Pokies2Go Casino - Player’s winnings have been voided.

Dear representatives of Casino Guru,

I tried for a long time to resolve this situation using internal dispute resolution services, but unfortunately they did not help me, and did not write anything off at all. I'm talking about the services listed in the casino rules, namely: "complaints@gaminglicences.com". That's why, I am writing to you in the hope that you will be able to help me in this situation, namely, the casino confiscated my winnings without even having a clear explanation.

On August 8, 2020, I registered at this casino because I found enough positive reviews about it. I decided to try my luck and play my favorite games with a welcome bonus. I made a € 400 deposit using my credit card and received a 125% bonus up to € 500. Before playing the games, I carefully read the rules and conditions of the casino and did not find any incomprehensible provisions. I played my favorite slots, namely High Society (Microgaming) with 5 EUR bets and Sushi Bar (Betsoft) with 5 EUR bets, too! I have fulfilled the wagering requirements for the bonus, taking into account all possible restrictions and reservations on the part of the casino. I did not violate anything. But the casino thought differently, sending me a letter, referring to the points I violated. For a long time I tried to get my honest winnings back, but the casino ignored all my requests. So I decided to ask you for help.

Based on the above-mentioned provisions of the casino, to which they refer, I would like to clarify:

1) I played with the same bet all the time - 5 EUR.

2) The casino never informs you about volatility of the games you play. How is it possible for a player to know the volatility of each game? Casino interface does not offer you to filter games by volatility . T&C also do not include this info.

Based on this, I believe that I did not violate anything and the casino confiscated my winnings only because they did not want to pay it. Moreover, they did not even undertake to return my deposit to me, but I insist on returning all the winnings to me.

Please help me to resolve this situation.

Dear RiegerD,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. Have you been given any explanation from the casino which exact rule has been breached and why your winnings have been confiscated?

Additionally, if there’s any relevant communication, please forward it to petronela.k@casino.guru as I couldn’t open previously attached screenshots.

I hope we will be able to help you to resolve this issue as soon as possible. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Petronela

Dear Petronela,

I just have sent the files to your email address you provided with me.

BR

David R***

Thank you very much, David, for your reply. Could you please forward your game history too?

Dear Petronela!

I have just forwarded a chat transcript of my conversation with a live agent. Unfortunately, It's not possible to check the bets history on a website due to impossibility to choose a needed date. As you can see on a transcript a live chat agent ask me why do I need to check the bets history if I violated the bonus terms anyway. It's quite weird as for me.

Thank you very much, RiegerD, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Peter 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.

Hi RiegerD,

I looked at your case and understand the situation. I will contact the casino and see if I can help. I would like to invite Pokies2Go Casino to the conversation to participate in the resolution of this complaint.

Dear David,

First of all, good to hear from you, this is the first message from you towards us, ever. Your claim we have ignored your request is completely false, you have not sent us anything, ever. The email you used is correct, however that is an email from the official license authority and if you took a few minutes to read their site, they clearly say you first need to communicate with the casino on the possible resolution and provide proof, probably why you were ignored by them, that is our best guess.

Just to make this absolutely clear, we have never received a single email from this user, to any of our casino email addresses.

Second false accusation is that you haven't received an explanation, you have received an email from us on 9 Jul 2020, 16:18 GMT, everything is clearly explained there, with exact T&C paragraphs you breached and you have read that email, so you definitely know what happened (screenshots will be sent to casino.guru. as proof).

To finish debunking these false accusations, that same email's last sentence is this one „Your original deposit is returned to your casino account. Feel free to play or withdraw it. We will not be imposing our x2 rollover requirement in case you decide to make a withdrawal."

Your deposit was returned to your account and deposit bonuses disabled, that is because we think you are a bonus abuser and we have allowed you to withdraw or play your deposit, without the original deposit bonus which you abused.

We have sent you a reminder as well, that you still have balance (screenshot will be sent as well) and after some time we removed the balance due to the legal contractual bindings we have in regards to total balance amount and left a note for that to be added to you if you ever show up.

What you did is clear to you. You had a big win on a high volatility slot and you spent hours spinning on a single other slot after that win. This game (Sushi bar) is one of the most used slots by people that do exactly the same thing, you are not 1st or even 2nd so we really do not understand why would you talk about not knowing something when gameplay clearly indicates you went directly to a game which will keep your balance as close as it was when you got into that game. It would have been exactly the same if you went and placed bets on Roulette on both red and black. 0 would land a few times and you’d have about the same % of losses. This is bonus abuse, you are using our 125% to gain extra advantage which is fine, but making risk free bets to wager the bonus rollover requirement is simply not and will never be.

Your original deposit is again in your balance and you are free to play or withdraw it.

This case was closed on July 2020 and we acted upon our T&C at that time, the case will stay closed.

Dear Pokies2Go Casino,

Thank you for your reply. Does this mean the only reason why the player's winnings were confiscated is that he switched from a high volatility game to a low volatility game when playing with a bonus? I'm afraid, we don't consider this to be a good reason to confiscate winnings. Most of the players have no idea if a game is a high or a low volatility game, they just want to play. If you don't want the players to do something with the bonus (or real) money, why don't you build it into the system and enforce it by the casino software? If there is room to make mistakes, they will certainly happen. We are convinced that the player should get paid because the reason for confiscating his winnings is not fair and it's against our Fair Gambling Codex (https://casino.guru/fair-gambling-codex-for-casinos#bonus-hunting).

Dear Peter,

We will not even consider paying out this player, he not only abused the system but he made up several claims in this complaint for no reason. He made +70% of his bets on a single slot where his balance hasn't really changed at all. Stating someone did not know anything about volatility but kept glued only to that slot that gave no wins is a bit naive, especially after switching directly from a high volatility slot that is at the top of those lists on every slot review site. Pattern is obvious, and we have recently made changes to the T&C and the system to prevent wager on certain games. In this specific case player wouldn't be able to wager his bonus on that slot by the system, as you suggested, but that doesn't mean we are ready to pay him out, we can cancel his bonus and return his deposit amount, as in fact we have already done in July 2020. The player is still welcome to play or withdraw the deposit amount, however, bonuses were already disabled for this account and any gameplay would be without bonuses.

We will not consider applying T&C retroactively as this is not how things work, case was closed by the T&C that were in place at that time, player agreed to them when signing up and that is final.

All the best,

pokies2go

Dear Pokies2Go team,

Thank you for your reply. As I mentioned above, we at Casino Guru believe that most of the rules you want players to follow should be enforced by the casino software. If you let players make mistakes, they will make them. We don't consider these "patterns" or "strategies" to be unfair. No casual player will ever contemplate if the game they want to play is a low volatility or a high volatility game as well as if they at some point decreased the size of the bet by 35% etc. That is why it should be enforced by the system. I'm afraid that our decision will not change and we are convinced that the player should get paid in full.

Unfortunately, Pokies2Go Casino didn't change its decision which we consider to be against our Fair Gambling Codex. The complaint will become unresolved and may negatively affect the casino's rating.