SPORTS INTERACTION

PROS

Despite exclusively serving the Canadian market, they offer odds on a large variety of sports/leagues around the globe, including eSports, darts and beach volleyball.

I only have positive comments to make about their live betting structure:

• Every time I log in my account, there seems to be a lot of in-play wagering going on. Their website claims they have over 200 events to bet live every day and I don’t have trouble believing them.
• On each game they’ve got many side/prop bets.
• The Game Tracker display allows you to follow the current status of the game.
• Most importantly, unlike other sportsbooks that I have reviewed, I have noticed that the time elapsed between the moment you click the confirmation button and the acceptance of the bet by the bookie is fairly short. It is standard practice that bookmakers allow themselves some time before accepting live bets (which is totally reasonable), but some are abusing it. Not Sports Interaction and I tip my hat off to them.

The prop bet selection is large at Sports Interaction (not just on live betting, but in general). From what I’ve noticed, they create unique player proposition bets (namely on the NHL because of the huge popularity in Canada) and that can be fun.

They seem to have bonus offers all the time, which is nice.

Their lines are not very sharp, in my humble opinion. They are the typical “recreational” bookmaker which repeatedly “shades” lines. In other words, these guys know in advance which teams are going to receive more action so they set odds which are lower than the general consensus among online bookies (making their players pay a heavier price on such teams). For example, the Cleveland Cavaliers were doing very well during the 2017 NBA playoffs. They crushed several teams by a wide margin, so Sports Interaction began inflating lines on Cleveland as the postseason progressed (they would make them 17-point favorites instead of 15 or 15.5, for example). A similar observation could be made regarding the Golden State Warriors. Sharp bettors (like you!) can take advantage of such situations when they notice it.

The non-sharp lines don’t stop with the shading phenomenon: I have seen several cases of lines that were really out of whack. That’s a big plus if you are a savvy sports investor.

The customer services responds in a timely fashion. No problem there.

The interface looks good and is easy to navigate. The dark blue background makes it easier to read, in my opinion. When you click on a specific sport or league, the number of available betting events is displayed.

 

 

CONS

Winning players are not welcome. Again, I speak from personal experience. I placed bets on several sports, including a less-popular league where I would regularly bet between 100$ and 300$. Within two months, I quadrupled my initial bankroll in large part because of bets on that league and they ended up setting a ridiculous 7.58$ betting limit (see the screenshot below). But that story is not limited to me; Sports Interaction is known to limit professional players.

I have had a few occurrences of bets incorrectly graded as losses. And one baseball bet cancelled because of a starting pitcher change, while I had checked the “Action” box which indicated I wanted the bet to be valid no matter whom the starting pitchers would be. Those mistakes were all promptly corrected after I let them know. All bookmakers are subject to this kind of errors; I totally get that. I just wanted to point out I witnessed several such cases at Sports Interaction within a short period of time. In plain English, it seems to happen much more often there. Make sure you check your account balance every day.

Their betting limits are pretty low. While big sportsbooks will let you bet several tens of thousands of dollars on major sporting events, Sports Interaction won’t go higher than around 3000$. This is probably enough for most gamblers, but you might find yourself feeling limited on smaller leagues or prop bets (I have seen limits of 150$ on the WNBA or MLB side bets).

There doesn’t seem to be any reload bonuses. At least I have not seen any offered over the past several months.

 

 

 QUICK FACTS

• Established in 1997
• Located in Canada.
• Email: support@sportsinteraction.com
• They only accept sports bettors from Canada.
• They were the very first online sportsbook licensed in North America.

 

  

METHODS OF DEPOSIT

• Credit card
• Debit card
• Instant Banking
• Instant Echecks
• PaySafeCard
• EntroPay
• Instadebit
• iDebit
• ecoPayz

 

 

METHODS OF WITHDRAWAL

• Bank wire
• Instant Banking
• InstaDebit
• ecoPayz
• Check (option temporarily unavailable at the time of writing – June 2017)

 

 

GOOD AND BAD STORIES FROM PLAYERS

I’ll kick off this section with a personal anecdote:

I had an unpleasant experience with them upon making my first deposit with them. I wanted to deposit 500$ by using PaySafeCard, but since the maximum value of such cards is set at 250$ I had to buy a couple of them at the convenience store. At that time, Sports Interaction was offering a 10% bonus. I can’t remember what the maximum was, but it was well-above the amount I was depositing so I was supposed to get a 50$ bonus.

Since I had two cards, I was worried they might apply the 10% bonus only on the first one. I had the presence of mind to go to the live chat before processing the deposits to ask the representative about that. She said the bonus only applies on the first deposit, so I would only get 25$ and she “couldn’t do anything about it”. I thought the rule was crazy; it was clearly just one deposit that had to be made in two separate steps because PaySafeCard forced me to buy two cards.

So what did I do? I bluffed. I told the customer representative “all right, so I’ll make a 250$ deposit with you, and use the other card with another bookmaker.” All of a sudden, just like magic, she was indeed able to do something about it (unlike what she had said a few minutes earlier). I made the two 250$ deposits and got my 50 bucks right away.

Analysis: I have been lied to many times by several sportsbooks over the past 15-20 years, and I have still not gotten used to it. I hate it as much as I did when I first started out. She clearly knew she was lying to me when she said “there never nothing she could do about it”. Come on, why are you ruining the company’s reputation just to save 25$? By the way, I might sound like I’m blaming the representative but I am aware it must be the bookie’s policy to act like this.

 

A player started a thread asking for a sportsbook accepting Canadians and taking 1000$+ bets on team totals on in-play NHL games. One guy made the following comment pertaining to Sports Interaction: “SIA is a very good choice for dog betting in various sports. CS not the best, but they pay. Will cut your limits or boot those who win too much”. Another poster followed up by saying: “SIA is good for some things but yeah they can have some brutal low limits sometimes”.

Source: http://www.covers.com/postingforum/post01/showmessage.aspx?spt=23&sub=102387092

Analysis: As mentioned above, Sports Interaction is not very kind to winning players. My own experience and many posts found on discussion forums confirm that information.

 

One guy sitting on a big account balance at Sports Interaction started a thread asking whether he should be worried about withdrawing money from that sportsbook. Here are three answers that were provided: 1) “My experience is that if you accept their entry bonus, you won't see your money again”; 2) “They're not a good book! I experienced many slow payouts and left them years ago. Just play with pinnacle and you'll be fine!”; 3) “I've withdrawn from sports interaction a few times...most I ever did at one time was $9900.  After registering your documents with them which only takes a few minutes, and only has to be done once before your first withdrawal (so shouldn't be a problem for you as you said you've already withdrawn), I had no issues getting my money wire transferred right into my bank account in just a few days.  Only reason I didn't try a higher amount is because I believe 10K is the threshold before things get reported to the CRA.”

Source: http://www.covers.com/postingforum/post01/showmessage.aspx?spt=23&sub=102419417

Analysis: We have a mix of good and bad comments about Sports Interaction’s payouts. I have personally withdrawn money from them and had no problem whatsoever, so my final assessment would be that you should be fine. But I’ll admit that I don’t feel like my money is as safe there as it is with sportsbooks that are in the upper tier (like Pinnacle, William Hill, Betonline, Bookmaker and Intertops).

 

 

BOTTOM LINE

There’s a lot to like about Sports Interaction. In terms of bet offerings, they are top-notch (pregame, in-play, unique prop bets). Most of the time, whenever a sportsbook has lines which are generally not super sharp it tends to be less trustworthy. In this case, we have a brand that is well-established and has a proven track record, so that is not a problem (although I did find a few complains online, but not that many). And yet, smart sports bettors will be able to spot weaker lines and to take advantage of them. However, betting limits eventually get significantly lowered for such players so enjoy the ride while it lasts.