Www Bookmaker Com Eu

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Bookmaker.eu is the only gambling site servicing the US market with a sportsbook
policy of no personal limit collars regardless of how much a
player wins. Their history dates back to the birth of offshore
sports betting starting with a gambling operation in the
United States begun by Ronald Sacco, also known as the Cigar.
His influence on Internet sports betting can’t possibly be
overstated. In fact, the man who is essentially the
founder
of Bovada got in the business in the 1990’s after reading Ron
Sacco’s story. This is the story of the history of bookmaker.eu.

Ron “The Cigar” Sacco

Ron Sacco was born in 1943 in San Francisco and attended
Balboa High School. His first of almost a dozen bookmaking
arrests came when he was just a teenager. Back then, he was a runner
who would hand off cash at bars and barber shops (including the
one where his own father worked). Involved in gambling from a
young age, Ron would turn out to be the largest bookie in the
United States.

• Bookmaker.eu is one of the oldest and most established online gaming sites on the net. The company itself goes back to 1985 with their online operation being launched in 1996. With over 30 years in the industry, reliability is already through the roof.
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With over a half-dozen prior arrests for petty crimes related
to gambling, Ronald Sacco was arrested in 1971 along with his
associate, Ronald Noto. The two were given up by one of their
phone-men who turned state witness over a federal investigation
into organized crime. Sacco’s prior arrests involved no charge,
probation, and/or small fines. This time he had actually
committed a felony, thanks to the Nixon administration’s newly
enacted Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. The law made it a
federal offense to violate anti-gambling laws of any state. And
just like that, what was once a petty crime landed him a 3-year
prison sentence.

When Sacco was released from prison, he went right back to
bookmaking. Again, this is all he knew since the time he was a
teenager and he was very good at it. In fact, he was so good at
it that from here on his bookmaking operation grew into the
largest in the United States. Staying out of prison meant
countless bribes and the fall of others, though this was Sacco’s
operation. When it came to sports betting, he was the man. He’d,
however, soon make a mistake.

In 1985, Ron Sacco believed he had stumbled across a
loophole. The Wire Act made it against the law to take bets from
one state into another over any form of wire (such as telegraph
or telephone). It also had a stipulation, however, that the law
didn’t apply to activity conducted from legal gambling venues.
His loophole was to open a legal betting business in the
Dominican Republic and have clients call in and place bets over
the telephone. Believing he was legal, the company began placing
small classified ads in newspapers and also purchasing
advertisements in sports magazines. This was in addition to
dozens of agents and runners handing out the phone number to
clients.

The mistake Ron Sacco made was that while the betting was
done over the phone, the cash was still paid and collected in
the United States. In June of 1987, his right hand man Tony
Ballestrasse and his girlfriend Marisa Lankester were arrested
in Los Angeles. A week later, Sacco’s nearby home was raided.
For the second time, he was arrested, tried, and convicted
for felony bookmaking.

Sacco didn’t plea however: he believed his operation was
legal. When convicted, he took it to appeal showing he was
current with all taxes, and the records the police found were
stored for Federal Income Tax compliance purposes and could not
be used to incriminate him. This, in his opinion, was his 5th
amendment right.

This defense was interesting. The appellate court ruled since
the documents were required to run the day-to-day operation and
were not stored in a box along with tax receipts. The evidence
stood and his conviction was upheld. As a result, he had to
serve his second 3-year prison sentence. Lucky for him, he was
given an early parole in 1989 after serving 53 weeks.

In September of 1993, both Ron Sacco and his right hand man,
Tony Ballestrasse, were arrested once again. This time it
happened in the Dominican. While they were operating with a
license to take sports bets, it only granted them the ability to
take bets locally. Of course, there was an unstable government
at the time, and a lot of cash was paid in bribes. Authorities,
for years, knew what Sacco was doing. It was pressure from the
US that led to the arrests.

Ron Sacco was deported as a non-desirable resident and turned
over to US authorities. He was charged with running the United
States’ largest bookmaking business, processing over $1 billion
(USD) in sports bets per year. This led to his third felony
bookmaking conviction where he was handed a 68-month prison
sentence. After serving over 3-years, he was paroled in May,
1998.

Costa Rica International Sports

Keep in mind the Ron Sacco’s betting operation was
massive: $1 billion per year in sports bets made him the
largest bookie in the United States. There are countless stories
about him funneling millions of dollars in credit card
processing through pawnshop covers nationwide. He also
infiltrated several banks, was linked to several police officers
and elected officials, and was even named in the famous Pete
Rose betting on baseball scandal. There was no chance his
business was going anywhere during his prison stay. For a brief
period, what was left of the bookmaking operation moved to San
Francisco. When several more were indicted, they fled to Costa
Rica.

Comprised of the Sacco operation that had been built since he
was a teenager, in 1994 the company, Costa Rica International
Sports (CRIS), was born. With Sacco in prison, this was
initially run by an associate, Harry Craft. When he was pinched,
others took over. Amazingly, this was such a large operation
that no matter who was arrested, players were paid lightning
fast. They also had a reputation for their willingness to take
and pay any bet no matter how large or small.

Where the Line Originates

In the mid 1990’s, the Sacco operation, now called CRIS, was gaining new competitors
at a rapid rate. Guys with no history at all in sports betting
were landing in places like Belize, Antigua, Venezuela, Dominican,
Panama, and Costa Rica starting toll-free phone in shops and
getting rich fast. In fact, the founder of BetMaker, Scott Barrett,
showed up in Costa Rica broke with nothing but six credit cards
to live on. A few years later, he sold the sportsbook he started
for $20 million (USD). He was just one of many who got rich after
Ron Sacco paved the way.

The team managing CRIS needed a plan. The company came up
with: what if we can set the lines before Las Vegas? After
mulling over how this would work and after developing a plan and
testing it out, it came to be. They hired several handicappers,
asking them what the line should be. After getting feedback,
they’d decide on a number, open the betting action, and adjust
as they took bets. Of course, the Las Vegas Sports Consultants
(LVSC), who had previously done this job, didn’t like the
competition. It turned into a battle where each kept releasing
lines earlier and earlier. After a while, CRIS started doing it
for the following week while the 1PM games were still being
played.

As the source for early lines, every bookmaker, even Las
Vegas sportsbooks, would stay on the phone with various reps
waiting for the line to be posted. As soon as the phone agent
gave them a line, they’d either place a bet or say pass, and
then be read the next line. CRIS became so famous and known for
this that Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal helped tag a new slogan. He
was, of course, the longtime manager of the Stardust sportsbook,
the man depicted by Robert De Niro in the 1995 hit Martin
Scorsese film Casino. During a media interview, Rosenthal was
asked what he thought was the best offshore book. His casual
response was “BetCRIS, this is where the line originates.” This
stuck and became their slogan. It’s still featured to this day
on their current website, www.bookmaker.eu.

BetCRIS.com Goes Online *Bookmaker.eu*

Ron Sacco was released on parole in November of 1998. Not one
to wait to get back into the action, he paid who he needed to
pay to get a new passport. In the US, he was Ronald Sacco,
serving his remaining sentence on supervised release. A
reasonable plane ride away to Costa Rica, he was Ronald
O’Malley, an Irish-born man naturalized in Belize. Back in
charge of his gambling empire, which remained the largest in the
US, he’d eventually embrace the Internet. While initially
against this, he was sharp enough to see that betting sites were
the future. As a result, on April 8, 2000, the website
BetCRIS.com was launched.

Bookmaker.com Eu

Ron Sacco Arrested – AGAIN!

In March 2002, a man was arrested in Peñas Blancas, Costa
Rica near the border crossing to Nicaragua. He was found with
two passports in his possession, one issued to Ronald Sacco of
the United States and the other to Ronald O’Malley, Belize and,
of course, both photos were the same. The US informed the local
authorities that Sacco had been indicted in 2000 in San
Francisco on bookmaking charges and was considered a fugitive.
Days later, he was convicted of identity crimes, given a 10-year
ban from returning to Costa Rica, and after a short prison
sentence, was deported to the United States on the 4th of July,
2002.

This event actually did a lot to give credit to the man Ron
“The Cigar” Sacco. Arrested nearly a dozen times, this was also
the fourth time he would face a felony conviction. All the man
ever did was run an honest bookmaking business. He paid all
winners, took the highest stakes, and had the respect of all his
peers. When he first started, this was only a petty crime that
didn’t even amount to fines given for speeding.

While Sacco had fought all previous charges, this time he
came clean. In his sentencing report, it was revealed that he
was supporting a wife and child in Costa Rica. He had cooperated
with the FBI during investigations related to terrorism, weapons
trade, human trafficking, and other more serious crimes on
numerous occasions. He was current on his US child support,
filed and paid his taxes, and had spent a decade of his life in
prison over nothing more than sports betting. The probation
office recommended a light sentence due to his cooperation with
authorities that led to convictions and helped prevent much more
serious crimes. He was given a 21-month sentence with 9-months
credit for time served. The latter was full credit from the day
of his Costa Rican arrest.

Mickey Richardson

When Ron Sacco was arrested in 2002, the owner of Yabet.com,
who used the alias Mickey Richardson, was recruited to run CRIS.
After Ron Sacco’s release from prison, Mickey was approved to be
the CEO; for more than a decade now, he has run the
operation that Ron Sacco started as a teenager in the early
1960’s. This is the largest betting operation in the US market
and continues to pay winners hassle- free.

Bookmaker.eu

Www.bookmaker.eu Review

In 2007, CRIS acquired a highly-desirable domain for SEO and
branding reasons: bookmaker.com. However, in addition to
betcris.com, the company already had dozens of brick and mortar
betting shops, clubs, and casinos in legal South American
markets under the name BetCRIS. They also had a contract with
the Rwanda government to operate the state’s betting monopoly.
In other words, outside the US, BetCRIS was a huge corporate
brand and fully legal. To use the new domain, CRIS made the
strategic decision to separate and create a US variant. US
players were moved to the bookmaker.com website, while all
others continued to use betcris.com.

In 2011, dozens of
US facing
gambling sites had their domains seized by homeland
security. Bookmaker has since used various domains, including
bmaker.ag, before starting the .eu trend. Their current website
is www.bookmaker.eu and is one of, if not the, safest websites
for US players. These guys accept the largest limits and most
likely process as many $10,000 bets as most gambling sites
process the $10 ones. The chance of ever being stiffed with
bookmaker.eu is next to nothing.

Ron Sacco Today

Ron Sacco is no longer with BetCRIS/Bookmaker. Upon his
release, he initially remained a partner. When the United States
was about to pass a new law called the UIGEA, he decided he had
had enough. While most would suspect this was a cover, it was
completely sincere. For a one-time sum, much smaller than the
worth of the business he had built, Mickey Richardson bought him
out.

As for the rest of the story, Ron Sacco is a legend to whom
everyone working in the US gambling industry owes a great deal
of thanks. After a long series of petitions, his 10-year ban
from entering Costa Rica was overturned. Today he’s close to
both his US and Costa Rican family and is completely out of
gambling. The sad news is that he has a number of
health-challenges, and while he’s still only 70, he perhaps
won’t be with us much longer. We at gamblingsites.org wish him
all the best and send him a well-deserved 'thank you so very
much'. There’s no telling what the gambling industry might be
like today had the man who grew and cultivated it not been such
an honest man. So with that, Cigar, if you’re reading this, we
sincerely thank you!

Bookmaker is one of the oldest gambling sites in the world. The history of the company goes back to 1985 (its first betting site opened in 1996), and nowadays www.bookmaker.eu is known as one of the most legitimate U.S.-friendly gambling operations.

Bookmaker Mobile

Bookmaker is best-known for its sportsbook, but the site also features an online casino (powered by Digital Gaming Solutions) and an online poker room (runs on the second most popular US poker network called Winning Poker). The majority of their customers, however, are there specifically because of the sports betting. They offer one of the top choices for sportsbooks in all of US Betting.

Below we take a completely unbiased look at Bookmaker.eu and tell you exactly what we thought including the good and the bad. Anything that we felt you needed to know, we tried to cover in this review.

What’s Good

Early Lines

Bookmaker’s tagline is “Where the Line Originates” and for a good reason: they’re generally the first site to post betting lines for baseball, basketball, football and other American sports. (Bookmaker’s biggest competitor, Bovada, is known for being one of the slowest sites to post lines.)

Track Record

As mentioned above, the roots of this betting site go back around 30 years, and they’ve been online for almost 20 years. They’ve gone through multiple changes in ownership and customers have been directed from one domain to another, yet they’ve never had significant delays in payout times or such. Bookmaker’s customers have always been able to rely on getting paid.

Professionals Are Welcome

The second major difference between Bookmaker and Bovada is their stances regarding professional bettors (or those who take betting more seriously and actively look for +EV opportunities). Bookmaker welcomes all types of players from recreational bettors to professionals, while Bovada favours recreational players and actually shows different betting lines for educated bettors (they may also lower maximum betting limits for skilled bettors to something like $1 or $10).

High Maximum Betting Limits

Bookmaker not only gives every customer a chance to bet the same amount of money regardless of their level of skill, but their maximum betting limits are high to begin with.

What’s Bad

Slow(ish) Payouts

While Bookmaker.com has a strong history of delivering payouts, the time it takes for them to deliver payouts is longer than their biggest competitors, like Bovada and BetOnline (these two sites deliver check payouts in around a week; it takes around a month for Bookmaker to do the same).

Payout Fees

While Bovada allows one free check payout per month, Bookmaker charges $50 per check payout. If you’re dealing with amounts of less than thousands of dollars, this charge takes a relatively big chunk out of your withdrawal amount. (You can use BetPoints to purchase free payouts, but then again that doesn’t equal free since the points can also be converted to cash and merchandise.)

Sharp Lines

While Bookmaker.eu is known for posting lines early, they’re rarely the best lines you’ll be able to bet on. So while Bookmaker doesn’t shy away from professional bettors and the like, they can afford not to due to offering sharp lines.

Banking

Deposits

Bookmaker charges zero fees for processing deposits unlike some other top US gambling sites like BetOnline (6% per deposit) and Bovada (4.9% per deposit).

You’ll find all Bookmaker.eu’s U.S. eligible deposit options below along with minimum and maximum deposit limits for each deposit method:

Payouts

Bookmaker offers a double-edged sword for its U.S. customers: a long, strong history of delivering payouts on-time, but on the other hand, relatively slow check payout times (around 3 weeks) and a $50 fee for check payouts.

You’ll find Bookmaker.eu’s U.S. eligible payout options below along with information on minimum and maximum withdrawals limits and fees. In addition to these methods, Bookmaker also allows debit card withdrawals for regulars (contact their customer support to find out more):

Bonuses

Deposit Bonus

First-time depositors get a 50% bonus up to $300 (in other words, you get the maximum bonus by depositing $600). Wagering requirements are 10x for sports betting and 40x for casino players.

All deposit methods except for Neteller qualify for the Bookmaker.eu bonus.

To qualify for the deposit bonus, you must enter the bonus code found here when making the deposit. If you’d rather not use the bonus offer (and therefore avoid having to complete any wagering requirements in order to withdraw your winnings), just leave the bonus code field empty when depositing.

VIP Program

Bookmaker’s VIP/Rewards Program is called BetPoints Rewards. The more you play, the more BetPoints you accumulate and the higher you place in the VIP system. The higher your VIP level, the higher the rate you accumulate BetPoints with.

You can use BetPoints to:

• Convert them into cash.
• Purchase gift cards, frequent flyer points or merchandise.
• Initiate free cashouts.

By depositing $300+, you automatically qualify for the Gold level, and by depositing $900+, you automatically qualify for the Platinum level. To get to the Diamond level, you need to earn 300,000 BetPoints in a 12-month period, which then gives you an access to VIP customer service, 2 free debit payouts per month and the highest rate of accumulation for BetPoints.

Sportsbook

Bookmaker is known for publishing betting lines early (a positive thing) but it’s also known for offering sharp lines (a negative thing). You’ll likely find betting lines for whatever games you want to bet on earlier at Bookmaker than at any other site, but then again, the odds are likely worse than what some other sites are going to offer a few days later.

High-stakes bettors can go to town at Bookmaker, considering their Thursday-to-Sunday betting limits for NFL sides ($50,000), totals ($20,000) and moneylines ($20,000). NBA has smaller limits ($10,000 and $5,000), as well as NHL ($5,000). The minimum betting limits for all sports and leagues is $1.

To my knowledge, Bookmaker.eu has the highest betting limits out of all US-friendly gambling sites. All of the limits can likely be negotiated even higher by contacting their customer support.

Bookmaker provides a strong selection of games and betting options for its US customers. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis and golf markets are all heavily covered.

They cover soccer to a decent extent as well with betting lines for 13 soccer leagues around the world:

As mentioned, this site is heavily focused on American betting markets, which is one of the reasons I recommend other options for customers outside of the US). I recommend 5Dimes for US customers looking to bet on foreign markets.

Still, I consider Bookmaker.eu a top-5 sportsbook for Americans.

Casino

Bookmaker’s casino software is powered by Digital Gaming Solutions. It features all the usual games you’ll find on any casino (blackjack, roulette, craps, video poker, etc.) and a decent range of slot machines.

Certified Fair Gambling audits the casino software on a monthly basis. You can find monthly reports of the audits at www.bookmaker.eu which include payout percentages. They look good – on the surface, at least – but as I attempted to research on Certified Fair Gambling, their website was offline.

You can play at Bookmaker Casino with mobile devices as well, although the selection of mobile casino games is much smaller. Still, it features all the “classics” – blackjack, roulette, slots and the like – and is likely a sufficient option for most mobile gamblers.

Poker

Bookmaker Poker is a part of the second most popular U.S. poker network (Winning Poker, formerly known as Yatahay Poker) and therefore offers plenty of games for Americans. As mentioned, this site has a long history of servicing its US customers with respect, so just based on player traffic and reliability (the most important factors for Americans), Bookmaker is a top-3 US poker site.

For players outside of the US, here are the best sites.

They feature the common poker game variations like Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo and 7-Card Stud. They also have a decent amount of tournament action, so you’ll likely find a decent selection of games to play unless you’re into more obscure poker games only.

According to their website, Bookmaker Poker’s rake is at 5% (with a maximum rake cap of $3), and apparently this goes for all stakes (usually poker sites have different rake structures for different stakes). A 5% rake across the board is high, but there are only a limited amount of US-friendly poker rooms available, and all of the top US poker sites have high rake structures relative to poker sites only accepting players from outside of the U.S.

Customer Service

You can contact Bookmaker.eu via phone (their sportsbook has a toll-free number for USA and Canada), e-mail or live chat.

But the real question you and I want an answer for is: is the customer service any good? Are they helpful? Are they friendly? Are they reliable?

I’ll go with “yes” to all of those questions.

Based on my experiences – and based on the impression I’ve gotten from online forums – Bookmaker’s customer support is helpful and does its best to help you, especially with deposits and cashouts (US customers often have problems with moving money to and from gambling sites).

Conclusion

Bookmaker is a top-5 recommendation for Americans. It’s rare to find gambling sites that accept US customersand have strong track records. In fact, it can be argued that Bookmaker.eu has the strongest track record in the U.S., however, slow(ish) payouts, sharp lines and a $50 check payout fee lowers their grade.

This review was made by: LegitGamblingSites.com Rating: 4.3 out of 5