Futurebet Appears to be Completely Bust

**pokeraddict** · 6th November 2007, 12:42 AM

Sportsbookreview.com is reporting that Futurebet skins are reporting Futurebet is insolvent. Many skins have already come down.

http://www.sportsbookreview.com/SR.aspx?s=futurebet

Many of the licensed rooms state that Futurebet has never paid their players, affiliates or the licensees themselves. CM had this to say about them about a year and a half ago.

http://www.casinomeister.com/rogue/n.../futurebet.php

This is just a reminder that you need to do your homework to make sure you aren't depositing into one of these rooms. They do mostly sportsbooks but they often offer good bonuses to unsuspecting players. They also owned the now seemingly defunct Digital Gaming Network (formerly Dobrosoft) poker rooms. SBR reported they no longer own it either. Most of those skins have already closed.

Edit: SBR gives virtually all FB sites an F.

**ugaboga** · 6th November 2007, 03:48 AM

I guess they won't be handing out anymore 25k sub-licenses

What about their other disguise - http://www.igamingsoftware.com/ ?

**jetset** · 6th November 2007, 05:45 AM

IGS have always claimed in their numerous player disputes that they are completely independent of Futurebet, and that the similarity in software appearance is the result of them buying source code from FB some time ago and "customising" it to suit themselves.

Thanks for posting that heads up, Pokeraddict - it certainly looks as if the meltdown has been coming for some time. This company has always had a big question mark over the way it conducts business and it now appears the warnings to players about playing there were justified, despite the protests of the management from time to time.

What a mess....and unfortunately I don't think the chances are good that those owed will be fully paid - not on the past track record of this crowd.

**Casinomeister** · 6th November 2007, 08:33 AM

It was inevitable for them to take a dive. They were nothing but bad news.

From the git go, they were ass-backwards screwed up. Bad ethics. Bad philosophy and business approach to this industry.

**ugaboga** · 6th November 2007, 08:40 AM

1) They never paid players.

2) They never paid licensees.

3) They charged approximately 25k for a sub-license, 30k for a website design integrated with their sportsbook/casino software, around 100k if you include hosting an other charges. These futurebet sites were popping up left, right and centre.

And they managed to go bust? Talk about bad business management! There were no costs involved for them whatsoever with the above business model!

**pokeraddict** · 6th November 2007, 10:48 AM

I have never been much involved with the sportsbook or casino side of the industry but FB's involvement in the poker industry has caught my eye. They licensed countless Ongame skins that never paid players. They allowed skins to give rakeback only to suck in high volume players but never pay them. We're talking who knows how many $7500-$15,000 a MGR/month players back when they accepted U.S. players, ones that even rakeback affiliates dream of landing. Not only did affiliates never get their promised share but neither did skin owners. In many or maybe even most cases players never even got their deposits back much less their rakeback or winnings.

Anyone that followed PAB's saw hundreds of thousands if not $1,000,000+ of unpaid cashouts from Pokes Poker, Bayou Poker, Revolutionary Poker, Pure Poker and many more skins. Casinomeister at one point finally stopped accepting these PAB's if I remember correctly. The poker industry estimates this number of unpaid players to be in excess of $2,500,000. What makes this more disturbing is the fact that Ongame almost certainly paid Futurebet all player funds and rake when they were kicked off the network. This is in addition to all sports and casino profits that had nothing to do with Ongame. One can only imagine how much rake and house game winnings these high volume rakeback players generated.

**ugaboga** · 6th November 2007, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by jetset

IGS have always claimed in their numerous player disputes that they are completely independent of Futurebet, and that the similarity in software appearance is the result of them buying source code from FB some time ago and "customising" it to suit themselves.

Has anyone confirmed this? Casinomeister?

They seem very similar. Same business model and as you said, very similar software.

**aka23** · 6th November 2007, 06:57 PM

Note that there are two different IGS softwares that may be linked to Futurebet. The one listed in the rogue section is Interactive Gaming Systems. The one that has been discussed in this thread is i Gaming Software.

A spokesperson from an iGamingSoftware casino contacted me earlier this year to make it explicitly clear that they are not Futurebet and do not share the same risks as Futurebet. However, iGamingSoftware looks extremely similar to Futurebet. The only difference a typical player would notice is some modified paytables. They also share some support and server resources, as well as the slow/non-payment issues that have been common with Futurebet casinos. I know one player who has been waiting 4+ months for payment from an iGamingSoftware casino.

iGamingSoftware casino still seems to be marketing themselves as independent from Futurebet. Once in a while, I will get an email from someone looking into starting up an IGS casino who mentions that their IGS rep insists the two softwares are not the same, and is trying to get information about the degree of the connection.

**Casinomeister** · 8th November 2007, 01:52 PM

IGS and Futurebet were once one and the same, but there was a split. One company went south to Argentina and had the source-code for the software - thus the similarities. Nevertheless, these two companies operated with the same standards.

I'm in the process of trying to get more information on the apparent failure of FB from the horse's mouth. Hopefully, I'll hear of something today.

**ugaboga** · 9th November 2007, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Casinomeister

IGS and Futurebet were once one and the same, but there was a split. One company went south to Argentina and had the source-code for the software - thus the similarities. Nevertheless, these two companies operated with the same standards.

I'm in the process of trying to get more information on the apparent failure of FB from the horse's mouth. Hopefully, I'll hear of something today.

Futurebet had a chance to make a good dent into the online casino/sportsbook market. Alot of sub-licensees who were with worldgaming made the jump to Futurebet, because worldgaming had issues of it's own (similar to those experienced by Futurebet now).

They came into the market with new software, which wasn't tainted like that of worldgaming. Had they decided to participate in the online gaming industry with decent business ethics, they certainly would've became a large player.

Their sub-license offerings which were similar if not identical to those of worldgaming were indeed very popular.

Too bad...