Lesson 14 – Troubleshooting bookmaker withdrawal problems

You will find a few tips on how to overcome the most frequent difficulties upon withdrawing funds from particular bookmakers such as Bwin, Unibet and others.

Most bookmakers will accept your deposits eagerly, however when it comes to withdrawals, things can get (depending on particular sportsbook service) somewhat different.

The worst-case scenario includes:

1. NCCA (No Contact Closed Account)

Account closure without giving proper reason (sometimes bookmaker can tell you, that account closure without giving a reason is with agreement to their terms and conditions, though in our eyes is unethical), failure to process withdrawal, no contact with bookmaker.

Suggested resolution:

First thing you can do is to contact SBR (www.sportsbookreview.com) and fill a complaint form. SBR is the most reputable bookmaker rating site. Sometimes involving SBR into your dispute may help you, when the fault lies with the bookmaker. Many bookmakers will honor SBR’s involvement in resolving your issue, while they want to be rated high by this service and stay away from such withdrawal issues.

In order to check which bookmakers are highly reliable please check this Recommended Bookmakers Section or SportsbookReview.

If SBR help is ineffective and your withdrawal is still not processed, the one and only solution left you have is to contact proper gaming authority. For most bookmakers, which are located in Malta it is Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA). What you will need to, when contacting LGA will be to describe your issue in as many details as possible, together with providing screenshots, deposit history and so on. The more arguments you have the bigger chance they will resolve the issue in your favor. Bookmaker is bound to honor LGA’s decision, as this is the institution which licenses sportsbook services.

Another situation is:

2. DW (delayed withdrawal)

Delaying withdrawal after positive verification of the account. Account is still active and contact with bookmaker is possible.

Description:

When you navigate to cashier section or withdrawal section of bookmaker site you should get information what is approximate withdrawal time for withdrawal option you select. Sometimes expected withdrawal time is prolonged which happen due to:

• not-working days, Christmas, Sundays and so on. Listed approximate withdrawal time do not include not-working days
• secondary verification procedure – additional documents requested from bookmaker
• deposit amount non-wagered. In some bookmakers you need to wager 1/3 of initial deposit or even 100% of initial deposit before withdrawal can be executed. In such situation (not-wagered deposit) you should be able to choose option to cover such withdrawal costs, which normally it is 2,8% of withdrawal value
• investigation on your account in progress (when bookmaker has suspicion that you have breached terms and conditions)

Suggested resolution:

Contact with customer service preferably via phone or at least live-chat. Contact via e-mail in such situation is not advised. We suggest frequent contact with bookmaker representatives and continuous asking about withdrawal, which potentially can speed it up.

Usually in such cases you will eventually get paid. We recommend to split big withdrawals like 10 000$ into four (2500$ valued each) smaller ones. From our experience the bigger the withdrawal the higher the risk of delaying it.