Galactic Wins Casino - Player's winnings have been capped.

I have a problem with the casino Galaxyno.

At the casino Galaxyno, I have deposited 30.12.2022 time 01.46 100 € (and before this a lot more). After this, I have played the wager-free freespins, after which my balance have been 147,70 €, so I have won a bonus saldo of 47,70 €. After this, I have played until time 02.39, betting multiple times the amount 47,70 € and growing my saldo to 1 310,10 €, and asked for a withdwaral for this; I asked the withdwaral for an amount of 1 290,00 €, as I still apeeared to have a bonus saldo of about 20 €, even though it was supposed to be wager-free. Taking into account the terms of the casino for this bonus (i.e., Winnings from the spins are added to your account as bonus funds ("free spins winnings bonus"). These bonus funds are given for wagering purposes only and will be removed from your account balance when you request a withdrawal; Free Spins have no wagering requirements; The maximum cash-out for free spins winnings bonus is €100. But in stead of 1 290,00 € or 1 310,10 €, I got a withdrawal a total of 200 €. But I have not withdrwan the free spins winning bonus, I have won with my own deposit and the wagered (which was need not to be wagered 47,70 €). This can not be right. With this logic, let's say, I make a deposit of 5 000 €, then do the "wager-free" free spins and win 0,10 € from the free spins. Then I carry on playing for, let's say, six days, and win 200 000 €. Am I then allowed to withdraw only 100 € and the rest is vanished? This is a scam and planned misleading of a customer. You can find multiple similar compalaints about the Galaxyno casino. The casino is well aware of the situation that they on purpose try to mislead their customers with this "max clause" and they still haven't done anything to correct this. This is known to be a repeated misundertanding between the casino and their customers, happens daily or even hourly, but they continue to not do anything about this misundertanding? And in fact, they have received repeated claims on this matter, even just today.

Dear Christiina,

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. Do I understand correctly that you have already received €200 out of your total winnings and the rest was confiscated?

Have you tried contacting the casino regarding this issue? 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 very much in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Kristina

Yes, I have contacted the casino and received the amount of 200 €. This is the response I have received:

"In regards to your withdrawal, you have played with a bonus, free spins, that while they had no wager, had a maximum winnings rule attached. 

As such, we have paid out an amount of EUR200 - the maximum winnings allowed + the amount of your original deposit. 

All bonus that are added to your account have a T&C's link attached. We encourage you to read them at every opportnity."

I strongly think that the casino is intentonally trying to mislead customers with these "wager-free" bonuses. First of all, I made my winnings in other games, not in the free spins.

Thank you very much, Christiina, 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.  

Thak you so much Kristina!

This is my summary of what has been wrong, to my understanding, about the bonus/withdrawal (I have sent this to the casino Galaxino as well, but have not received a response):

I don’t see that the terms below are correct or adequate related to the casino's actions:

1.    These bonus funds are given for wagering purposes only and will be removed from your account balance when you request a withdrawal.

2.    Free Spins have no wagering requirements.

3.    The maximum cash-out for free spins winnings bonus is €100.

If the bonus funds are given for wagering purposes only, and the free spins have no wagering requirements, what is there to be wagered?

It is clearly said in the terms, that the bonus funds will be removed from your account balance when you request a withdrawal. My bonus funds (20 €) were not removed, all my other funds were removed.

And why was my bonus 20 € at this time, as it was originally 47,70 €, and wager-free?

The maximum cash-out for free spins winnings bonus is said to be €100. That’s fine, but my free spins winnings were only 47,70 €. But I made other winnings from other games for an amount of 1 262.4 €. This is certainly not mentioned in the terms, that if you do the free spins and win whatever, whenever, afterwards, you get nothing. This is illegal and a total scam!

Hello Christiina,

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?

Hello Matej and Christiina,

We have looked into the matter and found that the player has played and won from both a deposit she had made and free spins she claimed from us.

In this case, due to her use of free spins, the player was subject to a maximum winnings rules. The rule states the following:

The maximum cash-out for free spins winnings bonus is €100, unless stated otherwise.

You can take a look at the T&C's here:

https://www.galaxyno.com/en/promotions/clash-of-the-zero-wager-spins#tnc

Each time a player claims a bonus with us, they are shows our T&C's and are informed that they are subject to them - at which point, they can choose weather to claim the bonus or not.

It is standard practice in the industry, that when bonuses are given, may they be a deposit bonus or a free bonus, they come with certain rules attached.

Due to this, the player was entiteld to claim a withdrawal so a maximum of EUR100 + her deposit amount (another EUR100) and that is what was paid out to her.

Regards,

Galaxyno Casino Representative

I have to strongly disagree with your statement that "It is standard practice in the industry, that when bonuses are given, may they be a deposit bonus or a free bonus, they come with certain rules attached". Yes, they sure come with certain rules attached, but your rules mentioned regarding these wager-free bonuses are not clearly, fairly, or adequately discribed, as even after reading the rules, this was the first time EVER I have misunderstood bonus terms on any casino, and I have played on dozens of casinos, and by googling you find many players complaining about these same wager-free bonuses. If many understand them wrongly, and have reported your casino of this, wouldn't it be a clear message, that the terms should be rewritten more clearly? Or is your revenue strategy to mislead players with bonus terms, rather than keeping one player playing at your casino more than once..?

Even now, after reading your terms below MANY times, to me the terms are not correct or adequate related to your casino's actions:

1.    These bonus funds are given for wagering purposes only and will be removed from your account balance when you request a withdrawal.

2.    Free Spins have no wagering requirements.

3.    The maximum cash-out for free spins winnings bonus is €100.

If the bonus funds are given for wagering purposes only, and the free spins have no wagering requirements, what is there to be wagered?

It is clearly said in the terms, that the bonus funds will be removed from your account balance when you request a withdrawal. My bonus funds (20 €) were not removed, all my other funds were removed.

And why was my bonus 20 € at the time of the withdrawal, as it was originally 47,70 €, and wager-free?

The maximum cash-out for free spins winnings bonus is said to be €100. That’s fine, but my free spins winnings were only 47,70 €. But I made other winnings from other games for an amount of 1 262.4 €. This is certainly not mentioned in the terms, that if you do the free spins and win whatever, e.g., 0.10 €, then, afterwards, whenever you decide to request for a withdrawal, you get basically nothing (well, your last deposit + max 100 €, even if you have won, let's say, 200 000 € after the spins). Is this clearly described in your terms? It sure ain't!!

Christiina

Hello Christiina and Galaxy Casino representative.

In this case, what happened with your balance after you played your wager-free spins is very important.

Your balance had €47,7 bonus part of the balance + €100 real balance.

In most casinos, the real money is used first - so if the mechanics is here same:

If your balance didn't drop below €47,7, you played all the time with real money, and you should be paid.

However, the bonus money was used if your balance dropped below €47,7. In that case, the casino is right.

Dear casino representative, could you please explain how your bonus mechanics works and provide me with Christina's game log? (matej@casino.guru)

Dear Matej and Galaxyno Casino representative,

Thank you Matej for your careful comments. My balance never went below the bonus part, I have my balance history right here, I tried to attach the history document to this mail, but was not able to do so, so I'll send it to you Matej right after. For once, the balance went to 48.35 € at the lowest, never below 47,70 €. And this is exactly what I am trying to do here: with clear and honest terms, where each part understands what he/she is doing, it is okey to lose money, if one is willing to take the risk, even a big risk; but for a casino, to try to make profit by misleading the customer on purpose, that is unacceptable. Here, with this casino (Galaxyno), cents seem to turn into possible thousands of euros, but only for the benefit of the casino, never the player.

Hello Matej and Christiina,

First and foremost, we would like to point out that we have never tried to mislead any player.

Our T&C's are available for all to see, read and inquire about.

Therefore, should a player decide to play with us, we are under the impression that he/she agreed to them - we have no cause to think otherwise.

Each and every player who claims a bonus trough our promotions page, as was done here, can see our T&C's link there and we encourage all players to read them before claiming and playing with our bonuses.

T&C's attached to bonuses are an industry standard and each establishment can choose the rules they prefer, within the regulation.

In our case, there is no separation between Bonus Balance and Deposit Balance. Once a player claims a deposit bonus, the balances are mixed and the maximum rule the bonus has, applies to both the deposit and the bonus, once the player has started playing.

I hope this helps clear things up.

Regards,

Galaxyno Casino Representative

Dear Galaxyno Casino Representative.

Based on your last comment: Does it means that after Christiina deposited €100 and took a bonus, she could win a maximum of €100? Because who would take such a "bonus"?

Hello Matej and Christiina,

Our bonuses and their limitations are written quite clearly on the site.

Any player can choose to take a bonus.

Should they choose to claim one, they are limited by the withdrawal limitations on the bonus.

As such, in this case, the player chose this bonus, which shows the maximum withdrawal clearly.

Due to this, the player confirmed she understands and agrees to the conditions of this bonus. Especially considering she played with us for over a year now, claiming numerous promotions and withdrawals.

Why a player would choose a certain bonus over another? Most of our players are looking to play and enjoy our games and as such chose the promotional offers that allow them to have the most game time. We encourage all players to make the choices that are best to them.

However, should they choose to use our promotions, they are subject to the rules attached to them.

Regards,

Galaxyno Casino Representative

Oh come on, Galaxyno representative, this is getting more and more ridiculous. My account at Galaxyno has been created on December 23rd, 2022, so hardly over a year ago. "Claiming numerous promotions and withdrawals"? One withdrawal before this BS withdrawal, and you can provide a list of the "numerous promotions", I don't recall taking any bonuses before this "wager-free" one, but of course I don't see a log of the bonuses.

And please, stop repeating "the player chose this bonus, which shows the maximum withdrawal clearly". IF IT SHOWED IT CLEARLY, WE WOULD NOT BE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION!

Just to be clear, forgot to write in bold, my account has been created on 23rd December 2022, so one week before this unbelievable "wager-free" bonus hazzle. How on earth do you, the Galaxyno representative, dare to write total lies that "Especially considering she played us for over a year now, claiming numerous promotions and withdrawals". That is a total lie, and you are digging a hole for your casino, your casino does not seem to be reliable in many aspects, but lying is the lowest of the low.

Fortunately, I have proof of this.

Hello Christiina.

After I checked your log, I found that when you reached a balance of €48.35, you made a bet of €1.2 (This is not shown in the log, but all other bets were €1.2), so only €0.65 was taken from the real money and the rest from the bonus money.

The problem is that you won from this bet, so technically, part of the winnings originated from the bonus money.

Some casinos would pay you part of the winnings, but common practice is that the bonus rule applies to all balances if the bonus is used.

I would like to help you, but we must be fair and transparent. I understand that you dislike the casino representative's responses, but here is essential that bonus money was in play. If you won from real money, we would be on your side. Unfortunately, this is not the case; therefore, we believe the casino has right in this case.

Dear Matej,

This a real shame, but thank you so much for your careful help.

Due to the aforementioned reasons, this complaint will now be rejected. Thank you for your understanding, I am sorry we could not be of more help on this occasion. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you run into any issues with this or any other casino in the future.