Online Casino News

Friday, June 25, 2010

Malta LGA: it's a gambler's obligation “to perceive gambling as a form of entertainment”

The Lotteries And Gaming Authority of Malta, that beguiling ventriloquist's doll dancing on the end of strings pulled by its casino and sportsbook puppetmasters, takes the moral and ethical issues of gambling seriously. As such, it has a charter on the rights and obligations of players (see my backup copy if needed):

The aim of the Charter is to develop standards, as form of best practice, in the light of consumer concerns. The Authority shall try its utmost in attaining the standards set by this Charter.

The Malta LGA does not, unfortunately, have a good record in attaining standards.

On the other hand, it does have a good record of continuing to license crooked sportsbooks long after they've stopped paying their players.

It's directors also have a good record of threatening members of the industry who question their regulatory methods.

But standards?

Not really.

So I'm not holding out too much hope for the good of the gambling public on the basis of this charter.

Of the eighteen obligations that players have (there are just thirteen “rights”), number five jumps off the page:

Gamblers are obliged to perceive gaming as a form of entertainment.

How to I consciously direct my perceptions?

Supposing I say to myself “tonight I really want to win some money at this casino”?

Given this “obligation”, why not simply play in free mode? If I can't gamble from a desire to win money, why gamble with real money in the first place?

What if a Malta sportsbook offers me a free bet, with which I play according the rules, win, and cashout? Is this entertainment, or a desire to make money?

What if a Malta sportsbook has a good line on a bet I want to make, which I discover I can then lay off at another bookie and guarantee a profit?

What if a Malta casino offers a bonus with soft playthrough requirements and a relatively easy profit, which I cashout as per the rules?

Given these circumstances, would Malta rule in favour of the casino not paying? With some reasonably deduceable “profit perceptions” in the mix, this could only represent an infringement of the gamblers “obligations”, according to the LGA.

What derisory nonsense. If you can gamble of your own volition with real money, you're entitled to have any intent under the sun with regard to the outcome, up to and including that universal attribute of Mammon: profit. You cannot gamble with real money and be expected to desire only marsh gas in reward. Gamble with real money = win real money.

And as far as your “perceptions” go, they are your business. They are certainly nothing to do with the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority.

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If I want to play for entertainment purposes, I'll play the videopoker on an Xbox console, or maybe in free mode.

If I put money on it, I Intend to win. That's the entertaining bit.

Losing makes betting a pretty dull experience.

By Sandracer, at 3:19 pm

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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Purple Lounge: theft through the implementation of unfair terms

Purple Lounge recently confiscated a £3000 cashout through the implementation of an unacceptable term. The general principle was discussed at Casinomeister in the all winnings removed if withdrawal before WR met thread, and the player's case was specifically spelled out towards the end:

15th June 2010, 10:29 AM

I played for the first time in Purple-Lounge casino at May 2010 and won around 3000 GBP. I played 25 a spin at a game name Loaded a 20 line slots. The casino had a built in feature to show bonus balance and cash balance at any time. I played until bonus balance reached zero and cashed out.

The casino return only the deposit back to me saying although technically I was able to withdraw the casino had a special term for extra wagering to Greece and that they are confiscating my whole winnings at that case.

I told them I do accept the terms and that is the first time I play at their casino and the software feature was showing bonus balance zeroed allowing me to cashout, kindly return the credit for me to conitnue playing and give you the extra play but they insist on total winnings confisctaion.

The term the casino used to justify confiscating the full £3000 balance is found in the first deposit bonus terms:

4. Players claiming a bonus using a deposit via either Moneybookers or Neteller must wager at least 50 times the bonus amount. Residents of Greece and Canada must wager 110 times the bonus amount regardless of the payment method used.

It is the sole responsibility of the player to ensure he or she has met the wagering requirements before cashing out. Players who withdraw before meeting the requirement will have the bonus and all winnings removed.

The first thing to note here is that the casino software itself informed the player that he was entitled to cash out his winnings. If Purple Lounge has a utility built into its games that does not fully work, that is not the player's fault - the casino needs to sort out its software.

However, far more important to note is that, irrespective of the presence of an inbuilt wager tracking device, there is no possible justification for punishing the player in such draconian manner for simply hitting the cashout button too early. Clearly it was a mistake - no player would wittingly cashout in such a way as to guarantee the cashout would never be received. It would be ridiculous to think any malice were involved on the part of a player who did this.

As such, the casino should simply put the money back in the account and tell the player to finish the wagering. He made a slip up. Don't mete out absurd punishments for trifling mistakes.

Purple Lounge didn't see it this way. According to Bryan "Casinomeister" Bailey:

The responses we received from Purple Lounge indicated to us that they were not interested in debating the issue.

Bailey summarily removed them from his recommended casinos list on the basis of this behaviour.

Well, fine & dandy for the casino to have such a high-handed attitude. He who has the money controls the purse strings. However, they may not ultimately be able to blow the matter off as glibly as they would hope.

Purple Lounge was bought last year by Media Corp, an internet media company "...focused on website publishing and online advertising", listed on the UK stock exchange and answerable to its shareholders.

It is also regulated, and I use that word very loosely, by the Malta LGA - see the licensed operators: class 1 on 4 page. However, the Malta LGA is ineffectual and worthless as far as player protection goes, so I discount it as an avenue of assistance.

Also to note, and with possibly more relevance, is that the same day they were sent off down the highroad to nowhere from Casinomeister, they were accepted into the GPWA as a sponsor programme - I discovered this remarkable coincidence on reading the forum announcement by a member of the board hierarchy.

It remains to be seen whether or not any of these avenues will help this player to be reunited with his money.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

UK affiliates potentially in breach of the law

The Gambling Act 2005 set the stage for a new regulatory structure for all aspects of gambling in the UK, including online gambling. Having studied it fairly superficially I had assumed that the legislation applied only to operators; however, the advertising section recently caught my eye, and in particular the sub-section on foreign gambling:

331

Foreign gambling .

(1) A person commits an offence if he advertises foreign gambling other than a lottery.

(2) In this section “foreign gambling” means -

(a) non-remote gambling which is to take place in a non-EEA State, and

(b) remote gambling none of the arrangements for which are subject to the law about gambling of an EEA State (whether by being regulated, exempted, prohibited or otherwise).

(3) Subsection (2) shall apply to Gibraltar as it applies to EEA States.

(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that a specified country or place is to be treated for the purposes of subsection (2) as if it were an EEA State.

(5) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) shall be liable on summary conviction to -

(a) imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks,

(b) a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or

(c) both.

As such, if you're resident in the United Kingdom and you advertise casinos that fall outside the EEA or that are not included in the Gambling Commission's "white list" of non-EEA countries which are considered by the Commission "...as if they were an EEA State", you commit an offence punishable with a custodial sentence.

My take on this is that any law which makes it harder to advertise unadulerated junk is a good thing, and there are many casinos located on the territories of Kahnawake, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles and Costa Rica that the gambling public would be well served by keeping at a comfortable arm's length.

The problem is that for all the junk located outside the EEA there is just as much, if not more, inside it - the Malta LGA is an industry-wide joke, and how the Caribbean island of Antigua & Barbuda made the white list ranks as the eighth wonder of the world as far as I'm concerned.

It's also unlikely that this law will ever be enforced, as it would likely be a herculean task to establish the ownership of a site that was advertising illegally.

Here is a list of casinos whose promotion on the part of UK-based affiliates would, for what it's worth, represent an illegal act. The list is not at all exhaustive, but includes many heavily-promoted casinos which could be problematic for many affiliates:

Microgaming:

All Jackpots
All Slots
Aztec Riches
Blackjack Ballroom
Captain Cook's Casino
Casino Classic
Casino Kingdom
Casino Lavida
Casino Share
Challenge Casino
Colosseum Casino
First Web
Golden Reef Casino
Golden Tiger Casino
Grand Hotel
Grand Mondial
Lucky Emperor Casino
Music Hall Casino
Nostalgia Casino
Phonecian Casino
Red Flush
Rich Reels
Royal Joker
Strike It Lucky Casino
UK Casino Club
Vegas 7
Vegas Country
Vegas Joker
Vegas Slot
Villento
Virtual City Casino
Yukon Gold Casino
Zodiac Casino

Realtime Gaming:

Aladdin's Gold
All Star Slots
Captain Jack
Casino Titan
Casino Peru
Catseye
Cherry Red
Cirrus
Club Player
Club World
Cool Cat
Goldstream
iNetbet
Intertops
Jackpot Capital
King Solomons
Las Vegas USA
Lock Casino
Lucky Red
Manhattan Slots
One Club Casino
Palace Of Chance
Pharaohs Gold
Planet 7
Royal Ace
Rushmore
Silver Oak
Slotastic
Slots Oasis
Slots Plus
Sun Palace
Vegas Casino Online
Virtual

Rival:

BetUS
Club Vegas USA
Cocoa
Da Vinci's Gold
Fortune Reel
Gold Rock
Irish Luck
Lion Slots
Mayan Fortune
Pantasia Casino
Paradise 8
Rockbet Online
Ruby Royal
Simon Says
Sloto Cash
SlotPower
Slots of Fortune
Superior
This is Vegas
Vegas Regal
Vegas Sky

Playtech:

African Palace
Casino Plex
City Club
Crown Europe
Indio Casino
Golden Palace

Others:

3 Dice
Sunset Casino

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That's an interesting twist. Good article my friend!

By The Gambling Gurus, at 3:41 am

Thanks for the list (yeah, I know I got to it late).

It all sounds worrying at first but as mentioned in the article, I'd be surprised to see it ever become an issue for affiliates.

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Online casino problems

I've updated the online casino problems page a bit - cleaned up some defunct links, added a few additional sections and generally freshened it up.

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Wednesday, June 09, 2010

GPWA code of conduct player mandate

My attention was drawn to the GPWA Code of Conduct a few weeks ago. I hadn't realised that there was a player mandate built in, but in fact there is:

Sponsor companies will credit the accounts of players with bonuses and winnings in accordance with published rules and procedures and will promptly pay players any balance in their account upon their request.

As such, a GPWA sponsor programme can be held to account on the basis of player mistreatment, irrespective of the fact that the GPWA is in essence orientated towards webmasters.

The GPWA being probably the biggest affiliate organisation there is, with a great many webmaster members alongside a host of affiliate sponsor programmes which represent many hundreds of casinos, this is very good to know.

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Tuesday, June 08, 2010

One Club Casino: theft of funds and deceptive jurisdiction claims

One Club Casino appears confused about whose laws it answers to. On the terms and conditions page it has this to say:

Applicable Law / Jurisdiction

This Agreement, the interpretation and execution thereof, and the relationship between the parties, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the United Kingdom.

An RTG casino that answers to UK law? They must be licensed in the UK.

However, a search for "One Club Casino" in the Gambling Commission find licensee page does not yield any results. So clearly, the casino is not licensed in the UK.

In fact, just below the text I quoted above is this seemingly contradictory claim:

Any claim or dispute arising either directly or indirectly out of this Agreement, shall be brought before the competent court of the country of Costa Rica which court shall have exclusive jurisdiction.

Costa Rica?

So what was that bit about the UK?

The about us page yields this bit of information:

One Club Casino uses the credit card services of Saturn Gaming Ltd., ensuring secure,fast and easy online transaction processing.

Saturn Gaming Ltd. is a UK firm that handles thousands of secure online transactions every day.

Saturn Gaming is in fact an Australian based company:

GameNet Management is an Australian registered firm providing professional management services to both the online and land based gaming industries, as well as remote PC support to both commercial and domestic clients.

The Company has representative offices in Australia and throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

The deposit option page of Saturn Gaming tallies with the One Club Casino statement:

SBN's own safe secure Credit facility available to all SBN Players including US residents who are known players to SBN with a good credit history. Deposit Using your Visa/MasterCard as well as any prefunded Visa Debit Card.

The Saturn Gaming LinkedIn page does suggest an additional UK presence:

Saturn Gaming Ltd, the Gaming Management Services Division of SBN Games, is a United Kingdom registered firm providing professional management services to both the online and land based gaming industries. The Company has representative offices in the United Kingdom and throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

As such, the One Club Casino payment provider has offices in the UK, but in all things that have any practical relevance to anyone involved with this casino - players, affiliates etc - One Club Casino is located in Costa Rica and answers to Costa Rican law.

And to all intents and purposes, there is no law in Costa Rica as far as regulation goes; Costa Rica does not have a gambling commission - the casino simply resides on its territory effectively free of charge, no different to any other business.

This casino would appear to be using their UK-registered payment service to create the illusion of a degree of security and reputability which is completely bogus.

(That is, of course, unless there are closer ties between Saturn Gaming and One Club Casino than is apparent from the site. For all we know, Saturn Gaming may own the casino.)

One Club Casino also has payment issues; according to a Gambling Grumbles report, the casino had this to say as to why they had stolen the player in question's winnings:

This particular player is a member of a bonus abusing team who all subscribe and post to a website called Beating Bonus's. As a part of our rules, players who we believe are abusing our bonus offers will have their deposits returned and their winnings will be forfeit and their account deactivated.

Membership of a forum is not a legitimate excuse to steal winnings.

According to the Casinomeister One Club Casino warning, the casino failed to even respond:

In the second case $3600 in winnings were confiscated and the player's deposit returned. Why? Who knows? They didn't tell the player a thing and ignored us when we submitted the player's complaint to them.

Misleading jurisdictional claims and non-payment issues: avoid One Club Casino.

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Friday, June 04, 2010

Rushmore casino: confiscated funds now on the way to being fully reinstated to the player

The matter raised in my Rushmore Casino theft article has been largely settled, with the player receiving to date a total of $6,444, representing his full original cashout of $7444 less a $1000 bonus which had been removed previously.

I'm sure this will be sorted out before long.

It remains unclear why the casino's frequently stated apparent failure to "verify" the player, after numerous attempts on the part of the independent investigators to prove to Rushmore that he had passed all aspects of their verification process and was therefore fully verified, remained an issue to them.

Also remaining unclear is the casino's apparent and uncorroborated belief that software had been used "...in order to accumulate the same winnings each time". If any such software exists it is surely the end of the online gambling industry, as no player, other than those of extreme masochist tendencies, would ever lose. But of course, this was not a credible claim.

And it is also further unclear why Bryan "Casinomeister" Bailey locked the player out of his forum and dismissed his claim as fraudulent, when clearly it was not, the only fraud in question being that practised by the casino on the player. But maybe an actual investigation, on the part of this self-proclaimed "player watchdog", was a bit too much to ask.

I'm happy that the player is well on the way to receiving all his money. He was highly cooperative and courteous all the way through. And while cooperation, courtesy nor any other human quality should be necessary in order to collect rightfully-owed winnings, one recognises the realities of the online gambling industry.

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Your last paragraph rings especially loud. It's ridiculous how often the Player 'Advocates' of this industry will use a player's colourful language or anger as an excuse to ban them from their forums or refuse to help them etc.

I don't know what the social 'rule' is for this sort of thing, but if there was a Family Feud question about "appropriate reactions to theft of large amounts of money" - pretty sure "anger" would score a lot of points.

I would wager my life on it.

By Jonny Vincent, at 4:38 am

The player has now received the missing $1000, and this matter is finally closed.

By 100% Gambler, at 12:22 am

Your efforts on this case were admirable and I applaud them.

And if the 'matter' is limited to Embalu ONLY, I agree the 1.5 year painful process is now closed. And I'm glad for Embalu.

But I would think the 'matter' is somewhat greater than Embalu and his stolen money. I would think the 'matter' would be the fact that it was stolen and only the casino group would know how many times they have done this. There are very few people who have Embalu's amazing strength and persistence. All those people [including me] would likely have never been heard from. Particularly if they didn't have Embalu's master of his non-native tongue.

The way I see it, the 'matter' has never been more OPEN. Or more unresolved.

By Jonny Vincent, at 1:03 am

I was referring only to the specific matter in hand, not the general status of the Rushmore group.

By 100% Gambler, at 2:16 pm

The updated Gambling Grumbles report: vindication and payment.

By 100% Gambler, at 9:52 pm

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