Five Dimes Betting
“Beginning in at least 2011, 5Dimes accepted wagers from and made payouts to U.S. Bettors, and transferred more than $46.8 million in proceeds earned from its illegal gambling activities in such a manner as to attempt to hide the nature, location, source, and control of the funds.” 5Dimes already incorporated 5D Americas LLC in Delaware. The sports betting platform is built in house and comes with 5 different sportsbooks. 5dimes classic is addressed to the oldest members, while Prime, Ultra, Plus and the Live Betting Extra layouts, are most suitable for the new generation of bettors. Offshore gambling operator 5Dimes announced late on Monday that it would soon be ceasing US operations. In a post on its website, it informed players that it would no longer take bets from US customers starting on September 21 at noon, ET. Although 5Dimes’s primary product is its sportsbook, it offers a full suite of gambling products. 5 Dimes Sportsbook are well known for having the most extensive selections of betting odds in the sports betting industry They have many features such as many deposit options, great odds, fast. Overnight lines: Yes, 5 Dimes sportsbook is one of the Big 4 line setters, meaning they are the one of the first to post overnights. Along with Bookmaker, Olympic, CRIS, those are the 4 sports books that will put out lines on sports before any other online betting site. Reasons to Join 5Dimes Sportsbook.
-105 Reduced Pricing
Pay less per bet & get the largest betting menu
5Dimes Sportsbook opened in Costa Rica nearly 19 years ago in 2000 by William Sean ‘Tony’ Creighton, a former professional sports bettor. As a sharp player Tony had the insight on how to attract bettors with unique offerings while never overexposing 5dimes. The book’s first claim to fame was its wagering menu, the largest for North American sports. At one time 5dimes.eu had five different casinos and two different poker rooms. If you wanted to make a bet on a Division 2 college that had more than one cardinal point in its name (South Western ‘Still-No-Idea-Where-the-hell-it-is’ University), 5Dimes was the place to go. 5Dimes was the very first sportsbook to book bets on teams featuring Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony… because they were in high school… as underclassmen.
In 2007 5dimes.eu began offering almost all of its betting menu on reduced juice markets, AKA low vig, AKA -105, AKA half of the standard price a sportsbook typically charges. Tony wasn’t quite Jeff Bezos. Afterall Pinnacle was the first bookmaker in the market to maintain the reduced model but they suddenly switched their focus to the United Kingdom and Asia. 5Dimes, recognizing the demand for value at the right time, solidified itself as one of the largest betting sites. Since then not much has changed. The software has improved, but the model remains the same: high value, high volume bookmaking. This value for the player means 5dimes excels at player retention.
5Dimes Overview
5Dimes Sportsbook Details
Online Since: | March 2000 |
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Sign up Bonus: | 50% Free Play (don’t do it! Reduced juice is a better value!) |
Bonus Fine Print: | 10X rollover with 1/10th of the bonus released for each rollover |
Reduced Juice: | Yes - the best reduced juice sportsbook with all regular league bets at -105 except soccer. |
Unique Odds: | Yes - 5Dimes will often be weighted to one side. |
Deposits: | Credit Card, Bitcoin, Person-to-Person |
Bitcoin: | Yes, Held in USD |
Payouts: | Free 1x per month: Check, Person2Person. Bitcoin - always free |
5Dimes Pros: | Biggest Menu, -105 Standard Pricing, 5c Overnight Baseball |
5Dimes Cons: | Bonus Structure, Up to 48 hour Bitcoin withdrawal, Full Price Soccer |
5Dimes Sportsbook has been taking bets before its customers were born
Yes, 5dimes can officially say it has been accepting wagers before some of its customers were alive. It has been over 18 years since the 5dimes website was launched. It’s impressive when you consider 5dimes started taking bets when people dialed in to AOL and spent most of their time in chatrooms asking “A/S/L?” or sending the kind of email forwards long forgotten if not for Grandma recently discovering the internet.
Sign-up Bonus - It’s relatively crappy.
The 5dimes deposit bonus almost seems to be set up to educate bettors on the value of reduced juice -105, VS -110 betting. It’s not that a 50% Free-play is terrible. It’s just that when you compare the bonus to the reduced juice offering its like committing to cable for the full year because they gave you two months free instead of going with Netflix for nine bucks. And just like that cable package, you can’t simply switch to Netflix after the bonus is over. You are stuck with the deal you made. 5Dimes gives players 50% Free-play bonus on deposits of $400 and then 20% on any amount above that.
Bonus Terms - Get out your calculator
If you understand how sportsbook play-through requirements work, this is not that complicated. However, if you understand how sportsbook play-through requirements work… you are opting for -105 reduced juice.
Using the example of 50% free-play bonus of the max bonus amount of $200, 5Dimes releases a $20 free-play (10%) for each one of the ten required play-throughs (rollovers) of Deposit + Bonus. So rather than get your free-play on the day of your deposit, it is released after you give the sportsbook its wagering activity. Using a rough evaluation of a free play being worth half of its amount in cash, you are getting $10 for every $100 wagered. When you bet that same $100 on a given day and won half of your bets, you would pay $5 in vig (on the $50 losing side). Now, recalculate that at -105, and you save $2.50 for every $100 wagered. To summarize: You get $10 of value for every $100 wagered but only up to $200. With reduced juice, you are in theory paying yourself $2.50 for the same $100 wagered, but also for every $100 wagered after that, FOREVER. All bettors will lose some of their wagers. Reduced juice minimizes those losses.
Reduced Juice at -105
Less than -110 pricing has a few different names including Reduced juice, Reduced Vig, Discount Vig, or is simply referred to by how many cents on the dollar it represents. Reduced juice is often -105 or -107 but can be anything less than standard -110. 5Dimes offers all standard straight bets at -105 with the exception of soccer markets. For example, the Celtics full game spread would be priced at -105 but the Celtics spread for the 2nd half would be the industry standard -110 price. For players line shopping and looking for long-term value, this feature makes 5dimes a must-have.
Unique Odds - At 10c lines, one side is always juicy
A sportsbook that has -110 lines has enough wiggle room to stay around, or straddle, the average odds essentially. There are good sportsbooks that have a model of not being exposed to bettors who are looking for the best odds on their pick. With 10 cent vig, there is less to work with as well as the line moves propelled by its thousands of bettors. 5dimes is often offering the best price on a team.
Bitcoin - You don’t actually bet in crypto
Bettors want to bet on their sport picks not on the price of bitcoin. When players send bitcoins to 5dimes, they will see the value in US dollars reflected in their 5dimes balance. When they request funds, it is also in dollars. That means if you request $100, 5dimes will always send $100 worth of bitcoin, and barring a bitcoin value change in the time, it takes you to redeem your coins to dollars, $100 is what you get — free of fees. Typically bitcoin redemptions take a few business hours although 5dimes asks that players allow for up to 72 hours to send the funds.
5Dimes Pros & Cons
When talking about one of the best sportsbooks of all time, it is hard to outline cons without feeling like you are doing it for the sake of needing them on the review. Having 5dimes as one of your sportsbooks will save you money on a nightly basis so pointing out that the homepage is ugly or bitcoin withdrawals can take longer than other books may seem superficial. However, if you are a brand new bettor about to burn some cash for the weekend’s playoffs, then finding a big cash bonus may be the better choice, especially because you are still eligible for -105 at 5Dimes Sportsbook later. If you are settling into one betting site for the season or just need to add the sportsbooks that may have the best odds for a given play, 5dimes makes sense… and less cents.
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5Dimes, a popular Costa Rica-based sportsbook, has reached a $46.8 million settlement with the U.S. government following a federal money-laundering investigation, according to a settlement agreement obtained by ESPN on Wednesday.
5Dimes agreed to pay $15 million in cash, forfeit more than $30 million in assets and stop accepting wagers from U.S. customers while operating out of Costa Rica, according to the settlement agreement reached with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Easten District of Pennsylvania.
The settlement also absolves Laura Varela, the widow of 5Dimes owner William Sean Creighton, of any criminal conduct alleged against the sportsbook. Varela assumed responsibility for 5Dimes' assets after her husband was kidnapped in September 2018 and found dead a year later, but she did not have 'day-to-day authority' over its operations, according to the settlement.
'The investigation was a complete success from our perspective,' Michael Lowe, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, told ESPN. 'There was gambling going on, but we discovered it, we put a stop to it.'
The non-prosecution agreement allows 5Dimes and Varela to pursue opportunities in the expanding American sports betting market. Varela, who fully cooperated with the investigation, made 'significant changes' to 5Dimes's operations that make it 'suitable for participating in lawful gaming operations across the world,' according to the settlement agreement.
'We achieved the objective, which is, she is compliant with U.S. federal law right now,' Maria M. Carrillo, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, told ESPN. 'What that means for her is she is not operating in violation of U.S. law, and she is not actively taking bets from U.S. bettors.
'Whether she's positioned well for regulators, that's up for the regulators to decide,' Carrillo said. '[5Dimes] certainly is no longer in violation of federal law.'
In an interview with ESPN, Varela said she is ' very, very happy and very excited about what the new chapter of 5Dimes can be.'
Creighton, a native of West Virginia, launched 5Dimes around 2000. At a time when sports betting in the U.S was restricted to primarily Nevada, 5Dimes grew it into one of the most popular online sportsbooks that served American bettors and eventually attracted attention from federal investigators.
In 2016, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, revealed it was investigating 5Dimes for money laundering, according to a seizure warrant filed in U.S. District Court that year. In the warrant, an agent detailed how he believed 5Dimes instructed bettors based in the U.S. to use gift cards as a way to place and later cash out bets. Creighton was never formally charged; however, the investigation remained open for years.
5Dimes used third-party payment processors to accept illegal payments from U.S. customers, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in the settlement agreement. The third parties processed credit card transactions for 5Dimes that concealed the nature of the charges, and received funds from U.S. customers' credit cards that were then transferred to bank accounts of shell companies operated by Creighton, according to the settlement.
Five Dimes Online Betting
Varela, through her attorneys, contacted the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in the spring of 2019 and offered her cooperation to settle the case. According to the settlement, she helped retrieve assets, but the parties agreed that her cooperation 'did not include information about the identities of individual U.S.-based customes.' Gold coins, cryptocurrency, funds from the sale of season tickets to the Pittsburgh Pirates and West Virginia University basketball and football, and a 1948 George Mikan rookie basketball card that Creighton purchased for about $400,000 are among the forfeited assets.
The Department of Homeland Security gifted the Mikan card to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C, according to the settlement agreement.
On Sept. 7, 5Dimes posted a notice on its website that it would stop accepting online bets from U.S.-based customers and instructed them to withdraw funds by Sept. 25. Any funds not requested by bettors before the deadline will be turned over to Epiq, a third-party claims administrator who will help the distribution process. Any funds not claimed by Sept. 30, 2021, will be forfeited to the U.S government, according to terms in the settlement.
Varela's attorneys, Stephen A. Miller and Barry Boss of firm Cozen O'Connor, said 5Dimes has established a new corporate entity, 5D Americas LLC, in the State of Delaware, as the sportsbook eyes the U.S. betting market. Legal sportsbooks are operating in 18 states and the District of Columbia.
As part of the settlement, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said, at Varela's request, it will answer questions from interested parties, including state regulatory authorities, regarding 5Dimes and Varela.
Creighton was abducted by four men in a rented grey pickup truck around 10 p.m., on Sept. 24, 2018, after leaving the 5Dimes office in San Pedro, the Costa Rica judicial investigation department (OIJ) said last year. The kidnappers demanded a $5 million ransom and received $1 million from Creighton's family, but Creighton was not returned, OIJ said.
A year after Creighton's disappearance, the OIJ reported finding his body in a cemetery in the small fishing town of Queops, Costa Rica, approximately a three-hour drive from where investigators believe he was abducted.
5dimes.com
In January 2019, authorities conducted raids in Costa Rica and Spain, leading to the arrest of 12 people believed to be involved in Creighton's disappearance, according to an OIJ statement at the time. Three suspects were extradited from Spain to Costa Rica in April 2019 and, as of September 2019, were being investigated for the crime of extortive kidnapping, according to the Costa Rica Office of Public Ministry.
The Assistant Prosecutor's Office against Drug Trafficking and Related Crimes for Costa Rica told ESPN in an Sept. 17 email that the case against Creighton's alleged kidnappers is in the 'final investigation phase.'
According to the settlement, Creighton was the founder and had exclusive control of 5Dimes until his disappearance and death. Varela told ESPN she had never been involved with the operation of 5Dimes and that the management team in place continued to run the sportsbook following Creighton's disappearance.
'Months kept going by, and he was not coming back, and the reality also starts hitting, that's really when I realized the best thing for me and my family to do was to look for legal counsel,' Varela told ESPN in an interview conducted on Zoom.
5dimes Sports
Creighton grew up in Bridgeport, West Virginia. After graduating from West Virginia University in 1998 with a degree in business administration, he moved to Costa Rica with a small group of friends to launch 5Dimes. He was 43 at the time of his disappearance.
Five Dimes Online Betting
Varela says the loss of her husband, the father of her two young children, is a tragedy she doesn't believe she'll ever get over. 'You just learn how to live with it,' she said.