BitStarz Casino - Player’s account has been blocked.

Hi there,

i attempted to work this out woth bitstarz directly amd unable to resolve this. Im hoping you can please please help.

Per their Terms & Conditions:

3.7 It's forbidden for players from United States of America…. to play at BitStarz. This includes both FIAT and Cryptocurrencies.

Okay, so Ive been depsositing, playing, cashout since 2017, i was unaware of this at the time as there’s no geoblock in place, unlike most *repultable* casinos adhere to thier own terms.

I even uploaded my USA PASSPORT which was APPROVED by the casino, and i completed the profile page and was continued to deposot without any problems. how/why did they allow this to happen in the first place?

This appears to be a breach of their license terms— whens all of its sub-licensees adhere to its excluded territories rules. See their ruling on this below:

"Excluded territories: Under this license, apart from its own diligence and legalities, the license holder is not authorized to offer its services in the territories of USA… "

this means Bitstarz is not authorized to offer its services in the territories of USA..(and other listed excluded countries). Again, in my case, Bitstarz was fully aware I was located in the USA as I uploaded in my USA Passport in the "My Documents" section -- and it was APPROVED! I also completed "My profile".

Online casinos with United States restrictions in place, players are blocked before you can even load the loading page. Bitstarz does not have geoblocking set in place for USA players, so the lack of care to do is not only a questionable approach, in my case, a breach of terms on their end.  

It appears that their player registration process is intentionally structured in a manner that will result in players from illegal markets registering and playing with Bitstarz. The operator then appears to be engaging free rolling policies, where if these players lose, they turn a blind eye to the infractions, but if the player wins significantly they then point to their terms of use prohibiting players from that jurisdiction and void the win, or other reasons not to pay out .

I have found this operator's approach to responsible gambling to be what we consider to be lax, using ambiguous language, failing to hold to the standards they set and making sub-standard efforts to prevent further access to gaming services.

i also want to note that recently i was made aware of multiple account created.

per ther t&cs —

"3.1.2 You are allowed to have only one Member Account. Only one Account for each household is allowed. If you attempt to open more than one Member Account, all accounts you try to open may be blocked or closed and any bets may be voided. Also any returns, winnings or bonuses which you have gained or accrued during such time as the Duplicate Account was active will be forfeited by you and may be reclaimed by us, and you will return to us on demand any such funds which have been withdrawn from the Duplicate Account…. 

While i agree that winning should be confiscated and deposits voided, I want to point out that the casino is fully aware of creation of duplicate accounts, and they do in fact allow this, with the exception of playing the "bonuses". That said, you have the capacity to inform/stop/block multiple accounts/accounts created with the same IP, but this is not done. Also, When a multiple account is created from the same IP, the player gets notified only that you are not eligible to "get any deposit bonuses" . Again, it only mentions deposit "bonuses". There is zero no mention about any and all deposits/winnings will be voided/confiscated etc. In fact, the first thing we see here is actually a message instructing to verify a player's email despite someone already opened an account on your device/IP.  This goes to show Bitstarz has the ability to not only geoblock, but also prevent multiple account from being created. 

(Please see screenshot attached)

I feel ive been exploited from the get go, with bitstarz only applying their t&cs when its in their benefit. I should've never been allowed to deposit to begin with. I feel Bitstarz was aware of my location from the get go as Ip addresses and location is listed. Yet, they still allowed USA players to play with real money, without any warning,or attempt to block. Again. This is violating/breach of terms by not enforcing the terms occurring.

 To that end, I am requesting a refund of my deposits, minus and cash outs and fees, or at the least a partial refund for an amount that is fair PRIOR to duplicate account creation. OR ALL THE DEPOSITS RETURNED AFTER the account verified and winning, not just the last one, as it took more than that UP UNTIL THE LAST ONE to cashout. OR, id even accept if they just simply paid the most recent declined cashouts, and we can all move on from this. How this casino has such great reviews i dont understand, but i trust your judgement. In any case, can you please please help with this?

PS, disputed amount is approxi

Dear dearmonikam,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m very sorry to hear about your problem. Do I understand correctly that you have passed the KYC? Also, could you please provide more information regarding the duplicate accounts? Did you create another account? Or was it someone else using the same IP address/living in the same household?

Additionally, please, forward any relevant communication between you and the casino to kristina.s@casino.guru, or alternatively, post it here.

Thank you very much in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Kristina

Yes my usa passport approved, and yes there is a duplicate account. HOWEVER,

per their t&cntegasing this:

3.1.2 You are allowed to have only one Member Account. Only one Account for each household is allowed. If you attempt to open more than one Member Account, all accounts you try to open may be blocked or closed and any bets

To be transparent, yes duplicate created. I was under impression old account (this one where kyc approved was closed/dormant. Im the other account after depositing 50 times or more not once did i cashout. Then, when i tried my old account, i was surprised it was still open. I know i was successt (althought only twice out of many cashing out, but i thought at least i may have better luck with that account! And i FINALLY DID, not much, but better. After reading there "terms" and it came to light that non duplicates, i accept that. Now i know.

but what id like to know is

1. why do they allow deposits to be made to duplicate accounts to be made when they are fully aware its a dupe accounts will never allowed to be cashed out? They have the ability to determine this upon player signing up by ip address?
2. that said, they must then also be awarenof player location. Why do they allow for USA PLAYERS to deposit , play, and not cashout? A geoblock jas been implemented for UK? This is unfair/discrimination- and intent to defraud (or steal) USA players money.
3. does the casino take no responsibility or have any due dillegence? It appears they selectively apply certain terms at times if it benefits them.

again, referring back to there terms :

"Also any returns, winnings or bonuses which you have gained or accrued during such time as the Duplicate Account was active will be forfeited by you and may be reclaimed by us,

-I understand and agree to this

"and you will return to us on demand any such funds which have been withdrawn from the Duplicate Account."

also- NO PROBLEM HERE! Never cashout out once on duplicate account as i never won. I wish i did much earlier in, this way i wouldve save myself thousands had this been caught on early. Instead of continually,‘regularly depositing a lot of money.

" If you wish to open another account, you may do so by contacting the Manager at support@bitstarz.com. If a new account is opened, the old account will be closed. If you notice that you have more than one registered Member Account you must notify us immediately. Failure to do so may lead to your Member account being blocked for access."

again, my fault for not readinf this throuoghly. Can email them now? Hah! It wouldnt have made a difference. The other account closed. And not asking for any return amount on that one. I consider everything to be a loss.

but for this account. Id like ALL DEPOSITS PRIOR TO ANY DUPLICATE ACCOUNT TO BE RETURNED, or at least a fair amount (as i shouldnt have been allowed to register from the get go) in fact, if they put a simple geofence/ block in place LIKE MOST other good casinos, None of this (including creating dupe accounts) wouldve ever been an issue from the start. To be very clear, i feel bitstarz lack of transparency, unfairly applying their terms, and not sure if this is applicable, but id like to note that i self excluded / requested to close accounts in past. This but they email me soooo ofte! Ughd anyway, i apologize for the rant. Im just frsutrated with eberything and feel ive been knowingly taken advocating of for years here, taken for alot of money, while never having the ability tonmake ever actsully win anything back, this just bad business and they shuld at least take SOME responsibility as well. I slef EXCLUDED from dama nv affliatedncasino in the past (different casino, i requested 25% of my deposits back to he returned, as i thought that was fair and they agreed. Even though inof course took a loss, i appreciated the gesture, and regard them to be the best out there. NOT BITSTARZ. Support staff is rude, condescending, and disrespectful, discriminating.

Oh i did have multiple accounts at one point with a that other dama nv casino. But ive never profited on or cashout any bonuses. They still kindly provided a partial refund

this may be irrelevant, but i see that the caainos IP addess is listed : 104.28.26.98 so their located in California, USA?

Would you be so kind and clarify whether you claimed any bonuses with any of those accounts? Or did you only play with your own money?

ive never won, or cashed out anything from bonus. So always played with my money. Thank

dearmonikam, I apologize but I am a little confused by "ive never won, or cashed out anything from bonus."

Do I understand correctly that you have never won anything from the bonus play in other casinos, therefore, you've always played with your own real money in Bitstarz Casino, and you have never activated any bonuses here?

Regarding bitstarz, I cashed previously (a while ago) with them. Never cashed out as a result from playing a bonus. So i never "came up" via bonus

Let me know if this doesnt make sense. Thank you

Daniel

Social Media & Community Lead

12 HOURS AGO said

"I feel like if they let you register, play and even verify the documents, you should always have a chance to win when you deposit money on their website."

Agreeed!

Also, i didnt win anything ever from a no deposit bonus, never was i in any advatage. no advantages for me the player ever recieved from them. Period. I know for a fact they do ban certain countries and put block for those countries: Not for USA though! this is no lt okay! So their argument that they dont block because ppl will use vpn is garbage.

They do and can block countries, if they wanted to.

dearmonikam, we share our opinion on accepting players from restricted countries in our Fair Gambling Codex (https://casino.guru/fair-gambling-codex-for-casinos#restricted-countries):

"The right thing to do is to check for restricted countries during the account creation process, and to not allow players from restricted countries to register and play. If the casino knows about restricted countries and also knows the player's country of residence, it's not a big issue to enforce this rule.

If the casino allows a player from a restricted country to play because it hasn't implemented this check, it should accept that it was the casino's mistake and pay out all winnings to the player despite the fact that they shouldn't have been allowed to play in the first place, provided that the player hasn't done anything else that's against the rules."

This means that if the casino accepts players from restricted countries (by accident or not), they should pay the player's winnings out if there were any. In your initial message, you indicated, that you have made successful withdrawals. Therefore, if the casino didn't confiscate any of your winnings and didn't use your country as an excuse, there is nothing we can do for you and you are not entitled to any deposit refunds.

You also breached one of the main casino rules - you created multiple accounts and played with both of them. You confirmed that you are aware that this rule and agreed that the casino confiscated winnings obtained from duplicate accounts according to their T&Cs.

After reviewing the case again and gathering all the information, I am afraid there is not much more that can be done here.

You do realize that realize that multiple account was created from a restricted country. And it shouldnt have been allowed from the get go. As no bonus advantage was taken.

Also, they continued to be accept my deposits with no chance of ever being able to cash out. So let me understand this correctly, it’s okay for them knowingly accept deposits from a dupe account, from a restricted country. I’ve never cashed out Ever From any other account. I cashed out twice in 2017. Since then I have not . I was also not made aware that I wasn’t eligible to cashout until I had to ask them. I had requested a cashout and waited and waited for almost a day and then had to reach out to them to find out why my cashout was taking so long. In the meantime, i continued to make a few deposits. So if I didn’t ask, they would’ve just continued to have my deposit stay "pending"? When would they have finally let me know? This is super not cool. Also, the very end, after they said that my account was to be closed, without me asking or doing anything i received an email from them that I placed 9th ? Or something playing table wars? And they applied a prize to my account. My point is they apply rules at random,Willy nilly. So I’m out thousands of dollars of deposits that I would’ve never ever been allowed to cashout. I also read from others that play on bitstarz from USA that i should live just used a VPN. So in this case, if i just didn’t break the "right" terms and conditions?

the casino didn't confiscate any of your winnings and didn't use your country as an excuse, there is nothing we can do for you and you are not entitled to any deposit refunds

To be clear yes, they confiscated all my recent winnings. Again they last cashout was four 4 years ago. The account was dormant since 2018. Deposits made OCt 9 recently in 2021.

also, this is not jusy my winnings not being cashed out but the deposits I placed again I had i won more or a large amount, Im sure they would’ve used my country restriction as a reason. the amounts i , cashed out in 2017 early 2108 were both just a little over .05btc both times (which isn’t very much).I have no doubt in my mind had i won a substantial amount, they would’ve used my banned country against me.

also, for duplicate accounts can you clarify this:

.."Also any returns, winnings or bonuses which you have gained or accrued during such time as the Duplicate Account was active will be forfeited by you and may be reclaimed by usand you will return to us on demand any such funds which have been withdrawn from the Duplicate Account. If you wish to open another account, you may do so by contacting the Manager at support@bitstarz.com. If a new account is opened, the old account will be closed. If you notice that you have more than one registered Member Account you must notify us immediately. Failure to do so may lead to your Member account being blocked for access."

so if I had a won on a duplicate account and let’s say they would’ve cashed me out, I’d have to pay then back,correct? To be fair, shouldn’t they do the same and pay me back to my deposits

that I have no chance on ever winning with? This is the most unfair win win for the casino I’ve everbheard . If I was trying to claim a no deposit bonus cashout from a duplicate account thats one thing. But this is far from the case here.

also, please address why my USA PASSPORT WAS APPOROVED? Why didn’t they shut my account down instead of approving it right then and there? This goes against their master license holders terms on providing services to excluded country.

Not resolved just yet. Also, I’d like to request a copy of all transactions including recent interaction with support on chat regarding this.

please include IP addresses this issue way I can document this and forward it to the appropriate providers (gaming) and regulatory bodies accordingly.

I feel like you haven't read our article, so let me summarize it again for you. We do not claim that it is okay if the casino has a list of restricted countries and let players from those countries open accounts and accept their deposits. However, if this happens, the right thing to do according to us is to pay the player's winnings out (and ideally close the player's account), which the casino has clearly done in the past, and it has never used your country as an excuse to confiscate your winnings.

Your winnings have been confiscated due to having multiple active accounts, which is against the casino rules. The vast majority of casinos do not allow this. Most of them do not have software that could prevent players from creating duplicate accounts, and they are generally discovered during the account check at point of withdrawal. In this case, the casino proceeded correctly and in accordance with their T&Cs and you yourself agreed with this. Please, understand that from our standpoint, you are not entitled to any refunds.

Lastly, I am not sure what you are requesting in your last two messages, and why you are asking Casino.guru to provide this. Please, ask the casino for information regarding your account, as we as a third-party mediator, do not have access to it.

Unfortunately, after gathering all the necessary information we are forced to reject this complaint. If you do not agree with our decision, you can always try to contact the licensing authority and ask for help. Sorry we were not able to help you with this one, but please, do not hesitate to contact us in the future, if you run into any issues with this or any other casino and we will try our best to help.