SR
Saif Rahman
Editor
Nine years covering South Asian cricket — three with The Daily Star, four freelance, two on the desk. Calls every IPL match he can stay awake for.
NotOut · About the desk
An editorial desk for the books that pay your money.
NotOut is an independent editorial desk that audits Bangladeshi sportsbooks. We sign up like regular players, deposit, withdraw, place 200+ bets, and time everything. Then we publish what we found. We don't take operator commissions. We re-audit every 90 days.
/ 01 · The desk's manifesto
Three rules we don't break.
If we fail one of these, we owe our readers a public correction. So far, we've issued three.
01
Independent by design.
We don't accept advertising, placement fees or affiliate commissions from any sportsbook that hasn't passed an audit. Our raw audit data is published quarterly so anyone — including the books themselves — can verify our scoring.
02
Methodical over loud.
Every NotOut Verdict is the result of a 4-week, 5-pass audit cycle: mystery shop, deposit cycles, bet sample, support stress, re-audit. We don't review books we haven't tested ourselves.
03
Bangladeshi, on purpose.
The team is in Dhaka. Tests run on bKash, Nagad and Rocket. Support is rated in Bangla and English. We exist because the local market deserves an audit desk that knows the local market.
/ 02 · By the numbers
What two years of auditing looks like.
Every number below is publicly verifiable in our quarterly raw-data drops.
17Books audited
312Test play this week
38Books rejected
৳120KCash through this cycle
4.8Avg withdrawal · tier-A
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/ 03 · Origin
Why we built this desk.
In late 2023, three of us — a cricket reporter, a backend engineer, and a former bookmaker — sat down with an Excel sheet of fifty-four Bangladeshi sportsbooks and a question: how would you actually rank these?
The honest answer was: nobody had. Every "review site" we read was either an affiliate funnel or a paid placement. None had ever placed a real bet. None had timed a real withdrawal. None could show a single screenshot of a settlement message.
So in April 2024, NotOut started auditing — and never accepted a placement fee. Today the desk runs from a small office in Mirpur, with eleven testers cycling through audits four weeks at a time.
We don't know if every Bangladeshi bettor will agree with our verdicts. We do know that, when they disagree, they'll be disagreeing with real numbers — not marketing copy.
/ 04 · The team
Eleven people. Two reviewers per audit.
No book gets a NotOut Verdict signed by fewer than two humans. Names, faces and tenures below.
TI
Tania Islam
Senior Reviewer
Former product analyst at a Singapore-licensed sportsbook. Now the second sign-off on every audit. Specialises in T&Cs forensics.
RH
Rakib Hassan
Audit Lead
Engineer turned auditor. Built the internal stopwatch that times every withdrawal we've published. Believes in CSV files.
MK
Mahmud Karim
Data & Research
Survey design, statistics, fair-value modelling. Runs the field study panel that powers the Voice-of-BD reports each quarter.
FA
Farhan Ahmed
Reader Operations
First responder to the inbox. Triages reader corrections within 48 hours, runs the Saturday Brief, owns our publication calendar.
NB
Nabila Rahman
Field & Compliance
Coordinates the testers, ensures audit independence (no tester reviews two cycles for the same book), keeps the chain of custody clean.
/ 05 · Methodology in five steps
Four weeks. Five passes. Two reviewers.
Every NotOut Verdict goes through the same five-pass audit — never less, never compressed.
01
Mystery shop
We sign up like a regular Bangladeshi player. No press list, no affiliate code. Personal phone, personal bKash wallet, fresh email.
02
Deposit cycles
Twenty-three deposit and withdrawal pairs. Every method, every tier from ৳100 to ৳50,000. We log fees and time-to-clear on every transaction.
03
Bet sample
Two hundred real bets across nine sports. Pre-match, live, singles, accumulators, system bets. Every settlement timestamped.
04
Support stress
Eleven scripted support tests at 03:00 BST. We rate first-response time, language quality and whether the agent is empowered to resolve.
05
Re-audit
Every score expires after 90 days. We re-test from step one, every quarter, and publish a side-by-side delta. A NotOut Verdict is dated.
→
Read the full methodology
The complete audit methodology, including scoring weights, tester independence rules and the dispute process for reviewed operators.
Open methodology ↗
/ 06 · The code
What we promise not to do.
Eleven commitments we publish, repeat, and live by. If we break one, you'll see it on this page.
- Never accept placement fees, advertising or affiliate commissions from un-audited books.
- Always disclose if a tester has a personal account at a book we're auditing.
- Always sign a NotOut Verdict with two named reviewers — no anonymous calls.
- Always publish raw audit data quarterly, in machine-readable CSV.
- Always re-audit every 90 days. Verdicts expire. We re-test before we re-publish.
- Always respond to corrections within 48 hours, in public, with an erratum.
- Never share reader-identifying data with operators we review.
- Never run a tester twice on the same book in the same year.
- Never publish a verdict without three completed withdrawals.
- Always rate self-control tools as part of the composite score.
- Always credit reader tips that lead to corrections, with the reader's permission.
/ 07 · Reach the desk
Talk to a real human, any way you like.
WhatsApp is fastest — usually under 4 minutes during office hours. Email is best for corrections or tips with attachments.
WhatsApp · fastest
+971 56 324 2540
Online · usually replies in 4 min
Telegram · channel
@notoutbd
Daily picks & verdict drops
Email · for tips & corrections
notoutbangladesh@gmail.com
Replies inside 48 hours, on-record
Contact form
Send a structured tip
Best for book/audit tips
Office & hours
Mirpur-10, Block C
Dhaka 1216, Bangladesh
Sun–Thu, 11:00–20:00 BST
Mirpur · Dhaka · Bangladesh.
NotOut Editorial DeskMirpur-10, Block C
Dhaka 1216, Bangladesh
Sun–Thu, 11:00–20:00 BST
/ 08 · In the press
Where the desk's work has been cited.
A short selection of journalism and policy work that has cited NotOut audits — by date, never by deal.
"NotOut's quarterly audit found that withdrawals on the average Bangladesh-facing sportsbook took 17 hours longer than advertised."
"The Mirpur-based audit desk has rejected nearly forty operators since launch — citing payout integrity as the most common failure."
"NotOut's methodology is, at minimum, the most transparent betting-review apparatus operating in South Asia."
"Cited as a model for civil-society monitoring in markets where regulatory oversight has lagged consumer protection."
/ 09 · The Saturday Brief
One email a week. Never an ad.
Subscribe to the Saturday Brief — Vol 04 of our reader newsletter — and get the week's verdicts, deltas and one editor's note before they appear on the site.
