Stake Casino - The player's self exclusion was ignored.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you today to file a complaint against Stake Casino (Stake.com). Stake is a crypto currency casino which holds an Antillephone Curacao Gaming license (8048/JAZ).

The grounds to my complaint are that Stake's Customer Due Diligence (CDD), Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) processes are insufficient and in breach of the license requirements and curacao law, specifically the NOIS (Attached.) and regulations specified by the Curacao Gaming Control Board. With the insufficient processes in place I was able to create a new account even though I am self excluded permanently with Stake (Since March 28th 2020) and deposit a large sum of money over a short period of time with no identity verification checks carried out at any stage. In total my deposits less any withdrawals made totalled £4,165.64 GBP. I am seeking a refund of the full amount due to the failure on stake's part to collect the required relevant CDD, KYC and AML information which would have prevented a self excluded patron from creating a further account and depositing this amount of money. 

I will summarise my complaint briefly below however will submit a full word document detailing everything with supporting documents.

I would like to summarise my complaint below:

1. Failure to perform the required KYC, CDD and AML checks. Required by Law and License. I was able to sign up to Stake, deposit in excess of €20,000, withdraw in excess of €15,000 and wager over €350,000 in a three month period without any identity verification checks being carried out. I have made stake aware of this in the prior disputes so they are well aware of this being an issue for self excluded patrons not being identified and they are well aware of what needs to be done to comply with these requirements.
2. Complete disregard for the protection of vulnerable customers and lack of procedures for responsible gambling. Given I have been in this position with Stake 3 times prior to this dispute. It is clear that Stake are completely ignoring their responsibilities with regards to vulnerable customers, self exclusions and KYC, AML and CDD policies. I have made it clear with every correspondence I have made with Stake that this is the issue and this is why I was able to create a new account and nothing has been done to resolve this. Given that the resolutions and answers of how to fix the issues are being handed to them I see this as a failure of the ‘reasonable’ responsibility to protect self excluded patrons and vulnerable customers. And it certainly shows an element of irresponsibility from Stake.

Proposed Resolution:

I am seeking to be put in the same position I was prior to creating this account and by my calculations that would mean a refund of £4,165.64 GBP however I am happy for Stake to check this figure. There is also an additional amount of £1,200 which was deposited after I sent an email to Stake letting them know of the account, I do not have the transaction proof for this however I believe Stake will have. Therefore I have put the value of my complaint as £4,165.64 until the additional £1,200 is confirmed.

Again the full details are in my file submissions, thank you for taking the time to look into my complaint.

Hello R,

Thank you very much for submitting a complaint and I'm really sorry to hear about your issue with Stake Casino. Firstly, thank you for the detailed specification of the issue. I would still however like to ask you some question.

You mentioned that you had this issue multiple times with the casino. Did they always do a full refund of your deposits? Are they refusing to refund you this time or you wanted to deal with the case anyway so they wouldn't let you play again? How come that if you have already contacted the licensing authority, they did nothing?

Looking forward to your answer and I hope we will be able to help you resolve it.

Regards,

Nick

Dear Nick,

Thank you for your response, to answer your first question yes in the prior issues a full refund of deposits was made, there was one instance where this wasn’t the case and the settlement figure agreed came up short but I am not here to contest that.

Secondly yes I have raised this with the licensors and they have just dismissed it and refused to investigate the complaint for no given reason.

Thirdly in this instance they are refusing to refund the deposits yes. However I also think it is a good learning curve to ensure polices and procedures are put in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again. I note a similar complaint is also being reviewed concurrently to this one, so it is clear Stake need to up their game in this regard.

I am hopeful that mediation is the way forward and we can discuss the right way to deal with self exclusions and player data and come to a reasonable conclusion.

I would also like to state that stake appear to have recently upped their game in terms of verification of users so I am confident that following the resolution of this issue this will not happen again. However this doesn’t excuse their lax and immoral policies when the deposits were made as no KYC or even name and address was ever asked for or required.

I am hopeful that with mediation this will highlight the issue and Stake will have a discussion with us and come to a suitable resolution as currently they are not replying to any emails.

Kind regards,

R

Dear Casino Gurus,

Just wanted to leave a friendly bump on this thread. I understand you probably have a lot of complaints to catch up on over the Christmas period, just dropping a message here to ensure the complaint stays open.

Kind regards,

R

Hello R,

Thank you for the additional information. I will now forward your complaint to my colleague Viliam who will be assisting you from now on.

Wish you best luck resolving it.

Hello CasinoR,

I looked at your complaint and will do my best to help you. I would like to invite Stake Casino into this conversation. Stake Casino, can you please specify what is the problem with the player’s self-exclusion and why did you allow him to deposit?

I have today approached stake via email with a settlement offer of £2,000 regarding this issue.

I will update if I get a reply from them.

We would like to ask the Stake 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’.

I apologize, but since we haven’t received any response from the casino regarding the issue, we can not continue resolving this complaint and we are forced to close it as ‘unresolved’. You can contact Curacao gaming license. If you need my help with contacting them just send me an email here: viliam.v@casino.guru

I am very sorry I couldn't help more, but at least closing this complaint as unresolved will negatively influence the Casino's rating and other players can read about your experience in our review.

I hope you won't come across a problem like this again.

The Casino can ask to reopen this complaint anytime.

We’ve reopened this complaint as per the Casino’s request. We would like to give this case one more chance to get resolved and help both involved parties to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Dear CasinoR,

Stake and you have agreed with you on the 25th of May 2021 a settlement for a complaint previously presented by you. On the mentioned settlement, you agreed that you were fully reimbursed for damages and that you would restrain yourself from opening new accounts at www.stake.com.

Unfortunately, you have not complied with our agreement and have been constantly trying to open new accounts at www.stake.com and present complaints in order to extort Stake.

This conduct of your does not only constitutes a breach of www.stake.com Terms of Services but also of the Settlement agreement signed with you on the 25th of May 2021.

Accordingly, we understand that you are not entitled to any reimbursement and we kindly request you to, once again, refrain yourself from trying to open accounts at www.stake.com or Stake might be required to resort to the available legal means to impose the obligations that you have compromised too, under our Settlement Agreement.

Best Regards,

Dear Casino,

did you refund the player's deposits, please?

Dear Casino Guru / Stake,

Based on Stake's reply I don't think Casino Guru will be able to change their stance nor will I.

They claim that I am trying to extort the casino? For the record this is simply untrue, with the amount of responsible gambling disputes against stake and their practices when it comes to responsible gambling it is clear that there is a routine and enabling process to abuse problem gamblers.

Whilst this has since improved there are past issues that should be address however given Stake's statement this is not going to happen.

Regarding the settlement agreement signed in May I was pressured into this with this being the only way I would receive the settlement funds, this was also underpaid as the settlement amount was not received by my wallet and nor was this document countersigned and returned to me after I has signed it.

Regardless of this I don't think I'm going to change Stake's mind so we'll leave this complaint here. I'd hoped Stake would be able to see their errors and I have been reasonable by cutting the amount lost on the site down by over half as a settlement amount in recognition of my own responsibilities and failures to control my gambling addiction.

To clarify in this exact situation over £4,000 was deposited and lost with no withdrawals made, none of this amount has ever been subject to a settlement. I also made Stake aware the account was open and they allowed me to continue playing losing a further £1,250 in addition to the £4,000 previously mentioned.

I fail to see how any of this is trying to extort stake as the money is not stakes and has been obtained by immorally allowing a self excluded players to sign up to their site and even after being made aware the account was open via an email and complaint still failed to close it until at-least another £1,250 was deposited and lost.

Stake - You know how to contact me should you change you mind on this matter.

Casino Gurus you are free to close this complaint, I'm unsure how you will mark it as there has been no refund of deposits or settlements regarding the amounts in this complaint however I don't think we'll be able to reach a resolution.

Dear Viliam from Casino Guru,

Yes, we agreed with the player to reimburse him for the deposits and damages. According to the settlement agreement, the player declared that he was reimbursed for all the damages and had nothing more to claim.

Accordingly, this case is already closed and there is no reason for the player to continue to complain since he signed an agreement with us to settle this matter and we already paid the reimbursement agreed on the mentioned agreement.

Best regards,

Dear CasinoR,

Thank you for using the Casino Guru complaint resolution center. We are glad to hear that your issue got resolved. We will now mark it as 'resolved' in our system. Please, 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, but I hope you won’t come across a problem like this again.

Best regards,

Viliam Casino.Guru