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Internet sportsbook World Sports Exchange (www.wsex.com) is approaching a milestone of sorts.
But it's not one it should be proud of.
Online gambling watchdog site Sportsbook Review (www.sportsbookreview.com) is reporting that deadbeat book WSEX owes its customers a total of almost half a million dollars!
Reports have circulated for the past several years that WSEX owed monies to many of its customers
But few if any realized that the sum owed was so staggering.
Sportsbook Review reports: "WSEX is currently slow-paying its users $494,018. The payout requests range from October 2009 to May 2011.
"WSEX has provided generic updates to players throughout its downswing--where its rating was adjusted nine times--pinning the delays on their processors.
"On March 31st, 2010, WSEX management conceded to Sportsbook Review that payout size determined a player's place in the withdrawals queue--unfortunately WSEX processing has now deteriorated to the point where request date is added in the equation."
On a grading scale of A to F, Sportsbook Review gives WSEX a grade of D-minus!
World Sports Exchange's decline has been stunning.
Based in Antigua and started 15 years ago by four ex-employees of the Pacific Exchange, a San Francisco stock market, the company's downfall began in 1998 when the four were charged with multiple Federal offenses for Internet bookmaking and related crimes.
Company co-owners Jay Cohen and Steve "The Shill" Schillinger, and assistants Haden Ware and Spencer Hanson were all charged.
Cohen returned to the U.S. to fight the charges but lost in court when his case went to trial.
He served a year and a half in a Federal penitentiary in Las Vegas and then several months in a halfway house.
He returned to San Francisco but after a while, in violation of the terms of his release from prison, he returned to Antigua to help run WSEX, and remains there to this day.
The U.S. Justice Department continues to monitor his movements.
Schillinger, Ware and Hanson remain fugitives from justice.
Schillinger and Ware still work at WSEX; Hanson left for a rival sportsbook years ago after a dispute over pay.
Cohen's legal bills, including obscene fees for mob attorney Ben Brafman, were paid by WSEX, and it nearly bankrupted the company.
The red ink continues to swirl to this day.
It can't continue forever.
WSEX needs to find an infusion of major cash very soon, or it can't help but go under.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
