Vave Casino - Player's winnings were confiscated due to a new policy change.

While my account was in the red, vave was withdrawing money without any problems. At the moment I had $27,500 deposited on my account and not a single withdrawal. Of course they won't ask me for any documents as long as I bring them my money.

After 10-12 days, I started to break away and increase my balance and made a withdrawal of $12,500 without problems (the account was still in the red by $15k). The second withdrawal also went without problems. I ordered another $12,000 for withdrawal a week after the first withdrawal. The account was still negative, which is probably why the withdrawal went quickly and without problems.

But 2 days ago, the bets started winning one by one and the account balance became $18,000 (if you count the account balance, it turns out that my balance is in positive territory by $1,500 for 3 weeks of my account life).

On the third withdrawal of $10,500, vave was asked for verification. I am a resident of Russia, so I have a Russian Federation passport. But who would have thought that vave are so arrogant and can impose sanctions on sports betting for only one country. And it naturally turned out to be Russia. I registered on August 1st and there was no clause in their terms-and-conditions that players from Russia cannot bet on sports, I am more than sure of this.

And the funny thing is that the site supports 19 different languages, respectively, the section "Terms and Conditions" is translated into all available 19 languages. And Clause 2.1. in "Terms and Conditions", where it says about the ban on players from Russia is only on the English version of the site. No other language has this item.

I sent photos within 40 minutes of the verification request and received a response after 80 minutes. That is, verification was fast. As a result, the balance was $18,000, of which $15,000 was confiscated by vave, and $3,000 was given to me (apparently as a gesture of goodwill). This is nothing short of racist and making up rules on the fly. Because banning players from a single country from betting on sports is blatant discrimination.

They confirmed to me by email that they introduced a clause about Russian players less than a month ago.

Dear h4eeeeeeeee,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your withdrawal problem.

As you might know, our Forum Casino.Guru, deals with the complaints regarding online casinos only, not sports betting. However, since this issue seems to be related purely to country restrictions, we will try to help you.

Could you please forward a screenshot of your successful account verification along with any relevant communication to petronela.k@casino.guru? Have you completed account verification before your very first withdrawal or later, when requesting your third withdrawal only?

Meanwhile, I checked the general terms and conditions and this is what I found (here):

English version:

Russian version:

Looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

Petronela

vave.com requested account verification only after the 3rd withdrawal request. The first 2 withdrawals took 5-10 minutes. Fast.

On August 26th, the casino informed you that a new regulation had been implemented, with no more than one month having passed since its introduction. Have you been provided with a specific date when this regulation was officially put into effect?

no

they did not give me a specific date for introducing this rule.

Could you please send me your game history or screenshots of your placed bets? I want to verify the timing of these bets. However, if the casino has restricted Russian players from participating in sports betting, they should consider implementing a software block on such accounts, or at the very least, inform players in advance.

Thank you very much, h4eeeeeeeee, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Matej (matej@casino.guru) who will be at your assistance. I wish you the best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.  

Hello h4eeeeeeeee,

I am sorry to hear about your troubles.

I would like to invite the casino representative into the case:

Dear casino representative, could you please check the case and explain to us what happened?

Hello,

We understand your frustration, and we want to clarify the situation. At Vave asino, we strive to treat all players equally and uphold the terms and conditions that were in place at the time you placed your bets.

The terms and conditions are established to ensure fair play and protect the interests of all our players. In this case, the rules were in effect before your gaming session, and it's essential to acknowledge that any breach of these rules has consequences. As per our policy, when it was evident that the rules were not followed, we returned your initial deposit as a gesture of goodwill. However, the winnings obtained in violation of our terms had to be forfeited.

To prevent any future misunderstandings, we strongly recommend that all our players thoroughly familiarize themselves with our terms and conditions. This ensures a fair and enjoyable gaming experience for everyone involved.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to our customer support team. We are here to assist you and provide clarity on any issues you may encounter.

Why didn’t you return to me all my deposits that I lost with you? And only the last deposit was returned, although before this deposit I lost $14,000 in addition to it.

I honestly won back my money, but you decided that it was a sign of goodwill to confiscate all my deposits, which I returned through bets.

Dear Vave casino representative,

Could you please inform us about how you communicated to the players that Russian citizens are not allowed to place sporting bets? If this rule was recently added, how could h4eeeeeeeee have known about it?

If this rule was added to the terms on August 21st and you did not inform h4eeeeeeeee by email, personal message, or at least provide a warning when he logged in to the casino, then I believe that all deposits made since August 21st should be refunded. It is unreasonable to expect players to check the terms every time before logging in.

Hello,

We believe that users should familiarize themselves with the rules independently. However, we have taken this into consideration, and such a practice will be reviewed.

Due to the nature of our website, we cannot state with 100% certainty that someone is from a restricted region, as players may employ VPNs, proxies, or similar methods. Nevertheless, as soon as we become aware that a player is in a high-risk area, necessary measures are promptly implemented. It is worth noting that the player used a proxy, and once we discovered that he was from Russia, appropriate actions were taken.

Dear Vave casino representative,

Are you suggesting that players should read the full terms and conditions every time before logging in? Because if you mean this seriously, it is a very user-unfriendly approach considering it could take 30 minutes to read them in full.

If you informed players by email or through a pop-up when these new terms came into effect, we can discuss it. However, simply restricting certain countries without notifying the affected players does not seem very fair to me.

Hello, 

We strive to provide maximum clarity and transparency in the gaming process and therefore we try to inform all our players of any changes that may affect their gaming experience.

However, the player's own familiarization with the terms and conditions of our casino is also an integral part of responsible gaming. This will allow you to always be aware of all changes and innovations, as well as to avoid misunderstandings in the future.

Dear Vave casino representatives,

The first sentence you wrote contradicts the other.

I'm sorry, but in this case, we are on the side of the player. You can't expect players to check the terms in full every time they want to log into their account.

I think they don’t really care about their reputation and will not compensate for any losses that they themselves organized.

We would like to ask the casino to reply to this complaint. We are extending the timer by 7 days. If the casino fails to respond in the set time frame, we will close the complaint as ‘unresolved’ which may negatively affect its rating.

Hello! 

We sincerely regret the situation and understand your concern. Our decision has been carefully considered and final, and we have provided all necessary explanations regarding this matter.

We appreciate your appeal and understand that sometimes these situations can cause misunderstandings. We hope that you will find a satisfactory resolution to this situation.

Should you have any further questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact our support team. We are always ready to help and clarify any nuances.

Thank you for understanding and contacting us.

Dear h4eeeeeeeee,

Based on our assessment, we agree that the casino should compensate you. However, the casino representative appears to be hesitant about this.

We recommend that you file a complaint with the regulator. You can find all the required information here:

https://casino.guru/licensing-authorities/curacao-license

In your complaint, please highlight the fact that for a significant period of time, you were unable to win any money despite the possibility of losing, which we believe is unjust.

Please let me know when you contact the regulator.

Thanks.

Dear h4eeeeeeeee,

We are extending the timer by 7 days. Please, be aware that in case you fail to respond in the given time frame or don’t require any further assistance, we will reject the complaint.

I contacted all the Curacao regulators you recommended. I haven't received a response yet.

Thank you for confirming.

Unfortunately, it may take up to three months for the regulator to decide. However, the decision is binding for the casino, so that's at least something. Please reopen the case when you receive the final answer from the regulator, and we will close the case accordingly. Otherwise, the case will be automatically reopened after the 3 months.

Dear h4eeeeeeeee,
We hope this finds you well. We would like to ask you to provide an update regarding this case, which was previously marked as "Waiting for Regulator" on our website. Your complaint has now been automatically reopened, and we are eager to know if there have been any recent developments or resolutions since our last communication.
If the ADR or the Licensing Authority has resolved things in your favor, please update the thread and send over the official statement to my email. Alternatively, if the ruling favored the casino, your insights are just as crucial.
We understand that some time has passed, but updating your complaint will allow us to take appropriate action, such as issuing black points to the casino in case the ruling is in your favor or warning other players and users about instances where the authority supports the operator.
We truly appreciate your cooperation, and your response would be of great assistance to us.
Thank you in advance for your reply.

Dear h4eeeeeeeee,

We are extending the timer by 7 days.

Unfortunately, h4eeeeeeeee did not respond to our messages. While we are unsure of the regulator's decision, based on our previous conversation, we believe that the player is in the right.

As a result, we are marking this complaint as unresolved with the status: Against Fair Gambling Codex.