BetRivers Casino Ontario - Player’s account has been frozen after withdrawal request.

Good morning

I am contacting you with the hope of reaching a resolution with Bet Rivers.

I joined and verified myself last year at their casino, which required me to upload proofs of address, pictures of payment methods used, and there was a second verification which spot-checked me. At the time of doing this second verification selfie, I was travelling in another country but it allowed me to verify, so I did this and it was accepted.

Over time they have upgraded me to VIP status, and I've made a lot of deposits, eventually building a balance of as much as $40,000. I decided to request a withdrawal of $10,000 and this is where the problems started.

My account was suddenly frozen in early January with no explanation, other than live chat telling me that something to do with their terms and conditions had 'automatically flagged' and was waiting for a review from a person. I continued to chase them but have received no reply other than the above.

Earlier this month, I finally received an email saying that my account had been locked pending a review, but still offering no further information. This is more than a month since it was 'put under review'.

At one point I did have a support agent say they would try to get someone in the team to process the $10,000 that I had requested, but I am now highly concerned about the entire sum, which I believe Bet Rivers are withholding from me unfairly.

Having run out of options - and they have refused to accept a direct complaint - I've come to yourselves as a site that I often use to gauge casinos. I don't see a single other person on here having problems, though there's almost no reviews, but I've found examples on Reddit of Bet Rivers behaving the same way, which I wish I'd seen before I decided to take my business there.

If you require further information, please let me know. I thank you in advance for your assistance.

Best regards

Scott

Dear sc9374824,

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 advise which games you focused on while your account was still active - slots, live casino, sports betting, etc.?
• Have you made any successful withdrawals before?
• Did you accumulate your winnings with or without an active bonus?

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

Hi Kristina, sorry about the delay.

I had made lots of successful deposits, and a few successful withdrawals too up until this point. My account was verified at the point of signing up, and then they did a spot-check selfie as well during my membership where I had to upload my ID and selfie again, which passed.

A large majority of my account balance (>90%) is comprised of my own cash, and cash winnings. The remainder could be winnings from bonuses, but most of my account activity was just bet returns.

I did a lot of sports betting, some blackjack betting, some slots play, and if they had a promo running on an unusual game I'd end up playing that too (video poker for example).

Scott

Thank you very much for your reply, sc9374824. Could you please forward all the relevant communication between you and the casino to kristina.s@casino.guru? Alternatively, you can post it here. Thank you in advance.

Hi Kristina

I've sent you the email chain that we've had, and copied their latest response below (about a month ago)

Hello Scott!

We appreciate your patience! With that being said, we are going to need secondary approval for the withdrawal due to the size of the request. We have highlighted this request to the payments team once again so they can draft the email for approval. Once we receive correspondence from upper-level management then the withdrawals will be approved and you will receive an email from us letting you know those have been approved.

As for your account status, we have an automated system that monitors accounts according to the terms of service, once it's flagged by that system the team analyzes why this is the case. Currently, the account has been escalated to the payments team for further review. Feel free to monitor your email for further updates in regards to your account.

If you have any questions or concerns, you may e-mail us back or reach out to us via live support or over on the phone!

Best Regards,

BetRivers Casino and Sportsbook

Thank you very much, sc9374824, 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 sc9374824 for providing us with all the information. I hope we'll be able to resolve this issue together.

I would now like to ask BetRivers Casino Ontario for their help in resolving this complaint. We would like to know why was the player's account frozen and what can we do to help resolve this issue.

Thank you!

We would like to ask the casino to reply to this complaint. We are extending the timer by 7 days. If the casino fails to respond in the set time frame, we will close the complaint as ‘unresolved’ which may negatively affect its rating.

I have tried to contact the casino repeatedly but had no success. I’m afraid there is not much that can be achieved without cooperation from its side. I will mark the complaint as "unresolved" in our system. I understand this isn't a satisfactory solution to your issue. However, the decrease in the rating caused by unresolved complaints might help to change the casino's approach. If the casino decides to react, we will reopen the complaint, and you will be notified by email. In the meantime, I recommend you contact the Ontario iGaming Authority (https://igamingontario.ca/en/player/player-support) and submit a complaint to them. The Gaming Authority has more options and tools to help players. Please let me know if you need help with submitting the complaint or how they responded if you can do it on your own (peter.c@casino.guru). I am sorry I could not be of more help on this occasion.

Best regards,

Peter