ve covered in recent memory. Typing in the URL
plus the word “review” will lead you down a rabbit hole of some
truly awful stories about the site’s business practices. It’s
difficult to discuss the site without paying special attention
to the stories of scams, rip-offs, and confiscated winnings.
Below, I cover the specifics on games and bets available as
well as customer service information and a brief FAQ.
Pros About Oddsmaker.ag
Let’s Start With the (VERY SHORT) List of Things I Like About Oddsmaker.ag:
They have a decent range of deposit and withdrawal methods.
It is by no means the biggest I’ve ever seen, but it’s bigger
than a lot of all-in-one sites with popular sportsbooks.
The site also offers some so-so bonuses, with a low rollover
requirement. A 15x rollover requirement for a casino bonus is so
low as to be praise-worthy. Unfortunately, the site’s status as
a blacklisted rogue operator makes them way less attractive.
Their casino includes software from a number of the biggest
names in the casino design industry. A blend of Betsoft, NetEnt,
WGS, and other designers (along with a few proprietary designs)
means that you won’t get bored as easily from playing the
same-old titles again and again.
Cons About Oddsmaker.ag
Now For the Bad News – I Have One Big Reason Why You Should
Avoid Making a Deposit at Oddsmaker.ag:
Oddsmaker has earned some really bad press and might
confiscate your money. It appears that Oddsmaker.ag is a rogue
operator. I found review after review that warned players to
stay far away from their services. Read the review of
Oddsmaker.ag at SportsbookReview. You’ll find the words
“blacklisted” multiple times. SBR’s main complaint, in their
“F”-rated review of the site, is as follows:
“Avoid blacklisted betting site Oddsmaker – Oddsmaker
Sportsbook (SBR rating F) has confiscated more than $250,000
from winning players. The online sportsbook cites a part of
their terms and conditions outlawing professional play to
justify the confiscations. SBR advises players to avoid the
blacklisted site.”
That’s a pretty serious accusation, and it deserves to be
taken seriously. The issue at hand is that Oddsmaker has
repeatedly said that their service is for “recreational
players,” and that they have the right to intervene when
professional money is invested.
What happened to turn Oddsmaker from a site with so-so
reviews to a blacklisted scam operation?
The site used to be called Oddsmaker.com – back then it was
run by the dubious Futurebet organization. The transition to
Oddsmaker.ag happened in 2006, after the passage of the UIGEA
forced Futurebet out of the US market. The company that
purchased the old sportsbook.com for a buck also runs
Sportsbook.com, PlayersOnly.com, Hollywood Sportsbook, Belmont,
and a few others, some with bad reputations all on their own.
What happened? Jazette, the new management team, began
freezing and confiscating large account balances, focusing
instead on customers with small balances. The idea must have
been to focus their business on small-time players who like to
deposit $20 here and there and never have a chance to cash out.
The first sign of big trouble came immediately after the
takeover by Jazette – using a list of past clients (organized
from the customer lists of other skins), the site sent a snail
mail offer of $50 free, under certain conditions. The rules were
strict – a 30x rollover, no parlays, no long shot bets allowed,
and the requirement of a $1,500 account balance in order to cash
in the bonus. Not only was the offer a really bad one, in which
just a few of the site’s customers could even meet the
requirements, the site started to throw out bonuses which were
earned legitimately.
Oddsmaker.ag Casino
But those were just the first warning signs. Other problems
have popped up since then. The Offshore Gaming Association has
an excellent article spelling out exactly what the site did
wrong in great detail.
SportsbookAdvisor.com offers another really negative review
that everyone considering opening an Oddsmaker.ag account should
be familiar with. This review alleges that the site confiscates
funds and deactivates accounts pretty much at will.
Maybe the most damning link of them all is this one from
Casinomeister. Oddsmaker is blacklisted for “nonpayment and
non-response” to queries about customer issues. Placement on
Casinomeister’s popular blacklist is a really bad sign of a
site’s legitimacy.
This forum post at FlopTurnRiver is another collection of
Oddsmaker’s failure that is sure to scare even the saltiest bettor
away from the site.
If all those links aren’t bad enough, it looks like Oddsmaker
is trying to hide their own negative reviews by stuffing the
Google results with review-like
pages on their own site.
itself before – and what the site has to say about itself is
pretty comical. Here’s a choice quote:
“There are a number of pages on the Internet that offer an
Oddsmaker sportsbook review. And it seems that every single one
of them says what we’re about to say: that Oddsmaker is an
excellent online sportsbook site. They offer an excellent
website, which is well designed and which allows people to place
bets on whatever sporting events they want to bet on.”
I beg to differ, Oddsmaker – I can’t find a single review
that says Oddsmaker is an excellent sportsbook. I also find the
attempt to bury bad reviews completely abhorrent. Shame on you,
Oddsmaker!
Whether you believe all these allegations or not, you have to
take them under consideration. Above-board sites that do proper
business simply don’t garner reviews like this.
And now for an overview of each of the categories of gambling
available at Oddsmaker.ag.
Bonus Details
These are the bonus offers the site hosted at the time of my
visit. They’re likely to change over time, so visit Oddsmaker
to read about the site’s current deals. All bonuses are subject
to a 15x rollover unless otherwise stated.
- 100%
Sign-Up BonusNew members are eligible for a 100% deposit
match bonus worth up to $1,000. - 20% Cash
Back (Casino)Casino customers can earn 20% of their losses
back as a bonus in the months of June and July, provided they
had overall losses. - 20% Reload
Tuesdays and ThursdaysEvery Tuesday and Thursday, all
Oddsmaker customers are eligible for a reload bonus, based on a
minimum deposit of $20 and capped at $100. - Free $250
ParlaySportsbook customers with a minimum $100 balance can
earn a free chance at a $250 parlay all month long.
Banking Options
- American
ExpressAvailable for deposits only. $25 – $499
- VISA
Available for deposits only. $50 – $2,500
- MasterCard
Available for deposits only. $50 – $999
- EcoCard
Deposits and withdrawals. $100 – $1,000
- Neteller
Deposits and withdrawals. $100 – $10,000
- Person-to-Person
International and domestic. $100 – $2,000
depending on country of origin - Bank Draft
Deposits and withdrawals. $500 – no maximum
- Bank Wire
Deposits and withdrawals. $2,500 – no maximum
Sportsbook
As the name implies, Oddsmaker was originally a standalone
sportsbook. Like most sportsbooks over the past twenty years,
going online meant eventually adding features like casino games,
a poker room, a mobile platform, etc. Oddsmaker does a good job
of covering all the popular categories – though the sportsbook
is still the site’s main draw, the heaviest-advertised service,
and the one piece of proprietary software that looks pretty darn
good.
Oddsmaker’s Sportsbook Has a Decent Range of Available
Markets. Here’s the List, Current as of the Time of My Last
Visit:
- Basketball
- Tennis
- Golf
- NASCAR
- International Soccer
- Mixed Martial Arts
- Football
- NCAA
- CFL
- Hockey
- Entertainment
- Politics
- Rugby Union
- Futures
- Baseball
- Arena
- Awards
Most of these markets expand to reveal a larger range of
professional and amateur leagues – this is especially true for
soccer betting with leagues all over Europe, Asia, and
America available for wagers. The wagering styles available for
sports bettors at the site cover all the basics, from
straight-up wagers to teasers and parlays, with lots of props
thrown in, like any decent European-focused sportsbook.
The live betting section was disappointing at the time of my
review – but that’s partially because of the small number of
sports that are actively being played right now. Still – the
site had just a few MLB games available for live betting,
ignoring the many international soccer contests going on
entirely. The live betting feature here is one of the most
disappointing of any I’ve reviewed.
The sportsbook has a strict minimum wager of $5 per bet.
Maximum wager sizes vary from sport to sport, and from customer
to customer. Some customers are allowed to place slightly-larger
bets, a process which is handled through emails to customer
support.
Casino
I’m always excited to see a blended software platform – and
Oddsmaker’s certainly fits that bill. I see games from WGS,
NetEnt, Betsoft, and a smattering of proprietary games as well.
This is usually a good sign – it means a site is genuinely
concerned about creating a valuable casino product.
All games at Oddsmaker’s casino are available in either
instant or mobile versions – no download client is available,
which follows a growing trend in the online gaming industry away
from download software.
Here’s a guide to each of the site’s five categories of
casino titles.
Blackjack
This is a very disappointing collection of two blackjack
variants as well as two VIP versions of those same games that
are a little fancier-looking versions with no difference
in rules or available wagers.
- Blackjack –
the traditional game with a 6:5 blackjack payout - Side Bet
Blackjack – a variant that involves a series of side bets and
progressive jackpot - Blackjack VIP
- Side Bet Blackjack VIP
Slots
At the time of my review, Oddsmaker was home to just
sixty-eight different slot games, which is about average for the
online betting industry. The number of games isn’t the important
part, though – the variety of titles and designers makes this
one of the only really interesting categories in the entire
casino section. Collected here are classic one-line slots,
modern licensed games with video scenes and bonuses, and
everything in-between. Obviously my favorite is the Betsoft
titles, like The Slotfather, though Oddsmaker also includes some
decent WGS games (“Coral Cash,” anyone?) to boot.
Table Games
- Caribbean
Stud Poker – a poker game with a progressive jackpot - Triple Card
Poker – Oddsmaker’s version of Three Card Poker - Pai Gow –
based on the rules of an old Chinese game of chance - American
Roulette – roulette with two green zero spaces - Casino War
– a classic kid’s card game translated for casino play - Baccarat –
another casino classic - Mini-Baccarat – a miniature version of the classic Baccarat game
- Craps – the
casino classic - European
Roulette – roulette with one green zero space - Triple Ride
Poker – a poker-like game involving a strong element of chance - Red Dog – a
poker-like luck-based card game
Video Poker
- Jacks or
Better – a classic game, with a return percentage around 98% - Wild Joker
– Oddsmaker’s version of Joker’s Wild - Double
Barrel Bonus – Oddsmaker’s version of Double Bonus Poker. - Deuces Wild
– the classic game, with a return percentage around 97%
Keno
- Shockwave
Keno – the site’s standard game of Keno - Instant
Keno – something like a miniature version, moving faster than
Shockwave Keno
My overall impression of the game library at Oddsmaker – it
reminds me of a low-level slots casino, with little to be
interested in besides a couple of interesting blackjack
variations and a decent slot library. I’m a video poker fan, and
that wimpy collection of video poker games doesn’t interest me
at all. If you enjoy slots, you may enjoy yourself at this
casino, but with less than 70 total games to play, you may get bored
pretty quickly.
Poker
I noticed something weird about the poker room at Oddsmaker –
it isn’t at the same URL as the rest of the site. This isn’t
uncommon, but it is worth noting. The poker room is actually at
the following URL: http://www.oddspoker.ag/.
Here is the (Impressive) List of Poker Variants Available For
Play at Oddsmaker.ag:
- Texas holdem
- Omaha
- 7-card stud
- Razz
- 5-card stud
- 5-card draw
- Ace to 5 lowball
- Deuce to 7 lowball
- Badugi
- Mixed poker games
OddsPoker is on the Merge network, which is not one of the
busier or better-known poker networks. According to PokerScout,
Merge’s peak traffic in the past week was 520 cash players.
That’s a pretty small number when you consider that the biggest
networks in the world have thousands of cash players online at
any given time. Merge has downsized big-time since 2012 or so,
when the network had 60 participating skins. These days, that
number is down to 20 and the decreased traffic is a direct
result.
So how’s the competition at OddsPoker? Because the Merge
network is made up mostly of all-in-one sites, with lots of
customers more interested in casino games and sportsbook bets,
the assumption is that the competition will be weak. I’ve said
it before and I’ll say it again – I don’t believe this little
bit of conventional wisdom.
As for poker tournaments
Oddsmaker’s explanation of their
tournaments is kind of a mess. I can’t really figure out what
they mean, so I’ll just copy and paste a quote: “OddsPoker’s
guaranteed tournaments run round the clock with at least a
$2,000 guarantee running every hour or so.” That’s not a very
specific description, but I guess it gets the job done. The
website promises guaranteed prize pools totaling at least
$97,000 a day.
Fantasy Racebook
It’s unusual to find an all-in-one gambling website without
an attached racebook. I suppose Oddsmaker.ag added the
pretty-silly fantasy racebook section to their site to make up
for that oversight. Typical prize pools for fantasy racebook
contests range from $500 to $2,000.
The fantasy racebook is exactly what it sounds like –an
ongoing fantasy contest in which players select horses, rather
than athletes, and compete head-to-head for points. You have to
check it out for yourself, it’s pretty wild.
Customer Support
You Can Contact Oddsmaker.ag Via Phone, Email, or Live Chat:
- 1 877 633 7238
- The site operates a live chat service, though they don’t post active
hours.
Summary
It’s hard to get over a long list of reviews that identify
Oddsmaker.ag as a scam. I could go on and on about how much I
enjoy some of their table games, or how clean the sportsbook
interface looks, but at the back of my mind is a constant
flashing red light that says: “STAY AWAY!”
Besides a decent slots collection, a longer-than-usual list
of deposit and withdrawal methods, and a unique fantasy racebook
(that I actually find a little goofy), I have nothing positive
to say. As my grandmother taught me, maybe I shouldn’t say
anything at all, except to give my overall verdict:
Verdict
have money to burn. I’m fairly convinced that this site is a
rogue operator, as it appears on several trustworthy blacklists.
Oddsmaker.ag FAQ
Can US players open an account at Oddsmaker?
No – until
recently, that answer was “yes,” but the site now restricts all
new accounts. If you had an account before 2012, you can
still sign in and play with unrestricted access.
Are the games at Oddsmaker fair?
It’s hard to say. Generally,
online casinos and sportsbooks are certified by third parties in
an attempt to show their legitimacy. That’s not the case here –
all the site has to say on the issue is:
“We have taken extreme measures to ensure all of our games
are played out as randomly and fairly as possible. Every casino
game in our repertoire adheres strictly to the gaming
regulations of Nevada. Using advanced random number generation
technology, we are confident that all cards are dealt randomly
and fairly. This produces numbers that are as close to true
random numbers as possible.”
I have doubts about the whole “we adhere strictly to the
gaming regulations of Nevada” thing – in fact it sounds like the
worst kind of smoke screen. Though I can’t prove it, I can’t say
that the games are definitely fair with any kind of authority.
Is it safe to deposit money at Oddsmaker.ag?
My honest answer
is “probably not.” Go back and read through the reviews I
linked, reviews that throw words like “blacklist” and “avoid”
around like so much rice after a wedding. It doesn’t appear that
Oddsmaker is freezing and confiscating the funds of every one of
their customers – but do you really want to find out if your
account will be one of them?
Are any casino games restricted from clearing bonuses and
other promotions?
Rather than entirely restrict any one game,
the site has chosen to create a hierarchy of casino games, in
which games that give the player the best odds also clear the
least bonus cash. This is a pretty common way of doing business
these days.
Oddsmaker Ag Casino
What languages is Oddsmaker customer support available in? What currency does the site support?
The only language you can
use to get answers to your questions is English, and the only
currency is the US dollar.