21 Casino - Player’s account closed and winnings confiscated.

A precursor - to anyone who checks ratings on here before using a casino DON’T. I was naive, and assumed the casino was safe to play at after seeing a rating of 9. However, the true reflection is the shocking 1.4 on TrustPilot. The only reason it is a 9, I assume, is some sort of financial link, or greasing of palms.

Anyway, I played at this casino over the space of a few days. One of those few times I got quite lucky, and turned my 1000 into 22,000. I was asked for the obligatory documents which I gave them.

I then waited… and waited… then roughly 2 weeks later was given the same email to ask for documents. So I provided them again and was verified. Anxiety decreased now somewhat. Hopeful to receive my winnings.

I then had emails, literally as I was on live chat asking where my money was somewhat suspiciously, that all the withdrawals had bounced and to speak to my bank. Funny that, as no other withdrawals or deposits were being rejected by my bank.

They asked for documents once more, so I provided my bank statement once more for them to send it to. They agreed, and said the funds should be in my account in five days or so.

Fast forward three more days and I wake up to receive an email they have closed my account, per there terms and conditions of 13.2, and confiscated any winnings. They will pay back all my deposits of 2,800 in total, but confiscate the rest which was around 19,500.

They have given no indication of why they have reached this decision. It is utter corruption and greed at the highest level. Imagine investing money, or putting money in the bank, for the, to turn around and confiscate any money made. It is absurd.

I hasten to add, that after asking for documentation only for the withdrawal (not for deposits of course) they carried on accepting my custom. For weeks. Allowing me to gamble as much as I wanted. All whilst knowing that they could confiscate any winnings at will.

This casino is part of the White Hat Gaming group - notorious for being unfair, illegitimate, scandalous and evil. They have already been fined by the UKGC, but that has not stopped them from being absolute thieves still.

Dear AntonyPro,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. Please allow me to ask you a few questions, so I can understand the whole situation completely. 

• Could you please clarify when your account was created?
• Did you accumulate your winnings with or without an active bonus?
• Is this the only explanation you received from the casino? Please forward all the relevant communication between you and the casino to kristina.s@casino.guru. Alternatively, you can post it here. 

I hope we will be able to help you to resolve this issue as soon as possible. Thank you very much in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Kristina

Thanks for the swift response!

I’m not sure exactly when my account was created, but it was sometime in early June. I’ve been banned so I can’t see exactly. If it is necessary for your investigation, I will be able to find out by looking through my bank statement for my first deposit with them.

i never use bonuses for this precise reason - there are usually unfair terms which mean they can confiscate surplus winnings over a set amount.

Yes, this is the only explanation. Funnily enough, I played at another casino during the long verification process. I was then blocked from playing their games, and then found out they were part of the White Hat Gaming group. Immediately I was terrified, as I thought they were banning me on this casino, to confiscate winnings on another one of their casinos. Turns out my suspicions were right.

I genuinely have done nothing wrong and am baffled that they can do this to someone. I have had such little sleep throughout this whole ordeal, and my anxiety is through the roof. This has caused me such pain, and I’m desperate for any help on the matter.

I’m going to forward loads of emails to the email address you provided. Some will show the initial withdrawals (ranging from 1 to 4.2k, accumulating 22k roughly), some will show that they failed, and some will show the verification process.

please help me 😢

The three emails I sent of around 7k each were ones they sent for processing, which got rejected I presume. Thought I would include those as well

I also sent emails from mid June when I thought they were stalling and I was getting increasingly nervous they were looking for any opportunity to steal my money

Thank you very much, AntonyPro, for your cooperation. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Peter (peter.c@casino.guru) who will be at your service. I wish you the best of luck and hope the problem will be resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.  

Hello there,

Thank you AntonyPro for providing us with all the information. I hope we'll be able to resolve this issue together.

I would now like to ask 21 Casino for their help in resolving this complaint. We would like to know why was the player's account blocked and winnings confiscated.

Thank you!

Hi,

We will look into the case and provide feedback as soon as possible.

Best Regards.

Hello AntonyPro,

So, first of all, we are sorry to hear about your experience.

Please note that we have escalated your dispute to our Complaints Team, who have confirmed to be in direct contact with you in this respect. For information pertaining to our Complaints and Disputes Procedure, please see clause 16 of our terms and conditions https://www.21casino.com/gb/terms-conditions#complaints-procedure 

@Casino Guru, we are unable to provide further commentary on the matter due to GDPR constraints. Following the outcome of the internal dispute; in the event that the customer remains dissatisfied with the resolve, he is welcome to reach out to the ADR’s as outlined in clause 16 of our terms and conditions.

At the moment this case is being delt directly between Antonypro and the complaints team.

If we recieve further feedback/outcome that is possible to provide, we will update.

Thank you for the update 21 Casino representative.

Dear AntonyPro, I recommend following the steps the casino has recommended and I would like to ask both parties to please keep us updated about any further developments. Thank you in advance!

First of all, do not insult me by apologising for my experience. You are not sorry, otherwise you wouldn’t steal 20k from me with absolutely no reason or rhyme. Then not respond to end of my emails.

No-one has been in direct contact with me. The last email I had was from whitehatgaming saying my money was taken from me. Then silence. I officially complained, and have received no response. There has only been a short response here on a public forum, one week after saying you were looking into the case.

So, you can’t provide "further commentary on the matter due to GDPR constraints"? What does that even mean? I’m giving you full permission to provide as much commentary as possible. You’re just using any tactic to avoid giving any description on the case due to it being utter corruption and malpractice.

You have stolen my money, caused untold grief, and won’t give any indication as to either a) why you’ve taken it from me, nor b) when this nightmare will be over.

@CasinoGuru What rights do I have? Surely this isn’t right? That any casino can just steal any money you have won? The one miscalculation on my part throughout this, was trusting that my money is safe in a casino. I gambled large amounts on other sites, safe in the knowledge that I had this winnings. Only for it to be stolen from me. I’m absolutely distraught.

How can I take legal action? I don’t want to use their ADR as they obviously cannot be trusted. Can I go to the UKGC directly? Please help me. Can you provide some concise steps on what I can take to escalate this?

Ps. And how on earth is their rating so high on here? When on Trustpilot it is abysmal, the worst I have seen of any casino I have ever viewed on there? I trusted you. And others will too. Only to be traumatised in the same way I have. The rating needs to be amended so other consumers know that their money can be stolen at any point.

Ok, so they've finally responded to me, and stated,

"We note that following a review of your account by our compliance and risk teams, it has become clear that you have used the casino in bad faith".

They are continuing to justify stealing my money.

Please can somebody explain to me what this means?

Upon further inspection, i see that they've used this obscene clause to justify stealing money from other unsuspecting victims, just by perusing the reviews on here.

Once again, how is the safety rating so high? They've absolutely ruined me - emotionally, phsyically and mentally. And they've done this to other vicitms and does it just go unnoticed? And you just give them a 9 out of 10 rating? How? Why? If anyone wins anythinv remotely big they can just steal it? And as aforementioned, a huge error on my part was truting my money was safe. Whilst i was waiting for the funds to be sent to my account, which i showed you in the emails, i gambled thousands safe in the knowledge i was in profit. And now i'm utterly screwed.

They've stated for me to use and ADR resolution by the name of ECOGRA. Are they legitmate? I'm struggling to believe this is legitimate after seeing other complaints and reviewz, which seen to have been turned a blind eye to.

I will once again email they're latest correspondence to you and see what you suggest for me moving forward. Can i have any assurances that i can receive my money? This cannot be legal? And do they always get away with this. I'm just shellshocked.

Dear AntonyPro, eCOGRA is an independent ADR service to which casinos licensed by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission must adhere. You can contact them through the following link: (https://ecogra.org/contact-us/) More information regarding this can be found here: How to complain. If you require any assistance with filling out the form I'm available through my email. (peter.c@casino.guru)

Any other response to my questions? Other than backing a clearly unbiased organisation that is financially linked to casinos?

The ADR service works with gaming providers rather than the gambling establishment and should offer you an unbiased review of your complaint. As the casino cannot share information about this topic with us due to legal restraints this is the only course of action we can recommend. If you do not like the way we are trying to assist we can always reject this complaint per your explicit request. Let me know how you would like to proceed further in this case. Thank you in advance!

Dear AntonyPro,

We are extending the timer by 7 days. Please, be aware that in case you fail to respond in the given time frame or don’t require any further assistance, we will reject the complaint.

What would you like me to respond with? Im currently awaiting a verdict from the ADR linked with the casino. Will let you know what the outcome is. In the meantime, would you care to respod to any of my questions?

Can you give me any assurances i can actually receive my money?

How is their rating so high here? When on Trustpilot it is abysmal?

Can they just use the clause bad faith and get awag with stealing winnings in any scenario they see fit?

Is this a common tactic used by casinos?

How can they use GDPR constraints to justify not speaking about my case? Surely that is there to protect consumers? And im giving permission?

I patiently await reponse to my questions.

Many thanks,

Antony

Dear AntonyPro,

What would you like me to respond with? Im currently awaiting a verdict from the ADR linked with the casino. 

I wanted you to confirm you will contact the ADR service, thank you.

Can you give me any assurances i can actually receive my money?

I cannot, as you may know, we are not affiliated with any of the casinos we work with and serve as an independent database of casinos. If the casino chooses to not work with us there's not much we can do to help. I have tried to give you all the options I could find to try to recover your funds.

How is their rating so high here? When on Trustpilot it is abysmal?

Casino ratings are calculated by a number of criteria for example fairness of their rules, and unresolved complaints which there are none until yours. Our data team casino analysts are in charge of that and if you disagree with their review you can find the contact for the person responsible for the review at the bottom of it. I also don't find Trustpilot to be that objective of a review as any person who could have actually violated their rules or otherwise could leave a negative review to tarnish the reputation of a casino out of "revenge".

Can they just use the clause bad faith and get awag with stealing winnings in any scenario they see fit?

As we didn't have the luxury of seeing the actual evidence of the supposed violation of the rules I can't tell on what basis this is ruled.

How can they use GDPR constraints to justify not speaking about my case? Surely that is there to protect consumers? And im giving permission?

As stated beforehand we are not affiliated with any of the casinos we work with and if the casino chooses to not work with us there's not much we can do to help.

I hope that answers your questions!

I will close the complaint as 'waiting for the decision of the regulator' for now. I would appreciate it if you could contact me once the ADR service or licensing authority comes to a decision in this case. You can forward any information to my email. (peter.c@casino.guru) I am sorry we could not be of more help on this occasion.

Kind regards,

Peter