MyBookie

QUICK FACTS

pros

Enticing bonuses: It’s pretty clear that MyBookie’s main marketing tool is its bonuses. On top of their initial and reload bonuses, they are offering several additional ones. Let me summarize the most important ones; as you will see, the conditions are generally pretty harsh:

          • Upon making your initial deposit, you get to choose between a 50% bonus up to 3000$ in free plays or a 20% bonus up to 500$ in cash. The former comes with a rollover requirement that can go up to 30 times your deposit+bonus amount, you cannot withdraw money within 30 days of claiming this promotion and you must use your free plays on lines between -200 and +200 (in decimal odds: between 1.50 and 3.00) on major sports only. The latter bonus offer comes with a rollover that can go as high as 50 times your deposit+bonus amount. I don’t think I have ever seen such a severe requirement in my whole life.
          • Reload bonuses are 25% up to 500$ in free plays (5-15 times rollover requirement, still the 30-day hold period and you must use the free play on major sports whose lines are between -200 and +200). You must have also used all prior free plays before claiming this one; otherwise you won’t be getting anything.
          • “$20 risk-free bet”: if your very first wager loses, you get a 20$ free play. The first bet had to be on spreads, money lines or totals.
          • “Steam your streak”: get 10 winnings picks in a row and MyBookie will give you a 25$ free bet. All of your winning picks had to be on lines no greater than -140 (decimal odds: 1.714) and the risk amount had to be at least 25$ on each one. Using the same concept, you get a 50$ free bet if you can manage to win 20 straight picks.
          • “Snap your skid”: if you lose 10 picks in a row (each of 25$ or more, on money lines, run lines or game totals) you will receive a 25$ free play. I hope you’ll never need to claim this bonus!
          • “10 is the magic number”: if you make 10 deposits without requesting a single withdrawal in-between, MyBookie will give you a free play totaling the average deposit amount. A 15 times rollover requirement must be met. And your account balance must be at 0$. Once again, I’m crossing my fingers you won’t have to redeem such a bonus ever.
          • “No fun refund”: if you bet a NFL team that scores a touchdown in the last five minutes of the game, gets flagged for excessive celebration or taunting and then allows a game-winning score on the subsequent drive, your wager gets fully refunded. Pretty unlikely to happen, but take advantage of this promotion if it does!

Numerous proposition bets: Player prop betting is great at MyBookie. I counted around 45 different ones on Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors. On MLB games they have 3 game props per game (which team will score first, will there be a run in the first inning or not, total hits+runs+errors) and a couple of total bases player matchups.

Good-looking website: I believe the interface looks clean and crisp. The images throughout the site are visually appealing.

Unusual bets: For a relatively small book, they do have some unusual and fun betting events. For example, they had some Star Wars Specials (like is Luke Skywalker Rev’s father?) and religion-related bets (who will the next Pope be?).

cons

Bad treatment for winners: They openly do not want action from professional sports bettors. The fine prints at the bottom of MyBookie's homepage emphasize this fact by mentioning they don’t want sharp side movers, syndicate or propositional players. If they consider you to be too smart, they will cancel all of your plays and will return your original deposit.

So-so customer service: When I last monitored the quality of their live chat in June 2017, it took a while before I could speak to a representative even though it was a Monday afternoon. However, she was pretty helpful.

Disorderly website: MyBookie's website is fairly messy and inaccurate in some cases. I was trying to get information about their deposit and withdrawal methods. I clicked on “Deposit” in the header menu and landed on a page that mentioned “Phone transfer” and had two different buttons for “Person 2 Person” (why two?). I was a bit puzzled by that, and I couldn’t click on anything that would provide more details so I spoke to a clerk, Mary, in the live chat. She sent me a link that I could not have found by myself otherwise, and that page had conflicting information. Western Union was shown as a deposit method, but she admitted they weren’t supporting it anymore. Unlike what the “Deposit” page said, phone transfers are not available either. Also, their FAQ page affirms you can send them a cashier’s check, but only eChecks are supported. In summary, I had to clear things up with her for several minutes in order to come up with an accurate list (see “METHODS OF DEPOSIT” and “METHODS OF WITHDRAWAL” below).

Ties with defunct sportsbook: When the site went live in 2014 they were bragging about how they had hired some very experienced gaming professionals who ran a former sportsbook called BetOnSports. That company was quite big in the early 2000s and I personally had an account with them. Their customer service was horrible. They were often posting incorrect lines; I even remember betting Nascar matchups on a race that was already over. I beat them quite hard and thank God I withdrew my money before the ship sunk:

          • A lot of complaints over slow-pay over the years;
          • They copied the Sportsbook Review (SBR) website and placed all of their owned sportsbooks at the top of the list;
          • They basically didn’t care about the US laws by advertising illegally there;
          • US authorities indicted BetOnSports and many of its executives on several charges, including RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act);
          • Their CEO David Carruthers was arrested;
          • Their founder Gary Kaplan was also arrested;
          • Once the sportsbook was closed, former employees sold clients’ personal information to other sportsbooks so that they could lure them into opening an account with them.

Ties with defunct sportsbook (cont'd): Players lost millions in this mess. When MyBookie realized sports bettors remembered all too well that story, they removed the reference to BetOnSports. Maybe the staff that joined MyBookie is honest, but hearing about ties with BetOnSports does not make me feel very secure.

 

METHODS OF WITHDRAWAL
  • Bank wire
  • Bitcoin
  • MoneyGram
  • eCheck
METHODS OF DEPOSIT
  • Prepaid credit card (Visa, Mastercard)
  • Bitcoin
  • MoneyGram
  • eCheck
PLAYER EXPERIENCES

 

 

STORY 1

A poster on Covers.com complains about how they don’t pay and questions the quality of customer service that apparently hung up the phone on him on 4 occasions. Another guy says they tend to close accounts without valid reasons. One person took their defense, but another poster replied by saying “I have never heard a good word about them until the poster here supported them."

SOURCE: http://www.covers.com/postingforum/post01/showmessage.aspx?spt=9&sub=101941985

ANALYSIS: Ties with BetOnSports are resurfacing again, and rumors of not paying or closing accounts are being brought up. Not reassuring.

 

STORY 2

A player made a comment about MyBookie.ag on BettingBrain.com: “They hold your winnings hostage. Will not payout if you have not bet 1k total. So they claim is rollover issue. They respond in childish ways. I would avoid at all cost."

SOURCE: https://www.bettingbrain.com/sportsbooks/mybookie/

ANALYSIS: A rollover requirement is standard practice in the industry. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Read the bonus rules before accepting one. As for responding in childish ways, I would have liked to see concrete examples before drawing any conclusions.

 

 

STORY 3

A player requested a payout on March 2, 2017 via a bank wire. Two weeks later, nothing. He contacted MyBookie who requested he showed his bank statement because they felt like he had already received the money but was pretending he didn’t have it. So he followed up on their request. Then, they showed him the document they filed, in order to process the bank wire, but the recipient’s bank name and routing number were missing. They claimed this information wasn’t necessary, but the player’s bank maintained it was critical for the money to be processed correctly. MyBookie re-did the bank wire, which was supposed to take two weeks. After waiting five long weeks, the player had enough and started sharing his story on Covers.com. Coincidence or not, he got his money four days later.

SOURCE: http://www.covers.com/postingforum/post01/showmessage.aspx?spt=9&sub=102425982

ANALYSIS: Typical story of a sportsbook slow-paying a player by putting the blame on him, on the bank, on the “processor”, or whatever. That raises a red flag to me.

 

STORY 4

Let me quote another thread on Covers.com: “Mybookie is what I use and have had no issues with payouts! Good customer service as well, I give them a 9 out of 10. I don't take their bonuses (they offer good 1's) but takes too much to roll them over and I just like to win and get out at times..."

SOURCE: http://www.covers.com/postingforum/post01/showmessage.aspx?spt=27&sub=102463813

ANALYSISGood to hear that some people have had a good experience with them. The guy is right about the rollover requirements, they are extremely harsh!.

 

 

 

BOTTOM LINE

There is absolutely no doubt this sportsbook’s target are the recreational gamblers. Don’t open an account there if you are a professional sports bettor who constantly slams lines that are off and can be exploited. MyBookie warns they might confiscate your winnings. Not only that, but their betting limits are not very high (maximum of 1000$; no limit over the phone provided that they feel you are not a sharp bettor...).

They are attracting customers with a wide array of bonuses which are great on the surface, but be aware of the strict conditions that come along. I have detailed in great length MyBookie’s shady past (ties with defunct sportsbook BetOnSports) and I have also mentioned some slow-pay complaints. It should be noted, however, that all issues have been properly addressed so I’m willing to give them a chance. They are relatively new and seem to be on the rise.

If you are a small or medium bettor who wagers mostly on North American sports and who is looking for generous bonuses, then you could consider MyBookie. Don’t send them money you cannot afford to lose, though (that’s a rule you should always follow, but it’s even more critical when playing with bookies whose reputation are not well-established yet).