After some advice...

[Callumh]

Afternoon,

Hope all is well with anyone who reads considering the current climate!

First things first,  I have faced the main issue of being a problem gambler... I was a problem gambler until later last year when I decided to take steps & stop... signing up for Gamstop and having not gambled for almost a year now.

I'm after some advise if someone could possibly help, as the only advice I have received was by the license customer service & a third party dispute service (also being told they should have never got involved due to the type of complaint).

In a nutshell... I had created an account with an online casino site, spent around £13k (£4-5k of this was money input by myself, the rest was withdrawals that may have been re input back onto the site). 

Overall, I had several deposits, withdrawals & reversed withdrawals on the site over the course of 2 days totalling the above figure of £13k (this is not including any winnings received that had been played & not withdrew). Within these 2 days, I had completed the basics... sign up, email confirmation. 

Following the above, no further identification/problem gambling signs/checks were completed.. I was left to gamble such a obscene amount over such a short period of time with no correspondence to confirm my identity/fraud checks.

I had queried this but was not receiving a response from the licensee so I had queried with a third party dispute resolution (Who I was then later told should not have been involved due to the type of case). To which then the licensee refused to speak to me at all as they were corresponding with the third party... which is understandable.

The third party dispute resolution however... did not look into all my queries & gave very basic answers with no evidence to the queries they did respond to... When further queried they advised that 'We are awaiting a response from the operator'. Upon reaching 90 days & not receiving a response from the third party dispute resolution.. I had threatened to take this to the gambling commission.. to which the third party re forwarded the short answers previously given and closed the case.

Following this... neither the licensee or the third party  will communicate with me, they refer to contact one another but refuse to give any further answers/information which is frustrating. I've requested time lines in which the third party had contacted the licensee to prove they had not been responding.. the third party just choose to ignore this & not reply... any information I have requested (for public information) they choose to ignore/not provide.

I've faced several big losses over the years to gambling... however this one stands out as on previous sites... all sorts of checks had been carried out before I could even deposit, then additional checks to withdraw funds... further checks when hitting deposit caps (most around the £3k) to check I did not have a problem and cover there a** basically.

I appreciate this is ultimately just another loss. I am however hopeful someone could possibly advise to whether i'm overthinking this, or they agree that this is all slightly dodgy..

Thank you for reading,

Callum.

 

[pinnit2015]

RG checks are by their very nature very subjective and applied differently by different operators - the UKGC has kept it quite high level in terms of compliance, though in recent updates to the LCCP there have been more prescriptive elements added - such as the annoying, 'treat anyone gambling over an hour' as showing potential signs as issues  -which is, frankly, pathetic. 

In terms of the identity checks prior to depositing- they only kicked in this year - May, before you deposit. Even so, they don't really relate to RG.

Even taking the EDD of the 2k threshold - difficult to relate to RG: probably more a money laundering implication. 

You weren't on Gamstop when you played no?

The issue is really did you display signs of reckless behaviour  -reversing is an indicator, seemingly but the only real folk who can answer that are the UKGC as it's their rules. Unfortunately, they don't deal with complaints - that may change in the future though given the most recent Parliamentary Report but right now they just acknowledge it. ADR's normally won't touch it. 

I'm not a big fan of Casino's making judgements as to RG - but, do it they must...did they not fulfil the social responsibility aspects of their licence? How longs a piece of string - you could get two folk looking at your personal aspects and have two totally different conclusions

There was a guy on here, who blew 250k on a MGA casino and if to be believed, factually, had a quite a good case - 80k loans given to him to gamble, massive tilting loses and the MGA basically went 'Meh' - u tend to find these Social Resp issues only come to the fore when the UKGC etc are investigating and want to produce a lovely report for their site: for example, pretty sure the suspension of Genesis Casino's licence is probably RG related. 

 

[Flatzem]

there was a UK gambler in one of the streams recently that said his Gamstop membership ran out and so he decided to have a go on Crazy Time with 20 squid and somehow managed to win 4K.... in some hour of lucky gambling on the game...... then he said he signed up for Gamstop again.... that must have taken some real will power...

[Callumh]

Thank you for the reply's so far...

I wasn't on Gamstop when I played no, I applied to Gamstop shortly after when I finally thought to myself enough is enough! I had placed limits on many other gambling sites but not self excluded to any.

In my opinion... and looking into the UKGC as to what classifies as 'Reckless behaviour'... I had shown multiple clear signs of reckless behaviour. Playing for long durations, multiple big deposits over short intervals, deposits gradually being bigger each time, wagering starting at £2... raising to eventually be £40 spins, reversing withdrawals, I was even spam clicking on the 'Spin button' to skip the video aspect of the slow & quickly sing money into it, i'd deposit £1k and this could be gone in 20 minutes.... then i'd deposit £2k and play for 2 hours. There was also no 'Message' as such to remind me how long I was gambling for/how much I had spent which was also alarming. I can imaging if I looked deeper into this there would also be more signs as I was... well, a problem gambler.

Complaints/disputes definitely feel like a grey area when you're the consumer... I still have so many queries/questions but can received no answers because the third party dispute resolution was involved and now neither side will respond to me.

The site in question is also based in Malta... which again is a kick in the teeth if I wanted to take this further.

[Flatzem]

the spamming the spin button I have done that too myself but don't recommend it, it can be done on playtechs and some other providers but not on BTG, they deliberately made it impossible to spam the spin (and I think it should be implemented on all providers to slow down the duration per each spin, some countries do this already and also at landbased slots) and you have to wait for each spin. (this is a case of "skinner box" where you are pressing the button for a possible reward, they tested this on pigeons and rats in experiments). Just think how the addiction to slots would be reduced if the interval between spins was increased to as much as 7 seconds or longer. Afterall we have such longer gaps for all other games, table games, sports betting, yet in slots its a boom boom boom boom boom, dopamine dopamine dopamine dopamine, no other game like it.

You gotta put daily deposit limits on your debit cards to reduce the maximum daily possible losses.

the reminder messages show up on some slots such as Netents.... gentle reminders but I suppose it could be a good idea if these were made for all slots/sites that said hey there in the last 15 minutes you lost , you wagered <amount> in this <number of spins>. Your RTP during this time is ??%., in fact how about making it visible during a slot play showing the RTP for the current slot as it changes during the session for the player and showing exactly how much the player has sunk into the slot so if the player is down on the slot for the session it would show a negative and font colour RED, and if the player is up on it for the session then make it + GREEN. same thing for the RTP it should also be displayed with colour RED if its under 100% and GREEN if it is 100% and over.

and how about adding a net result for each spin thus if a player gets 20cents back from a 40cent bet it would display YOU LOST 20cents, and not show YOU WON 20 cents or coins. and none of this winning sound business for each spin if it is a net loss! these are used to trick the players brains, make them think they are winning when they are mostly losing 80%+ of bets/spins on slots are going to be losses so should be allow the slot industry to use the same winning sound for a losing spin as it does on an actual profit spin. This is unethical. You might spend 60cents on a spin and get 8 cents back and yet the sound still plays as if it was a winning spin, outrageous. That is a loss disguised as a win.

 

[Themicktorious]

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