Royal Sports, Another Class Act!

[Boomer]

I recently had the pleasure to give Royal Sports a try for the first time. It is my intention to try out every book on the left that hasn't been ragged on. I had an unusual special request in this, my second week of wagering with them. They handled it in exemplary fashion.

As I said when I first went into Premiere League, you can usually tell the good guys from the bad guys. Although they are large, Royal's mode of doing business and customer service so far has seemed superior...good clerks, knowledgeable customer service, and the ability to handle an occasional special request without going ballistic.

Although Premiere League gets my "Boomer Millenium Award" for customer service and general all-around caring attitude, my instincts tell me Royal will be in the top ten in the next Millenium.

[reno]

Boomer, I hereby nominate you for the annual Bettorsworld Good Samaritan Award. Trying out all of the books on the left and providing Bettorsworld members with reports is indeed a commendable activity. And if these forthcoming reports continue to meet the high standards that your previous reports have established, then Bettorsworld Members will have no choice but to also nominate you for the Albert Schweitzer International Humanitarian Award.

[Boomer]

Cute, Reno.

Aren't you gone on vacation yet...

Actually, you rarely see me say something good or bad these days. If I feel a book does something right, like Wizard of Odds or Gamblers Palace, I'll gladly give them a plug here, because I feel not many people know about them, they do things right, and should be supported.

I see so many negative posts here about certain sportsbooks and I wonder why people still choose to play there. Tiny limits for large players, shading lines, or what I consider the all-time absolute no-no for a sportsbook: Trying to change a line after a phone operator tell you what the line is.
That is unacceptable behavior whether you wager $100 or $10,000. I ask you for a line, you tell me -3.5, I tell you I want five dimes on it, you come back and tell me the line changed. That is to me, the ultimate no-no.

I started doing what I do in January 1999 and it happened to me twice and I don't use either of those books anymore.

Other than that (and getting paid), I like to share sportsbook info with everyone at this site. I have gone into places any sane man would never have gone into, to get line differentiations, bonuses, or for some other reason known only to me. And although 1999 had some scary times (payout-wise), I've discovered some "gems" in the way of sportsbooks where an educated person such as yourself and Jeff would never have ventured.

Actually, my ignorance served me well. I survived and love what I'm doing. It beats the hell out of driving an hour to work every day and fighting traffic.

[j]

Boomer,

Which two sportsbooks changed the line on you? Don't you think that's information it would be valuable to pass on to your fellow bettors? Why hold that back?

[Boomer]

When I started out, I was pretty green. Sterling, committed that and many other sins, but I believe he probably changed his ways as I haven't heard anything about them.

The other will surprise you, as I do believe they are a solid book and I like them. But I spoke to a supervisor and gave him the chance to listen to the tape (mine or his), and make it right. He chose not to do so. I chose not to play there again.

It happened during baseball season and I do believe it was an isolated incident, however, a supervisor made his call not to listen to me or his tape. Maybe he was under stress, but there should be a code of conduct regardless of conditions. Not changing a line on the same phone call when you adhere to the sportsbooks maximum limits should be a given.

The Sportsbook was Rio Island on the Don Best Feed.

[j]

Boomer,

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

[reno]

Seriously, Boomer has been a real help to me in determining what new sportsbooks I should try. But the difference between Boomer and myself is not, as he implies, education; it is balls. The guy deserves all the credit because he has the giant gonads necessary for sending money to relatively unknown and unproven outs. The guy, apparently, has less attachment to money than Mahatma Gandhi. He is a fearless pioneer in search of hard-to-find un-clone-like outs. He leads the way, and I follow.

In fact, I have so much respect for Boomer that I plan on getting a portrait of him done, and mounting it in my sportsbetting shrine, alongside my pictures of Chuck Sharp, Billy Walters, and the Poker Players.

[Tony From Lisbon]

My first day here--second post.
My thanx to people like Boomer who keep us up to date on who's shafting and who's serving us bettors. He's right about Royal being OK. When I lived in Canada I had an account there with never a problem, but shifted to the guys next door to them when I moved to Europe.

As my contribution to this board, I am opening up about 10-15 NET accounts. Why? Because (1)I can't call toll-free from Europe except to that one book in Curacao which has toll-free service and (2) won't bet these second-rate-service shops here in Europe anymore.

In general, here are the online sportsbooks negatives--
1--Systems range from GOOD (only 10%) to FAIR (50%) to AWFUL (40%).
Awful = USER UNFRIENDLY.
2--Credit card depositing is in the dark ages.
3--Many spots do not tell you how to contact them via email.
4--Processing is slow at some, even at slow times, like 5AM EST
5--Personal service is almost non-existent (except I did get one good response from The Greek.)
6--And, the worst of all---despite my newfound experience, about 1/4 of the new sites I look at make it HARD for me to sign up, even BEFORE the credit card ag!

I'll keep you posted as to my experiences.

TFL

[mls]

Thanks for the feedback Boomer.

However, I must disagree with Reno.

It is my understanding that all the books to the left are "substantial" in the opinion of oddswiz here at Bettorsworld. That is certainly no guarantee but because of his research I personally have no concern about any of the sportbooks listed here.

And, of course, there are several major excellent sport books not listed here - but they are either so big (like CRIS) or highly regulated (any British or Australian licensed book) I do not need an opinion on them.

In conclusion, stick with the books to the left and the other unlisted but obviously solid books and you can probably sleep well at night.

[reno]

mls, you are correct about the books listed on the left. Most are "substantial," or they wouldn't be there. However, since I haven't played with all of them, reports from an experienced source like Boomer do hold a lot of weight with me.

Boomer's real forte is searching out and trying relatively unknown new books. He is a gutsy pioneer, and he has turned me on to some good books that are off the beaten path. Four Aces kind of back-fired, but I got my money when their customer base merged with Oasis.