[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by RobWin

I was around back then and used all the individual bonuses seperately at each casino. Hell back then the casinos would not even admit to being associated with another in the same group and would even go as far as denying any association.

I certainly think that it would be to Bellerocks benefit to pay attention to this thread...

When casino-on-net launched Reef Club, it was marketed aggressively by an exit pop-up from the casino-on-net website. Players pretty much had the Reef Club bonus rammed down their throat. Soon, Reef Club starting screwing over some of the players, and then Casino-on-net flatly denied ANY kind of association with Reef Club other than by software. This lie was so very obvious, since NO online casino would aggressively market it's own players to a direct competitor. The fact they thought players would swallow this was an insult to our intelligence. Their reputation has never really recovered, and even being based in Gibraltar doesn't help.

As for "rem suam", I have never seen this one before, and I have seen many examples of "legalese". I would agree that close to ZERO players have fully understood all these terms, (unless they are lawyers).
I have a friend from my schooldays who is a BARRISTER, so perhaps as an exercise I will print of the BelleRock "legalese" and set him the challenge of fully understanding them. If he cannot, then this would be pretty damning, since this would prove that the overwhelming majority of players really DO simply tick "I have read and understood..." based purely on the "trust" they perceive as being in existence between what they believe to be a "reputable" casino company and themselves as ordinary consumers.

These are the player's ONLY means to fight back:-

If any part of these Terms and Conditions is deemed unlawful, void or for any reason unenforceable, then that part shall be deemed to be severable from the rest of these Terms and Conditions and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions of these Terms and Conditions. In such cases, the part deemed invalid or unenforceable shall be amended in a manner consistent with applicable law to reflect, as closely as possible, our original intent.

8.10. Applicable Law & Jurisdiction

The validity, construction and performance of this Agreement shall be governed by Gibraltarian law and shall be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the Gibraltarian superior courts to which the parties hereby submit, except that a Party may seek an interim injunction in any court of competent jurisdiction.

In particular note:-

except that a Party may seek an interim injunction in any court of competent jurisdiction

This little snippet means that a player can seek an INTERIM court injunction ALMOST ANYWHERE who's national courts are recognised by the international community as of "competent jurisdiction". EU based players would find that EEC law would make it easy to get such an interim injunction locally, before having to go to Gibraltar for a ruling. If taken to Gibraltar's courts, such a player would need to attack those terms that could be challenged as "unlawful" for CONSUMER CONTRACTS under Gibraltean law. These terms would then not apply if ruled unlawful, leaving the unchallenged terms still in place. This would effectively redefine the contract. Once ONE case has been brought on this basis, it will stand as a "legal precedent", and the outcome used to pursue similar cases through the Gibraltean legal system.
Big business is actually VERY WARY of allowing it's terms to come before a court in this manner, as they want to avoid the setting of a disadvantageous "legal precedent". Such a situation has existed here in the UK with Bank and card penalty charges. Someone found a rule relating to consumer contract law, which says that where contracts are breached, only the costs of remedying the breach can be recovered, and that applying any punitive penalty was illegal. The UK banks would take consumers right to the edge on occasion, but would simply never turn up in court, preferring instead to go for the "out of court settlement", which meant the complainant was paid off, but no court ruling was made, thus no legal precedent was set that could be used in future claims. Finally, the regulators forced the issue to a court hearing by using the procedure of "supercomplaint", similar to a class action, but with no actual complainants. This case will establish whether there are grounds for the charges to be challenged as "illegal".

In the case of casinos licenced in well run juristictions, all it needs is a player whose confiscated amount is large enough to make a full pursuit of the issue worthwhile. They would need legal advice from an expert in Gibraltean law, and this could be expensive, with no guarantee of a successful outcome until a legal precedent has been set.
This may catch out the casino, as I would bet that they don't even understand their own terms and conditions. They have probably hired a lawyer to write them, asking for them to be as wide ranging and tight as possible, so that they could pretty much get away with anything if they felt the need. The idea being that for "good quality" players, they would never invoke these nasty terms, but that if they needed to get rid of someone, and not pay them if they felt they had been taken advantage of, they could pretty much act with impunity.
As the industry matures, it is likely that one day one of the casinos will have their "ass kicked" in a court of "competent juristiction", and this would probably act as a catalyst in the industry, since one success would galvanise other aggrieved players to follow suit. I would expect they would quickly redesign their terms so as not to suffer further court rulings against them.