I was recently called, out of the blue, by an employee of a bookmaker called "Vilabet". He made offers of opening an account with free bets available for start-up. I asked where he got my phone number and the idea that I was into betting. His response was that all bookmakers use a central database of customer details for every bookmaker to access and that I had previously had an account with Ezybet (which I haven't). He said that they "price match" against all other bookmakers and asked for a miniscule amount of personal information to prove I was 18 or over and/or for security on the account.

I asked him to send all information to my email account, which he never did even after calling them a week later to follow up why the email had not been sent. A second calll days later to them only resulted in an unconvincing conversation with their manager.

Investigations into this company through Racing NSW finds that they are not licensed in Australia and therefore persons betting with them would be breaking the law by placing a bet on horses, dogs or trots with them. This does not affect sports bets which I would be more interested in. They are registered and/or licensed in Vanuatu with a physical address in Forestville, Sydney.

Being a very suspicious person, especially of people who "cold call" like that, I had concerns that the worse case scenario would result in some sort of identity theft (am I too paranoid?).

My question is :- does anybody know, or had any dealings with this bookmaker? How reliable are they? Where can one get further information about them?

Any help that anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Foggy, I received a call from Greg Hall no less (which I posted on here) representing the bookies you mentioned. They have opened an a/c for me and deposited $200 into it to "start me off". I told them I probably wouldn't use it as I'm primarily a layer and to this day haven't used it, and probably never will. They all seem to offer best the same thing, best tote......WOW. If I ever go back to punting on tote prices someoene please shoot me.

I will be honest in saying the prices on betfair are not always the best, it depends in what price range you are backing, if under 2/1 the better prices are on the TABs or bookies if you can get on.

When you are backing higher priced runners betfair can be higher most times.

I will give one bit of advice, don't use http://racingform.betfair.com.au/ to compare TAB and betfair prices not sure where they get the TAB prices from i think they pull them out of thier ass.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

These guys reckon they are not offering better than best tote, they will actually match the best of all totes and/or bookmakers that you can find??????

Originally, the guy who contacted me said he would give me a free bet but not necessarliy just add money into my account. Only after ringing them twice has the manager actually opened the account with a zero balance. They advertise if you put $50- in then you will get a $100- free bet.

All of this is a little "sus" to me. Think I will pass as well.