Bonanza Game Casino - Player's winnings have been reduced.

I have been playing for a long time at the casino without any problems.

2023-05-03 I deposit 80 EUR with a bonus code for 20 spins without turnover requirements.

I play the first 20 spins and win 10.9 EUR.

The status of the bonus is "Finished" and the amount is transferred to my balance.

The 80 EUR must be converted 3 times before a payout can be made. While doing so, I am lucky enough to get a big win of over 1600 EUR. I won it while there was more than 40 EUR in the account.

I play through the 3 times 80 EUR and a little extra.

At that time there is 1600 EUR on the balance.

I make a payment of 1500 EUR and there is 100 EUR left on the balance.

Soon after, I see that there is only EUR 300 to pay out and EUR 0 on the balance.

I contact the chat and am told that you cannot withdraw more than 300 EUR from "NO WAGER free spins".

I am aware that the rules state that.

But the 1600 EUR was not won in "Free Spins". They are won under the play-through requirement of the 80 EUR. In "Free Spins" I only won the 10.9 EUR.

In the chat they maintain that I can only be paid 300 EUR.

I have received the 300 EUR.

But I ask that a complaint be forwarded to the manager.

They will do that.

But I haven't heard anyone since.

As I read the rules, I have the right to receive the full amount of my winnings.

The limit of EUR 300 must belong to the direct win in "Free Spins".

And the limit cannot be used after the winnings of "Free Spins" are transferred to the balance.

I hope you can help me get all my winnings.

With best regards

Erik

I have attached the chat - screenshot of deposit and bonus - and the rules

Dear Erik,

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 which bonus you activated? If possible, please post here a link or promo code you used to activate the bonus.

Do I understand correctly that you had to make a deposit in order to activate it?

Additionally, if there is any other relevant communication between you and the casino, please forward it 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

Dear Kristina

I activated 40 "No Wagering Free Spins" for the slot machine Dino PD

I wrote wrong in the first message. In my first message I wrote 20 spins.

I don't have the code and the link is no longer valid. It was a limited time bonus.

But here is the picture of the email in which the offer came.

To get the 40 spins I had to deposit a minimum of 80 EUR.

So that was the amount I paid.

After all, they write that you can pay out a maximum of EUR 300 if you have received "No Wagering Free Spins".

If they maintain that interpretation of the rules. Then I thought about what consequences it would have had if I had paid more money.

So it would mean that if I had, for example, chosen to deposit EUR 500 when I activated the bonus.

And I had transferred the deposit the 3 times, which is the requirement.

If I then had 500 EUR left and then I use my "Free Spins".

I might win 10 EUR in them.

Then I have EUR 510 in the account.

If I then want to withdraw the 510 EUR - Will they really remove 210 EUR from my account and only pay out 300 EUR?

That must be the consequence.

So if you deposit more than 300 EUR and activate a bonus with "No Wagering Free Spins" you are guaranteed to lose your money down to 300 EUR.

Thank you very much, Erik, for your cooperation. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Matej (matej@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 Erik,

I am sorry to hear about your troubles.

I would like to invite the casino representative into the case:

Dear casino representative, could you please check the case and explain to us what happened?

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 Gaming Curacao Authority (info@gaming-curacao.com) 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 (matej@casino.guru). I am sorry I could not be of more help on this occasion.

Best regards,

Matej

Hello Erik,

I would appreciate it if you could verify whether or not you have reached out to the casino's regulatory body. If you require any assistance with this matter, please let me know.

Thank you.

Hi Matej

Thank you very much for your help so far.

You are welcome to help me with the complaint to the gambling authority.

With best regards

Erik

Hello Erik.

All you need to do is write one more email:

Please write an email to: info@gaming-curacao.com

The complaint should be written in English language and formal.

The email should contain:

1) Your personal information:

name and surname

your country of residence

2) Complaint body must include:

casino name + URL + license ( BonanzaGame.com - website is owned and operated by WoT N.V. (License holder) reg. #129742 (Kaya Richard J. Beaujon Z/N, Curacao) under the Curacao Licence no. 365/JAZ Sub-Licence GLH-OCCHKTW0703102023)

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

description of the complaint

3) Attach to the email files what you have (if any) + link on this complaint.

Please let me know when you will submit a complaint to the regulator.

Dear ErikChristensen,

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.

Hello

I have sent my complaint today.

Sincerely

Erik

Thank you, Erik, for the confirmation.

I am closing this complaint now as "unresolved" with the status: Waiting for the regulator's decision.

Please reopen the complaint when you receive the final response from the regulator.

Dear ErikChristensen,
We hope you are doing well. We wanted you to provide an update regarding this case, which was previously marked as "Waiting for Regulator" on our website. Your complaint has now been automatically reopened, and we are eager to know if there have been any recent developments or resolutions since our last communication.
If the Licensing Authority has resolved your case and ruled in your favor, we kindly request you to update your complaint within the thread. Alternatively, if the ruling favored the casino, your input is equally valuable. We understand that some time has passed, but updating your complaint will allow us to take appropriate action, such as issuing black points to the casino in case the ruling is in your favor or warning other players and users about instances where the Authority supports the operator.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to reply.

Jeg har skrevet tilbage til dem. Men tvivler på at det ændrer noget. Casinoet har desuden lukket min konto uden at fortælle det til mig.

Her er det jeg skrev tilbage til tilsynsmyndigheden:

But it is not true that there is no wagering requirements.

The deposit of 80 euro has a wagering requirements of at least 3 times as stated in their terms. Before any withdrawal the deposit has to be wagered 3 times (clause 9.2 in the terms)

https://bonanzagame.com/terms

You can also see in the attached chat that I have been told that deposit must be wagered 3 times.

So my claim is that my big winning came from wagering my deposit.

It is not a result of using the free spins winning.

It makes no sense if I am not allowed to make a winning by the required wagering of the deposit.

If I had won 300 euro in the free spins. Then I still had to wager the deposit of 80 euro 3 times. But according to their interpretation of the terms I would not be allowed to withdraw more than 380 euro. The 300 from free spins and the initial deposit amount of 80 euro.

So I would have to wager the deposit but if I won more than the deposited amount all the winnings above 80 euro would be cancelled.

That cannot be a fair interpretation of the terms

Dear Bonanza Game Casino,

Please confirm that the winnings in question were obtained from a real money deposit, which the player wagered three times to make a withdrawal from a bonus.

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.

Dear ErikChristensen,

I apologize for the inconvenience, but it appears that the casino is not responding. Upon reviewing your situation, we believe that the casino has incorrectly applied a rule that should only be applicable to winnings from free spins, rather than winnings from deposited money that needed to be wagered 3 times. As a result, we have decided to close this case as unresolved, in the hopes that the casino representative will reopen and reevaluate this matter in the future. We regret that we are currently unable to assist you.

We’ve reopened this complaint at the request of Bonanza Game Casino.

Dear Bonanza Game Casino representative and ErikChristensen,

The reason for the delay in our decision was due to internal discussions regarding the benefits of this bonus for players.

After the casino representative contacted us and provided information regarding this case, we reevaluated the situation and made the following findings:

ErikChristensen utilized a deposit bonus with a clear set of rules. While he won small winnings from free spins later he managed to win during the wagering of his real money deposit, these funds were considered mixed funds at the time, and the bonus conditions still apply.

After careful consideration, we concluded that in this specific case, the bonus itself does not violate our fair gambling codex. This is based on the assumption that the player deposited €80 and limited his winnings to €300 with a 3x wagering requirement.

However, it is worth mentioning that this particular bonus may be unfavorable for players depositing larger amounts. For instance, if a player deposits €300, the maximum winnings from this bonus would only be 2x the deposit amount, and with higher amounts, this number could be close to 1x. In such cases, we believe this bonus could be seen as a trap for players, and we strongly recommend that the casino modifies the mechanics of the bonus to limit winnings based on the deposit amount (e.g., 3x the deposited amount).

Despite our concerns about the fairness of the bonus and the potential issues we discovered, we have decided to side with the casino in this case. ErikChristensen fulfilled the 3x wagering requirement and promptly withdrew his winnings from the bonus.

If the casino were to apply the win limit solely to the free spins, it would essentially mean that almost everybody would win something for free from this bonus. We believe that this bonus is aimed to increase the chances of winning or prolong the gameplay, albeit with a significant limitation on potential winnings. In other words, the bonus significantly alters the volatility of the gameplay.

Because the bonus conditions were clear when ErikChristensen activated this bonus, we decided in favor of the casino. However, in this particular case, I understand why he feels cheated, and it was not an easy decision to make for us either.

Thank you for your help. I would not have received an answer to my complaint without your help. In any case, the casino has not responded to direct inquiries.

But they obviously don't like people complaining in public.

During the process, they closed my account without telling me.

But I didn't intend to play with them anymore either.

Dear ErikChristensen,

I acknowledge your frustration and hope you find a suitable casino. We have conveyed our concerns to the casino about this bonus, and I hope the wagering requirements will be revised in the future to be less confusing. Due to the reasons mentioned above, I will now consider this case closed as rejected.