Goldwin Casino - Player’s bonus winnings have been confiscated.

Dea Sir/Madam! GoldWin Casino wrongfully accused me of being a "Bonus Seeker" and confiscated my $2,382 winnings. The claim was sent to the casino on June 30, but the casino was unwilling to change its mind. In this regard, I decided to turn to you for help.

For me, it was extremely unexpected and unpleasant that the casino classified me as a "Bonus Seeker" player. I declare with full confidence that I did not pursue the goal of fraudulently obtaining winnings. I also declare that I have not had and do not intend to abuse bonus offers from the casino. I only used the bonuses that were available to me. I also want to assure you that my goal was not to get the maximum amount of the bonus, as indicated by the casino.

I believe that the casino misclassified me as a "bonus seeker" - I am not.

I would be very grateful if you take into account the information I provided and help me return my winnings.

Dear maraars,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. We will contact the casino and ask for their cooperation in resolving this issue, but, before we do so, could you please forward your bonus and deposit histories, along with any relevant communication, to petronela.k@casino.guru?

I hope we will be able to help you to resolve this issue as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Petronela

Dear Petronela! Information about the made deposits and correspondence with the casino was sent to the e-mail petronela.k@casino.guru. Unfortunately, there is no way to get information about the used bonuses on the casino website.

Thank you very much, maraars, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Matej (matej@casino.guru) who will be at your assistance. I wish you best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.  

Hello maraars.

I am sorry to hear about your troubles.

I checked the email with the explanation the casino sent you, and this shouldn't happen in a regular casino. If the casino identifies a bonus seeker, they should restrict such a player from promotions and not confiscate the winnings.

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

Please explain to us what happened, why maraars was identified as a bonus seeker, and why were his winnings confiscated.

Hello Matej & Aram,

Please allow me some time to review the case history for the player.

I will then get back to you with the requested information.

Best regards,

Eugenié Lacroix

Hello Eugenié.

Thanks for the response. We will be waiting for your update.

Hello Matej & Aram,

I have reviewed the case history and indeed the player had winnings which were voided, as his account was flagged as a bonus seeker during the audit conducted.

Note that our casino has a zero tolerance policy towards any kind of bonus abuse and that this is stated in the terms and conditions, which the player accepted upon registration, along with the possible penalties in such cases:

7.32. GoldWin reserves the right to label a player as a "Bonus Seeker" if GoldWin Casino, at its absolute discretion, believes that the player has abused the promotions. Instances include, but are not limited to the following:

• A player only uses bonuses to play on the account;
• The bonus amount is greater than the total amount deposited by the player;
• A player plays with, or attempts to play with, more than one bonus in 24 hours;
• A player plays with bonuses while withdrawing amounts from the deposits that have given access to those bonuses; or
• A player repeatedly used a promotion;
• A player deposits specifically the same amount as the maximum bonus cap, for the sole purpose of claiming the maximum value of the bonus;
• A player completely stops his gaming activity after completing the exact wagering requirements of a bonus.

7.34. If we reasonably suspect that a player is engaging in promotional abuse, we reserve the right to take any or all of the following actions against such a person

• Void all funds in the player’s account
• Void any bonuses and pending bonuses
• Terminate the player’s account
• Revoke your eligibility to receive any bonuses and participate in any promotions

During the player's activity in the casino he has specifically used only promotions that have a high percentage match bonus, remaining inactive when these offers weren't available to claim. While the casino indeed has multiple offers available at any time, there are only a handful of offers that offer a high percentage match bonus and they can only be claimed at specific moments.

The winnings in question were generated exclusively from a deposit bonus (bets made from his cash balance generated no winnings) received from such an offer and the player completely stopped his activity immediately after completing the exact wagering requirements for the bonus claimed.

This was also corroborated with the risk assessment conducted for the player which indicated a high risk for his profile and the fact that the player registered on the site directly, not coming through a trusted affiliate source. Note that our casino relies entirely on trusted affiliate traffic for new registrations, and we don't have any active marketing efforts towards the player's jurisdiction.

While we always try to look at things from the player's perspective, for the reasons mentioned above and considering that the winnings in this case were generated exclusively from the bonus offered by the casino, the decision was taken to apply two of the penalties mentioned in article 7.34. of the terms and conditions - revoke the player's eligibility to receive any bonuses and participate in any promotions and void all funds generated from the bonus claimed.

Best regards,

Eugenié Lacroix

Hello Eugenié.

Thanks for the clarification.

However, from your explanation, is it not clear what maraars did that led to voiding his winnings?

Could you please be more specific?

Regarding the rules in question:

7.32. GoldWin reserves the right to label a player as a "Bonus Seeker" if GoldWin Casino, at its absolute discretion, believes that the player has abused the promotions. Instances include, but are not limited to the following:

A player only uses bonuses to play on the account;

If the casino is unhappy about the number of bonuses that a player used, you can exclude a player from future promotions. But the casino shouldn't take winnings just because somebody used too many bonuses. And where is the line? 

The bonus amount is greater than the total amount deposited by the player;

Truly nobody is counting this, but it is easy to enforce this by software: if the bonus amount is greater, then no more bonuses until the deposits are greater.

A player plays with, or attempts to play with, more than one bonus in 24 hours;

Why? Why would the casino limit the promotions if somebody wants to play and is wagering a huge amount of money? It has no business logic.

A player repeatedly used a promotion;

I hope we are talking about the same bonus here, but with this rule, you can punish anybody who took a second deposit bonus. It is a badly written rule.

A player deposits specifically the same amount as the maximum bonus cap, for the sole purpose of claiming the maximum value of the bonus;

Again, why? If the maximum bonus amount is $200 and you are unhappy with it, then make it $100. There will always be players who want to deposit the maximum amount, and they are not bonus hunters. Imagine a rule on the highway saying you can go a maximum of 130km/h, but if you do the police will give you a ticket for high speed. Where is the logic?

A player completely stops his gaming activity after completing the exact wagering requirements of a bonus.

Most players do that when they finish the wagering. Again you can stop giving bonuses to such players, but you shouldn't void their winnings for that. Same example as in the last rule. That's not make a sense. Once there is written that 35x wager is enough, so why punish players for making exactly 35x wagering and not 35+x-times.

These terms and conditions are not very user friendly.

So please think about it.

Hello Matej,

Thank you for laying out your point of view and made your perspective clear. We are more than glad to explain our point of view and the aspects we have taken into consideration as a casino.

Firstly, we would like to enforce once again the statement that the above-mentioned article is meant strictly for players which abuse the promotions offered by the casino.

Regarding our case at hand, if we look at each of the points one by one, independently from each other, they will not make perfect sense judging from the player’s Perspective, which we fully understand and respect.

However, from an Operator’s perspective, and based on the current gambling trend, these Terms have been established to ensure that the casino is protected from users interested only in abusing the casino’s bonus funds.

We never applied a penalization to a player for breaching any of the terms included in any of these things individually.

This is always corroborated with evidence from the Fraud and Verification checks done on players.

While I understand it is an unfavorable decision for Aram, the evidence in his case supports the casino's decision and it will remain final.

If the player's winnings would have been generated from his deposit, then of course they wouldn't have been voided for this reason, however the winnings were made exclusively from the bonus claimed from the casino.

Best regards,

Eugenié Lacroix

Hello Eugenié.

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

However, our position still stands. This situation that maraars experienced would not happen in the casinos from our top list, I am sure. Maybe many years ago, the online casino systems were not so good, so such rules were a necessity. However, these days you can evaluate the data in real-time and the rules which you applied are no longer required. The better casino would not allow maraars to take another high percent bonus, or it would set the bonus policy better, so players will not be punished for taking one bonus after another.

If you offer the bonus to the player, how could he know that he violates the casino rules by taking it? Could he take this bonus? If yes, then he should be OK.

Because of what I wrote above, we are in this complaint stand on the player side.

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’.

Because the casino didn't respond and because of all I wrote before, I am closing this complaint as unresolved with a classification: Against Fair Gambling Codex.

We’ve reopened this complaint at the request of Goldwin Casino casino. We would like to allow this case one more chance to be resolved and help both parties involved to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Hello maraars,

The casino representative informed me that the amount of 2,382.75 USD was returned to your account, and it is ready for withdrawal.

Could you please confirm this?

Hello,

The casino returned $2382.75 to my casino account.

Due to the withdrawal limit of $2,000 per week, the casino credited $2,000 to my payment wallet. The remaining $382.75 I hope to receive in a week.

I will certainly inform you about this.

Thank you for the confirmation.

I will keep the complaint open until you confirm that you have withdrawn the remaining balance.

Hello! The casino has credited the remaining funds to my payment wallet. I have no claims against the casino.

Thank you for your help.

Dear maraars,

I'm glad to hear that your issue has been resolved successfully. I will now mark the complaint as 'resolved' in our system.

Thank you for your cooperation, and please do not hesitate to contact our Complaint Resolution Center if you run into any issues with this or any other casino in the future. We are here to help.

Best regards,

Matej

Casino.Guru