The next bookmaker in question is God Odds. This is the Black Market bookmaker I have seen touted the most. I have heard it mentioned on podcasts. It’s tough to know where to even start with them. The sign up bonus was decent. £500. Was reasonable in terms of wagering requirements. The website was slick. They had decent limits. You could see what were those limits were for each market. (remember those days in the UK?!) Withdrawals were literally instant. Money back into your bank account within 2 mins. There was a decent length of time before you got restricted on a sport. When restricted it was done on a sports by sports basis. Very close to your ideal bookmaker.
One aspect we have to talk about is the Tier system that they operate. They will give you cashback on losing days depending on which Tier you are in. More importantly the amount you can withdraw was dependant upon which Tier you were in. It became clear very quickly that I was incentivised to put volume through them. I was quickly able to run up a decent balance and it made me nervous.
In the meantime I was first asked a pretty standard KYC check. Then Proof Of Funds. Then all documents needed to be Notarised. The first two whilst painful weren’t massive game changers. I was a bit surprised by the Proof Of Funds one as the initial deposits were less than £2k. That hardly needs doing and spooked me tbh. Whilst the checks were going on the account could still be used but the Withdrawal function suspended. The final request was a complete pain. To get the four documents notarised cost me £240. I had to weigh up at this stage whether I thought I would get any money back. And whether I thought it would be worth it. I was able to withdraw some more after that before the account was again suspended for a final time.
Back to the Tiers and withdrawals (see the screenshot). At the time I was a Silver and could only withdraw £8k a month. I had almost 4 times that in the account and was not comfortable with that. I made a conscious decision I needed to get up to the Ruby level as I wanted my money out. I did not want to wait 4/5 months. I was placing some pretty lumpy football/tennis bets and got up to Gold Tier. Only another £2k withdrawal a month allowed though. I had been restricted on most sports by this stage, which wasn’t overly helpful. Given I was using sister sites at the same time I took the decision that I needed to change strategy.
I ended up punting the required £500k on Blackjack to get to the Ruby Tier. I got some rebates but the decision cost me about £8k. Casinos have just never appealed. It was so tedious it was untrue. That was an acceptable cost as I could now withdraw up to £20k a month. A cost of doing business as such. I was able to withdraw some further money before accounts were suspended again with the notarised request. Once the notarised documents were accepted I was able to get just under £6k out before it was closed for the final time. There was another £6.7k I was not able to access. No reason was given for closing the account.
There was so much to like about them but if they are not going to honour balances then they go into the pile with the others. I have subsequently heard of so many people not being paid out by them.
Running Total = £21990
ProPunting 