Investors in a Reno, Nevada-based sports betting “mutual fund” say they haven’t received promised monthly payments since December, and two have filed complaints with the Nevada Secretary of State and the state Attorney General’s Office.
The target of the complaints, Bettor Investments, along with its founder Matt Stuart, apparently have disappeared, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal report, which said its attempts to reach Stuart by e-mail and phone have been unsuccessful and that the company’s phone number has been disconnected and its web site taken down.
“Myself and a great number of similar investors have been defrauded out of the money we put into Bettor Investments,” Todd Thomas, a client, wrote in his complaint to the secretary of state, according to a copy obtained by the newspaper. “Matt has defaulted on his monthly investor payments since approximately December and has gone radio silent to investors asking for their money back.”
Bettor Investments was registered in September 2015 after Nevada approved a law allowing sports bettors residing in the state to pool money from individuals into an entity that would be managed like a stock or bond mutual fund.
Bettor Investments was one of about a half-dozen funds set up to take advantage of the new law. The company accepted a minimum of $500 from each investor, promising “conservative growth, profit and stability for our investors” by using “mathematical probability calculations and statistical analysis to determine on a daily basis which bets are profitable”. The fund averaged 93 bets a month, risking no more than 2 percent of its net worth per wager, according to Wagertraders, a site dedicated to the fledgling sector.
The funds got a boost from a 2016 Sports Illustrated feature, but they have yet to produce the cash flows investors expect, a plight the funds’ defenders blame on over-regulation. They say the law was written in a way that scared off most of the state’s bookmakers, and in the end, only CG Technology, a major operator with eight Nevada locations among them Las Vegas’ Palms, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Hard Rock Hotel and Casinos, The M Resort in Las Vegas and Tropicana Las Vegas
