GAMBLING FEDERATION: blacklisted by The Wizard Of Odds for $10,000 winnings confiscation

Sunday, March 19, 2006

GAMBLING FEDERATION: blacklisted by The Wizard Of Odds for $10,000 winnings confiscation

This is a matter that originally came to light in July 2005.

Player Christopher B signed up at several Gambling Federation casinos, took the sign up bonus at each and played high-stakes roulette.

In total, he won approximately $10,000 after a couple of successful roulette hits and several thousand dollars of slots wagering.

Gambling Federation revoked his winnings, citing the apparent illegality of his multiple accounts across several casinos, which they subsequently seemed to change this in favour of allegations of "game fraud" - more details of which can be found in the thread I posted at Casinomeister - Gambling Federation: rules adhered to but winnings stolen.

After the intercession of Bryan Bailey of Casinomeister, G-Fed refunded the player's deposits; his winnings remain unpaid.

Since "game fraud" is a bit of a puzzling phrase, I asked the Gambling Federation management about it when I met them at the London International Casino Exhibition in January - see my "Gambling Federation: a discussion at the ICE" article. Basically, "game fraud" as defined by G-Fed is a kind of "bonus optimisation", playing in such a way as to have the best chance of holding on to as much of the bonus as possible.

Intruigingly, the case pretty much exactly mirrors ANOTHER case, at pretty much exactly the same time - see my Gambling Federation: from malware to grand larceny article. This player, as you can see in the follow up resolution article, was paid. He also had "multiple accounts".

Additionally, the specific rules on the G-Fed sites do not specify that you may only have one account across the whole family of Gambling Federation casinos - this section is taken from the Selective Casino rules page, one of the casinos at which Christopher B played:

Player may only operate one active account at any time. Players opening multiple accounts without first voiding their existing account are subject to being excluded from the Casino with all wins forfeited. In order to void an account, Players must contact Customer Support.

The "multiple accounts" here clearly refer to accounts at the individual casino, NOT the entire family of casinos.

Since the player could get no satisfaction on claiming his winnings, he asked Michael Shakleford, the "Wizard Of Odds", to mediate.

Michael also failed to get satisfaction for him, and as a result has now blacklisted Gambling Federation - so the Wizard Of Odds blacklist page for details:

The first reason is non-payment of winnings.

In May 2005 A player by the initials CB opened accounts at 10 Gambling Federation casinos in the same day, all with the same bonus, and played them all in rapid succession. He had large wins at two of them, for a large overall net win. The Gambling Federation refunded all ten deposits for the reason he was clearly a bonus abuser. It is a long story but in the end they site the following rule as reason enough not to pay, although other reasons were originally disputed, "The Casino management reserves the right to withhold any funds if it suspects any foul play or manipulation with the Casino. It is recognized and agreed to by the Player that, in the case of any discrepancy whatsoever, management's decision on all matters will be final.

The reason I blame G-Fed, as opposed to just the two casinos shown above, is that the decision to not pay the winnings came from G-Fed and not individual casino management.

Secondly, as reported by Casinomeister in February 2005 downloads from G-Fed casinos included malware (short for malicious software) to block access to some competing sites. They claimed it was because the casinos in questions misappropriated their client database and spammed G-Fed customers. After they were caught G-Fed apologized, stating their actions were based on "emotive judgement" and "not justified."

Now that such a highly-regarded webmaster has expressed his opinion that the player is entitled to his winnings, will Gambling Federation see the light and pay him?

I remain hopeful for a positive outcome.

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