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SBA365 Review

SBA365.COM is a service I came across in a Google advert, the results looked very promising so I decided to sign up on the 7th August 09 to the tennis bets for a month to see if there was any foul play and if everything was how it is advertised.

So far I have been pleasantly surprised by their quick replies to questions asked and the results of the bets given.

The odds have been easily achievable and often are even better on Belfair, though only slightly so after commission it is probably best to stick with a bookie.

The only two problems’ I have had with SBA365 are that when a player retires during a match they don’t add that match to results. When questioned about this they replied

 

“Dear Sir,

 

We understand that you feel unsatisfied that pick that are retired are not put up in past predictions.

Gonzalez match we understand that it had been played through first set and sportsbook take that match as a loss.

There are many punters who are unsure about tennis betting and retiring.

Therefore we do not post up RETIRED matches to avoid confusion for unsure punters.

This had been the way since the day we launched. We hope that you understand.

We assure all our members that all our picks will be uploaded regardless of win/loss.

However retired matches will not be posted up even if it is a loss.

Just an additional piece of information, we have not post up winning matches which are retired from the past too.

Thank you for your understanding, SBA365.”

 

To me, whether a punter understands the rules or not is irrelevant, as long as the people running the service understand the rules they should really post all bets, and if a punter does not understand the rules it would take literally 30 seconds to explain it to them.

The rules are, if a player retires AFTER the first set the match goes to the payer that did not retire. If a player retires BEFORE the first set is complete, the match is void and all stakes are returned.

Not putting retired matches on the results in my opinion will cause a lot more confusion than posting them, however in the grand scheme of things retirements don’t happen too often and they also say they don’t post the results even if it is a winning bet so in fairness it’s no big deal and doesn’t reflect on the service or results too much and the results may even be better than those shown.

The other problem I have is that the Asian handicap bets are very hard to see whether or not they are in profit because for some reason they don’t post the odds for them on the results. They also don’t post the odds for the first set winner tennis bets so you have to monitor the odds yourself, however it’s not really a problem with the tennis 1st set bets because in general the odds for 1st set winner are higher than the odds for match winner (which they do show) or about the same so it’s not hard to judge those as plenty of them win.

I may at some point soon if I get time go through the AH bets and get the odds from a bookie so I can see the actual profit/loss they are in so far, from the date the site was registered.

Other than the above 2 problems everything else is fine and we have been quite impressed so far.

UPDATE (added 29/09/09

SBA365 has now shut down , apparently due to admin problems and is moving all members to PinnacleTips.com and their team will be working with the people at Pinnacle. This is what they say, but I don't think they are telling the whole story.

Pinnacle Tips  did not even exist until the 14th of September, the registrar is the same as the one for SBA365, the site although it has a different look is written the same way with the same slightly broken English and grammar, the results page is presented in almost the same way as are the buttons etc. It feels exactly like SBA365 in every way possible except for the look. Also when you go to the pinnacle Tips payment screen with paypal, the payment goes to the exact same company as it did when joining SBA365. If Pinnacle Tips was a separate company that SBA365 was just joining with, surely  they would surely have their own payment service.

What should really make alarm bells ring as that even though Pinnacle Tips was not even registered until the 14th of September (which happens to be conveniently just before SBA365 decided to close) they have results going all the way back to June 09. We advise you ignore those results as the site didn't exist then and results have not been proofed anywhere.

All this leads me to believe that SBA365 have realised they cannot make the profits they said they could and are shutting up shop and then re opening as Pinnacle Tips, this way they can change their past results to make them look good and start with a clean slate in the hope of bringing in more members.

It should also be noted that even though SBA365.com had results on the site going back all the way to March 09, the SBA365 website did not even exist until the 25th July 09, and it seems that when the website was put up results did not reflect past results quite as well.

According to SBA365 their "team" are all professionals and past tips were given in popular forums and to popular newspapers, magazines etc, yet they would not tell us who these magazines were or what the forums were, which means there is no real reason to believe they were a bunch of professionals at all as there is no evidence to back it up. Those sort of statement are all too common in the tipster world and it normally turns out to be a one man band pretending to be a past professional or a team of ex newspaper writers etc just to make them look good, but when asked to verify the claim they never do and there is no reason not to because if they no longer work for them why not say who they worked for?

Also if it is true why do they no longer work for those newspaper etc? And if the story about Pinnacle tips is true why would Pinnacle Tips want to work with a rival tipster who is failing and having admin problems? The whole thing seems fabricated to me. And exactly what admin problems could possibly exist for them to close down? All you need is a website which they have already, there is nothing else to do except choose the bets and update results which doesn't take rocket science nor any real web design skills. Also the company still exists as payment to Pinnacle goes to them.

On the whole, SBA365 were honest when it came to their results from August onwards (they had to be as they were being reviewed and also had members watching them) but results before then can be ignored as the site did not exist before then and nor as far as we are concerned did their past predictions. And results from when the site did exist were good at first but did not manage to remain as good as the past results showed, and I suspect this is the real reason it is being shut down and moving to Pinnacle Tips.

It is my personal opinion that Pinnacle Tips is just them trying to start again and I also suspect that Pinnacle Tips won't be around for long either, my prediction is that they will also fail with Pinnacle Tips, the results will fall as the past results are made up, and they may even try and re open as another website after that. The whole thing, in my opinion, seems like either a blatantly obvious scam or they truly did believe they would-be good tipsters but then realised they weren't and decided to go down the route of re opening as another service but told members they were just joining with the other service( which didn't exist before now) in order to keep members.

It is the opinion of BSU that if a tipster does not offer a free trial, and/or does not proof their bets, then they should be completely avoided as there is no reason to join a tipster that wants money for bets that they can't prove or are unwilling to prove. There are plenty of services out there that proof bets and offer trials so those that don't may as well be ignored.  

You should also always go to www.who.is before joining any service and see when the site was created and who it is registered to. If they have results going back way further than when the site existed that have not been proofed anywhere, avoid them like the plague! It may just be that they changed their website name but if that is the case they should state that on the site to avoid confusion, and you should also be able to check the old sites who.is history and see proof it was actually their site.

There is far too much wrong with the story SBA365 is giving and their results were not that impressive anyway, therefore they are unfortunately going in the NOT RECOMMENDED section AND the scam watch section as I can't help but think they are lying. Of course if SBA want to email us proof they used to work for popular newspapers and magazines, and also proof Pinnacle are not just them, and also proof of Pinnacles past results as well as there own we will change this review with apologies but I can't see that happening.

Please note this review is just opinion and therefore cannot legally be taken as fact.