Is Skybook legal in US? No! BLACKLISTED

There are several different US sportsbook bonus offers available on the Skybook USA gambling site. The main sports bonus is a $25 cash bonus which you get when you fund your account with $200 or more after signing up. The site also claims to reward 15% of your net losses which come in the form of a rebate bonus.

There is also an online casino Skybook sign up bonus, which is a 500% deposit match deal up to $1,500. However, while this may seem like an attractive offer, you don’t want to be fooled into playing at this unsafe casino. After all, there’s a reason why no reputable online casinos offer 500% matched bonuses – a ridiculously higher offer like this is a way of trying to trick customers into using an unsafe offshore site like Skybook USA.

Top Five Tips – Finding reputable bonuses

While Skybook USA doesn’t offer trustworthy gambling bonuses, there are many sites that do, luckily. Make sure you follow these top five tips to help you keep safe when searching for bonus offers.

We took a look around this gambling website as part of our Skybook review and found it to be poorly designed and confusing to use. The homepage doesn’t look terrible, but things get worse when you start trying to navigate the site.

For example, if you click on the bonuses option from the menu, you’re taken to a page where you can see the sports and casino bonuses. However, there are also multiple other boxes that simply say ‘click for details’ without actually having any indication of what you’re clicking on.

Moving on to the sportsbook section, where the design is incredibly bland, you simply see a long list of markets. It also jumps out right away that Skybook doesn’t offer live betting, something which is standard at the best US sportsbook online sites. This shows the site hasn’t even put in enough money to provide a feature that is used by a huge amount of bettors.

The casino section is slightly better designed, and you can filter games by type by clicking on the relevant box. However, what stands out is that all the games look extremely basic. There are no new slots with nice graphics, and there are no games from reputable providers like NetEnt, Microgaming or Playtech. It’s clear just from browsing the game selection that this site does not offer a premium gaming experience unlike licensed US online casinos.

Overall, there’s just very little to like about Skybook USA in terms of design and usability. The site is bland, there are confusing links, it only offers basic pre-match betting, and the casino games are of poor quality.

Skybook USA offers several different payment methods, however there are some glaring exclusions which are an immediate indicator that the website is not safe to use for online gambling. This is because our Skybook review found the main payment methods offered by the site are some of the shadier digital payment methods.

Plus Skybook doesn’t offer standard debit card or credit card deposits like reputable sites. They claim that you can deposit with a credit card, but you must contact customer service to do so, your funds will be held for 10 days, and you must provide several documents to do this, which is a big no-no.

As the newer digital payment methods aren’t regulated, unsafe sites often offer them to users as you will not be protected if your funds go missing. In addition, our Skybook review found the site doesn’t offer any reputable e-wallet online gambling site withdrawal and deposit options such as PayPal.

We strongly advise against making any payments to Skybook USA. If you do so, there is no guarantee that your funds will be protected from any malpractice. You should only use online gambling sites that offers reputable payment methods, as this is a sign that they’re safe to use.

Ensuring you have access to good customer service is vital whenever it comes to making payments online, and particularly with online gambling. However, our Skybook reviews found this site’s customer service to be severely lacking.

Most reputable sites will just have one single contact number which provides a clear line of communication; having six numbers with no explanation of how they are different to one another is just odd.

The email and live chat teams were not very responsive, while the phone lines made you choose numerous confusing options to get to your destination, hold times were long, and the site didn’t make clear what the opening hours were.

Ultimately, it’s yet another factor that puts us off Skybook.

When it comes to finding a secure online gambling site to use, the most important thing is to check an operator’s licensing. However, you need to check for specific licenses, as not all of them offer the same guarantees.

For example, our Skybook review found that the operator does in fact have a license from the Curacao Gaming authority. However, this does not offer players anywhere near the same protection levels as a US operating license.

In order to operate legally in the US, an online casino or betting site must obtain a license from the state governing body for the state or states in which it intends to operate. Skybook does not hold any such licenses, meaning it cannot legally offer its services to people in the US.

This site falls into the category of offshore sportsbooks, which attempt to get around regulations by basing themselves outside of the US, but still making themselves available to US users. However, we strongly advise against using any offshore sportsbook.

There are several good reasons for this. For starters, your personal information and funds may not be protected to the same standards as they would be if you use a US licensed gambling site. On top of that, offshore sites are notorious for having little or no responsible gambling intentions whatsoever.

As well as its lack of US licensing, there are several other things to consider when it comes to Skybook. Our Skybook review found its parent exchange is not listed on any stock exchange, which means it lacks the financial transparency of many large licensed gambling operators. It does not display any certificates from any testing agencies such as eCOGRA, which means you can’t guarantee the games are fair.

While it does claim to adhere to a KYC process and be committed to responsible gambling, you simply cannot trust a site that does not hold a valid US gambling license, so you should stay well clear from Skybook.

Perhaps the biggest giveaway of this website’s unreliability, however, is the fact that there is very little online about its parent company, Azure Ventures Limited. The only information that comes up when you search on Google is basic company info from third party sites – it doesn’t even have its own website.

Another thing to note is that the parent company is based in Gibraltar. This is not at all uncommon – many gambling companies are based in tax havens like Malta and Gibraltar. However, reputable ones will have at least one European license, such as an FCA, MGA or CySEC license. The fact that Azure Ventures Limited is registered in Gibraltar but only licensed in Curacao is a bad sign.

Authority

Virginia Lottery Board

Website

valottery.com

Headquarters / Regulated Since

US / VA / 01/1987

Authority

Virginia Racing Commission

Website

vrc.virginia.gov

Headquarters / Regulated Since

US / VA

One way in which unsafe offshore gambling sites attempt to lure customers is by offering loyalty programs that make them seem like they’re rewarding users. Our Skybook review found that is the case with this site.

The site claims to provide a rebate bonus to all users which is equal to 15% of your net losses on horse racing bets each week. Sure, this may sound like a great offer, but we recommend avoiding it completely.

There are many reasons for this. For example, when you look at the offer page, it says “Please call 1-888-759-2665 to validate bonus eligibility and applicable terms and conditions prior to making your deposit.” This in itself is a huge red flag – no reputable casino would ask you to call them to discuss bonus terms on the phone.

All the terms should be clearly laid out on the page. This is because the person you speak to on the phone could tell you anything they want to make the offer seem more attractive and encourage you to sign up. The site could then go completely against what the person said and there won’t even be a record of the call to back you up.

Luckily, while this rewards program is not trustworthy, many of the best online gambling sites USA offer fantastic loyalty schemes as a way of giving back to their customers. Simply check out our best US sportsbook online and top online casino sites in USA reviews to learn more about the different – and legit – loyalty programs out there.