Refund of deposits (I know I know but please hear me out)

[ryguy1992]

Up until yesterday, I'd had 9 months free of gambling. I've self excluded from all land based casinos, and due to Ontario not having a centralized self exclusion list for online gambling, I typically go in once a month and register on sites just to immediately self exclude. Normally (99.9%) of the time, the site recognizes my details immediately and blocks me as I'm self excluded on a sister site.

Yesterday, I did the same thing. Found 2 new sites under existing licenses.

First one, I was recognized right away and blocked. Perfect.

Second one, I registered, was recognized (we have linked your account to other accounts across our brand), and was offered an absolutely ridiculous 200% deposit bonus up to $1000. The self exclusions on both sister sites are active for another 3 years. I lost my 9 months and ended up losing everything and then some.

I followed up with chat and they acknowledged I'd self excluded at 2 of their sister sites, that they recognized me right away (none of my details were changed to try and circumvent their rules or anything). Is that ethical or even legal for Ontario's license holders? It's unfortunate we're in this position of having to visit our drug dealers to help get off of drugs.

I take full responsibility for the losses...at this point a refund would obviously be appreciated but it's more an issue of responsible gaming as a whole. To prove I don't run this "no lose" scam, they actually informed me I had a fourth account open under their banner, which I lost about $5500 on in 2023 and apparently never self excluded from. The difference was, in 2023 I was just googling casinos because I was still gambling. I only started using the iGaming site about 9 months ago because somebody mentioned at a GA meeting that it was the best way to stay diligent about self excluding on new sites. But point being, I never requested a refund once I got absolutely killed in 2023 and clearly don't expect that now - I wasn't even aware of how self exclusion worked at that point besides rage exiting a losing session. It's more the deposit yesterday I'm concerned about...I don't think pursuing one from 2023 is morally justified because I was still gambling and hadn't decided to stop. In that case, the self exclusion thing would just be running a scam on a technicality on my part.

Any help/advice is helpful. License provider is iGaming Ontario or AGCO. I don't want to name the casino because I don't think they deserve bad publicity with the dispute ongoing - just looking for advice.