This Is Vegas Casino - Player faces lengthy delay in large withdrawal.

I have a combined balance of ~$122748 at ThisIsVegas (TIV) and sister site Paradise8. Despite unceasing withdrawal requests at the maximum allowed, TIV has paid only $3000 since 5/30/2023 and have had lagging payments for months before that. Their justification is that I have not given them the amount of action they would have liked to have seen over the past few months and that their rules allow them to correlate payouts to a player's ongoing level of action. This assertion is independent of the T&C of any particular bonus or prize I have received, any stated terms of which I have long ago completed.

Over the past 7 weeks, I had given TIV a big uptick in action. There was no corresponding increase in payouts. Two prior occasions, I made $4000 deposits to qualify for raffle promotions they were running and gave a good deal of action each time. These deposits generated no discernable uptick in payouts. Before that, my previous cluster of deposits matched up to well over $11,000,000 in wagers during a 3-day promotional period alone. At that point, I had a huge balance to collect and was solidly a VIP from months of heavy play. At the time, TIV's promotional VIP tournaments and raffles generally had qualifying deposits of $1000 to $3000. Afterwards, those promotional requirements were steadily $3000-$4000 in deposits per promotion. Promotions were weekly. I was no longer going to deposit new money to play those promos when I already had such a large balance to collect.

For maybe two months after, TIV did pay out about $2,000 a week. They expressed "disappointment" that I had stopped playing their promotions to the same scale and made a drastic reduction in payout frequency, roughly $1000 per 3 weeks. After some time, citing stated minimum guaranteed payout rates, I responded by cutting my action further to motivate TIV to make minimum payments. There was plenty of communication from my end. This tactic failed, and I switched tactics. Despite renewed play, TIV has recently threatened to revoke bonuses and prizes that I had already won and cleared when I was a VIP. Their justification is that I have been pestering them for payments, threatening to complain, and giving them lower action than when I was playing their high stakes promotions. I have not seen any rule written on their webpage which allows them to revoke winnings after the original T&C have been completed for any reason whatsoever.

TIV's allusions to their "rules" have been generally nonspecific. I had extensive conversations with support, which I have archived, before each deposit meticulously verifying all the rules of their bonuses and promotions. They never mentioned anything resembling the "rules" they are now trying to evoke. 

Rule 8.1 on TIV's website states, "Players who have their account verified, are allowed to withdraw up to €/£/AU$/$1000 per week...Our highest VIP players are permitted to withdraw a maximum of €/£/AU$/$10,000 (R100,000) of their winnings per 12-day period at management's discretion." TIV has unequivocally stated that they are under no obligation to pay $1000 per week. The quoted numbers, apparently, refer to the amount a player is able to "set aside" from their balance to be classified as pending payouts, not the amounts that are actually to be paid per week. For a very long stretch of time, TIV was actively chiding me for not setting aside $10,000 per week in this manner. I told them that I was not being paid $1,000 per week and that I had a limited numbers of bitcoin addresses that could be active at any one time. Thus, what would be the point? This did not stop TIV from repeatedly resurfacing this point. The insinuation was as though I didn't actually want to withdraw all this money and that I was still being generously offered the VIP perk of being able to "set aside" $10,000 per week so that I wasn't tempted to gamble it. TIV got tough on me and lowered my "set aside" limit to $1,000 per week when my VIP perks ended.

TIV was warned about this complaint and categorically refused to establish a minimum payout frequency. They try to spin things around by making it sound like I am the one making tyrannical demands. TIV has repeatedly claimed I am the only player raising any complaints against them.

On a side note, an amusing rule I've just seen TIV put up is "7.1. Please keep in mind that if you make a deposit of 249 USD/EURO/GBP/AUD or less, you can only withdraw 10 times the amount of your deposit for that play session". No relevance to me, just thought it was funny.

Dear mcd6802,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. Foremost, allow me to congratulate you on your great win.

Please let me ask you a few questions, so I can understand the whole situation completely. Could you please advise how much is your pending active balance in this specific casino? Ideally, please submit a separate complaint for Paradise8 Casino. Were your winnings accumulated with or without an active bonus?

If there’s any relevant communication, please forward it 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

I have had $1000 pending perpetually at each of ThisIsVegas and Paradise8 as that is the maximum that I can do at any one time. I have received bonuses and completed all the terms long ago. ThisIsVegas did make a $1000 payment a few days ago but that really doesn't move the needle much. I think a separate complaint against Paradise8 would be redundant. It is the same company, and it is the same people who have been representing each site. Most of my action the past few months has been on ThisIsVegas as I have been trying to induce them just to pay out meaningfully on either site without worrying about both. Sorry for the delay. I thought I would get an email update or something.

Thank you very much, mcd6802, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Michal (michal.k@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.  

PS: I strongly advise you to submit a separate complaint and clarify the disputed amount in each casino.

Hello mcd6802,

I'm Michal and I have taken over this complaint. I have reviewed this case and just so you know we have listed as one of the Cons for This Is Vegas Casino the low withdrawal limit.

I will contact the casino to shed more light on this matter.

We would like to invite This Is Vegas Casino to join the conversation.

Dear This Is Vegas Casino,

Could you please state the reason why was the player's withdrawal limit lowered so significantly? What can be done to increase the player's withdrawal limit as with the current one will take inadequate time for the player's winnings to be completely withdrawn?

Hello everyone,

We extend our apologies that this situation has escalated to forum discussions and express our gratitude for the opportunity to clarify our stance.

* We would like to start off by saying that upon creating accounts with the mentioned brands, the customer agrees to abide by the T&Cs of these websites.

* The customer is quoting Rule 8.1. As the rule explicitly states, the default setting for the weekly withdrawal limit is $1,000 and a maximum of $10,000 per week to our VIP members (Spoiler: our VIP members get to set aside a lot more than $10,000 a week), while from the time it is being cashed out, it can take no more than 12 business days to be processed. At this point, it would be a good time to clear up the fact that despite the customer's claims and misleading info, for weeks we have sent payments within a timeframe of approximately 72 hours. Many of those times we have been accused of not doing so, which was then followed by a receipt (we are talking about Bitcoin transactions, so everything is very clear and transparent).

If the customer is having difficulties following his Bitcoin addresses and transactions, we can only do our best to help, although it is not our responsibility.

The customer is accusing us of "chiding" him by letting him withdraw $10,000 per week, as our utmost VIP members get to do. We even asked him to take advantage of that multiple times in our email correspondence. By that, he is admitting that we did our absolute best at the given time to provide even larger payments than the ones he was receiving by that point. The customer had chosen to refuse for his personal reasons, whatever they may be.

* At one point, in order to allow the customer to continue playing without risking losing his balance in This is Vegas, we offered a solution in which he could open a new account at a sister casino of ours. Therefore, when the customer refers to a balance of $122,778, he is referring to a conjoined balance from the two brands.

The customer should know, based on multiple correspondences, that his current balance goes under the following rules in our T&Cs:

6.2. All bonus money will be removed at the point of cash out, bonus money is money that can be used to help generate winnings but cannot be withdrawn as part of the winnings. The bonus will be treated as 'Non-Withdrawable' and will not be reissued to your account but deducted from the winnings by the casino withdrawal manager during the payout process. Cashback money is also 'Non-Withdrawable' and the casino reserves the right to deduct cashback money from a player's pending withdrawal.

6.5. All cashback money won from a Tournament prize, Raffle prize or Special Promotion has a maximum withdrawal limit of 10X the cashback bonus and carries a wagering requirement of 1X. All bonuses of 200% or more, and cashback insurance of 75% or more will be considered Special Promotions. The Casino reserves the right to deduct Cashback money from a pending withdrawal

Currently, the conjoined balance of $119,748 consists of the following Prizes/Cashback that we have yet to claim back:

$75,000 (Tournament/Raffle Prize) - 01/26/2023

$1,600 (Cashback) - 04/05/2023

$700 (Tournament/Raffle Prize) - 04/06/2023

$1,600 (Cashback) - 05/24/2023

$1,250 (Tournament/Raffle Prize) - 05/25/2023

That is, these amounts have yet to be subtracted from the client’s account, and legally, they can (and should) be. Nonetheless, the client persisted in receiving payments, and we anticipated that he would continue participating in our weekly promotions – a basic expectation for a VIP client who looks forward to receiving rapid and substantial payments, weekly, and at times bi-weekly, as has occurred on several occasions.

Before the emergence of this thread and complaint, another Bitcoin payment was dispatched to the client's wallet on September 17th. Contrarily, the client opted to employ threats, issue ultimatums, and malign us on this esteemed forum, deeming it appropriate. We, in response, adhere to our T&Cs to which the client has agreed, specifically applying rules 6.2 and 6.5 to bonuses/awards that are part of the current balance we process and pay.

In conclusion,

Being a relatively new management team, we are committed to delivering exceptional customer service and ensuring the contentment of our esteemed patrons, particularly our VIP members. Despite the preceding, owing to the client's conduct, we will not extend any additional services to him, aside from the remaining payment of $39,598 + $2,000 set aside. His account will be sustained for withdrawals and review of history, but he is barred from further play and service reception.

We regret reaching this juncture and are further dismayed at the airing of grievances, but not all are within our purview.

We remain available for any queries or concerns.

Sincerely,

ThisIsVegas Team

Them: "At this point, it would be a good time to clear up the fact that despite the customer's claims and misleading info, for weeks we have sent payments within a timeframe of approximately 72 hours"

Me (earlier): "For maybe two months after, TIV did pay out about $2,000 a week."

Them: "it can take no more than 12 business days to be processed:

Me: Do the math. I've received $4,000 since 5/30/2023.

Them: "Many of those times we have been accused of not doing so (making payments), which was then followed by a receipt (we are talking about Bitcoin transactions, so everything is very clear and transparent).

If the customer is having difficulties following his Bitcoin addresses and transactions, we can only do our best to help, although it is not our responsibility."

Me: Not true. I've maintained logs for a long time now. If TIV actually wants to substantiate this claim, we'll see if they can do so and survive scrutiny. Perhaps I've emailed, complaining, and they responded with a payment afterwards and then documented the payment as though my original complaint was unjustified. This is the sort of thing they would do.

Them: The customer is accusing us of "chiding" him by letting him withdraw $10,000 per week..."

Me (earlier in this complaint): "TIV has unequivocally stated that they are under no obligation to pay $1000 per week ... so that I wasn't tempted to gamble it."

(Please read the above section, in full, in my original complaint. I have character limit of 5000.)

To clarify, I should add that, even though I could have made 10 concurrent payout requests, there was a $1000 payout limit per transaction. This is why my available bitcoin addresses would have been drained out. I constantly had multiple payout requests pending. I didn't need ten at a time at the rate they were paying, I can assure you. I mentioned that TIV constantly resurfaced this point. Perhaps you will believe me. 

Them: * At one point, in order to allow the customer to continue playing without risking losing his balance in This is Vegas, we offered a solution in which he could open a new account at a sister casino of ours. Therefore, when the customer refers to a balance of $122,778, he is referring to a conjoined balance from the two brands.

Me (the very first sentence of the complaint): "I have a combined balance of ~$122748 at ThisIsVegas (TIV) and sister site Paradise8."

I should also add that risking my money at ThisIsVegas as compared to Paradise8 makes no difference, so I gained no tangible advantage going to the second site other than that it made tracking play on a new bonus easier.

Them: "6.2, 6.5" (please reread, 5000 char limit)

Me: All the noncashable bonuses I have received have long ago been removed. Any noncashable bonus is automatically removed during a payout so this is obviously the case. The prizes/bonuses they are quoting are cash prizes I have cleared that they have not yet paid. Again, I have logged my emails and chat sessions so, if they have something in particular that they want to bring against me, let them bring it. I was fairly meticulous in establishing their promotion terms in writing before playing a particular promotion. I met their playthroughs and did not exceed any 10x limit. If I hadn't met their playthroughs I wouldn't have been able to withdraw. If I exceeded a max win limit, that money would have been deducted on the first payout. 

Them: "we anticipated that he would continue participating in our weekly promotions"

Me (earlier in the complaint): "At the time, TIV's promotional VIP tournaments and raffles generally had qualifying deposits of $1000 to $3000. Afterwards, those promotional requirements were steadily $3000-$4000 in deposits per promotion. Promotions were weekly. I was no longer going to deposit new money to play those promos when I already had such a large balance to collect."

Them: "another Bitcoin payment was dispatched to the client's wallet on September 17th"

Me (A week ago): "ThisIsVegas did make a $1000 payment a few days ago but that really doesn't move the needle much."

Them: (referring to playing weekly promotions) a basic expectation for a VIP client who looks forward to receiving rapid and substantial payments

Me: This expectation was never stated. As I stated, even after running up a big balance I did still play a few scattered promotions ($4000 entry requirements) and saw no change in the payout rate. Essentially, their max payout rate, perhaps with a lone or scattered exception, never exceeded $2000 per week. This does not constitute a rapid and substantial payout rate by broader industry standards, especially for a person who at one time had over a $140,000 combined balance. 

One final note: TIV is routinely running weekly promotions where they claim they are paying out $500,000 to $1,000,000 in cash per. This affects others.

Hello everyone,

We hope this finds you well.

We are attaching proof regarding the customer's complaints of not being paid more than $2,000 a week. In these screenshots, with his personal details such as address, etc. blacked out, you will be able to get a glimpse of him getting paid $6,000 in 5 business days only, and definitely more than $2,000 a week. This goes to debunk ONE false and unfair claim of his. (5 attachments are allowed only. Therefore, please see our next post for further attachments)

In addition, we are providing links to the transactions on Blockchain, not only showing that the addresses match exactly the ones filled out by the customer when requesting his withdrawals but also showing that although customers are asked to place their withdrawal in $1,000 increments, we do not pay separately in $1,000 increments as the customer suggested when providing an argument to why not cash out aside $10,000. The customer can cash out aside $10,000 in 1,000 increments, but the payment itself might as well be $10,000 in one transaction if the address that is provided is the same on all requests.

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/3DjHEM9PqXciK6gJXWk7SfavUyB2NZhZEE

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/3L6VbPRZCn6N34SzBcsHXP9afF4TNfpPz3

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/3D7VLSN6zswZwdNWxtqmp5kQeCnDmYuv8A

We can also share the timestamps of the complaints via email we received from the customer, and the timestamps of the payments, to debunk yet another false and ridiculous claim that we only paid after a complaint has been placed.

The next screenshots will go to debunk yet ANOTHER false claim regarding all prizes/cashback already being deducted. While 'INT-MAN' shows a credit on the house given by the manager, you can clearly see that all prizes/cashback mentioned in our previous response, have not been deducted until our first response here on September 27th. (on both accounts)

Up until that point, although we could have deducted it a long time ago already, we let the user have it in his account as leverage to continue winning high balances. (attachments in the next post)

It is true that our promotions can reach about 1 million dollars in total prizes, which are divided into different prizes. Where exactly is the problem here? As evidence, the complainer won our highest prizes, in the same promotions he now complains about. We find it highly disrespectful.

The bottom line remains the same. Looking into the future, the customer will continue to get paid according to the T&Cs he is signed on. That is, every 12 business days. (for example, an additional payment should be in the customer's wallet by today)

We hope this helps to clear things up to the objective eye and we wish you all a great week.

This is Vegas

Thank you for your response and evidence, This Is Vegas team.

To double-check, could you please confirm the current balance for the player's accounts in both This Is Vegas and Paradise8?

Is it feasible to initiate separate withdrawal requests for This Is Vegas and Paradise8 to expedite the processing and ensure the player receives their winnings more swiftly?

Hello Michal. Thank you for your quick reply.

The customer currently has a balance of $39,598 on This is Vegas. In the screenshots provided, one can view the deductions of the total sum of accumulated prizes and cashback taking place. (amounts mentioned and documented in our previous responses)

The truth of the matter is that the customer was never due to receive any withdrawals from Paradise8 in the first place, as he won a prize of $75,000 that was credited to his account as a huge leverage and security net to generate winnings but never went past the $75,000 mark and above. Yet, we continued to send payments on that platform as well, from a balance that according to our T&Cs needed to be deducted but hasn't been.

We sincerely thank Casino Guru for their honest attempt to mediate and for their platform allowing us to shed some truth and proof into the matter.

Due to what was mentioned in the correspondence above, and due to the customer's threats, slanders, and defamation looking to cause damage to our establishment, we see no reason to expedite any payments that in any case, will not surpass what we are obligated to and signed on, which is up to 12 business days.

We thank you once again and wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

This is Vegas Support

Thank you for shedding more light on the matter, This Is Vegas team.

Dear mcd6802,

Feel free to comment on the above, but I kindly ask for a reasonable and factual response, it is not in our interest to wage any kind of "flame war".

Note: "TIV" refers to ThisIsVegas and Paradise8 collectively.

Them: We are attaching proof regarding the customer's complaints of not being paid more than $2,000 a week...get a glimpse of him getting paid $6,000 in 5 business days only...This goes to debunk ONE false and unfair claim of his.

Me: TIV is utilizing a technique here known as "selective partitioning". In order to dispel this, I will now give an entire history of deposits and payouts as part of a timeline of relevant events. Before doing so, I should point out the wording I have used thus far. 

Me: "For maybe two months after, TIV did pay out about $2,000 a week." 

TIV is documenting payments made back in January. This is before the time frame I have actually complained about.

Me: "TIV has paid only $3000 since 5/30/2023 and have had lagging payments for months before that." 

When I said this on 9/17, this was true. They have paid $2000 since. Following $86000 in deposits the prior 8 days, for the 2 months between 1/24 to 3/24, TIV made $25,500 in payouts. This a bit more than $2000 per week at their absolute peek and intersects TIV's complaint. My memory is not perfect 8 months afterwards. That is why I said, "perhaps with a lone or scattered exception" with respect to the $2000 per week which was an estimate of an average. From 3/24 to 5/24 they paid only $8000 (i.e. lagging payments). At this point I started to need to pester them. Notice the gaps between 3/20 and 4/4 and 4/17 to 5/8. Since 5/24 (4 months 9 days) even worse: $7000 paid. When I tested them by not pestering them with emails, they paid out nothing from 8/1 to 9/17. TIV has paid out 27.8% of what I've paid in.

Date Deposits Payouts Notes

10/2 $1000

9/18 $1000

8/1 $1000

7/11 $1000

6/19 $1000

5/29 $2000

5/22 $4000 For promotional raffle.

5/8 $2000

4/17 $2000

4/9 $2000

4/7 $2000

4/4 $4000 For promotional raffle.

3/20 $2000

3/12 $2000

3/5 $2000

3/3 $2000

2/26 $2000

2/23 $2000

2/19 $2500

2/16 $1000

2/12 $2000

2/7 $2000

1/30 $2000

1/29 $2000

1/24 $2000

1/23-1/24 $28000 For promotional tournament.

1/22 $1000

1/17 $1000

1/16-1/18 $58000 For promotional tournament.

1/11 $25

1/9 $1500

1/9 $10000 For promotional tournament.

1/2/2023 $3010 For promotional raffle or tournament.

12/12/2022 $1009.38 For promotional raffle or tournament.

11/23 $1000 For promotional raffle or tournament.

11/13-11/16 $24016.97 For promotional tournament.

11/3 $7016.51 For promotional raffle or tournament.

10/25 $7058.46 For promotional raffle or tournament.

10/15-10/16 $5998.32 For promotional raffle or tournament.

10/10 $200 Amazon Gift Card

10/8-10/12 $3520.05

prior $2605.21 20 Separate Bonus Coupons redeemed.

Total $159,259.90 $44,200

Them: "although customers are asked to place their withdrawal in $1,000 increments, we do not pay separately in $1,000 increments...why not cash out aside $10,000"

Me: I have been through this and have now logged TIV's payouts. The number of pending payouts has never been the bottleneck.

Them: "The next screenshots will go to debunk yet ANOTHER false claim regarding all prizes/cashback already being deducted."

Me: It appears TIV has removed $80150 from my account as punishment for filing this complaint. They spin this by claiming they are the victims of a false claim that all prizes/cashback have been deducted. I said, "All the noncashable bonuses I have received have long ago been removed." Do they not know what "noncashable" means. The prizes still on my account were cash prizes verified by them. That is why they had not been removed after all this time. It is not because TIV has been so exceedingly generous. If my $75000 Paradise8 tournament prize hadn't been cash, I wouldn't have been able to cashout what I did there. I have pasted some snippets from my logged chats:

mcd6809: just in case I haven't confirmed this prizes for this tournament are pure cash with 1x wagering requirement?

Carol: yes like always

mcd6809: ok ty

mcd6809: so to confirm, yes or no, raffle prizes can be cashed out in full after the 1x wagering requirement is met

Peter: Correct and confirmed.  

The major scope of this complaint is now the $80150 removed. I have more to say but am near the character limit.

What is with the formatting on these posts? I spend a lot of time creating a table, I paste it in, do endless tabs so it realigns itself, then when I submit it, all is lost. On a side note,

Them: "to debunk yet another false and ridiculous claim that we only paid after a complaint has been placed"

Me:

Responding to "for weeks we have sent payments within a timeframe of approximately 72 hours. Many of those times we have been accused of not doing so, which was then followed by a receipt" I said, "Perhaps I've emailed, complaining, and they responded with a payment afterwards and then documented the payment as though my original complaint was unjustified. This is the sort of thing they would do". That statement is not equivalent to "we only paid after a complaint has been placed".

Still a lot more to be said but that is enough for one day. I tried posting an attachment of the table displaying correctly.

Dear mcd6802,

Thanks for your comprehensive reply. Just to check, have you wagered 1x the $75000 Paradise8 tournament prize? When were all the prizes/cashback you had really deducted? Usually, once a player submits a withdrawal, any non-cashable balance gained from prizes/cashback etc. is deducted from the balance, but in some casinos, the "bonus balance" still remains and only the "real money" amount can be withdrawn. This depends on the casino system. Another thing could be that not all raffles or tournaments can be cashed out. The casino live chat maybe informed you only in general that raffles or tournaments can be cashed out after wagering the amount 1x, but it would be better if the casino team clarified this.

Dear This Is Vegas team,

Can you please clarify the above-mentioned?

We hope this finds you well.

We would like to start this post with a mention of this recent deduction, and of how both prizes and cashback, and basically, anything given by the house to the customer, not at all being any new info to the customer. 

That would be due to the fact that not only did we inform the customer about it, but it had actually happened before already on different occasions. We are attaching another proof that shows a deduction of prize and cashback taking place when a payment was made from a previous tournament he participated in. Just like last time, 'INT-MAN' shows both credits and deductions by the house. As someone who is very proud to have everything logged, we would expect the customer to not act so surprised all of a sudden. Of course, the customer was also notified via email when this occurred, with a reminder and an explanation of what was deducted and why.

As for the chat transcript, there were honestly so many in the past year and an exact date would be extremely helpful in helping us locate the bigger picture here. However, asking innocent chat agents the same question over and over again in order to manipulate them just to catch them by their tongues and documenting it has proven to be the tactic here on multiple occasions. 

As for the paying table, everything is already documented in the screenshots we shared. We simply can't pay what was not requested within our system and is documented. As mentioned both by us and the customer, we did allow him to cash out $10,000 aside on a weekly basis, which was not taken advantage of at the time.

Due to the situation that was created, we did not want at all to credit $75,000 as a prize, pay the $1,000 he requested, and then deduct the whole balance as per our T&Cs. Although these are the strict rules, we really did not want to apply them in this case, up until now (allowing 9 months for him to gain anything above 75,000, while still occasionally sliding it off and paying). We remind you that the customer never went above $75,000, which would be legally his, and we still made exceptions and paid him while asking him to be active so he could win from it.

Due to what we mentioned in our previous responses, with all due respect, we simply do not want these kinds of customers in our establishment, and expediting any payments, based on the fact that the customer is very active on the forums, is very likely to bring more of these cases in. 

We are not ruling out a future scenario where we may pay more in order to get it over with, however, for now, our bottom line remains the same, unfortunately. Looking into the future, the customer will continue to receive his payouts within a maximum time frame of 12 business days.

We wish you all a great day and thank both Michal and Casino Guru for their platform once again.

This is Vegas Support

You: Have you wagered the 1x the $75000 Paradise8 tournament prize?

Me: I am pretty sure I met this a long time ago.

You: When were all the prizes/cashback you had really deducted?

Me: Apparently $80150 was removed from my account after I issued my complaint. I did not even realize this until 10/1/2023 when I logged into my account to start documenting my position. TIV did not bother to notify me. 

According to the record TIV posted, I had a $19000 cash back bonus removed back on 1/8/2023. That was the result of me making a deposit with a cash back bonus offer, losing the original deposit, and then scoring a win with the cash back bonus. I requested a payout and the $19000 cash back bonus was removed just like both parties knew it would be. There was no issue or complaint, so I am not quite sure why TIV is escalating this point. My guess is that they are trying to create a false equivalency between that cashback bonus and the raffle/tourney prizes I won as it could, at least, establish that I was aware that some of my balance could be removed at cashout. It would be hard not to be aware. The cashback and deposit bonuses I received were very clearly and repeatedly defined as noncashable. As will later be documented in detail, the raffle/tourney prizes are a quite different story.

Honestly, I think TIV's point about that $19,000 being deducted works against them. It sets a precedent of how TIV actually handles bonuses that are noncashable, i.e., they are removed immediately on cashout. They are not kept in a player's balance as an unspoken courtesy for management to have to personally track and not just delegate to their software. I mean, seriously, nobody does that. Even if somebody were to try to cash a noncashable bonus and it were allowed for some reason, the casino would immediately let them know even if it were just to point out how generous they were being. The earliest I even see TIV hint at this is on 3/19/2023, about 2 months after I started collecting payouts, with the sum passing mention of "not making prize deductions", which I passed off as inexplicable confusion on their part and didn't originally think twice about. Honestly, I didn't even know that cashing my tourney/raffles prizes was an issue on TIV's radar until recently. The reason is because those prizes were cash.

TIV's unexpected removal of $80150 from my account has had the added effect of forcing me to spend several hours slogging through and compiling my old chats and emails. Not what I wanted to be doing. Time and time again when it came up, without counterexample, the raffle/tourney prizes were confirmed as cash, often noted with a 1x rollover. For brevity, I will henceforth refer to the tourney/raffles prizes as "cash" as opposed to cash with a 1x rollover or 10x max cash out, factors which do not factor into this dispute. While perhaps redundant, I should point out that a defining property of cash is that it is cashable. Even so, I was frequently explicit in confirming whether prizes or bonuses could be cashed out.

I have compiled two text files. One contains all the chat sessions with TIV, good, bad, or irrelevant. It is possible I failed to log a few chat sessions, especially early on before I felt any need to, but there is no selection bias in what I have included. The second file is reduced to chats that touch on whether the tournament/raffle prizes I received were cashable. Many of my chat sessions are dated, a number of my oldest ones are not. However, the chats, by and large, are sequential so there is usually plenty of context to date them to within a thin range of time. I will email either of these two files to either casino.guru or TIV upon request. 

continued

While I emphatically do not expect either other party to suffer through reading through this mountain of correspondence, if you did, a few things would become clear. First, TIV's assertion that "asking innocent chat agents the same question over and over again in order to manipulate them just to catch them by their tongues and documenting it has proven to be the tactic here on multiple occasions" would easily be proven false. The chats repeatedly demonstrate nothing more than a general sense of prudence in confirming all relevant details before playing. I escalated numerous issues and there is no particular emphasis about whether the prizes I received were cashable. There is a reason for this. I had no reason to believe those prizes were not cashable. Inversely, actually doing what TIV suggested I did would not be a sound strategy. If my strategy were to win prizes for the sake of cashing them out, presumptively in a hypothetical situation where they could not be and I was aware of this fact, would mean risking seizure of my money just to be getting one term in my favor, that term only being semi-important. I would be trying to trump written rules with a single verifiably wrong quote from a chat operator. Beyond that, knowing TIV logs the chat, I would have to do so in a way where the chats logged no counterexamples TIV could use against me. TIV's implication is that I actually went out of my way to do all this. I should also point that the chat operators would know whether the prizes were cashable or not. This is not an obscure point and multiple operators would not have gotten this wrong. To be fair, TIV has been accommodating on multiple occasions and would consistently respond to my correspondence. While admirable, this point does work them against if the tourney/raffles prizes were somehow uncashable all this time as it would prove how consistently and deliberately negligent that they would have been in pointing this out. The terms of my bonuses/prizes should be that which I negotiated with TIV at the time and should not be preempted by any potential rule changes since. 

I will know start a long list of excerpts from the chats I have compiled. They are listed chronologically, not in order of favorability. By and large, there is no special context one needs to know and there is no selective editing. Some of the passages do not articulate things perfectly in my favor but it all adds up quickly enough. Given this is only a fraction of the correspondence, you would get a sense of how incredibly negligent TIV would be in never establishing the prizes were noncashable in hypothetical situations where they somehow were.

10/14/2022

(not the most definitive example, but I decided to include it)

mcd6806:

I'd also like to confirm the prize is just cash with no restrictions

Carol: you just received the 10th place which is 1200

Carol: and has 1x playthrough same as cash back .

Carol: and up to 10x the amount received

mcd6806: any game or wager restrictions?

Carol: nope, just 1x playthrough as mentioned before that's all

Undated. 

Note this dialogue doesn't address a tourney/raffle prize directly but establishes that a bonus can be cashable while having a 1x playthrough and max cash out

mcd6806: hi I noticed I got a $50 gift in my account. Curious what the terms are.

Layla: It's the gift from us friend

Layla: it has 1x playthrough and the max cash out is 100

mcd6806: ok ty

Layla: Max also let me know if you'd be interested in today's specials

Layla: I've something very very great for you and I'm sure you'll love them

mcd6806: I will in a bit let me do the $50 first. Any game restrictions or max restrictions on the $50? Cashable or noncashable?

Layla: no restrictions at all

Layla: you can play any game you want

mcd6806: cashable or noncashable?

Layla: It's cashable

Undated.

Carol: Your name was drawn in the 7th spot = 3,000

mcd6806: cool!

mcd6806: Awesome

Carol: congratulations!

mcd6806: will that $3000 be cash with no strings?

Carol: i'm really happy for you Max that's a good prize

mcd6806: I agree

Carol: 1x play only

mcd6806: no other restrictions

mcd6806: ?

Carol: nope

Undated.

This passage, while not particularly articulate or definitive, does strongly suggest that previous dialogues (notice the word "still") established that tourney/raffle prizes were understood to be cash with no restrictions. This assertion is in no way refuted and perhaps suggested through tone.

mcd6806:

The tournament still end Wednesday night at midnight? Tourney prizes are still cash with no restrictions? Must make a cash deposit of at least $500 to qualify?

Layla:

yes ends midnight EST

mcd6806:

And I would assume is still each $1 bet on any game is still 1 point?

Layla:

correct

mcd6806:

to all of it?

Layla:

and minimum entry is $1000

Layla:

correct, you can play any game

continued

Paradise8 1/9/2023 8:35 pm

mcd6809:

so to confirm, yes or no, raffle prizes can be cashed out in full after the 1x wagering requirement is met

Peter: Correct and confirmed.

Paradise8 1/16 8:00 pm

Peter:

May I see you reaching the TOP10 in our 500K TOURNAMENT this week! :-)

mcd6809:

Hi. I want to start playing the current tournament and want to figure out the best way to do it. I have the $4000 cash prize from last week's raffle. If I start playing it and then lose that balance and then make a qualifying deposit will the play prior to the qualifying deposit not count? However, if I do a qualifying deposit right now with a $4000 balance will that balance affect the bonuses I am eligible for?

mcd6809:

And to confirm the money in my account is unrestricted cash?

Peter:

I'll tell you, and share with you my opinion, with your approval.

mcd6809:

ok

Peter:

1. Your current balance is unrestricted cash.

Paradise8 8:49 pm (wrote time of 8:49 pm but not date, between chats dated 1/16/23 and and 1/18/23 so probably around then unless I mixed the file up)

mcd6809:

just in case I haven't confirmed this prizes for this tournament are pure cash with 1x wagering requirement?

Carol:

yes like always

mcd6809:

ok ty

Paradise8 night of 1/18/2023

(a little weak, but no challenge to the tournament prize being cashed)

mcd6809:

if your cash back hits 0 and you win a tournament prize and then you cash the tournament prize, does the cash back still get taken out if you do not separate it with a token deposit?

Carol:

just a moment please Max

Carol:

No, once you play back the CB, the CB session is over until the next one CB session, and nothing will be taken from you.

I have also attached some screenshots of emails I received. The following, dated 11/17/2022, clearly states my tourney prize is "real cash". 

The following email, dated 1/16/2023, states "The rules are straightforward. The player with the most points during the tournament will take the 1st prize of $150,000." Like all the other emails I've seen on these tournaments/raffles, there is no asterisk or fine print anywhere suggesting these prizes are anything but cash.

I should also point out that TIV had no dedicated link on their websites for their tourneys/raffles itemizing all the rules and details. Looking back at my chat transcripts, holy cow, this could have saved a lot of time. TIV does not publicly publish any of the tourney/raffle results and is conspicuously absent in promotion, except by emails to existing customers. This is particularly startling given the size of their promos. They have a "leaderboard" link which asks for an access code. I can't remember one time that TIV ever referenced an access code. Though TIV did make a couple of exceptions, by and large TIV would not provide final tournament/raffles results unless a player made a qualifying deposit even though the leaderboards never referenced particular accounts. Qualifying deposits were usually prohibitive. They started around $500-$1000 in their earliest promos and escalated to $3000+ for most of their later promos. There was no dedicated tournament software and no live leaderboard. For now, that is all I have to say on this. 

Side note. Prior to the newer management, managing all the promotions at TIV was easy. You'd redeem a coupon and in the cashier section all the terms would be clearly dictated and the rollover would be tracked, etc. This is not how things were managed for me afterwards.

On another side note, prior to getting the $75,000 Paradise8 tournament prize, I had at one point gotten my Paradise8 balance up to $130,000, my original target, during that tournament after a long stretch of continuous play. I took some time and reevaluated the situation. The tournament prizes are not as generous as they first appear. Only the amount of your tournament prize that is above your balance when it would be awarded is actually awarded. If I would have stopped right there, I would have been awarded no tournament prize. Since it was the final day of the tournament and I already had such a huge score in wagers that would essentially act as a good insurance bonus, yet still had about 8 hours to potentially zero my balance (a $0 balance would be bad obviously but good in terms of extracting value from the tournament), I decided to push slightly higher to $140,000. I never got there and ended up at $0. Why did I go for the extra bit? Because I knew whatever tourney prize I won would be cash. Given all my deposits and all my wagers, do you not think I would have this point firmly established? Do you think I would depend on a misquote from a chat operator? A $75,000 noncashable bonus is of vastly less value than $75,000 cash, especially given that TIV's wager limits are not especially high.

continued

If the prize were not cash, I would definitely have stopped at $130,000, especially considering how exhausted I was from betting millions of dollars the previous few days. That level of betting is not fun. Going for that extra $10,000 otherwise would have been a terrible risk because, if luck didn't go the right way, one could quickly get into a spiral of making millions of dollars of wagers with the effect of the house edge becoming substantial. In my case, TIV should be happy their prize was cashable because otherwise I would have ended up with a bigger win. Logs of my account would bear all this out.

Couple more points to add. Even in pretend scenarios where the particular tournament raffle/prizes I won would have been noncashable, TIV still behaved unacceptably. They took out $80150 without notification. I could have used that money to gamble and win actual cash that I could cash out. Further, since they were dead set on removing all $80150 worth of prizes, even though there were not enough funds in my Paradise8 account to do so, they took the remainder out of ThisIsVegas. In other words, they swiped out what would have been bonus money for actual cash at a 1:1 ratio. Also, if the tournament/raffle prizes really were noncashable, it is highly questionable TIV would not have objected to me playing on a second account at Paradise8 as doing so would then change the math somewhat substantially. I had over $70,000 in ThisIsVegas at the time. If you were a casino, where would you sooner add a noncashable bonus? To a balance that is over $70,000 or to a balance of $0. You would sooner add it to the $70,000 because it would be harder to zero your balance and liberate yourself from having that bonus removed from your next payout. If TIV was so generous as to overlook this consideration, given all the adjectives and puffery you've seen them use thus far, do you really believe they would not have done the thing that would been in their obvious best self-interest to do and point this out?

I also want to say that the standard for payouts for TIV should, moving forward, be at least $1,000 per week on average. Rule 8.1 states players are allowed to withdraw $1000 per week. A pipeline of $1,000 payout requests should ultimately yield $1,000 per week as a long-term average. TIV's rules mention an allowance of 12 business days for processing. A common sense reading of this is that this is to allow time for snags and complications with the actual processing, not to more than halve the payout frequency. If there is one thing that TIV has established, it's that they can process money quickly when they actually want to and presumptively have the funds. Their deposit processing is extremely fast.

I have more to say, but this is enough for now.

Dear mcd6802,

I apologize for my slightly delayed response, but there's a substantial amount of information from both parties, making it challenging to grasp all the details. Each side has the freedom to express their viewpoint, but given that this issue has been ongoing for nearly a year and involves a considerable volume of information, staying fully up to date is indeed a challenge.

I understand your concern regarding the tournament raffle/prizes and their unclear status in the casino's Terms and Conditions. It seems that the live chat agents may not have provided you with the most accurate information, and it's understandable to rely on the information provided by them. However, it's important to note that, as the casino team pointed out, you reached out to live chat even multiple times per day and asked the same or very similar questions, often seeking answers that aligned with your preferences rather than the original intent. While I can agree with you that the casino team could have handled the situation better, a fair and cooperative approach from your end is also expected.

I've been informed via email by the casino team that they believe they have adequately conveyed their position and are not interested in continuing to discuss the matter publicly. I'm still actively in contact with them and have requested clarification on a few additional points. Hopefully, we can work together to find a suitable resolution for your situation.

Acknowledged. I will say I do not consider your statement "you reached out to live chat even multiple times per day and asked the same or very similar questions, often seeking answers that aligned with your preferences rather than the original intent" to be accurate. As I have said, I have compiled unfiltered records of a large body of chat transcripts that I will make available to you or TIV. I think those records would bear out that I was not "seeking answers that aligned with your preferences rather than the original intent". By and large, I was not on chat multiple times per day. I usually only went to chat before a deposit too see what they would offer and to confirm the terms as well as to address individual issues as they arrived. I will await further developments in this complaint.

Dear mcd6802,

I have received a response from the casino team that clarified a few points. To my previous statement, Yes, I acknowledge that you have not reached out to live chat multiple times per day, but the other part, that you often seek answers that align with your preferences rather than the original meaning still persists. We have received more than enough evidence from the casino that you have been informed that the tournament raffle/prizes are considered to be cash-back money. "The Casino reserves the right to deduct Cashback money from a pending withdrawal" while referring to Tournament prizes just as cashback money, so this can't be a surprise for you that all the "Bonus money" was deducted. I guess this was sufficiently clarified now and no further conversation about this will be engaged.

The sole issue left for further deliberation pertains to the pace at which winnings are paid out. From a user experience point of view, I can agree with you that the above rule "TIV's rules mention an allowance of 12 business days for processing." is far from ideal. I'm trying to find a consensus with the casino team on this matter, so please be patient.

You: We have received more than enough evidence from the casino that you have been informed that the tournament raffle/prizes are considered to be cash-back money.

Me: You are going to need to make known to me what evidence you are citing here. TIV is deducting $80,150 so the gravity of this situation merits cross examination. Besides that, independent viewers of this complaint are going to want to make their own conclusions and should not just take your word for it. I am not changing my position that TIV represented the tourney/raffles prizes as being cashable. Your conclusion addresses none of the excerpts or screenshots I've shown and yet you state your conclusion without ambiguity. At an absolute minimum, given time, I could demonstrate that my both my betting patterns and extended communications, which most likely extend well beyond the scope of what TIV showed you, strongly suggest that I at least believed, even if erroneously, that the prizes I received were cashable as my actions would be inexplicable otherwise. Even if that would change nothing from a legal mindset, it reflects on credibility.

Even if you could hypothetically establish that TIV has in the past referred to these prizes as "cash-back" this would need to be contextualized. At the most common-sense level, classifying tourney/raffle prizes as "cash back" makes little sense. If you deposit $3000 to play one of their tournaments, wager $10,000,000, win a net of $10,000 and then get a tournament prize of $137,000 added on to that, would it make sense to label that $137,000 as "cash back"? All "bonus" money is established as noncashable on their website so why fuss over the word "cashback" while deliberately avoiding the word "bonus". Is it of such paramount importance that they get that 1x rollover? Since most of my chats that would have verified tourney/raffles rules would also have verified the T&C of my "cash back" bonus offers on the deposits I would have been making, I really would appreciate you showing your evidence to make sure there is no misrepresentation or confusion. Over the past year, I made several deposits with TIV premised on receiving "cash back" bonuses in situations where my balance zeroed out that were independent of any tourney/raffle prizes. The full T&C of those bonuses were well established and could set a precedent of how TIV established bonus terms in chat. The mere mention of "cashback" should not imply a communication to me that raffle/tourney prizes were noncashable and should not automatically negate the other things TIV has gone on the record saying.

When I was regularly playing TIV's promos, I would also from time to time go their website to read their rules. While I do not remember taking any screenshots (as I saw no need to do so at the time) I will go on the record that I do not remember reading any rules at the time which dictated that tourney/raffles prizes were noncashable. This does not preclude the possibility that there was, but I do not remember anything to that effect. The rules stated on their website now would not be applicable retroactively so the rules as they were when I was actually playing the tournaments/raffles should be verified. Anyhow, let's dissect some of their current rules.

6.5 All cashback money won from a Tournament prize, Raffle prize or Special Promotion have a maximum withdrawal limit of 10X the cashback bonus and carry a wagering requirement of 1X.

If you want to reduce things to technicalities, 6.5 doesn't actually state that all tournament or raffle prizes are actually cashback money. It just states that when a tournament or raffle prize is cashback money that it has a withdrawal limit of 10x and wagering requirement of 1x. Given the inferences most people would make reading this rule, if you want to flip this around to reinforce that I "seek answers that align with my preferences rather than the original meaning" feel free. However, both the rules and prizes of tournaments/raffles have been far from static. Thus, why assume that rule 6.5 verifies the prizes of these promos to be invariably "cashback money". Let's read further,

6.5 (continued) Players who have a pending withdrawal or balance of over 100 $/€/£/ do not qualify to receive Tournament prizes or to receive cash from a Raffle or cashback from any ongoing Cashback promotion or any other special promotion offered by the Promotions Team.

This is verifiably false and explicitly contradicts tourney/raffles rules TIV has elsewhere established. I have received prizes with both a balance over $100 and a pending withdrawal. Moreso, this rule doesn't make any sense. Why should you be excluded from winning any part of a $150,000 prize because your balance was $101 as opposed to $0. This is at least one example of something on TIV's website being commonly preempted elsewhere. Also, lock in on the phrase "cash from a Raffle".

continued

It doesn't say "cashback" from a raffle. "Tournament prizes" is also listed distinctly here from "cashback from any ongoing Cashback promotion". This is not to say I consider any of this proof of anything, but I do consider TIV's rules poorly written.

I also want to point to rule 6.4. In one sentence it states, "This includes cashback awarded as 'gifts', 'comps' or 'free chips'." In essence, it is establishing major categories of things to be considered "cashback". The mention of tourney and raffle prizes is absent. Again, this is hardly proof of anything but still...

You: "this can't be a surprise for you that all the "Bonus money" was deducted. I guess this was sufficiently clarified now and no further conversation about this will be engaged."

Me: Yes, all the money being deducted was a surprise. I am not quite sure why you are implying otherwise. Were this not the case, I would have used the deducted money to wager and try to win some cash instead of just waiting for it all to be removed from my account. You seem to be suggesting that I deposited over $155,000 and wagered over $20,000,000 to win prizes that I intended to just let rot. You also seem fine with TIV voiding out pure cash from my ThisIsVegas account to replace bonus money from my Paradise8 account. Has some irrefutable clarification been made that should have prevented me from being surprised weeks ago when the money was voided? You are also quoting "Bonus money". Not totally clear where you are coming from with some of this.

You: "The sole issue left for further deliberation..."

Me: Before we get ahead of ourselves, I have thus far only started on the "A" portion of my complaint. In previous instances, I have mentioned that I still have a lot more to say. A good portion of that would be the "B" portion of my complaint which I have not yet made mention of. The "B" portion intersects the "A" portion to the extent that it reflects on TIV's credibility. However, I have not yet decided to do the "B" portion here as I am still vetting out casino.guru as a probing, objective arbiter and because I do not want to attack TIV's credibility all at once as I am frankly worried that if their credibility did spiral downward, it would hurt my chances of getting paid.

You: "an allowance of 12 business days for processing"

Me: You seem to be ok that TIV has already been delinquent in several payments even by that generous allotment. TIV's rules, in my opinion, do not justify a static payout rate of once every 12 business days. I consider that an allowance for transient difficulties in processing.

I also want to say that you have glossed over quite a lot of things I have mentioned previously.

I have finally had the time to finish reading through all the chats and emails with TIV that I have on record. Not to understate this, but that was a lot of correspondence to sift through. I went oldest to newest. I focused on the oldest communication first because that was the communication most relevant to when I was depositing and playing the hardest and thus the most subject to any relevant rules. Now that I have had the time to reread the newer correspondence before the complaint was issued, having a little bit better idea of what things may have been on TIV's mind the entire time, I might want to make a few minor edifications, clarifications, and contextualization's prior to casino.guru's response so that it does not like I am misrepresenting anything. Core components of my complaint will stand, but it is clear TIV and I were on a different page with respect to an important detail or two in some of our communications. TIV was not always articulate in the right way and there could be large gaps in time between communications to disrupt continuity. It may take me a bit of time to assemble a properly thorough representation of what I want to say about the "A" portion of my complaint. Bear with me. It is getting late at night, so I don't feel like sorting through all this right now.

Bear with me yet. Am making progress. Should have next response properly written up in 2 to 3 days perhaps sooner.

Dear mcd6802,

You, just like anyone else, have the right to express your perspective on the situation. However, it's essential to keep in mind that we expect information to be relevant. We understand that this isn't always a straightforward task, and sometimes a more comprehensive response is needed. Nonetheless, providing an excessive amount of unnecessary information often has the opposite effect of what's intended.

While we agree that the rules regarding tournament raffles and prizes could be more explicitly articulated in the casino's terms and conditions, it's worth noting that the casino team has informed you that these tournament raffles and prizes are considered cash-back money.

We believe the tournament raffles and prizes were sufficiently explained, but you still continue to see only your point on them, despite the casino's efforts for an explanation. That's why we don't think any further engagement in this matter will be beneficial. The decision in this regard has been made by the casino according to its rules, and we can't disagree with this.

You are welcome to offer additional pertinent details that could provide a fresh perspective on the situation. However, please remember to focus on information that is both relevant and clear, and that hasn't been repeated multiple times already.

If you read my previous comments, you might be incredulous about how I characterized my reaction to TIV voiding $80150 from my account given communications they may have showed you. This could include emails right before I escalated my complaint, the one email where they did quote rule 6.5, as well as another scattered allusion or two to me cashing out bonuses. This could especially be true if you are not paying attention to the dates of correspondence. My recent review of the last 50 or so emails sent back and forth (out of 161 saved) has surfaced this to my attention. Things will make more sense in context.

"Promos" henceforth shall mean "tournaments/raffles".

On 1/27/2023, I won a $75000 tournament prize. My combined balance at this point was over $140,000. At this point, for reasons central to what I would dissect if and when I do my part B complaint, I decided I would no longer play tournaments and was strongly deterred to future raffles. I hate to be vague about this, but the part B complaint would take some time to assemble and would need to be go through the proper communication process with TIV first. I don't like to complain publicly about stuff that hasn't been dissected privately. For now, just know that my trust at this point in TIV was already very low. I did not communicate this to TIV because I figured it might classify me as a lower value customer and could not help my chances of getting paid or paid quickly. Also, I concluded I would never get my balance paid off if I continued playing weekly promos which, by then, had a typical deposit requirement of $3000.

You need to understand that over the next number of months TIV would say a lot of things which would undermine my confidence in them even further. You may or may not agree with my conclusions, but my actions are consistent with this level of confidence. My mistrust will set context for how things play out.

Concedingly, I would later play two raffles. $4000 deposit each. This was due to a substantial drop-off in payout frequency which TIV attributed to my declining VIP status. The math of how TIV handles VIP status is not disseminated. The raffles were a litmus test to see how my payout rate would be affected if I added some meaningful action. The effect was nominal. For the first time with TIV's promos, I was not playing for value nor for fun and my level of attention was consistent with that. That was a mistake. I reviewed my chats prior to depositing for each of these raffles. Each time I confirmed the T&C of the cash back deposit bonuses I'd get. Each time I failed to confirm the T&C of any of the raffle prizes. I was probably complacent nothing had changed and probably did not double check stated T&C on the website. It is quite possible that some version of rule 6.5 was in effect by this time and that the $700 and $1250 raffle prizes I won here should be considered noncashable bonuses. Given TIV's mention of "prize deductions" on 3/19 this would not surprise me. The implications of this can be dissected later. 

Following are the relevant communications with TIV following 1/27/2023. They are listed chronologically and not by importance.

3/19 TIV:

...our finance department would probably be quite disappointed with the fact that they do their best to help, along with breaking our rules in your favor each and every time, (sharing the promotions info & tables despite the fact you are not participating in them / not making prize deductions / sending funds weekly) despite the fact that you have not participated in any of our VIP promotions for 2 months now, and had a very minimal play in general.

- I include this out of disclosure. It is the first mention I am aware of "prize deductions" after 7 weeks of payouts and several intermediate communications. I don't remember reading this originally and probably chalked those 4 words off as inconsequential confusion on TIV's part. I shouldn't have, but at this point I was basically just collecting payments and not really on guard. The snippet "prize deductions" was a small part of a much broader email.

4/3 Me:

You seem to be holding me hostage until I play your promotions as opposed to just playing normally. Playing those promotions would involve making more deposits when I already have more than $130000 in balance between thisIsVegas and Paradise8

...If you want me to play your promotions, get my balance paid off. Getting basic payouts is not some elite VIP thing.

4/4 TIV (email):

When you start playing a new promo, it's all "fresh", and you don't have to lose any money from your previous balance. Meaning - if you started the tournament with a 20K balance, it's like you started it with ZERO. So you can have a prize even if you finish the tournament with a 20K balance. (Anything above 20K will be deducted from the prize). 

Here is a chat excerpt from 4/4 before depositing:

Me: if I get the cash back bonus and lose it is the bonus considered completely out of the picture even though my balance remains at $70843? i.e. if I make a payout request afterwards the cash back is not removed from my account still?

Carol: that's correct

-This establishes that key rules/details of promos were stated nowhere on TIV's website nor in their base email advertisements. This also contradicts not receiving a prize if your balance is over $100. If you fully interpret what this means, given that TIV was supposedly not removing noncashable bonuses from payouts, TIV would have to keep track of multiple zeroing out points if multiple bonuses were awarded even after multiple payments. Perhaps you would understand why one might get into the habit of constantly going through support to confirm the details of their promos as their website and base emails consistently did not mirror how their promos were actually administered. As a case in point, in numerous publicly broadcasted emails advertising their promos, TIV neglects to state that there is a minimum deposit to qualify for prizes. Worse, they said things like "Deposit 25 USD and get 100 tickets. Deposit 50 USD and get 300 tickets...Deposit 1000 USD and get 12,000 tickets" when all those deposit amounts are below the minimum thresholds TIV has told me even qualify you to win a prize. There were no asterisks nor references to read the T&C and nowhere is this info stated anyhow. You had to go chat. There are only the likes of "For any questions about how the prizes are distributed don't hesitate to ask the chat agent". One of my earliest chats was complaining about last year's Halloween 50k where I played extensively but did not qualify for the promo because nowhere was it stated that a qualifying deposit was required, and I didn't know. TIV took a hit to make restitution and choose to continue omitting this detail and others like it. On 12/26/22 and 1/9/23 TIV does state "Please contact our chat agent regarding the Entry Fees and EXTRA tickets!" although there were never actually any entry "fees". Both the scoring systems and prize pools were always detailed in full. One could be suspicious about why they would go so far out of the way to omit the entry requirement. Perhaps they would want to dictate an entry requirement to an individual based on what they thought they could extract from that particular player.  

-TIV removed $3200 at the start of this complaint in response to the 2 $1600 cash back bonuses I earned from my deposits playing the raffles dating 4/4 and 5/22. This clearly contradicts what TIV told me here. During both raffles, as I did in all situations where I received what I understood to be cash back, I immediately played the cash back until it hit 0 or I hit my target. This is the obvious strategy here to earn more tickets. Each time I played my balance down to the original balance amount to zero out each bonus. 

4/13:

-Throughout the past year, TIV has repeatedly stressed playing promotions as opposed to just playing. Here, I have to point out to TIV that every $1 in deposits generates the same number of raffle tickets as $600 in wagers. This would be changed but this general obsession with generating deposits as opposed to generating wagers would deepen my suspicions. Prioritizing incoming money over generating advantage this badly is a warning sign of ponzi schemes and companies with desperate balance sheets. The unnaturally large escalation of their promo prize pools compounded this fear.

I would later point out to TIV that they would get a lot more action if they'd have alternative means to qualify for their promos such as floor wagering requirements, etc. Presumptively other people like me, especially given the huge prizes TIV claimed they paid out ($150,000+), would be waiting on their balances to be paid and would not want to keep depositing even if they wanted to keep playing promos. In reality, there doesn't need to be any entry requirements to promos. Just adjust the prize tables to anticipated action. Entry requirements, especially prohibitive ones like $3000 deposits, create a deadweight loss of all the players who would play more to go for promo prizes but would not or could not make such a huge deposit. TIV's promos offered fixed total prize pools. The more people incentivized to wager more the better. This is because you are always paying out the same net amount.

I would not see TIV change the deposit requirements. This is despite mentions of TIV structuring their promos to think of the little guy. I know of no other casino that operates like this. For about 6 weeks from August to mid-September, I would substantially increase my level of play off-promotion. This action apparently generated no notice from TIV whatsoever and I got paid nothing during this period. On 3/19, TIV said it absorbed 4-6% fees to process bitcoin. Pointing out the fees that TIV absorbed pointlessly pushing back and forth deposited money yielded nothing. TIV's explanation is that the deposit component "gives a chance to customers who don't have a large balance to 'catch up' with those who have an initial advantage." Finally, take TIV's progressives. About a year ago TIV removed them all and said they would be reinstated after a "redesign". They haven't been. That is not the point. What is the point is that I am pretty sure they said progressives could only be played with cash "deposits". Everywhere else progressives can be played with any cash balance, not just deposits. For example, you could take a deposit bonus, clear it, cash out, have the bonus removed, and then play progressives. Worse, by their rule 7.1, if you deposit $249 or less and win a progressive (or any other large win), you can cash out no more than 10x the deposit amount.

5/6 Me:

Outside of active participation in a promotion and the 2 or 3 weeks of payments it brought, 5 nonsequential weeks have gone by without you paying anything.

5/7 TIV:    

Regrettably, you are mistaken in claiming that there was an instance when you did not receive payment for approximately five weeks. Your most recent payment was made on April 16th. While it is true that there was a delay of two business days, we have compensated for this by increasing the payment amount today.

-During this period transactions were:

3/20 $2000 payout. 4/4 $4000 deposit. 4/7 and 4/9 and 4/17: $2000 payout each.     5/8 $2000 payout.

I put this is in because earlier in my complaint I said this is the kind of thing TIV would do. Admittedly, TIV may have just been sloppy here. However, with very similar examples on both 7/6 and 7/19, it was making it hard for me to take TIV seriously. 

5/7

TIV actually goes to serious lengths to convince me that I am not at an obvious competitive disadvantage playing tournaments for value, given I am not willing to deposit new money, competing against players who could potentially get cash back deposit bonuses of 200% or greater.

Me: I don't want to wager money that is pure cash up against other people getting 200% bonuses which makes their wagers cheaper.

TIV: (among other things) "Secondly, we don't give you a 200% bonus on $20,000 and others a 200% bonus on $1,000. I'm not quite sure where you got that idea, but participation in the promotion should be fair for everyone." 

-I have no idea where TIV got the idea I had that idea. Also, this is one of a couple situations where I clearly reflect my balance as "cash" which TIV does not comment on.

7/6:

-TIV mentions they "might also involve the removal of prizes from the CASH OUT, as written in the T&C", albeit buried in a much larger email. Perhaps I should have followed up to see what this line was referring to, but I didn't. I was months away from any serious play at this point and had no intention of playing further promos. If I had somehow had any noncashable bonuses in my account, they would have automatically been removed at the first payout a long time (or should have been) and I was under the impression support had confirmed my major promo prizes as cash. Over the previous months, TIV had said a lot of things which were somewhat rambling or scatterbrained or inaccurate to inform my mindset. I do not remember reading this line originally and my response to this email did not mention it.

7/7 TIV:

(amidst much larger email) Your activity... has dwindled to almost non-existent. If (persists), we might have to reconsider your eligibility for these benefits, potentially having to act in accordance with our T&Cs and remove the tournament prizes from your balance.

-Again, tournament prizes I had earned all the way back in January had been confirmed as cash and would have been removed long ago otherwise. My mindset was that a threat like that would not survive scrutiny and I gave it little attention. Gauging by my response, I was completely absorbed by the fact TIV was not making minimum payments.

7/18 Me:

Since May 30th you have paid only $2000. According to your minimum $1000 per week payout rule that currently leaves you $5000 in payments below your own established minimum. I have a limited amount of bitcoin addresses that I can have active for receiving payments at any one time. Thus, I am not going to request new payout requests until the previous ones has been paid. The number of payout requests I have made has had no bearing on your payments. Get your shit together or I am going to escalate beyond just not playing. As I have said numerous times, I will start playing when you start paying the minimum amount out.

7/19:

TIV: "First, you keep repeating the same claim that the last time our finance department sent you a payment was on May 30th." 

TIV then cites the $1000 payments on 6/19 and 7/11. This was somehow supposed to refute "Since May 30th you have paid only $2000". Bear in mind, this is the third time they had done something like this so understand if I am starting to get a bit flippant. TIV then cites:

8.2. It is our goal to pay withdrawals within 1 and 12 business days. This time frame can vary due to processor availability but we will always do everything in our power to pay our players as fast as possible so you can get your winnings quickly and easily. During times of high cash out levels, the casino reserves the right to lower the weekly withdrawal limits to €/£/AU$/$500.

In hindsight, technically speaking, despite a $125,000 balance, this could justify having paid only $2000 the past seven weeks if you do the math. TIV here, as in many other instances, opine that I have already received heaps of extra special treatment in my favor and remove me as VIP and threatens deductions of any cashback/prizes from my current balance. They cite rule 6.5:

6.5 All cashback money won from a Tournament prize, Raffle prize or Special Promotion have a maximum withdrawal limit of 10X the cashback bonus and carry a wagering requirement of 1X. All bonuses of 200% or more, cashback insurance of 75% or more will be considered Special Promotions. The Casino reserves the right to deduct Cashback money from a pending withdrawal. Players who have a pending withdrawal or balance of over 100 $/€/£/ do not qualify to receive Tournament prizes or to receive cash from a Raffle or cashback from any ongoing Cashback promotion or any other special promotion offered by the Promotions Team.

Although TIV has made vague references to their T&C countless times, this is literally the only time they cite rule 6.5 prior to my complaint. This rule was quite contrary to my memory of the rules when I was seriously playing and contradicted a lot of things I been told in prior chats and emails. The rule is also a bit ridiculous for reasons I have articulated earlier. My response, amidst a lot of other stuff, was "If you are seriously going to threaten to revoke money I have already won, don't be surprised if this situation becomes public very quickly." In this situation and a number of others, it was either explicit or heavily implied that I considered my balance cash. TIV had plenty of opportunities they could of and should have disabused me of this notion if this was not the case. They never did. Instead, they consistently try to spin it like they were doing me a favor letting me request payouts without making deductions. If a casino does that, it can only hurt the customer because if allows them to play under false notions.

(continued)

Inversely, the casino is more likely to get new deposits and a lot more wagers than they otherwise have gotten. It is the difference between representing a $150,000 prize as being worth $150,000 compared to a $150,000 bonus worth maybe $50,000. There's a reason that legitimate casinos keep a section tracking everything involving bonuses and a reason they put an expiration date on noncashable bonuses.

7/19 TIV responds:

We are not obligated to pay you $ 1000 a week. Our commitment is to allow you to set aside $ 1000 a week (in pending). There's a significant difference.

In an effort to be fair, we increased your limit to allow you to set aside (in pending) $ 10,000 in one go, instead of $ 1,000 a week. You chose not to take advantage of this, which is entirely your decision.

According to your own statements, you stopped playing because you found our promotions uninteresting (despite some being modified at your request), and because we do not offer the games you prefer. let's at least be honest.

If you wish to make this matter public, we have no issue with that.

You have received a substantial amount of money from us, often under conditions that were specially adjusted for you. No one compelled us to do this, and therefore, no one can obligate us to continue offering you these conditions.

We manage a large operation with many customers, none of whom have raised complaints about our payment ethics, our games, our promotions, or claimed inactivity due to non-payment. and all at the same time. and all, all of a sudden. Regrettably, these issues seem to be unique to your experience. 

-I have attached 3 screenshots of complaints about TIV and its skins from Casinomeister from just this year alone. Two of these cases have already been closed with Casinomeister issuing warnings as a result for TIV ignoring the player complaints. The 3rd is still pending but TIV has yet to reply.

-If you go to https://www.casinofreak.com/ there are a notable number of black medals that players have posted against the TIV group.

-sistersitesindex.com labels TIV as a "rather small casino". Does this sound consistent with the fact that TIV offers literally the biggest casino tournaments and raffles on the internet and yet have one of the smallest guaranteed payout schedules.

-Outside of complaints, I could not even find ThisIsVegas on Casinomeister (no reviews) except basically for some old forum postings referencing them being in and out of the "rogue pit" from about 12 years ago.

-The player feedback I saw on TIV and its skins strongly represented low stakes players and very little if anything on TIV's massive raffles/tourneys.

9/11 Me:

I have been paid only $3000 since 5/30/2023 despite the fact that I have had $1000 payout requests pending that entire time. I have given you plenty of action the last 7 weeks as well on average over the past year. I stopped playing for a while for some tough love. That obviously didn't work. This needs to be a lot better.

9/12 TIV:

We would like to remind you, however, that our actions are in strict compliance with the Terms and Conditions that were agreed upon at the time of your account creation.

...The alternative approach would be adhering strictly to the Terms and Conditions, consequently revoking any promotional prizes you have accumulated, guided by the same principles that govern CashBack rewards.

9/12 Me:

So that we understand each other, there is only one language I am paying attention to at this point and that I have been paying attention to for some time. For your benefit, I would suggest saying only things that would survive scrutiny. I don't mind playing, but you need to start paying or I will switch the carrot to the stick.

9/13 TIV:

...sorry, in your case, we are not supposed to follow them (the T&C), but we chose to pay you, albeit at our rate, but it is better than deleting all the CASH BACK from your account, right? So before you switch the carrot with the stick, we suggest that you read the T&C again, and if something is not clear, we are here for any question.

9/13 Me:

You need to establish what your payout rate will be in the next response. If in word or action the response is inadequate, you better hope your rules do validate your position. I don't think they will. 

9/14 TIV:

Currently, we are processing payments to you, despite not being required to do so according to our established terms and conditions. Consequently, the pace of these disbursements will be dictated by our discretion.

We want to emphasize, as previously communicated in our past correspondences, that we are willing to adhere to the Terms & Conditions that were agreed upon at the time of your account creation. Adhering to these terms would entail the forfeit of all the cashback (CB) you have accrued.

9/14 Me:

Below is word for the word the complaint that I will submit to casino.guru...This is a final courtesy...I have no more interest in your words at this point.

9/15 TIV:

...please be advised that the initiation of a formal complaint on the forum will invoke the relevant clauses of our T&C, to which you have previously agreed.

-TIV's threat to revoke money from my account was seen here as a threat to punish me for making a complaint. This reinforced the notion that TIV was not legitimate and that I was not going to get paid anyway and therefore I had little downside to issuing a complaint. During these final days, TIV made ad nauseum references to their T&C without stating which T&C they were referring to. Be thankful I am giving you abridged snippets. Their only reference to 6.5 had been months ago, which I had forgotten about, and I felt no motivation to reread all their T&C to chase what they were talking about. Even if I were to take TIV's threat to revoke my money seriously, I knew what they did at the beginning of a complaint would be academic. My postings and complaints would eventually extend to as many websites on the internet as available. Revoking money, even if TIV could somehow convince its audience it was noncashable without false representation, without allowing me to play it first because I made a complaint, will not pass with the broader internet. Truth be told, I was not even reading closely at this point because it seemed like TIV was just flailing away. TIV's "albeit at our rate" line had gotten me particularly incensed. That's why I had already forgotten some of these particular threats that TIV had made by the time of your response on 10/13. 

TIV is trying to spin a narrative I was abusing their unending generosity by withdrawing funds they claim shouldn't have been cashable. The mass hordes of cash in my ThisIsVegas account that was cash in all narratives would, I presume, be academic to this assertion.

Finally, if my last two raffle prizes are to be classified as "cash back", then the rules TIV stated on 4.4 should apply. I had lost a couple thousand dollars in incidental play the last few months which easily could have zeroed completely, or at least largely, both raffle prizes before TIV deducted their full amounts after my complaint.

Dear mcd6806

I'm sad to say that my previous kind request was not taken into consideration, and it took me a while to grasp all the information. Again, I understand that this complex situation requires a lot of information, however, given that this issue has been ongoing for nearly a year and involves a considerable volume of information, staying fully up to date is really a challenge.

Anyway, after reading your responses, I have not come to the conclusion that it will change the whole situation, and the points I have mentioned before are still in place. Yes, I still agree with you that the rules regarding tournament raffles and prizes could be more explicitly articulated in the casino's terms and conditions, but on the other hand, it seems that the exceptions the casino team made in your favor you are now trying to somehow use against them, and I'm not sure if this is an appropriate approach. I can't fully speak for the casino, but you have made indications that the casino has changed or amended its T&Cs without any relevant proof from your side (the casino team strongly denies this accusation), and somehow it showed why the casino team is not interested in any further discussion with you. From your reactions and from the evidence we have gathered, it is evident that you are not just a casual player and that you have a good understanding of how the usual processes in online casinos work and what the usual terms are in every casino. VIP status is awarded to players as a form of reward. If you are not fulfilling certain requirements (it sadly doesn't really matter if you like them or not as you have already agreed with the T&Cs) or criteria, it is absolutely natural that the benefits that apply to VIP status will no longer be applicable to you.

I have discussed your complaint with my other colleagues from our complaints team, and basically, we can't disagree with the casino's decision in this case as they were simply adhering to their established rules that you agreed with when creating your casino account.

I can agree with you that the pace at which your winnings are paid out is far from ideal from a user experience point of view, however, TIV's rules mention an allowance of 12 business days for processing, so although it looked like we would be able to find a consensus with the casino team to pay you quicker, your above-mentioned reactions and previous communication with the casino team have discouraged their interest in accommodating you, and they have decided to continue paying you strictly by their T&Cs rules and will continue doing so. We already award black points to TIV Casino for low withdrawal limits and for other rules that we don't consider fair, so the only advice I can give you is to check the reviews of every casino before you register there. I understand that the resolution of your complaint may not align with your expectations. However, as previously mentioned, it's important to note that we cannot dispute the fact that the casino is merely adhering to its established rules.

If you feel you want to take your complaint further you can contact Curacao/Antillephone Gaming Authority (complaints@gaminglicences.com , certria@gaminglicences.com) and submit a complaint to them. It's not the best licensing authority but it may have more options and tools to help players. Let me know how they replied at michal.k@casino.guru

Unfortunately, after gathering all the necessary information we are forced to reject this complaint. Sorry we were not able to help you with this one, but please, do not hesitate to contact us in the future, if you run into any issues with this or any other casino and we will try our best to help.