Is this gambling and more....

[AdviseMe]

What is the name of your state? MO

I first want to ask if the site www.allsportsmarket.com is a gambling site? They are currently based in Costa Rica, but claim to be trying to get accepted into the United States in the state of Virginia and eventually go public on one of the US exchanges. Just to give you an overview of how the site is operated. The site is ran much like a betting exchange or stock exchange as people put in bid and ask orders and once they equal one another a transaction takes place. The customer can buy "derivitives" in many teams of sporting leagues around the world including those in the United States. ASM charges 5% commission on all trades of which 50% is put into a dividend pot for that particular team. When teams play one another the winning team "plunders" a percentage of the losing team's dividend pot into their own dividend pot. The dividends are paid out to owners quarterly. The belief is that this site is not a gambling site because:

1) You can sell a derivative. You can not sell a bet.

2) A dividend pays you back for your investment over time. A bet is a one time occurence.

3) A loss on a bet and your money is gone. A loss on a deriatrive does not cost you anything. Your shares are still there.

4) A derivative can pay you dividends from the Dividend Reserve plus can pay you dividends on a monthly/quaterly/semi-annual/annual basis (depending on league).



QUESTION #2:

I am currently a member of this site. When I originally signed up I was not forced to provide social security number, etc. The only requirement was that I send in a form of picture ID and the card that I used for my initial deposit if a card was used. I did this! Now ASM is stating that because they are now trying to become a US entity they need everyone's personal information: social security #, bank information, etc. and will be doing credit checks, etc. The problem here is that the traders, including myself were not given an opportunity to leave before this happened. There was no official letter or email sent out by the company. It is now required that you turn in the disclosure form with all of this information or you are not allowed to make a withdrawal. One of the members made a withdrawal in early June before this requirement was put in place and has not received his payment in 40+ days. He asked support where his money was and they told him it was in transit, but they could put a stop pay on the check and send it through western union if he filled out the disclosure agreement and turned it in, but if he did not he would have to wait. Is this legal? Can they freeze funds or give such offers? I know that there is probably nothing that can be done since they are in Costa Rica at this time, but if they are accepted in the US what can happen? Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[divgradcurl]

What is the name of your state? MO

I first want to ask if the site www.allsportsmarket.com is a gambling site? They are currently based in Costa Rica, but claim to be trying to get accepted into the United States in the state of Virginia and eventually go public on one of the US exchanges. Just to give you an overview of how the site is operated. The site is ran much like a betting exchange or stock exchange as people put in bid and ask orders and once they equal one another a transaction takes place. The customer can buy "derivitives" in many teams of sporting leagues around the world including those in the United States. ASM charges 5% commission on all trades of which 50% is put into a dividend pot for that particular team. When teams play one another the winning team "plunders" a percentage of the losing team's dividend pot into their own dividend pot. The dividends are paid out to owners quarterly. The belief is that this site is not a gambling site because:

1) You can sell a derivative. You can not sell a bet.

2) A dividend pays you back for your investment over time. A bet is a one time occurence.

3) A loss on a bet and your money is gone. A loss on a deriatrive does not cost you anything. Your shares are still there.

4) A derivative can pay you dividends from the Dividend Reserve plus can pay you dividends on a monthly/quaterly/semi-annual/annual basis (depending on league).



QUESTION #2:

I am currently a member of this site. When I originally signed up I was not forced to provide social security number, etc. The only requirement was that I send in a form of picture ID and the card that I used for my initial deposit if a card was used. I did this! Now ASM is stating that because they are now trying to become a US entity they need everyone's personal information: social security #, bank information, etc. and will be doing credit checks, etc. The problem here is that the traders, including myself were not given an opportunity to leave before this happened. There was no official letter or email sent out by the company. It is now required that you turn in the disclosure form with all of this information or you are not allowed to make a withdrawal. One of the members made a withdrawal in early June before this requirement was put in place and has not received his payment in 40+ days. He asked support where his money was and they told him it was in transit, but they could put a stop pay on the check and send it through western union if he filled out the disclosure agreement and turned it in, but if he did not he would have to wait. Is this legal? Can they freeze funds or give such offers? I know that there is probably nothing that can be done since they are in Costa Rica at this time, but if they are accepted in the US what can happen? Thanks in advance for your advice.

All of their reasons as to why this isn't gambling is B.S. It's gambling. None of their "reasons" hold water. Bets can be bought, sold, transferred in many cases; you can lose all of your money in derivatives, and not all bets are one-time occurences; if your derivative drops in value to zero, well, I guess you still have a share, but how is that different than losing a bet; betting pools can pay out over time, too.

This is a scam, pure and simple. Your buddy is never going to see his money, neither are you, and if you send in your SSN and bank account info, you are likely going to find your credit being shot and your bank account emptied due to identity theft.

They drew a bunch of "investors" in by saying that they are going to "get accepted" by the U.S. -- but now that you are in, they won't give you your money until you pony up all of your personal data and expose yourself to identity theft. Even if, in the extremely unlikely event, they are legit, are you comfortable sending all of your personal info to a company in a thrid-world country that is not under any possible jurisdiction of U.S. courts or U.S. law enforcement? If they were legit, they would let all of the "original" investors opt-out -- but they don't, they are holding your money hostage. That's a HUGE red flag right there.

Say goodbye to your money, and if you want to gamble in the future, do it legally -- head to an Indian reservation of Vegas or something.

 

[AdviseMe]

divgradcurl,

Thanks a lot for your post. What you have said is exactly what I feared. Luckily for me, I do not have a lot of money tied up there. They did, indeed, recognize my first few withdreawals, but I suppose in any scheme you have to gain trust before you break it. In any case I attempted to post some things on their forum that pointed out obvious flaws and asked for those questions to be answered. I was attempting to get both clarification and warn others about putting funds into the site until things were made more clear. Since I started making those posts my account has now been put on hold, effective yesterday evening. I now cannot even log into my own account. Do you know of any way that i can get a warning out to other people about this? This is definitely not right! I just hope that others do not follow suit.

 

[hamish]

Warning others

Allsportsmarket tried high jacking a domain name from me and when they were unsuccessful closed my account on their site.
From what I have read, Chris the guy who set this site up has a history of similar internet scams. After numerous attempts to stop players withdrawing by offering discounted company shares in lieu dividends (shares that will supposedly be worth $10 each one day...lol). This site is still having problems paying its members and has so introduced the KYC form to discourage investors from withdrawing.
If members do complete this form and still request their withdrawal, then they have to wait while an audit is done by the Sports Trading Compliance Commission (who has ever heard of such an organization...lol).

If you want to warn people about allsportsmarket here are a couple of suggestions http://www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml to make an official complaint and http://alexa.com/data/details/main?url=allsportsmarket.com to post your review of the site.