arcanebet Casino - Player’s bonus winnings have been cancelled.

Hi there! I was looking for a good resource where I would be able to open a complaint and found out that you represent the interests of the Arcanebet casino and it has not a bad rating here. Besides this, I read a positive feedback about you so I rely on you that you will be able to help me with that.

An accident takes place on June,5 2020 where I was able to claim 2nd welcome bonus 50% up to 200 euros. I triggered a win of 571 euros playing a Secret Admirer game with 4.5 euros bet and after that I decided to try my luck with another games Scudamore's Super Stakes playing it with 5 euros bet. I decided to switch a game because I was pretty sure that after a first win on Secret Admirer I will loose my bonus at all because the slot was to "hot" at the moment to continue playing it. I finished my wagering requirements playing with Scudamore's Super Stakes on the amount 1898,5 euros. Yes, it was really a good luck for me.

After that the casino requested the documents from me including a selfie holding me a passport or ID. I provided the casino with all the documents and a few days later I got a message from a customer support agent (Simon) with the text that I have violated their bonus terms and conditions, namely the points (I will provide a screenshot of this message with a full text):

- Increasing your balance with one pattern and then significantly changing that pattern to complete wagering requirements;

- Betting with high variance, whereby you claim a promotional offer and place large bets on volatile outcomes, before switching to regular variance outcomes with lower volatility to clear wagering requirements.

After that I did not get any explanation from the casino why they confiscated my winnings because there were no any explanation of such the rules on their website. I did not change my playing pattern significantly and there were no any statements how to identify which game belongs to higg varience outcomes or low varience outcomes. I expect you will be able to help me my winnings to be back.

Thank you very much!

Dear Granola,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint and forwarding the relevant communication. I’m sorry to hear about your problem.

I have checked the promotional terms and conditions, and the casino still has this rule https://www.arcanebet.com/en/support/bonus-rules:

"It is strictly forbidden to:

Try to exploit games’ volatility through constant and repetitive betting patterns."

"Betting with high variance, whereby you claim a promotional offer and place large bets on volatile outcomes, before switching to regular variance outcomes with a lower volatility to clear wagering requirements."

Have you, by any chance, saved your game history from the relevant bonus session? If yes, please forward it to petronela.k@casino.guru. Is your account still accessible?

I hope we will be able to help you to resolve your problem as soon as possible. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Petronela

Dear Petronela,

No, I did not save any game history from my bonus session as I did not even expect to be in situation like this one. Besides this, my account was blocked or deactivated right after this so I even have no possibilities to make the screenshots of my game history for you. However, I do not understand the reason of blocking an access to my account and interpret this case as a limitation of the player's rights to provide evidence, as in our situation. After all, isn't confiscation of funds enough in such a case? If a player does break these rules, he will realize it and continue to play, taking into account old mistakes. But in this situation, it seems that the casino simply does not want to admit its own cons, which are not fully spelled out in the rules.

Thank you very much, Granola, for your reply. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Matej who will be at your assistance. I wish you best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.

Hello Granola.

I am sorry to hear about your troubles.

I would like to invite the casino representative into the case. Please explain to us what happened and why was Granola's account blocked.

Hello Granola.

I am in contact with a casino representative via Skype. 

I will let you know the outcome when we reach a satisfactory conclusion regarding your case.

Dear Matej Novota,

Thank you very much!

I look forward to hearing from you further.

Dear Granola.

I had a tough discussion with the casino representative over Skype.

The casino voided your winnings based on these two rules:

• Switch from a game with a low RTP (e.g. 95-96.1%) to a game with a considerably higher RTP (e.g. 96.8-96.99%) after a win, for the sole purpose of clearing the wagering requirements.

• arcanebet has a zero-tolerance policy towards bonus abuse and/or bonus fraud. If such activity is suspected, we reserve the right to close the account in question and confiscate any existing funds on the account. Furthermore, if we have reason to believe that there is any individual or group activity that is trying to commit bonus abuse we reserve the right to revoke, deny or cancel any active promotional offer, we will also at our sole discretion exclude any account from future promotional offers.

Because after you won 502,50 with €4.5 bet on Secret Admirer (96.08% RTP - Microgaming) you decided to play on the slot Scudamores Super Stakes (96.99% RTP - NetEnt) and increase the bet to €5. The casino considers this as breaching of their rule "Switch from a game with a low RTP"

Well, we consider this rule predatory. These days no honest casinos use this type of rules against the players. Demanding players to check the RTP of the slot before they decide to switch a slot simply doesn't make any sense.

In this case, we believe that the casino should pay you the winnings and they should remove this unfair rule from their terms. However, after I chat with their representative, it is obvious that they won't do it. 

We have no other option than close this complaint as unresolved which will have a negative impact on arcanbet casino's rating.

I am sorry Granola, that we can't help you more.

Dear Matej Novota,

Thank you for your efforts in resolving my issue.

But, here I want to ask the casino something, and even more, so that they give you a history of changes in their bonus rules.

Simon (arkanebet support) after the confiscation sent me a message (sent you a screenshot) with the reason for the confiscation, which mentioned the following rule:

•  Betting with high variance, whereby you claim a promotional offer and place large bets on volatile outcomes, before switching to regular variance outcomes with lower volatility to clear wagering requirements.

There is no mention of restriction on changing games with different RTPs. This can only mean that they introduced this rule later, or after I received the bonus or finished my wagering requirements on the moment I accepted their old version of bonus rules. It means they applied that rule retroactivelly to my winnings.

Hi all, 

The player breached the terms & conditions by changing his gaming pattern significantly after a win, for the sole purpose of exploiting the promotional offer he took advantage of and not as part of a normal recreational playing style. All game history and additional customer information has been shared with the casino.guru team. 

As unfortunately there were no elements in favor of the player (past game play) to clear him, on the contrary, all elements we considered showed clear signs of being an advantage player, we had no choice but to enforce. The specific terms & conditions breached: 

- Betting with high variance, whereby you claim a promotional offer and place large bets on volatile outcomes, before switching to regular variance outcomes with a lower volatility to clear wagering requirements.

 - Increasing your balance with one pattern and then significantly changing that pattern to complete wagering requirements.

Casino.guru does not agree with our assessment, which is their right, and so we'll indeed part ways on this complaint without agreeing. We cannot give-in to syndicates of advantage players, even when it concerns small amounts as here, because it would mean our policy of fast withdrawals and KYC's for the genuine crowd could not remain in place.

To the genuine player reading this: rest assured that you can freely play (and win!) with our bonuses on a wide variety of slots, without the need to worry, as long as you're doing so with genuine intent and without links to other players. Testament to this are the numerous positive reviews you'll find about us in other casino communities. 

Kind regards, 

Team arcanebet

Hello.

Sorry for the delayed answer.

Basically, here casino blames the player that after winning a relatively small amount from his total winnings, he decided to switch on a different slot with a higher RTP (the difference was less than 1%) and significantly increase the bet from €4,5 to €5.

Well, we have a definitely different opinion on what "significantly" means.

We do not believe that the player did anything wrong. We do not believe that the rules what casino imply are fair.

Just imagine the situation that the cars have the maximum allowed speed (in the casino world, this is the maximum bet) on the highway, which is 130km/h. Simple and effective. And to this simple rule world, the casino puts a rule that you cannot go faster than the car, which has a higher cubature of the engine. (the two mentioned casino rules) And now imagine how this could work on highways. Only a few people know everything about cars, yes the information is available, but nobody wants to memorize them.

So that is how user-friendly are these casino rules.

Players don't want to study which game has which RTP and calculated how much I bet before and live in fear that the casino will later void their winnings if they change something. The solution is simple: If the casino doesn't want to players do something - enforce it by software.

In this case, we are fully supporting the player.

We would recommend to Granola to contact the licensing authority:

http://www.gaming-curacao.com/ (click on contact)

You should write there:

1) Your personal information:

name (your first name, your last name and the middle name if you have it)

your country of residence

your age

2) Complaint body must include:

casino name + license number (GLH-OCCHKTW0706132018)

your login (username) and email in an online casino (with which you had registered the account)

then describe what has happened as thoroughly as possible (including the sum of money you are challenging)

Please let me know when you submit the complaint to the regulator. (matej@casino.guru)

Because we believe that the casino wrongly accused the player based on poor evidence and by using predatory terms, we decided to close this complaint as justified. (unresolved)

We’ve reopened this complaint at the request of arcanebet Casino. We would like to allow this case one more chance to be resolved and help both parties involved to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

We have allowed time for the player to go through the official route as suggested by CasinoGuru, an idea supported by us at arcanebet.com too. This way we could provide the regulator with our official reply but also with findings and sensitive information we cannot disclose publicly due to the General Data Protection Regulation.

The player seems to be part of a known syndicate following specific gaming activity and patterns which have been described in the comments above. Even though we at arcanebet.com offered to come to an agreement with the player, despite the fact they had breached our T&Cs, such agreement was never reached/accepted by the player. Since then, with the help and guidance of CasinoGuru, advanced digital device fingerprinting was put in place in order to be able to objectively describe the link between accounts and avoid ambiguous situations, as the one above, from happening again in the future.

Dear Granola.

Could you please react to the casino representative's comment?

Dear Granola,

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.

Unfortunately, the player has not responded to our messages and questions. Consequently, we are unable to investigate further and have no choice but to reject this complaint.

The player can reopen this complaint at any time.