Grande Vegas Casino - Player's winnings have been confiscated.

I have been a depositing player at Grande Vegas for years. I have VIP status. I thoroughly read and accepted the T&C's, and thought I was following all the rules. I play for mostly fun, which is good because I have only won enough money to withdraw once. So here's what happened: I made a deposit using bitcoin, with a 100% match. This was a two-part promotion, with the second part to be used directly after using the first one, which was for $100.00. I won on the first part of this combo bonus, and requested a withdrawal for $668.40. I received an e-mail stating my request had been received, and would be processed shortly. No additional advice or cautions were in the e-mail. Basiclly just we're getting your funds ready to send to your Bitcoin address. So I waited a couple of hours, and the money was still on my account, indicating to me the process had not been completed. So I checked back another two hours later, because I wanted to use the second part of the promotion I had paid for. This time, my account had been cleared of the withdrawal, and accepted my request to redeem the coupon code for $100 free, and I played for a while, then I went to bed, and woke up to find a denial of my winnings. Stated reason was I had used a bonus with a pending withdrawl. I could not believe it. My first win after depositing thousands of dollars, and they are trying to not pay me!! I e-mailed the person and relayed to them I knew that you cannot use bonuses or deposit money into an account with more than $1 currently in it, also until any withdrawl was processed. I cited the e-mail stating my withdrawal was being processed (it did NOT say "pending"), and asked if this was such an important part of the withdrawl process, why did it not state on the e-mail something warning players to please refrain from any further activity on their account until such time that we give you the go ahead, because if you do, we will void your winnings. The system will not block you from using a bonus coupon in this instance, so please wait for clearance for continued play. Nothing of this sort is noted in the terms and conditions either, seemingly by design to confiscate player's legitimate winnings. If I had been told or read anything remotely close to this "term", I would have not used the second part of my deposit bonus. On my account it's listed as a miscellaneous rule deduction for $668.40. The casino responded to my request that my winnings be reinstated by saying I had broke a rule, and would not be getting my money, final. Here's the final kick in the teeth: it said" well you won once, so that proves you are lucky. We have returned your original deposit and invite you to try again!" By the way, the second part of the same promotion, the $100 for depositing , was also removed from my account. I had $98.00 of winnings thus far, but hadn't completed the playthrough when I stopped playing for the night, planning on returning to it the next day. So that $100 that I received for making a deposit was stolen from me as well. I am so disappointed in this casino's behavior it is making me sick to my stomach that I have been giving them my money for all this time, and the ONE time I actually win, they are using some skeevy tactic to not pay me my money that I won fair and square. I don't know if you can help me, but I appreciate any information you may have on this sort of fraudulent practice. Thank you-Rich C.

Dear cherriberrie,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. Could you please clarify which bonus you activated? Did you use the "W4522" promo code?

Would you be so kind as to send me all the relevant communication between you and the casino, so we can gather as much information as possible? My email address is kristina.s@casino.guru, or alternatively, post it here.

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,

Kristina

Greetings Kristina, thank you for your assistance in this matter. To begin with, I wanted to clarify that this incident happened to my husband Richard. He has asked me to be his advocate and liaison with Casino Guru, as I am a member, and I was a witness to all that transpired. I have an account with Grande Vegas as well, but stopped depositing a few months ago when I kept getting the runaround while trying to get my account verified. The usual reasons as others have talked about i.e. the picture of the ID isn't clear enough, we can't open that kind of file (a pdf? really?)and I grew tired of sending and resending my documents. So I play at another well-known casino that has a very good rating from Casino Guru. Richard's account has been verified at Grande, and he has been a very loyal player there. He is the author of the complaint submitted to you and is available for anything you might need that I cannot provide. I have taken screenshots of his account and looked them over. There is one part that needs to be amended from his initial complaint, which doesn't change the nature of it, but I wanted to make sure you had the correct information. The updated version of the course of events would include that he did not stop playing for the evening with the bonus coupon W4522-FREE, but went on to play one that is offered to all players who make a deposit between M-F, which is for $150.00. That is the bonus he was playing on that was also taken from his account when they removed his winnings. He had only accumulated a balance of $98.00 towards the playthrough when he stopped playing for the evening. The $150 bonus was removed, as well as the $98.00. He began the session with a bitcoin deposit of $27.19, using the first part of a two-part promotion, "W4522". He completed the playthrough, and went on to win $668.40 and decided to cash out. After he was led to believe that his withdrawal had been processed, as per the verification email from the casino, and the winnings were cleared from his account, he resumed playing with coupon "W4522-FREE". I will attach all the documents for your consideration. The crux of this matter is that the Casino is unclear about the restricted use of someone's account when they make a withdrawal. If patrons were made aware of this, obviously they would not jeopardize their winnings by playing on their account until told it was safe to do so. Also exasperating this type of scenario is the suspect practice of allowing bonus coupons to be redeemed when doing so would void a withdrawal, as it is a fact that the casino currently has the software in place to deny coupons that aren't allowed to be redeemed for various reasons. Seems like a questionable move on the casino's part to let only those through that aren't allowed as per their terms and conditions, with the end result being a financial loss avoided for them, all while smiling and hiding behind a predatory, vaguely worded rule. This needs to stop! I can only imagine the scores of people who got caught in this same trap.

Thank you for your reply, cherriberrie. I am sorry, but if that is the case, we cannot proceed with this complaint with a person other than your husband. Please instruct your husband to file a new official complaint and we will try to help as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding.

Ok, I understand, but Richard already received an email from Grande Vegas stating how they understand his disappointment, but basically; their house, their rules. Don't like it? Don't play here. Sorry/not sorry. So he feels any attempt by Casino Guru to right this wrong at this point would be non-productive, and does not want to waste yours or his valuable time. Thank you for your reply.

Thank you for your understanding. If he changes his mind, he can submit a new complaint anytime.

I will now close this complaint because it has not been submitted by the player who experiences the problem.