Fantasy Leagues are becoming increasingly popular for both bettors and poker players around the world, with Draft Kings offering millions in prizes every month for their leagues. This has led to some of the biggest bookmakers also trying out the concept, amongst those were Sportsbook.ag.

A player who tried his luck there in a Fantasy League was Doug, who entered the NFL Survivor Pool $100,000 in the hopes of taking down the prize pool. The NFL Survivor Pool allows punters to buy up to 15 entries into the game, with the prize ranging from $25 down to $10 depending on how many entries one would buy.

The rules after that were quite simply, as players could only choose each team once per entry. So you can only choose Green Bay Packers to win a round once per entry, making it a difficult game to play as you have to find a new winning team every single round on each of your entries. The bettors who manage to find a winning team moves on to the next round and so forth.

The game is currently in round 17, with 27 survivors left out of a massive 16,464. This is where Doug comes into the picture, as he has had his account banned on Sportsbook.ag, with no apparent reason. This means that Doug – Despite still being listed in the official standings in Sportsbook.ag’s NFL Survivor Pool – cannot choose his pick for what might be the last round and the chance to win $296,000, or at least a share of it.

Doug was banned one week ago by Sportsbook.ag, right after he chose his picks for week 16 of the game. Doug didn’t know why he was banned and decided to contact the support of Sportsbook.ag to find out more.

"Thank you for contacting us.

This email is to inform you the reason of your account closure. Unfortunately we are no longer able to provide services in whole Australia. I really apologize about this inconvenience.

I have notice that you have a balance available still in the account, and it is verified to receive payouts, we just need you to confirm your Skrill account, and we will be more than glad to process a manual pay out for you as soon as possible."

After receiving this email, Doug responds back to the security team of Sportsbook.ag that he is currently residing in Thailand and not Australia and that he can submit documents to prove it. He asks them if it would be possible to simply re-open the account as he is no longer a player from an “illegal” territory. Doug received two replies from Sportsbook.ag’s security team:

"Thank you for contacting us.

We will be more than glad to review your account for possible reactivation, we will need you to please provide us a recent (issued in last 6 months) utility bill or bank statement to verify your address. You can attach the document to this email.

Please notice that Skrill is not a deposit or withdrawal option in Thailand.

We are sorry for the inconvenience. Have a great day. "

With this reply, Doug believed that he might get his account re-opened and quickly gathered all the documents needed to prove he was living in Thailand, including sending copies of visa and stamp’s from the passport to show how long he could legally stay for. It all didn’t matter however:

"Thank you for contacting us.

Our management team have reviewed your account and have deemed that it will remain inactive. If you open any new accounts they will also be closed.

As per our house rules, management reserves the right to revoke the agreement between the user and our site. If an account is closed per Management’s decision, we will honor any pending wager if you win, regarding the survivor pool, unfortunately, you won't be able to keep participating on this contest.

Management decision is final and no further correspondence will be entertained on this matter.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this matter may have caused you. Your co-operation is greatly appreciated.

We are always here to help you."

This is where it gets scammy from Sportsbook.ag’s side. They wanted to close an account because it was from Australia, the player then proves that he is residing in Thailand which isn’t an issue for them, they then decide to let the account remain closed and take him out of the NFL Survivor Pool contest which he is currently in the last 27 out of 16,464 players competing for a share of almost $300,00.

While they have their terms and conditions on their side, it seems that they did not want Doug to win the survivor pool prize, banning him from the contest but still listing him in the page. How can we know which of the players still listed in the standings page is still actually in the competition if they ban people and let their accounts continue without actually letting them place picks? This could potentially mean that they are trying to freeroll the prize to banned accounts, having to not pay out the prize to the players.

Doug’s current EV in the NFL Survivor Pool is currently at around $12,000, which he seemed to have lost. We convinced Doug to send his picks to Sportsbook.ag however, to ensure that they receive it in the remote case that they should change their minds and re-open the account.

Doug has chosen Minnesota Vikings and Houston Texans as his Week 17 picks. We can only see that it would be fair that Doug would be allowed to finish the survivor competition and then have his account closed, as 16 weeks of picks would otherwise not matter.

iGaming has reached out to Sportsbook.ag to get a comment on the story. We will update if we receive any update.