Cloudbet Scams Customer for $15,000 in Bitcoin Cash (67 BCH)- Steals Last Deposited Funds
A poster on Bitcointalk who goes by the name Efxes recently brought a situation to light involving an alleged scam by Cloudbet, a crypto only sportsbook and casino. Apparently they are keeping $15,000 in deposits due to allegedly being from the USA, even though he says he is a US Citizen who has been living in Mexico for the 3 months the account has been opened.
Efxes was depositing and withdrawing large sums from the sportsbook before they decided to freeze his account, ask for documents, and then deny the ability to receive the funds in the account (67 BCH). As you can see, leading up to the freezing of the account, Efxes made several very large deposits- and he believes he was preyed upon. Knowing his account was in the positive over the course of the account history, the site knew they could use one of their many angles to take a player’s deposits or winnings. So knowing this, Efxes believes they were waiting for him to deposit a large sum and either lose it or by brute force steal it at the cash out register. Take a look at the final deposits.
The final deposits total 74 BCH. The cashout was for 67 BCH. They are saying since his entire account history is up in the profit lifetime, they are entitled to the funds due to Efxes having a “permanent residence in the United States” (even if he has sent documentation proving his longer term stays in Mexico during the virus). However Efxes has sent in documents proving his stay in Mexico during this time- but it is obvious that Cloudbet wants to do anything in its power to make sure Efxes does not get paid his balance.
Here is a list of all of the transactions from the account. Please take note: the address for bitcoin cash deposits to cloudbet account of Efxes is:
qp468pkf0ujwcpr4ak70ceya4seyapzy4vxk7hewqv
You can see the entire address transaction history here:
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/address/qp468pkf0ujwcpr4ak70ceya4seyapzy4vxk7hewqv
And here are many of the very large deposits made to Cloudbet. Following these are the many large withdrawals made from Cloudbet.
2020–09–20 02:03
2020–09–20 03:42
2020–09–20 03:42
2020–09–20 04:35
2020–09–21 04:06
2020–09–21 04:46
2020–09–21 04:46
2020–09–21 06:46
2020–09–21 08:21
2020–09–21 08:23
2020–09–21 09:11
-16.00004247: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/transaction/c68f163c2e0c96e1ee88ab16e6f4027de708a9c3a3c938a0c3630b652b5173ef
2020–09–22 00:19
2020–09–22 03:16
2020–09–22 08:32
THE FINAL DEPOSITS:
2020–09–23 04:47
2020–09–23 06:29
2020–09–23 07:36
2020–09–23 11:25
2020–09–23 11:25
The Cashouts (these were done in between all of the heftily sized deposits):
2020–09–17 10:55
2020–09–17 19:42
2020–09–18 19:36
2020–09–20 00:21
2020–09–20 01:52
2020–09–20 19:43
+72.431
2020–09–21 08:17
2020–09–21 15:56
2020–09–22 23:27 THIS TRANSACTION WAS BITCOIN MBTC
+2600 https://blockstream.info/tx/97e453071fc082da9a346ea38e651a3af06854341da6ff4553c414276ef5c93d
THEN TRANSFERRED BACK INTO BITCOIN CASH FOR FINAL CASHOUT, THEN REDEPOSITED TO ACCOUNT
2020–09–23 04:21
+124.029057: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/transaction/cfafbb8455234532e8a25dd849d26b4755ab7c5e87e6acc0e3552e26b870ce2d
To get a better picture here’s my entire bitcoin cash balance ledger:
Cloudbet has a long history of issues with keeping player deposits. There is a thread on bitcointalk listing many unresolved claims that Cloudbet has kept their money. Cloudbet is a well established site in the Bitcointalk community, however these are quite alarming.
This was posted on February 5th, 2019 by a member fighting another scam accusation towards Cloudbet, this time over 330BTC, a very large sum of money.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5106313.msg49600118#msg49600118
Regardless, Cloudbet remains a prominent member on the Bitcointalk forum and is active on Reddit, Twitter, and has a Discord. Recently, doing research to write the article, I logged into the Discord only to find another member being rolled for 2BTC ($21,000 at the time of the article) with Cloudbet not responding yet again.
However this is about the case of Efxes, and his 67 BCH in bitcoin cash. The money is very important to him, he needed the money for his day to day life. He went on a losing streak and went to cash out his latest deposits, only to be told that since the account is in the green and they are claiming since he has a permanent address in the USA and a USA driver’s license, he couldn’t possibly be in Mexico. Not only that, even if they did want to try and prove he was in the USA, it is not right to wait for a player to deposit just to keep those deposits using the rules. This is predatory behavior and Cloudbet needs to pay Efxes the $15,000.
What ensued was an alarming email- any gambler’s worst nightmare when they get an email for a fraud investigation or a KYC. This is the most classic angle in the book to hold your money and usually keep it for a book. Here was the email received by Efxes:
Here’s one of the last emails on the matter from “Steve”, head of Cloudbet “Customer Service”. More like head hauncho for customer defrauding.
The facts are: The final deposits to the account were 74 BCH, again posted above. We believe fully that Efxes should be paid for those final deposits, or at least the 67BCH final cashout. It is outrageous to think that they can sit and wait for the next deposit to then KYC the customer and take all of that money. This is the nut low of the industry and we hope with all our hearts Efxes gets paid the money he deposited, not the total sum of the deposits minus the withdrawals.
What do you guys think? We are curious to hear your comments about the situation.
A member of Bitcointalk going by CloudbetScamsDOTCOM made a site detailing the scam over at https://cloudbetscams.com which is written in multiple languages like Russian, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, German, Italian. They are reachable at thieves@cloudbetscams.com if you have anything you would like to add or say about the situation with Efxes.
We feel for the sake of the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community and sports betting and gambling community as a whole it’s important that Efxes gets paid what is rightly his. Let us know what you think.
With that we bid you adieu and… better luck next time.
