32Red does the right thing after a wobbly few weeks

Saturday, March 26, 2016

32Red does the right thing after a wobbly few weeks

September 26, 2014

An unexpected case against 32Red came to light three weeks ago. It was unexpected in the sense that, after fifteen years of almost unimpeachable service and a record like no other in the online gambling business, the casino appeared to be illegitimately denying a large payout to a player.

As described in the 32Red vs Joseph3 - expensive mistake discussion at Casinomeister, the player deposited $1000 for a $1000 new player bonus, but for some reason received a total of $2000 in bonus funds, the additional $1000 apparently being credited by mistake. He went on the achieve winnings of around $25,000, which the casino refused to pay; the grounds they gave were that the bonus amount was $1000 more than it should have been, and that over the course of the play the player's balance dropped below $1000, which, assuming the correct starting balance, would have resulted in the balance dropping to zero and which, in the casino's apparent thinking, justified removal of the winnings.

These were their comments:

I am contacting you in regards to your newly open 32Red account Josephmax44.

A standard check to verify your recent withdrawal request of £24,938 has brought to light an anomaly for the amount of bonus credited to your account when claiming the “100% New Player Big Bank Role Bonus”. This particular bonus is capped at 1000 bonus chips as a maximum as highlighted by point 2 of the terms and conditions. In this case, the maximum available funds to play with is 2000 chips and not the 3000 chips you commenced with.

On review of Gaming activity I can confirm that there was a point during play where the balance decreased to below 1000 chips. At this point you had not met the 30 times wagering requirement of the bonus.

In principle this means that at this point you were playing with funds that were not due. It is with deep regret to see that the subsequent withdrawal request for the above amount came from these invalid funds. In short, I am afraid to say that the pending withdrawal will not be processed by our payments team and these funds will be removed.

As an exception the initial deposit will be re-credited to your account in due course once you have confirmed if you still wish to claim the same bonus for the correct amount of 1000 chips or simply have the £1000 applied to the balance.

Regardless of any mistake on our part, the fact remains that you have used invalid funds to acquire these winnings. In principle the funds you deposited and a valid bonus award of 1000 chips were wagered and lost in the Casino. I am surprised that you did not realise that the bonus amount was incorrect as you have deposited a significant amount of money to claim a very specific bonus. I can see that the bonus terms and conditions link was given to you for your information which I trust you had read as agreed to on live chat.

32Red subsequently offered to leave the $25,000 in his account but with an additional wagering penalty of $750,000.

None of the above was satisfactory. The mistake was made by the casino. The player certainly benefitted, but this is no reason to punish him unfairly. His balance at any given point is down to the vagaries of gambling, and what might have happened in an alternative scenario where his starting balance was different doesn't have any bearing, not to mention that the reason these funds were "not due" in the casino's words was not the player's fault. The $750,000 wagering penalty is one which 32Red does list in its terms, but it is only applicable to winnings accrued from bets that exceed the betsize limit of the bonus in question, in other words where the player is in error. It doesn't relate to mistakes of their own making, and couldn't be reasonably applied here.

On 8th September the player submitted a complaint to Bryan "Casinomeister" Bailey; sixteen days later, on the 24th, he received his full cashout, minus the $1000 that was credited in error, which was apparently given to charity. This was the right outcome. According to Mr. Bailey:

24th September 2014, 06:18 PM

After discussing the issue with 32Red, the consensus was that there was human error involved and that the player should be paid minus the bonus amount given in error. (That amount will be donated to a charity TBD BTW). The reason that the casino changed its original stance is that there were other factors which were ultimately cleared up. Those factors are not free for me to discuss but those factors, in the eyes of the PAB service, were sufficient justification for the initial stance taken.

I don't see these comments as particularly helpful to the casino, which ultimately did the right thing and emerged with its reputation fully intact. There was no suggestion of any additional factors involved, and if there had been such it's likely that they would have come to light. Bereft of any indication to the contrary, this seems to me more of an attempt to justify the casino's initial unjustifiable stance. But since they did the right thing after making an initial bad decision, it doesn't help them much to be seen to be making excuses for their mistake where excuses were not necessary in the light of the correct outcome. Why not limit yourself to something like "after a reappraisal on the part of management, it was decided that the right course of action was to pay the player"?

However, 32Red isn't responsible for the words of its webmaster affiliates. They did the right thing and emerged with their reputation fully intact. This is, as far as I'm aware, unique in the online gambling business, where fair treatment of players is almost invariably a long way down the list of priorities.

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32Red does the right thing after a wobbly few weeks

32Red does the right thing after a wobbly few weeks

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