Meager MLB Bets and Sportsbook Complaint

I used an online sportsbook this year (MyBookie.ag) mainly because I couldn’t access DraftKings or FanDuel overseas, and someone recommended them. I didn’t deposit much — $800 — and lost roughly $300 net during NFL season.

I didn’t much like the book. The software was clunky, and it had this habit of doubling up the bets I made. For example, I bet on Saquon Barkley to lead the league in something, TDs?, I forget, for $50, and I saw $100 removed from my balance as it registered the ticket twice. (If you went to undo the bet 10 seconds later, it offered you $26.50 or whatever the real value of it was, back.)

This happened maybe five times during NFL, and I didn’t care that much, since it was small amounts, and why not have $100 on Barkley to lead the league in TDs? What could go wrong?

The book also liked to shill its online blackjack offerings to me, which I told them to please stop. Anyone willing to play online blackjack even for fake fiat dollars is too stupid to exist. You have no way of knowing if you’re even getting real blackjack odds, or whether say one ace were removed from each deck to make it ever-so-slightly more profitable for them.

In any event, my money was there, it was hard to move, so I stuck with it and planned to blow the last $477 on MLB futures. But the odds were too crappy (Juan Soto at +550 to win AL MVP?), so I settled on $50 for Spencer Torkelson (who hit 19 HR in the second half last year) to lead MLB in home runs. I added another $20 on Rhys Hoskins at 90:1 too. But I noticed it doubled up my Torkelson bet too. Fine, now I’ve got $100 on it, instead of $50.

But that last double-up made me decide to just pull the rest of my modest balance ($357) out rather than wasting it on under-compensated long-shot futures. So I tried, but got denied twice. So I contacted customer service, and the guy told me I needed to download Chrome for the site’s withdrawals to work properly. I told him I didn’t want to download Google’s spyware and that I valued my privacy. He basically said, well, you’re turning down our advice, so that’s on you. I told him I’m turning down his advice because it requires downloading third-party software. He asked if there was anything else he could help me with.

I said, as a matter of fact, I was going to let it go, but the site doubled-up my Torkelson bet (as it did five or so times during NFL season), can I get that second one reversed. He asked for the ticket number, I gave it to him, tells me because the first bet was yesterday, and the second one today, he can’t undo it as a duplicate. I said, what happened is when I made the Hoskins one today, the Torkelson one was probably in the cache somehow (same issue most likely with all the NFL bets) and re-posted that along with the one I made today. He just repeated “different days, sorry.” But he valued my feedback. I told him you’re going to value it even more when I write it up on Substack. He said, “Cool.”

Post Script: I was finally able to generate a withdrawal request via Opera Browser, which I have but never use, but then they locked my account for suspicious activity a few hours later and asked me call their security number! I called, and a woman explained the problem was I had a VPN. (This is a sketchy online sportsbook, and they’re worried about my VPN.)

She said they flagged the withdrawal for that reason. I asked her to unlock/unflag my account, and I’d try to withdraw the funds again with her on the phone. She said I’d have to turn off the VPN. I said I have the VPN on for privacy! I turned it off, she unlocked it, and I finally got the funds.

I still have $100 on Torkelson’s carcass to lead the majors in home runs at 50:1, and $20 on Hoskins at 90:1. (Actually think Hoskins is the better bet in that park.)

Not gonna go full Orbitz on this, but I’m looking for a better book.