Upon its announcement last week that it was going into receivership, Firststake plc has become the second British online bookmaker in a month's time to fail.
The collapse left Firststake customers holding a bag on £217,000 in deposits, however, Sportingbet.com has come to their rescue with a special deal: The Alderney-based site will honor Firststake customers' deposits and in return will acquire the failed company's customer database. Firststake boasted 5,000 customers, mainly from Europe and the U.K. Sportingbet will not pay any funds to Firststake or its receivers, Kingston Smith & Partners.
Sportingbet.com Managing Director Mark Blandford explained, "We see this as a very attractive way of developing our customer base, whilst at the same time protecting the integrity of the online sports betting industry. We are offering Firststake.com customers a no-loss, risk-free solution despite the fact that Firststake.com is no longer trading."
There are a few catches to how Firststake customers can take advantage of Sportingbet's offer. In a letter to their customers, Firststake explained how the deal would work:
All you have to do is set up an account with www.sportingbet.com. with your old firststake.com Username and full name as it appeared on your account, along with your new sportingbet.com account details. Your previous deposit balance at firststake.com will then be transferred to sportingbet.com. Unfortunately, it is not possible to transfer/honour any open bets you have with Firststake. Should you wish to withdraw your funds from sportingbet.com, sportingbet.com merely ask that
you trial their excellent service by placing a minimum bet of £20 beforehand; please note also that withdrawal requests cannot be processed by sportingbet until the 19th February.
Some customers were complaining, however, that their ante-post bets weren't going to be honored as well. One disgruntled punter told Yahoo! Sports that this was "disgraceful."
Another British sports betting site, Betachance.com, closed January 22, owing £30,000 to its customers, which director Richard Ryan promised to pay in full within two weeks' time. There's no word yet whether betachance has been able to live up to this promise.