Royal Stars Casino - Player’s bonus winnings were confiscated.

Dear Guru Agents,

I recently received an email from the casino. Here is the text of it:

"We would like to inform you that a review of your gameplay has found patterns of bonus abuse and concluded that it does not qualify as genuine recreational gameplay. In accordance with our Bonus Terms and Conditions, your bonus winnings have been retracted and your initial deposit returned. Your account Pa*****551 has also been excluded from participating in any future bonus promotions on our site."

I urgently need your assistance as I am confident that this vague reason for confiscating my fair and legal winnings is unjust.

P.S I withdraw 944 euro. 776 euro were confiscated and 168 euro (my deposit) was returned to the account. My account is not blocked.

Dear pavelkoci1961,

Thank you very much for submitting this complaint. I'm sorry to hear about your problem. Please allow me to ask you a few questions to make sure I understand your situation completely.

Could you please advise if you passed the full KYC verification?

Could you please send me the screenshot or the link to the bonus you activated?

Have you made any successful withdrawals before?

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

Best regards

Veronika

Hello,

Regarding KYC, I provided casino with documents such as my ID, selfie with ID and documents confirming address. I was not updated if account was verified. It was my first withdrawal. Here is the link to the bonus I got.

https://www.royalstarscasino.com/en/promotions/welcome-bonus

Best reagrds,

Pavel

Thank you very much, pavelkoci1961, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Branislav (branislav.b@casino.guru) who will be at your assistance. I wish you the best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.

Hello, pavelkoci1961,

I will contact the casino and try my best to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Now I would like to invite the casino representative to join this conversation and participate in resolving this complaint.

Dear Royal Stars Casino team,

Could you please explain the player's situation in more detail? What steps should the player take to unblock the account, complete the KYC and/or withdraw his remaining balance (deposit)?

If we are talking about a breach of the casino's Terms and Conditions and his winnings have been confiscated, is the casino able to substantiate its decision with relevant evidence?

Feel free to send the necessary evidence to my email address (branislav.b@casino.guru).

Dear Casino Guru Team,

thank you in helping to solve the case. In this specific case we had the following situation:

The reason we voided his winnings is that he struck a win early on in his gameplay on a high-volatility game, then immediately switched to a low-volatility slot and auto-spun his wagering requirements on minimum bet for 8 hours straight.

This is against the rules. Therefore the system noted this unusual player behaviour.

We decided to give back the deposit, which is a fair deal in our perspective.

Additionally you find a screenshot of the export.

Please let us know if you have more questions.

Thank you.

Royal Stars

Dear Royal Stars Casino team,

Thank you for the clarification. Yes, we have more questions for sure.

What exact rules were applied to the player's winnings, please?

Was the player playing within the maximum bet amount? Did he play an allowed game while playing with a bonus? If yes, why does the casino allow players to play such a game or count bets from such a game towards wagering requirements if it (according to the casino) means a breach of its rules?

If the player played only allowed games, within maximum bet and other bonus rules, and the casino allowed him to play like this, and/or does not enforce it by its system - why does the casino consider it "unusual player behaviour" or a breach of rules? Because he managed to win and meet the WRs in a way the casino allows? I do not think it is a fair deal, as you stated. We are talking about common player behaviour after winning higher winnings with a bonus.

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’ which may negatively affect its rating.

Dear Casino Guru,

just to be clear, the player did not break maximum bet, or game restrictions.

The clause applied was this one:

1.11 Bonuses offered by Royal Stars Casino are only intended for genuine recreational players. Abuse of the offered bonuses will not be tolerated. We reserve the right to investigate, cancel, suspend or lock an account if abuse of the bonus is suspected. In case of abuse, all bonuses and subsequent gaming activity and wins will be revoked and annulled and the deposit will be returned.

We do not use this clause lightly or often, only in cases where a player is so clearly and systematically min-maxing their gameplay that it can't be considered recreational.

We have added a list below of his top played games. As you can see there were only two. He hit a win on John Hunter and the Mayan Gods, a high-volatility game, after 72 spins at 4€ (the maximum allowed bet).

He then immediately switched to Gold Train (a low-volatility game) and wagered his bonus there at 0.12€ per spin. He played a total of 81,939 (that's eighty-one thousand) spins, all together it took him 6 days to complete.

Since we don't even have an auto-spin feature on that game, he would have sit for 6 days straight in front of the game to spin which concludes he was abusing the system.

Does this clarify the situation?

Thank you.

Greetings

Royal Stars Casino

The ridiculous thing is that you manage to accuse me both in using maximum bets (highest allowed) and the small bets at the same time. Too big, too small… Where in your terms does it say that using a bet of 0.12 to wager the bonus constitutes an abuse? Where in your terms is it said that wagering bonus for 6 days constitutes an abuse? Does using strategy that gives me better chances to win (while staying fully within the rules of your bonus play) constitutes an abuse at your casino? And the last one - does the fact of winning using bonus constitutes by itself an abuse at your casino? All your arguments are totally subjective and cannot (and should not) be used as a justification for confiscating my fully legitimate winnings.

Thank you for the clarification, Royal Stars Casino team.

Dear pavelkoci1961,

Can you please explain to us how you managed to play for so long after the big win, with the lowest possible bet amount if the casino does not have an auto-spin feature?

What do you mean by "casino does not have an autoplay feature"? The feature is a part of a slot game and not the one of the casino’s. If I remember correctly, I played Gold Train slot which has an autoplay feature of 1000 spins (which can also be played in the "turbo" mode). Nowhere in the website Terms it is prohibited to use this feature (I would not use it otherwise).

Have to add also that the amount I won at this casino is quite considerable for me personally.

I don’t understand why exactly the casino representative tries to provide false information here? Gold train slot does definitely have an autoplay feature which I utilised during my gameplay. What is the purpose of misrepresenting the facts? To create an image of some weirdo spinning thousands of spins manually day and night? Please, Royal Stars casino, check the facts before publishing them and accusing somebody of wrongdoing.

P.S. If you don't want your players to spend a lot of time wagering your bonuses - there is a simple solution for it: just reduce the wagering requirements which are currently out of any proportion. Thousands and thousands euros in bets are necessary to wager a bonus of just 100 euro. And then, when somebody really lucky, manages to overcome this almost unsurmountable obstacle - you accuse him/her in betting too small and too long (without any of these characteristics even being mentioned in your own rules).

If I understand correctly, pavelkoci1961, your account at Royal Stars is still active.

Can you please provide me with screenshots of the game Gold Train, with the rest of the website from which the screenshots are made (the logo of the casino or a link to the website visible there) - screenshots of the way how you are setting up the auto-spin feature in this game?

I tried to check websites with online slots or at the casino but could not find such an option in this game (demo versions).

I attached a screenshot from my Royal stars account, real money mode. As you can see the autoplay function is perfectly available (as well as a turbo mode).

Thank you very much, pavelkoci1961.

Dear Royal Stars Casino Team,

Can you please confirm the correctness of the screenshot provided above, and that the auto-spin feature is fully available in the game in question at Royal Stars Casino? If so, I have a few additional questions.

Provided that the user used only features available in the game and played within the casino's rules, we would only side with the casino if it could somehow prove that an additional software/tool/app/... was used to wager his winnings. Therefore, could you please provide me with the user's game logs and possibly show specific rows where the casino became suspicious about the player's play, and that he could not manage it on his own?

To clarify it, and what I also tried to indicate by my questions earlier - our position is quite clear for such cases. The casino should enforce such rules (prohibit playing in such games by system restrictions or adjust game contributions/not count them to the wagering), set up the bonuses and bonus rules in a way that cannot be breached by players unknowingly, notify players when they are going to do something that is not enforced by the casino system but the casino confiscates winnings for doing it, or, should not confiscate winnings if players basically comply with the rules.

Please note if the casino is not able to prove that the player used any "external help" outside of the game features to meet the wagering requirements, while he played within all other bonus rules, we recommend the casino restore the confiscated winnings. We would accept account closure or restrictions for further promotions/bonuses, however, the winnings should be paid out. Confiscation of winnings due to finding a way how to meet the wagering requirements within the casino rules or within what the casino allows is not very correct/fair, especially if no other rules were breached (multiple accounts/the same bonus(es) used on other accounts, etc).

I will discuss the matter also internally with the team and inform you about the results, however, to be honest, I do not think there could be someone who would not agree with the above-stated.

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’ which may negatively affect its rating.

Dear Branislav,

we looked into the case deeply again and we have to admit there was a wrong assumption from our side.

It's the case that the auto spin function is only visible when logged into an account, but not when previewing it in the "Play For Fun" mode. Therefore there is a kind of "wrong" entry in the system, on what we based our conclusion.

So we have to say sorry. Even it is a odd player behavior we have to say that the player acted within the possible ways.

Of course we will grant the open winnings to the player. We will reach out to him directly.

Does this help for the moment?

Thank you for mediate this case @Branislav

Greetings

Royal Stars

Great news, Royal Stars Team! Thank you very much for the update, especially for your willingness to look into the matter once again and reconsider your initial decision. We highly appreciate it!

Dear pavelkoci1961,

Can you confirm the above-stated and inform us about news and updates after the casino contacts you?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for help. I was paid by casino.

Best regards

Pavel

Great, Pavel! Thank you, for confirmation and for using the Casino Guru complaint resolution centre. I will now mark your complaint as 'resolved' in our system. Do not hesitate to contact us in the future if you run into any issues with this or any other casino. We are here to help.

As you know, we do not charge for our services, nor do we accept any gratuities. However, we would appreciate it if you could take a moment to share your experience with our services on Trustpilot https://www.trustpilot.com/evaluate/casino.guru. An honest review and any suggestions you may have to improve our complaint resolution and mediation process would be greatly appreciated. Your feedback could prove helpful to others who are considering contacting us about any online casino-related issues. Thank you in advance for your time.

Thank you very much, Royal Stars Casino Team, for your help and cooperation!

Best regards,

Branislav, Casino.guru