Users' Choice
Asianconnect88 stole my money
Spelling and punctuation of complainant are preserved.
Hello,
I have been a customer of Asianconnect88 for about 1.5 years. I have been betting with PS3838, which is a Pinnacle clone and a part of Asianconnect88. My deposits exceed 42 000 EUR and I have withdrawn some 20 000 EUR. As my current balance is 0, it means that I have made a net loss of 22 000 EUR.
Some weeks ago Asianconnect88 voided a winning bet without providing me any proper reason for why it was voided. The only thing mentioned was that the bets had been placed in a fraudulent manner.
The bets in question were placed on March 15, 2023. I placed several bets on a Biathlon World Cup event, the men’s 10 Km sprint race in Canmore.
Some of my bets were for David Komatz to beat Adam Runnalls.
As you can see on the official result page:
https://www.biathlonworld.com/results/BT2324SWRLCP09SMSP
David Komatz finished 40th with a result of 26:33.3 and Adam Runnalls finished 41st with the result of 26:33.7.
Initially I thought that when Asianconnect88 wrote about bets having been placed in a fraudulent manner, they meant to say that the results had been somehow rigged or fixed.
However the fact that this was an interval start race and my bet won by just 4 tenths of a second means that it was impossible to know the outcome in advance. Essentially the result is far too close to have been rigged. It was impossible to know who won until the clock stopped when Komatz finished his race.
When I brought this to the attention of Asianconnect88 support, as I was trying to solve the issue, they started writing that I was betting as part of a group and about line manipulations.
I was shocked by this reply for a number of reasons.
First and foremost simply because I do not bet as part of a group and I have never engaged in line manipulations.
Secondly because I cannot understand why they suspect line manipulations for this H2H. I have googled extensively to understand what they meant by line manipulations and have learned that this seems to have been an issue for years and that I am far from the first customer who has had bets voided and been accused of this (line manipulation). I was placing the same bet with other bookies in addition to Ps3838 at similar odds. There were some 12-20 hours between my first and last bet for Komatz. The odds did not move a lot at any point, not with Ps3838 or any other bookmaker I was paying attention to. For me it seems obvious that somewhat large odds movements during the lifetime of a betting market is a necessity to make any reasonable claim of line manipulation. If the odds did not move a lot at any point, how can the odds have been manipulated?
Thirdly, my account must be one of the least likely suspects possible for betting as a group and line manipulation. I have lost more than half of my deposits. Best guess my payback percentage is between 86 and 94. I have been placing bets for some 4-5 different sports (Football, Basketball and Winter Sports) and I suspect I am not much better than break-even with any of them. I think it is a reasonable assumption that most people placing fraudulent bets are able to do better than making large net losses…
Fourthly, I am still able to place bets on my account. The account has not been closed for betting. It should be obvious that if they really seriously believe that they have identified a customer who is betting as part of a group, who is manipulating lines and placing bets in a fraudulent manner, that they would make sure that this customer is unable to place bets going forward.
The very fact that I am still welcome to keep placing bets with them, should make it obvious that they are not serious about their allegations, but have rather just stolen my money and made up the reasons as to why.
To sum up, it is IMO obvious that Asianconnect88 are making bogus allegations and have just stolen my money. My problem is that even as the matter should be easy to see for what it is for any unbiased arbiter, I am not sure how to proceed.