BitPlay Investment Warning: eSports Bitcoin Website May Be a Scam
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That’s the cautionary statement to keep in mind as we discuss a questionable bitcoin eSports betting investment website that is currently making the rounds online. We remind our readers to stick with bitcoin betting sites you can trust as reccomended by OBS to avoid being scammed or misled.
BitPlay.live calls itself an “award-winning eSports betting platform” and claims to be looking for investors to provide it with “dynamic funding” in order to run efficiently. Therefore, BitPlay claims to offer a daily return of at least 3.6% if all you’ll do is park your bitcoins with them so they can continue to fund the operation.
The returns reportedly derive from fees BitPlay charges others for using the service. The BitPlay website even offers a handy returns calculator tool showing how much money you will earn if you invest with them. The returns are absolutely astronomical and are surely quite tempting for bitcoin holders who don’t know any better.
For example, you can plug 0.05 BTC as your investment amount into the calculator and see that you’ll earn a daily net income of $30.82, weekly income of $215.75 and a total net income of $924.64 after just a month – all that just for letting them hold onto your Bitcoin for a few weeks!
The exact numbers the calculator spits out change constantly as bitcoin prices fluctuate, but in all cases, the returns are incredible. If you have a whole bitcoin to spare, they claim to give you $18,492.87 in net income after a month.
BitPlay.live Warning Signs
If you can feel those little green dollar signs starting to form in your eyes, remember what we discussed in the opening line of this post. The returns this website is promising are suspiciously high and what you need to do sounds way too easy. That alone should be reason enough to take pause, but let me assure you I’m not the only one thinking this way.
British Columbia Securities Commission Investment Caution
This story was brought to my attention by a LeapRate.com post informing readers that Canada’s British Columbia Securities Commission has issued an investment caution for BitPlay.live.
The warning reads in full:
BitPlay Ltd. (BitPlay) claims to be an online eSports betting platform provider, located in London, England.
We recently became aware of BitPlay and its advertisement targeting British Columbia (BC) residents, offering them high-yield investment programs.
BitPlay is not registered to trade in, or advise on, securities or exchange contracts in BC.
We urge BC residents to exercise caution when dealing with firms that are not registered to trade or advise in BC.
If a bunch of stodgy old regulators isn’t enough to make you think twice before depositing your valuable bitcoins with BitPlay, know that the BC Securities Commission investment caution is not the only red flag.
Is BitPlay Just an Old Investment Scheme in New Wrapping?
BitPlay.live appears to be a near-identical clone of a defunct bitcoin investment website known as BitPetite. The BitPetite website is now down, but it too was based on a similar premise. Other people looked into BeiPetite at the time and came to the same conclusion: it is almost assuredly a pyramid scam of some sort.
I couldn’t help but notice that BitPetite also used a nearly-identical investment returns calculator designed to hype investors into sending in their coins.
Here’s a screenshot from that review:
Look familiar? Yes, it does to me too. Is BitPlay run by the same people? It wouldn’t surprise me if that is the case. Either that or someone saw the BitPetite scheme and decided to run with it.
If you’re still not convinced, keep in mind that BitPetite was shut down just within the last few months and now we have a nearly-identical website that seems to be making the same promises to investors.
For further evidence, let’s compare a couple of screenshots. First, we have a screenshot of BitPetite.com obtained courtesy of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:
And now, here’s a screenshot from the still-up-and-running BitPlay.live:
This is starting to look like a typical pyramid pump-n-dump scheme. If my suspicions are correct, someone is simply starting “bitcoin investment” websites, collecting as much money as possible before the domain is burned and then opening a new one in its place. It would be wrong for me to say this is 100% for sure a scam, but let me just say I’m 99.9% sure it is. Buyer beware.
A Concerning Lack of Detail
BitPlay.live is a treasure trove of red flags, but one last thing I’d like to point out is the stunning lack of detail presented on its website. I was brave/stupid enough to visit the website and click around, and noticed there was no shortage of information related to the vast amounts of money I could easily earn if I just let them hold my bitcoins for a while.
What I didn’t find was any information about the business itself, how it relates to eSports betting, which eSports betting sites it supposedly powers or who even runs the website. The “about us” page lists an address somewhere in the UK that may or may not be legit, but almost everything else remains a mystery.
There are no details regarding how the business actually works and earns money. All it has to say on the matter is BitPlay is “a well-established eSports betting platform and profitably operating with cryptocurrencies.”
The BitPlay website also says “we charge a fee for using the service. This enables us to work on developing our system and to pay out our investors.” I don’t think they could be any more vague if they tried.
Running a Google search for a variety of terms related to BitPlay.live also yields few useful results. That is a very troubling lack of information for a site that wants you to deposit actual money.
And speaking of which, keep in mind that bitcoin transactions are not like credit card transactions. Once you send BTC to a bitcoin address you don’t control, there is no getting it back unless the owner of that address chooses to send it back to you. Bitcoin payments are nothing like credit card payments that can be reversed or disputed. If you send your bitcoin to a scammer, you can just kiss your money goodbye.
The Final Verdict
Stay far away.
BitPlay is full of red flags and empty of reassurances. This is clearly a hastily put-together website that banks on big promises overriding your sense of reason. If you set aside all those thoughts of easily earnings thousands of dollars a month, you’ll see that BitPlay offers very little in terms of details and assurances.
Wes Burns has more than a decade’s worth of experience as a writer, researcher, and analyst in the legal online betting industry and is co-founder of OnlineBettingSites.com. Wes approaches his work from the viewpoint of players.