Howzit Casino - Player’s verification is delayed.

I signed up at Howzit.com on March 4 and deposited 2000 NOK in Litecoin. Claimed the first welcome bonus, played, and ended up with around 50,000 NOK in winnings. Then verification started:

Passport and proof of address approved

Selfie approved

Proof of deposit approved

Source of funds – they asked where my money came from

I told them I won it in a private poker game. They asked for a PDF bank statement proving I withdrew from my bank to crypto. I sent a Revolut statement showing I withdrew 5 Litecoin, which they confirmed and approved.

I told them from the start money came from poker winnings.

Now they’re asking for proof that I won the money in that poker game. How am I supposed to prove that? It was a private game, not a casino tournament. 

Dear rekabt60,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint.

I’m sorry to hear about the difficulties you’re facing with your withdrawal verification at Howzit. I’d like to gather some additional information to better understand the situation and determine how we can proceed.

• Did the casino specify what kind of proof they expect for your poker winnings?
• Have they given you a deadline to provide this proof, or have they simply kept requesting additional documents without a clear response on what would be acceptable?
• Have they stated that your withdrawal is officially on hold or denied, or are they still reviewing your documents?

Your cooperation is crucial for us to advocate for you effectively. The more details we have, the stronger our position will be when reaching out to the casino. If you have any emails or chat transcripts related to these requests, you can forward them to [email protected] so we can review them.

I hope we will be able to help you resolve this issue as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we appreciate your patience after you reply and we investigate the issue.

Thank you in advance for your reply and cooperation.

Best regards,

Petronela

Hi,

1 In order to verify your account please provide us with the proof of winning from that private poker game as we need to verify the source of where these funds came in order to comply with our policies. 

2 No deadline

3 We would like to inform you that your withdrawal has been canceled and funds have been refunded back to your player wallet.

This is because you have not completed our KYC request in 48hrs.

Please go to the My Account > Verification section of your gaming account and upload the required document.

If you have any questions, please contact us via live chat or check out our Help Center -> My Account & Verification.

Hello again,

I was able to get ahold of one of the players from the private poker game.

He and i wrote together a piece of paper to verify my poker winnings.

He also sent copy of hes ID.

Howzit did not approve this paper.

I feel like i have done more then enough, they said from the start they need bank-statement to show proof of me buying crypto and i have given them that and its approved.

This is just not realistic what they are asking.

Also keep in mind i have only deposited like 170euro

This make zero sens

Hi rekabt60,

Thank you for your reply and for providing the updates on your situation.

I understand how frustrating this process must be, especially after providing the requested documents. To help clarify things further, could you let us know whether the winnings from that private poker game were deposited directly into your bank account by yourself, or was the money transferred by someone else?

Your response will be helpful in understanding the situation better and how we can assist you going forward.

Looking forward to your reply.

By someone else

Thank you very much, rekabt60, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague, Branislav ([email protected]), who will be at your assistance. I wish you the best of luck and hope your issue is resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.

Hello, rekabt60,

I am sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience and apologize for the delay. However, before I invite the casino representative to the thread, I would like to explain a few important things to you and ask you a few questions.

It is an industry standard for online casinos to conduct thorough Source of Funds (SOF) and Source of Wealth (SOW) checks in compliance with their regulatory obligations. In your case, the provided information indicates that your gambling activity was funded by winnings from a game of poker with your friends, which may be but may not be true, while I dare to claim that it is impossible to verify such a source of funds. There is basically nothing that you could provide to complete the KYC/verification and prove the source of funds in such a case, especially if those winnings (as you confirmed yourself) were deposited to your payment method by someone else. It is usual that some online casinos literally try to find such things in the players' bank statements and that the deposited funds originated from a 3rd party (someone else). Maybe if you deposited those funds yourself to your payment method, it could change the situation a bit. But unfortunately, under such circumstances, I would say that the only thing we can do here is to ask the casino if it is able and willing to refund at least your deposit back to your payment method. I cannot see any relevant way or option for how you could prove the source of funds.

As for some paper written down with your friend - I am really sorry, but it is really not an appropriate way to prove your winnings from a private poker game. I can find 10 colleagues now in my work who would be willing to confirm something like that for me. Like this, any player could make up such a story to withdraw their winnings without proving their source of the deposited funds, which would be completely against the industry standards and AML rules.

Alternatively, provided that the story about your source of funds is completely true, how do you please imagine further proceeding or proving the source of funds?

After the explanation above, is it please completely clear to you? Would you please agree with me contacting the casino only with the request for the refund of your deposit? Even if players play first with their real money and use bonus funds after it is spent, considering all the given circumstances, the casino could be able and willing to refund your deposit. If they have a justified reason to believe your source of funds cannot be sufficiently verified, they should not accept or take it.

Thank you. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Dear rekabt60,

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, we are forced to reject this case because the player has not responded to our messages and questions. Therefore, we are not able to proceed with a further investigation or suggest possible solutions.

The player can reopen this complaint anytime. However, although we would need the requested information, based on the gathered details, I am unsure how we could help the complainant.

Best regards,

Branislav, Casino.Guru

We’ve reopened this complaint as per the player’s request. We would like to give this case one more chance to get resolved and help both involved parties to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Player's reopen request:

Hey i was able to prove the Source Of Funds now however the casino removed all of my wiinings banned my account i was only able to withdraw my initial deposit!!!

PLEASE HELP!!!

Here is what they wrote:

Hi Rekan,

We are informing you that we have decided to close your account with us permanently.

Terms and Conditions:

8.1 We can refuse to open an account for any reason.

8.2 We can suspend or close your account for any breach or suspected breach of this Agreement or other valid reason. Upon closure of Your Account, the available balance in Your Account will be paid to you in a timely manner and no longer than 5 working days, unless there is a reason for such funds to be withheld.

Best regards

Dear Mikopapro1976,

Thank you very much for getting back to us.

Please note that this case will now be managed by me, as my colleague Branislav is no longer working with our team.

From what we can see, you had previously completed several verification steps, including passport, proof of address, and proof of deposit. At that time, the casino also requested proof of source of funds, and since we did not receive further information, the case was closed.

Now that you have asked for the case to be reopened, could you please confirm the following so we can proceed:

• Was your Source of Funds verification indeed approved by the casino?
• Which documents did you provide to verify the source of funds?
• Did the casino explain why your winnings were confiscated even after this verification was approved?

If you have any supporting communication or documentation from the casino, please upload it here or forward it to [email protected].

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Was your Source of Funds verification indeed approved by the casino?

Yes

Which documents did you provide to verify the source of funds?

The poker winnings was only one of several ways i had recived money to revolut. The one that was accepted was a bankwire transfer from my account on BUNQ to Revolut and from Revolut i withdraw to LTC wich was used to deposit on howzit.

Did the casino explain why your winnings were confiscated even after this verification was approved?

No, i had like 56,000NOK on howzit they just removed all my winnings i did not do anything wrong.

Thank you very much, rekabt60, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague, Kubo ([email protected]), who will be at your assistance. I wish you the best of luck and hope your issue is resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.

Dear rekabt60,

It’s a pleasure to e-meet you. My name is Kubo, and I’ll be handling your complaint moving forward.

If there have been any updates or new developments since your last message, please don’t hesitate to share them with me.

As part of our standard procedure, I would normally invite a representative from Howzit Casino to join this conversation. However, since they have not yet registered a representative account on our platform, they are currently unable to respond directly within this thread.

Additionally, since this is the first complaint we’ve received involving Howzit Casino and there is no prior history of their cooperation in resolving similar cases, it’s difficult to anticipate their level of engagement. That said, I have already reached out to their team through an alternative channel, providing the details of your case along with an invitation to join our platform as a representative and I’ll keep you updated here as soon as I receive any further information.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Best regards,

Kubo

They are a part of the  Novatech Solutions N.V they have seveal other sites wich seem to be connected to casino.guru so they should not be that hard to get ahold of?

Please get back to me if you hear anything!

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 rekabt60,

I have repeatedly tried to contact the casino but have had no success. Unfortunately, without cooperation from their side, there is little that can be achieved. 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 casino's rating caused by unresolved complaints could help change their approach. If the casino decides to respond, we will reopen the complaint and notify you by email.

Unfortunately, since the casino is regulated by the Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA) - also referred to as the Curaçao Gaming Control Board (GCB) - there is currently no formal process for handling individual player complaints. The CGA has publicly stated that it does not have the authority to mediate disputes or arbitrate between players and operators, and therefore cannot order compensation or provide binding resolutions.

However, the CGA has also acknowledged that player complaints are valuable in identifying potential breaches of licensing obligations. They are actively working on implementing measures to address such matters more effectively in the future. For this reason, it is still worth submitting your complaint through their official contact form or by sending an email to their address at [email protected].

Please make sure to include the name of the casino’s operator in your submission, as omitting this information may result in the complaint being disregarded.

You can find further guidance on submitting complaints to regulators on this link.

If you need help preparing your complaint or receive a response from the regulator, feel free to contact me at [email protected].

I'm truly sorry I couldn't offer a more favorable resolution in this case.

Best regards,

Kubo