By: Dirty
The late Ken “The Shrink” Weitzner warned everyone in the fall of 2007 that BetOnline was a sportsbook to be wary of. He publicly brought to the forum their connections to failed and thieving sportsbook BetOnSports.com and their connection to New York Organized Crime Bonnano, Luchese and Gambino families. This was backed up by a poster on eog.com known as JC (Jay Cohen) who at the time just had been released from a prison stint for being an owner of WSEX, and who still had man ties and connections in the online gambling world. JC was one of the most respected members of any forum back in 2007 and when he spoke people usually heeded his advice.
I have firsthand knowledge of all of this information as I was an employee of EOG at the time as Contest Manager. This warning was viewed by many, myself included, to be just a grandstanding episode since they would not renew as an advertiser at EOG. I thought the Timing of this thread at EOG titled “BetOnline – do they suck or not?” was kind of odd. The reason I believe that is myself and The General (EOG Head Moderator and Part Owner) just had returned from the trip to Panama and we had spoken to the books down there and thought we had secured a renewal from BetOnline. I was kind of perplexed at what was going on and my conversations with Ken didn’t really shed much light on the situation. The thread was a very interesting read and even brought the owner of SportsBookReview, SBR_John, to the site to make some posts. Ken even made examples of how they started rising in the ratings as Bestline Sports before they merged with another book and became Betonline.
The Discussion died down and BetOnline did not return as an advertiser with EOG and many posters were still confused and up in the air about what to believe and whether they were a solid book to do business with. A few months went by and in December of 2007 Ken started another thread titled “Mob Tied To Online Gambling Arrests/BetOnline”. It detailed one of the largest gambling busts in history. This thread had many posters involved into the discussion as SBR had them rated A- on their ratings scale and many well respected and popular posters had differing views. This thread was a hot topic all through the Holiday season and brought out the usual cast of online forum characters and posters, as well as BillDozer who now runs the day to day operations of SBR and handles the ratings for them. This debate went on for a while and no one’s opinion really changed one way or the other. The posters were going to either believe they were still safe to play with or they were not.
BetOnline was not really affected by the arrests or accusations of being Mob affiliated. They kept on doing business as usual. Then a little over 18 months later, in October of 2009, another batch of arrests targeted Betonline and their owners. This was posted here at Gambling IQ in this thread titled “BetOnline Owners Part of 30 Members Arrested or Indicted Today in New York.” These arrests really shook the foundation of Betonline and to rectify the situation they sought new Ownership in light of the indictments.
BetOnline did find new owners as reported by GamblingIQ on April 13, 2010 With This article “BetOnline Has new Owners — Former Leadership of Thieving Sportsbook BetOnSports.” This confirmed what Shrink alluded to and many others believed silently that BetOnSports leadership was involved in Betonline and had been for years. This should not come as a surprise to many who work behind the scenes and the warnings should be heeded by readers of this article and posters at all sports forums.
To be fair GamblingIQ had Betonline as a sponsor for a little over a year after we opened in June of 2008. After the big busts we could not substantiate any connections with Organized Crime and SBR (the most respected Sportsbook Rating website) still had them at a A- so we decided to bring them on board. After this last bust we have taken them down for good and they will never return. It is obvious that this sportsbook is going to continue to be operated by crooks, mob members, and other unscrupulous characters. There are much better sportsbooks to play at and I encourage you to do so at all times.
Many also will read this article and try to claim in am making out Ken to be a saint. That is not the case. He had his faults and he had many shortcomings. People questioning his motives were right to do so as he has not been forthright with his dealing with Online Sportsbooks. Those are legitimate concerns. But Ken was right on a lot of things as well. People are just not as forthcoming with those things as it has no “Shock” value. I wrote this article to give credit where it is due. Ken backed his information up with credible information and very few took his advice. The lesson to be learned from this is as good as SBR Ratings are they are not foolproof and you can’t always look at something someone posts or reports and discredit it because of where it came from. You have to try to be objective and read all the information you can and then make an informed decision. You never know what you will find if you can do those things.
Please come by GamblingIQ and our posting forums for plenty of great contests and join in the conversations we have on a daily basis. Also don’t forget to look at our Sponsors as all of them are top quality books that are very safe to play with. We also offer up to 40% Rakeback at Giqpoker from most of the major poker rooms on the internet.
