What can a player do when the casino, ADR providers, regulator and game provider do not respond? (page 2)

Thank you, Radka. Your description of this as a "rather brutal user case" is unfortunately becoming more accurate the longer this continues.

I am still trying very hard to remain calm and factual, because I know that simply becoming angry and accusing everybody will not get me anywhere. But I also want to be honest about how I personally see the situation now.

Based on everything I have preserved — screenshots, balances, transaction records, bonus information, withdrawal requests, verification records, emails and the changing explanations I have received — I personally have virtually no doubt anymore that these confiscations were unjustified.

I fully understand that this is my personal conclusion and not an independent legal judgment. That distinction is important to me.

But what makes the situation especially difficult for me to accept is that this has now happened at two different casinos.

With Buff Bets, €4,140 was confiscated after serious allegations were made regarding my gameplay. Casino Guru subsequently requested supporting evidence and eventually closed the complaint as:

"Unresolved – Insufficient Evidence from Casino."

With Blindluck, substantial winnings have now been confiscated from me twice, for different stated reasons, while I am still unable to obtain the actual underlying evidence needed to independently challenge those decisions.

And coincidentally, both disputes have involved operators connected, according to the information and public records I have been dealing with, to the same Anjouan licensing/regulatory framework.

I want to be very careful with that statement. I am not claiming that Buff Bets and Blindluck are secretly the same company, nor am I saying that Anjouan itself caused the confiscations. I cannot prove anything like that.

What I am saying is that I have experienced serious unresolved confiscation disputes at two separate casinos operating within the same offshore regulatory environment, and when I try to use the supposed protection mechanisms surrounding that environment, I reach almost complete silence.

I have contacted practically every contact point I could identify.

I contacted the casinos themselves repeatedly. I contacted licensing and regulatory addresses. I contacted approved ADR providers. I contacted Casino Guru. I contacted the relevant game-related parties.

iGamingADR at least answered me and explicitly confirmed that it is not appointed for either operator.

But I still have no ADR provider actually handling either dispute, no meaningful regulatory intervention, and no independent body that has looked at the complete evidence and said either:

"Gino, the casino is right and here is why,"

or:

"The casino has not substantiated this confiscation."

That is ultimately all I have been asking for.

What also bothers me considerably is the role of the game provider.

The significant winnings involved in both casino disputes were won on Pragmatic Play games.

Again, I want to be absolutely clear: I am not accusing Pragmatic Play of manipulating its games, because I have no evidence of that.

But when casinos make extremely serious allegations involving gameplay, manipulation, fraudulent activity, software-assisted play or other irregularities, I would expect the actual provider of the game to at least be able to confirm whether the relevant game rounds were technically valid, whether any anomaly was detected, and whether the casino ever contacted them regarding those rounds.

I have contacted Pragmatic Play about these matters more than once, including concerning both disputes, and I still have not received a substantive response that helps establish what actually happened.

From a player's perspective, that creates an almost impossible situation.

A casino can effectively say:

"There was something wrong with your gameplay, therefore we are confiscating thousands of euros."

But when I approach the company that actually supplied the game and might possess technical information capable of confirming or contradicting such allegations, I receive no meaningful assistance either.

I am not saying Pragmatic Play is responsible for the confiscations. My point is that when alleged irregularities involving third-party games are used to justify withholding significant winnings, complete silence from the game provider makes independent verification even harder.

And this is the part that genuinely makes me angry underneath all the careful wording.

A player can apparently save every screenshot, preserve every email, cooperate with verification, submit formal complaints, request evidence, contact the casino, contact the regulator, contact ADR providers, contact the game provider and remain polite throughout the entire process — and still end up with thousands of euros confiscated while nobody with actual authority appears willing to examine all of the evidence.

In my opinion, if that is how the system functions in practice, players can be treated extremely unfairly with very little meaningful protection.

I am deliberately trying to remain calm because I want results rather than arguments. But calm wording should not be confused with thinking that this situation is acceptable.

With Buff Bets, I have now also started approaching the issue from another direction.

Trustpilot has formally opened a case following my wider report concerning BuffBets. They informed me that they will review the information supplied, their internal data, public sources and potentially similar reports. They also explained that if they independently determine that the business is a "bad fit for Trustpilot," they can remove it from their platform, place alerts or take other measures.

I am not asking Trustpilot to decide whether Buff Bets legally owes me €4,140. That is obviously not their role.

My objective there is different now.

If a casino benefits from a public reputation platform which consumers use when deciding whether they can trust that casino, then I believe that platform should independently investigate serious, documented concerns when they are brought to its attention.

If Trustpilot investigates and concludes there is no basis for action, then I will have to accept that outcome.

But if their own investigation identifies serious problems and they take action against the BuffBets profile, then at least one independent organisation will finally have examined something rather than simply ignoring it.

I think that is what has changed for me during these months.

Of course I still want the money itself properly reviewed. We are talking about substantial amounts.

But I increasingly also want an answer to a much broader question:

How can a player follow virtually every complaint and escalation route available to him, preserve extensive evidence, contact almost everybody involved, and still be unable to find one independent organisation that actually takes responsibility for examining the dispute?

Because at the moment, that is the part I find most disturbing.

I will continue keeping every screenshot, email and response. At this stage, those records seem to be the most reliable part of the entire process.

Wow. I have to say, reading all of this, I now really understand much better what you meant by the feeling of being powerless.😔

On the AOFA website, the system actually sounds quite reassuring for a player. It says that licensed operators must participate in ADR, that there are approved independent ADR providers, and that an unresolved complaint can be escalated to ADR. AOFA also says that it monitors whether operators comply with their complaints and dispute-resolution obligations.

But then you look at your actual experience and the picture is very different.

You are trying to find out which ADR provider you can actually use, but the operator does not tell you. You contact one of the approved providers and they tell you they are not appointed for the operator. The operator then gives you a completely different explanation about mandatory ADR.

And now you are even having to question whether the operator is actually operating under the licence at all, while the public register apparently still shows the company and the domain as licensed.

That is not something I think a player should have to figure out by himself.

And I found one more thing on the AOFA website which, honestly, I find quite important in this context.

AOFA has a separate "Compliance Reporting" process. It says that players or other third parties can report things such as failure to maintain a compliant complaints process, failure to observe dispute-resolution requirements, refusal to participate in ADR where required, and even misrepresentation of licensing status. So some of the exact things you are describing can apparently be reported to the Authority.

But then there is this:

AOFA also says that it is not obligated to disclose the outcome of its review or any action taken in response to the report.

And honestly... this is the part where I really understand your frustration.

Because it means that even if you report a possible regulatory problem, that still does not necessarily give you an answer to your actual dispute. AOFA explicitly says that it does not handle, mediate or adjudicate individual player complaints. Its role is regulatory oversight.

So, looking at the whole thing together, the system seems to be something like this:

On paper:

Casino → internal complaint → independent ADR → decision on the dispute.

And if the casino is not following the rules:

Player → regulatory report → AOFA checks compliance.

But in your real case:

Casino → final decision.

Player → "Which ADR provider?"

Casino → no clear answer.

Player → ADR provider → "We are not appointed."

Player → AOFA → "We don't decide individual disputes."

Player → regulatory report → AOFA may review it, but does not have to tell the player what it found or what action it took.

And that is where I think the whole thing becomes rather brutal for the player.

I am not saying that AOFA does nothing. They clearly have a regulatory/enforcement role. But that is very different from giving a player an effective way to have his individual dispute independently reviewed.

And I think this is exactly what you have discovered through your own case. The website describes the system in a way that makes it look quite clear and reassuring. The problem appears when one part of the system does not cooperate with another part.

If the casino simply tells you which ADR provider is responsible, you can go to ADR.

If the casino does not tell you, you need some way to establish it.

If the casino also tells you that it is not operating under the licence, while the public register says something different, you need some way to establish which regulatory framework actually applies.

And if you report that problem to the regulator, you may not even be told what the regulator decided about it.

So yes... I completely understand now why you keep saying that you feel there is nowhere to go.

Honestly, I have to admire your patience even more after reading this update. I would probably have lost my mind somewhere around the third contradictory explanation.

I really hope that at least one of the organizations you have contacted finally gives you a concrete answer. Not necessarily the answer you want, just an answer based on the actual facts and evidence.

So far, though, it has been pure insanity, If you ask me.

Thank you again, Radka. I wanted to give you a short but important update, because there has finally been some progress — at least regarding Blindluck.

Blindluck

After all the previous attempts, I have finally managed to identify the ADR provider that is actually responsible for Blindluck.

I have now formally submitted my complaint to that ADR provider, and the complaint is currently being handled.

For me, this is already an important development. I am obviously not saying that the ADR will decide in my favour. I do not know what their conclusion will be.

But that is exactly what I have been asking for from the beginning: access to an independent party that can actually examine the dispute and the evidence from both sides.

So, fortunately, the situation with Blindluck has now changed. There is finally an ADR process underway.

BuffBets

BuffBets is now the only case where I am still completely stuck.

And strangely enough, what I need at this point is actually extremely simple.

I do not need AOFA/Anjouan to decide that BuffBets owes me €4,140.

I do not need EGIS to decide whether I am right.

I do not need anybody to take my side.

I literally only need one piece of information:

What is the name of the ADR provider appointed for BuffBets?

That is all.

If somebody can simply give me the name of the ADR company responsible for BuffBets, I can submit the complete complaint myself and allow that independent ADR provider to decide the dispute.

I have already contacted iGamingADR, and they have confirmed that they are not appointed for BuffBets.

I have contacted the other relevant ADR/regulatory channels as well, but I still have not been able to obtain a clear answer identifying the ADR provider responsible for BuffBets.

This is what makes the situation so difficult to understand.

If an Anjouan-licensed operator is required to participate in an approved ADR mechanism, identifying that operator's ADR provider should surely be one of the easiest questions in the entire process.

I should not have to investigate companies, contact every ADR provider individually, repeatedly email regulatory/licensing organisations and search through regulatory websites simply to discover where I am allowed to submit a complaint.

At this stage I am not even asking anyone to investigate the €4,140 yet.

Just tell me which ADR provider handles BuffBets.

Give me that one name and I will do the rest myself.

The separate Trustpilot investigation concerning BuffBets that I mentioned previously is also still ongoing, and I will of course update this thread if anything comes from that.

But as far as the actual €4,140 dispute is concerned, the situation is now very clear:

Blindluck: ADR found, complaint submitted and currently ongoing.

BuffBets: still no identifiable ADR provider.

So right now, the only thing I really need to move the BuffBets case forward is the name of their ADR provider.

After everything that has happened, it is almost unbelievable that such a simple piece of information remains the biggest obstacle.

Oh, this is actually really good news! I am genuinely happy for you!

At least with Blindluck, you have finally managed to get to the point where someone independent can actually look at the case. And I think that is a big difference. Whatever the ADR decides, at least you will finally have someone looking at the evidence and making a decision based on it.

And honestly, I think this also shows that you were right to keep pushing for the ADR information. Once you finally found the correct provider, the whole process could actually move forward.

BuffBets is still a bit crazy, though. After everything you have already done, the fact that the only thing standing between you and the ADR process is simply the name of the appointed provider is almost absurd...

And I completely understand your point that you are not asking anyone to decide the €4,140 dispute for you. You are not asking AOFA, EGIS or anyone else to take your side. You just need to know where the complaint can actually be submitted.

So I really hope somebody finally gives you that one missing piece of information.

For now, though, I would definitely take the Blindluck development as a win. After all the back and forth, you finally got the case in front of an independent ADR provider. That's something!

And please keep me updated on what the ADR says. I will be genuinely interested to see how they approach the case and, most importantly, what they make of the evidence.

Thank you, Radka. And yes, I completely agree with you!

For the first time in quite a while, I actually feel that there are at least a few positive developments.

I am very glad that there finally seems to be a route through an ADR provider, because that is exactly what I have been asking for all along: not for someone to automatically agree with me, but simply for an independent party to look at the actual evidence and decide whether the casino's actions were justified.

If an independent ADR body reviews everything and concludes that the casino is right, then at least I will finally have a decision based on an actual review of the facts. But if the casino cannot substantiate its accusations, then that should also become clear.

After everything that has happened, simply reaching an independent ADR process already feels like progress.

There is also another development regarding Buff Bets which I think is quite important.

I submitted a whistleblower report to Trustpilot, together with information and evidence concerning Buff Bets, and Trustpilot has now confirmed that they are going to review the information I provided and investigate the business.

Of course, Trustpilot is not a gambling regulator and they cannot decide whether Buff Bets owes me the €4,140. I fully understand that.

But what I do find encouraging is that they are at least willing to independently investigate what I have reported instead of simply ignoring it.

They explained that they will review the evidence I submitted, information from their internal systems, public sources and potentially similar reports from other Trustpilot users. If they confirm serious violations of their guidelines, they can take action against the business on their platform.

Considering how many organisations I have contacted over the past months without receiving any meaningful response, simply hearing "we will investigate this" is already good news to me.

And I think your explanation really describes the problem perfectly.

On paper, the system looks reasonable:

casino → complaint → ADR → independent decision.

But when the casino does not cooperate or does not clearly identify the ADR provider, suddenly the player has to become an investigator himself just to find the organisation that is supposed to protect him.

That is exactly what has made this entire situation so exhausting.

Hopefully, things are finally starting to move now.

If the ADR provider actually reviews the dispute and Trustpilot independently investigates Buff Bets at the same time, then for the first time since this started I may finally have independent organisations actually looking at the evidence instead of me constantly sending emails into silence.

I am definitely not celebrating yet, because I have learned over the past months not to assume anything until something actually happens.

But yes — this is finally some genuinely positive news.

BTW i sended a message towards Trustpilot with Buff bets in CC so they know there is a investigation against them and also as proof towards Trustpilot that they ignore me on every message.

Hey! I am glad that you finally got a response from Trustpilot, especially because they did not simply close your report but said they will actually review the information you provided. So I can understand why you see this as positive news.

I would just repeat one thing from our earlier discussion, because I think it is important here not to expect something from Trustpilot that they are not actually offering.

When they say they will "investigate the business", I understand this as an investigation from Trustpilot's own perspective, focused on whether Buff Bets is complying with Trustpilot's rules and whether there is a reason for them to take action against the business/profile on their platform.

They are not investigating your €4,140 dispute, they are not deciding whether the confiscation was justified, and they are not acting as a gambling regulator or ADR provider. Their own message actually says this quite clearly: "Trustpilot isn't a regulatory body."

So I would still see this as a completely separate track from the actual casino dispute.

That said, I don't want to minimise it either. If they look at the information you provided, compare it with their own internal data and other reports, and then decide that Buff Bets is not a suitable business for their platform or that some action should be taken against its profile, that is still a meaningful result within Trustpilot's role.

But the part that still bothers me much more is the other one we have been discussing: the actual dispute-resolution mechanism. Because Trustpilot can potentially decide what happens to a business on Trustpilot, but they cannot give you the thing you actually need — an independent decision on whether the €4,140 confiscation was justified.

And this is why I still think your experience with AOFA/ADR is the much more important part of the story. On paper, there is supposed to be a clear route for a player: complaint with the casino → ADR → independent review. In practice, you had to spend an enormous amount of time just finding out who the relevant ADR provider was, and with Buff Bets you still haven't been able to establish it.

So, I would personally not consider the Trustpilot response as a positive development affecting the money involved. I just wouldn't mix the two things together. Trustpilot may investigate Buff Bets' presence and conduct on its own platform; ADR is the place that should actually examine your dispute.

(At most, I would expect something similar to what we sometimes see there: a warning or a note on the company's profile saying that there has been a breach of the platform's guidelines, for example because of fake or otherwise problematic reviews. That may be useful information for other consumers, but it does not actually resolve your dispute or get your €4,140 any closer to you.

And actually, this is one of the reasons why I personally have less and less confidence in user reviews as a reliable way of judging a company. Once you get to the point where nobody can really establish which reviews are genuine and which are not, the review score itself loses a lot of its value for me.

So I would definitely keep the Trustpilot investigation as a separate thing. If they find something and put a warning on the profile, that's useful information. But for your actual case, I would still put my hopes much more into the ADR process, because that is the part that can actually look at the dispute and the evidence behind the confiscation.)

Thank you, Radka. I also wanted to clarify why I have now involved Trustpilot, because I don't want it to sound as if I expect Trustpilot to recover my money. I absolutely don't.

I fully understand that Trustpilot is not an ADR provider, regulator or court and cannot order BuffBets to pay my winnings.

My reason for reporting the situation to Trustpilot is different. BuffBets clearly considers its public reputation important, and positive reviews create trust among potential new players. If Trustpilot independently investigates the information I have provided and ultimately concludes that there are serious issues with the business, resulting in a warning, restrictions or even removal from their platform, that could have a much greater impact on BuffBets than another unanswered email from me.

I have therefore given Trustpilot the wider picture: my unresolved withdrawal dispute, my repeated requests for the evidence supporting the accusations against me, the contradictory information surrounding KYCaid, my unsuccessful attempts to get assistance from the Anjouan licensing side, the fact that I still cannot identify the ADR provider responsible for BuffBets disputes, and the fact that BuffBets itself is now barely responding to my emails and messages.

I am not asking Trustpilot to simply believe my version of events or punish BuffBets because I have a dispute with them. I actually want Trustpilot to investigate the situation independently. If they investigate everything and conclude that BuffBets has not violated their standards, then I will accept that. But if their own investigation identifies serious problems, then at least there may finally be some consequence for the way this situation is being handled.

There is actually one more thing I would like to ask you, Radka.

I completely understand if this is outside what Casino Guru can normally do, and I am certainly not demanding it, but would it perhaps be possible for Casino Guru to contact BuffBets and ask them just one simple question:

Which independent ADR provider is officially responsible for handling disputes involving BuffBets players, and what are the contact details/procedure for submitting a case to them?

I have tried to obtain this information myself and I simply cannot get a clear answer. I have contacted the Anjouan licensing side around five times over the past months without receiving a meaningful response. I have tried to identify the appropriate ADR myself, contacted organisations that I thought might be responsible, and BuffBets is now also barely responding to me.

Since BuffBets is listed on Casino Guru and Casino Guru already has experience communicating directly with casinos during complaint procedures, I thought there might be a much better chance that BuffBets would answer such a straightforward question if it came from Casino Guru.

I am not asking Casino Guru to fight the case for me or somehow force BuffBets to pay. I am simply asking whether you could help me identify the independent dispute-resolution body that I am supposed to have access to as a player.

To be completely honest, I am reaching the point where I genuinely don't know who else I can contact. Every route seems to end with another unanswered email or another organisation telling me that it is not responsible. Meanwhile, the disputed winnings remain with BuffBets, I still have not received the evidence I have repeatedly requested, and I still cannot find an independent body where I can properly challenge their decision.

That is also why I keep pursuing this. I don't want to threaten anyone or make accusations that I cannot prove. I simply want the decision regarding my winnings to be independently reviewed, I want to see the evidence on which BuffBets bases its accusations, and I want access to the ADR procedure that should exist for disputes like this.

So if Casino Guru could simply contact BuffBets and ask for the name and contact details of their ADR provider, that alone would already help me enormously.

If this is something Casino Guru cannot do, I completely understand. I just thought it was worth asking because at this point I am trying every legitimate avenue available to me to get an independent review and hopefully finally get some movement in this case.

Thank you for explaining the Trustpilot part. I understand your reasoning, it's another yet separate route from the actual dispute.

Regarding your question about BuffBets and the ADR provider, I honestly don't want to give you false hope here. I personally don't have access to some internal list showing which ADR provider is appointed for each casino, and I cannot simply arrange for my colleagues to investigate this particular point for you.

If Casino Guru had reliable information about the ADR provider appointed by BuffBets, I would certainly expect this to be useful information for a player, especially when a complaint is closed and the player needs to know where they can take the dispute further. But in this case, I don't have that information myself, and I don't want to tell you that I can get it when I cannot.

I also don't think it would be fair to pretend that Casino Guru can somehow act as a regulator or force the casino to disclose something that the casino itself has so far refused to clarify.

What I can say is that I completely understand why you are asking. After everything you have already tried, this really is a very simple question: who is the ADR provider for BuffBets? It is quite frustrating that you have had to spend so much time trying to find an answer to something that should be straightforward.

And honestly, if you do manage to get a clear answer from BuffBets, Anjouan or one of the ADR providers, I would really appreciate it if you shared it with me too. Not only because of your case, but also because I would genuinely like to understand how this is supposed to work in practice.

At this point, I think you have already done more than enough from your side. I really hope the Blindluck ADR gives you a proper independent review and that the BuffBets side finally gives you at least this one missing piece of information.

Guess what...

Buffbets contacted me about the case haha

😁Holding my breath!

I asked Gemini who the ADR was this is what I got. It appears they dont have a official ADR

Blindluck got a a ADR , at this moment they investigate the casino about my case:

They oporate under a different name '' Green Champions Leader SRL'' but for Buff bets it's still unknown what their ADR is.

Can I ask a question in regards to this case? So I also since filled a claim with CADRE about Blindluck , my case almost mirrors yours. Had £6625 confiscated and given 4 apparent terms that I had breached but not the exact apparent one. Have you had an update from anyone ? I have only just submitted so I have to give them appropriate time to respond but intrigued to know if there is any positive outcomes anywhere. Thank you

Hello, the others might not notify post without the reply or quote feature being used. I just wanted to say that you can use both parts to contact a specific player on the forum. 🙏

Hi how would I contact the above player ? Thank you

Hi, sure: please use one of those two options attached to the post made by the player you want to contact.

Then the window for a direct reply or quote will pop up.

Can I ask a question in regards to this case? So I also since filled a claim with CADRE about Blindluck , my case almost mirrors yours. Had £6625 confiscated and given 4 apparent terms that I had breached but not the exact apparent one. Have you had an update from anyone ?