Aces Gold Fiasco (Blast From The Past)

[Inkwell77]

Unbelievable. A book was offering no juice and a 25% bonus. How the hell was this business model even viable??

Looking back the whole thing seemed insane, as if Aces were some gigantic philanthropic institution rather than a business. But nobody, not even the consumer watchdogs who exist to prevent this sort of thing, such as sportbookreview, majorwager and the prescription, questioned Aces integrity. They had a very good record of paying quickly, good customer service and general integrity.

Here is the article .... so crazy a book like this existed

http://may.casinocitytimes.com/article/the-aces-gold-fiasco-1153

[SBR_John]

You have to keep in mind the watchdogs at the time were all startups. This book had been around since the beginning of the industry which at the time was 4 or 5 years and had a perfect track record. After the Superbowl, payouts were limited to $1000 a week and that set off a tremendous run on the bank as the rumors grew that they were in trouble. The Aces Gold owner then decided to steal the remaining cash on hand and close.

[Inkwell77]

Crazy. How they even made any money at all is intriguing. Were they limiting sharps quickly?

[ChuckyTheGoat]

What is Therwanger up to nowadays?

[Maniac]

Article doesnt mention the fact that on that superbowl the rest of the world was offerig a 14pt spread on the Rams, and I believe they went -14.5 and stuck with it, building up a huge liability on the Pats +14.5.

On retrospect this was either a huge gamble to make back whatever losses that must have incurred throughout the season, thus allowing them to continue to afford to keep running afterwards...or a premeditated strategy which would give them a huge number of deposits in order for them to close up shop anyway and run for the hills with everyones money.

Never had money there myself, but will always remember this story as it happened back when I had just gotten into US Sports betting, and spent a lot of time on the various forums trying to learn the ropes etc

[BackDoorCover]

You could also buy on or off the "3" in the NFL for only $.10 for most of that NFL season, although they did stop that late in the reg season. It was a no-brainer to buy any NFL line at -3.5 down to -2.5 -130 and vice versa. I was betting both sides of almost every NFL game lined around 3 that year, occasionally playing BOTH sides at Aces itself. Enough NFL games hit 3 that year, combined with their juice-free promotions, that I made a mint that year, still by far my best NFL season ever, on paper. Unfortunately, a good chunk of those profits went riding off into the sunset in Therwanger's pocket.

[Wrecktangle]

Middling NFL 3s was very costly for Aces, quite a number of folks were making a lot of profit on this simple "system."

I was posting at another forum when the underground rumor started that Aces was in trouble. I pulled 20K out immediately (got all of it as I was pretty early) but left 3K in...lost that.

I contend that Aces was the start of the slide we see continuing to this day in the books of that region of the world.

[wantitall4moi]

Peep and I were the only guys who said Aces was going to go down. At the time they had a bigger and better rep than Pinnacle had at Pinnacles height. Basically got laughed off the forums.

Aces got 'unlucky' the year they went under was a very unnatural year. I think 15 or 16 games landed on the 3 that season when they were offering numbers that people could buy to. The normal is around 3 or 4. So they got hit by a season with a 500-600% increase over what was 'normal', no book can sustain that.

But even with everything they were doing every so called sharp and forum/site owner said their "model" was sound and they were as safe as it got. That is why I have never ever listened to any 'insider' or guy who claimed to be 'sharp' or a watchdog that didnt have a lick of common sense.

Bottomline is Aces had done the same thing year after year, they just had a perfect storm of things happening. The internet gambling craze was at its peak offshore, guys were sending big money offshore to post ups, and I think Aces even gave credit to quite a few people for some pretty large amounts. Add all this to the fact the football season was an anomaly and they couldnt sustain the losses they incurred. Basically they gambled and lost.

But they were obviously not the only ones. But it did sort of open a few eyes to how mismanaged the offshore industry was/is. But it still didnt stop people from continuing to bet at books with much worse track records or reputations than Aces Gold but with similar approaches. Regardless degenerates that cant help themselves will send money and gamble with anyone even a lace they know for a certainty wont pay them. Mostly with the approach that they wiill play that book off against a book they know they will get paid at. problems start to happen when the book they win at is the book they wont get paid from. That is what hurt most people with Aces.

[Wrecktangle]

Peep and I were the only guys who said Aces was going to go down. At the time they had a bigger and better rep than Pinnacle had at Pinnacles height. Basically got laughed off the forums.

Aces got 'unlucky' the year they went under was a very unnatural year. I think 15 or 16 games landed on the 3 that season when they were offering numbers that people could buy to. The normal is around 3 or 4. So they got hit by a season with a 500-600% increase over what was 'normal', no book can sustain that.

But even with everything they were doing every so called sharp and forum/site owner said their "model" was sound and they were as safe as it got. That is why I have never ever listened to any 'insider' or guy who claimed to be 'sharp' or a watchdog that didnt have a lick of common sense.

Bottomline is Aces had done the same thing year after year, they just had a perfect storm of things happening. The internet gambling craze was at its peak offshore, guys were sending big money offshore to post ups, and I think Aces even gave credit to quite a few people for some pretty large amounts. Add all this to the fact the football season was an anomaly and they couldnt sustain the losses they incurred. Basically they gambled and lost.

But they were obviously not the only ones. But it did sort of open a few eyes to how mismanaged the offshore industry was/is. But it still didnt stop people from continuing to bet at books with much worse track records or reputations than Aces Gold but with similar approaches. Regardless degenerates that cant help themselves will send money and gamble with anyone even a lace they know for a certainty wont pay them. Mostly with the approach that they wiill play that book off against a book they know they will get paid at. problems start to happen when the book they win at is the book they wont get paid from. That is what hurt most people with Aces.

Well, not sure about that as quite a few of us listened as Peep had a decent rep. We had calced out the win advantage at ~15% with the 3 "strike rate" at that time, and a huge number of us were pounding Aces, week after week. I knew of at least 3 people who were Kelly Betting that prop and had gone over 5 times on their bankrolls on that prop alone.

I knew that no book could continue to take that kind of pressure if as many folks as I thought were hammering 3s, were indeed actually doing it. So when Peep sounded the call, a number of us pulled our funds...stupidly, I left some in.

[Kindred]

Article doesnt mention the fact that on that superbowl the rest of the world was offerig a 14pt spread on the Rams, and I believe they went -14.5 and stuck with it, building up a huge liability on the Pats +14.5.

On retrospect this was either a huge gamble to make back whatever losses that must have incurred throughout the season, thus allowing them to continue to afford to keep running afterwards...or a premeditated strategy which would give them a huge number of deposits in order for them to close up shop anyway and run for the hills with everyones money.

Never had money there myself, but will always remember this story as it happened back when I had just gotten into US Sports betting, and spent a lot of time on the various forums trying to learn the ropes etc

Pats +14 was my first online bet