Interwetten confiscating winnings

[vinylweatherman]

so where do we go from here? nine months on; Interwetten still happily trading and afaik still stealing money from customers, absolutely no response or interest from the regulators, and no real industry condemnation of Interwetten's practices (which has occured with other casino's that attempt to defraud their customers - this was no attempt; they did defraud us)

CM - what would you suggest?

Sit quiet, until the first ANNIVERSARY of the incident, and then hold an event to mark it, maybe at the ATEI

Maybe someone should design a "Malta" themed slot that takes A YEAR to play out the bonus round, maybe 1 million spins at 0.00001x multiplier. (Apologies to Micrgaming and Ancient Rome)

[Casinomeister]

...CM - what would you suggest?

Learn to live with the fact that they don't care.

Shameful indeed. Malta is as bad as Kahnawake when it comes to player support.

Another email went out to see if anyone is alive on the island - this time, no auto responder.

[klankenstein]

received this today from the LGA:

Dear X,

The Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) has investigated the matter you raised with regards to the “Sunday Cash back Madness” promotion held in February 2008 by Interwetten Malta Ltd.

The LGA received a report on 12th February 2008 from Interwetten that a technical error had occurred on their back office systems where the Bonus was being credited immediately to the player and not after the promotion time expired as it was supposed to. Many players discovered this flaw and took advantage by transferring the bonus straight over to real money. At the end of the game players were requesting cash outs for the balance on their account.

Interwetten Malta Ltd. cancelled this promotion immediately upon realizing the bonus was not being credited after the promotion time expired.

The Authority has obtained records from Interwetten Malta Ltd. that identify the Bonus’s you received, the winnings derived from the unjustified bonuses and pay in deposits. These records also identify what was altered by Interwetten on your players account; how the actual winnings and bonus figures have been derived, from this information and documentation produced it is evident only the unjustified bonus’s which created unjustified winnings which you were not entitled to have been deducted from your account balance.

The Authority ensured that Interwetten have adjusted player’s accounts by removing the bonus’s that were incorrectly credited and any winnings derived from these bonuses in question. The bonus removed from your player account should not have been available to you to be cashed out or transferred to your account balance until the promotion day had expired.

The players accounts were set back to the beginning of the promotion i.e. 00:00 CET February 9th 2008. After this correction it was as if you had not played at all on that day (with the exception of real money pay-ins). Winnings were maintained only if it was clear that they derived from real money stakes.

The Terms and Conditions as posted by Interwetten Malta Ltd. on their web site is available for public viewing and was available to you when you registered as a player, the Registration process includes your agreement to abide by the Terms and Conditions. The “Sunday Cash back Madness” promotion also set out further Terms and Conditions in accordance with this offer available in February 2008 which was also readily made available to you.

One of the conditions set out was as follows:

* “The bonus will be credited to the customers account on one of the following days. There are no wager requirements for the Cash back Bonus.”

The Bonus Terms and Conditions also state:

“Interwetten may cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the promotion of these terms and conditions at any point and for any reason, including for technical reasons such as and not limited to computer viruses, bugs, tampering or technical failures.”

Interwetten advised the Authority the bonus was credited permanently during the bonus period, generating incorrect winnings. Therefore, customers received refunds which were higher than their losses instead of 10% refund of the total amount lost. Furthermore, customers could use the bonus immediately and were refunded again if they lost the bonus.

Interwetten Malta Ltd. has deducted the unjustified bonuses and unjustified winnings from these bonuses only from your player account which you were not entitled to in the first place. Interwetten Malta Ltd. has acted in accordance with the Terms and Conditions which were readily available to you and which you agreed to play and abide by. The Authority finds Interwetten Malta Ltd. were also entitled to have removed any winnings you may have acquired due to the bonuses being incorrectly credited.

In conclusion the Authority has identified a technical problem did occur on the Interwetten Malta Ltd. system where the bonus was incorrectly credited prior to midnight on the Sunday. It is clear from records obtained players took advantage of this upon realizing and knowingly transferred bonuses expecting to receive the bonus as winnings in cash outs at the end of the game play. Interwetten Malta Ltd. have acted in accordance with the Terms and Conditions as posted on their web site and the Authority is satisfied in the manner Interwetten Malta Ltd. have managed this incident.

Therefore the Authority wishes to advise this LGA complaint case is closed.


Yours sincerely


Frances Blenheim

[Duncan Disorder]

I received the same thing.

[vinylweatherman]

Well, it took them long enough.

I am not certain they really understand the maths, as it seems a VERY complicated adjustment process was used.

Further, are they SURE this was done correctly, as winnings could ONLY be removed if they came from staked BONUS money. Now, REAL money is always staked BEFORE bonus money, but wasn't there a player who was on a lucky run and never actually managed to stake ANY bonus money, and they also had their accounts adjusted.

The resolution was so complicated, why?

Well, for one thing, it allows the removal of bonuses and winnings from players who made a profit, but WITHOUT the requirement to also reverse the play of LOSING players.

The rules quoted only seem to allow the abrupt termination of the promotion, but what happened was more than this, they were allowed to roll time back to zero, and then roll forward, and then, bet by bet, confiscate winnings, but keep the stakes of players that lost overall.

This simply supports the original actions by Interwetten, and there is no way this should have taken nearly 9 MONTHS to come up with.

Alderney managed to produce a ruling in a FORTNIGHT!!

[Roar]

Weaker than water.

You wouldn't mind so much if they took the time to properly address the basis on which respective players' complaint was based. Instead they simply spew forth the regurgitated version of "facts" as parrotted by Interwetten. And it's taken them 9 months to do that?

Justice delayed is justice denied. Malta LGA have a growing credibility problem - none believes for a moment this decsion was reached in any manner that could be described as fair and equitable.

If my memory serves me correctly, the promotion had run the week-end prior and bonus monies paid out without equivocation. Malta LGA fail to address this piece of evidence.

Agree with VWM above. The T+Cs do not allow anyone to take a walk back in time. Terminate, suspend or cancel. All terms that lack retrospectivity.

Very poor form all round.

..

[Roar]

Here are the subject T+Cs posted earlier in the thread for reference against the decision delivered by Malta LGA. I re-post them as I think it is quite significant the slabs of T+Cs that Malta LGA fail to mention or reference in their decision.

"Sunday Cashback Madness

How it works:

For every EUR 100,00 you lose at the Interwetten Online Casino, you get EUR 10,00 back.

Terms and Conditions:

This promotion is valid to all Interwetten Casino Real Money customers.
Promotion days in February 2008 are:
Sunday, 03.02.2008 00:00 CET bis 23:59 CET
Sunday, 10.02.2008 00:00 CET bis 23:59 CET
Sunday, 17.02.2008 00:00 CET bis 23:59 CET
Sunday, 24.02.2008 00:00 CET bis 23:59 CET

This promotion is subject to Interwetten Casino standard rules, terms and conditions.

To qualify for the cashback bonus you must make a transfer of funds from your Sportsbook real money account in to Casino chips and wager at least EUR 100,00 on the respective promotion day at Interwetten Online Casino.

For each EUR 100,00 loss at the Interwetten Online Casino, the customer will get EUR 10,00 Chips credited to his Interwetten Casino account.

The bonus will be credited to the customers account on one of the following days. There are no wager requirements for the Cashback Bonus.

Interwetten Casino reserves the right to refuse all promotions and bonuses to players who do not comply with this condition.

Interwetten may cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the promotion or these terms and conditions at any point and for any reason, including for technical reasons such as and not limited to computer viruses, bugs, tampering or technical failures.

We will remove prize credits from the account of any member who fails to comply with any of the above conditions.

Management decision is final. No discussion will be entered into."

As I recalled, the promotion DID run the week-end previous, and operated in the same fashion until Interwetten realised some heavy losses.

The identical previous week-end promotion does not rate a mention in the Malta LGA deliberations. I wonder why?

.

[Ferretktf]

This is a complete and utter farce. I do not believe they have looked at the facts of the case at all?

I have digested the statement and have some comments to make on it -- points it seems they have not considered when reaching judgement.


Quote:
The Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) has investigated the matter you raised with regards to the "Sunday Cash back Madness" promotion held in February 2008 by Interwetten Malta Ltd.

The LGA received a report on 12th February 2008 from Interwetten that a technical error had occurred on their back office systems where the Bonus was being credited immediately to the player and not after the promotion time expired as it was supposed to.

This was not a technical error. It worked exactly the way that the promoters had designed. It may well have been a misjudgement, but if so it was a human mistake, not a technical error, but because IW terms and conditions allow for technical errors, they have claimed incorrectly it was so, and it seems the LGA has swallowed this line without actually checking the facts. The system made no technical mistake, it followed the instructions - which matched the wording of the promotion.


Quote:
Many players discovered this flaw and took advantage by transferring the bonus straight over to real money.

Incorrect. This insinuates players knowingly and cynically transferring money out. No transfers took place. The bonus was credited direct to real money without any action on behalf of the players.


Quote:
At the end of the game players were requesting cash outs for the balance on their account

Incorrect, I did not request any cash-out at the time. My account was locked the following day.


Quote:
Interwetten Malta Ltd. cancelled this promotion immediately upon realizing the bonus was not being credited after the promotion time expired.

Incorrect. they also ran it the previous weekend on 3rd February, so this was not immediately cancelled. They must have won money that first weekend so they repeated the promotion. It was cancelled after the second weekend when they realised they had lost money on that weekend's promotion.


Quote:
The Authority ensured that Interwetten have adjusted player's accounts by removing the bonus's that were incorrectly credited and any winnings derived from these bonuses in question.

This is a very poor acceptance of what IW have done here. Once the very first bonus was paid, all future winnings were effectively being derived from that bonus - hence all winnings were removed ... which is what they did.


Quote:
The bonus removed from your player account should not have been available to you to be cashed out or transferred to your account balance until the promotion day had expired

As per previous answer I neither cashed out or transferred


Quote:
The players accounts were set back to the beginning of the promotion i.e. 00:00 CET February 9th 2008.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that this only took place for WINNING accounts. anybody who lost on the day did not get refunded. Therefore IW kept all their winnings and paid out no-one thus ensuring they made a significant profit from this playing day. This cannot be right.


Quote:
After this correction it was as if you had not played at all on that day (with the exception of real money pay-ins).

NOT TRUE. they also confiscated all of my COMP POINTS. Not just the ones that I had earned on that day, but also all of the ones that i had built up over the previous year and not cashed in. This amounted to over £100, and this is theft, pure and simple.


Quote:
Winnings were maintained only if it was clear that they derived from real money stakes.

As per previous comment, this could not happen as as soon as one bonus payment had been made, all future play could be theoretically linked back to that. So no winnings were maintained and IW had to make no payouts for the day in question.


Quote:
One of the conditions set out was as follows:

"The bonus will be credited to the customers account on one of the following days. There are no wager requirements for the Cash back Bonus."

This does not state "the next day". In fact no days were listed so that makes this term completely meaningless. This was a multi-day promotion which started on 3rd February. 10th February therefore was "one of the following days"


Quote:
The Bonus Terms and Conditions also state:

"Interwetten may cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the promotion of these terms and conditions at any point and for any reason, including for technical reasons such as and not limited to computer viruses, bugs, tampering or technical failures."

I concede that they can cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the promotion "for any reason" (including fraudulent ones it seems). But it does not say that they can take this action retrospectively on play that has already been completed.
This promotion started at 0.01am. They had the opportuntiy to stop it at 01:00; 04:00, 10:00 or any other time and limit their liabilities as a result. They did not. They let it run for the whole day. Why? to ensure that they had to pay out NOBODY, while ensuring that they kept ALL the winnings from losers.


Quote:
Interwetten advised the Authority the bonus was credited permanently during the bonus period, generating incorrect winnings. Therefore, customers received refunds which were higher than their losses instead of 10% refund of the total amount lost.

The promotion never mentioned TOTAL amount lost. it said, and I quote.... "For every EUR 100,00 you lose at the Interwetten Online Casino, you get EUR 10,00 back"... intimating it would be made on the spot, immediately after EACH AND EVERY individual loss


Quote:
Interwetten Malta Ltd. has deducted the unjustified bonuses and unjustified winnings from these bonuses only from your player account which you were not entitled to in the first place. Interwetten Malta Ltd. has acted in accordance with the Terms and Conditions which were readily available to you and which you agreed to play and abide by

Under the published promotion terms I was entitled to those bonuses - they were not unjustified.


Quote:
The Authority finds Interwetten Malta Ltd. were also entitled to have removed any winnings you may have acquired due to the bonuses being incorrectly credited.

In otherwords the Authority supports IW keeping any winnings from losers, while refusing to pay any winnings to winners - as per my comments earlier


Quote:
In conclusion the Authority has identified a technical problem did occur on the Interwetten Malta Ltd. system where the bonus was incorrectly credited prior to midnight on the Sunday. It is clear from records obtained players took advantage of this upon realizing and knowingly transferred bonuses expecting to receive the bonus as winnings in cash outs at the end of the game play. Interwetten Malta Ltd. have acted in accordance with the Terms and Conditions as posted on their web site and the Authority is satisfied in the manner Interwetten Malta Ltd. have managed this incident.

The conclusions are flawed. This was NOT a TECHNICAL error. I did NOT transfer any bonuses. I did NOT make any cash out


Quote:

Therefore the Authority wishes to advise this LGA complaint case is closed.

It appears that this is a complete whitewash

I have sent the above back to the LGA asking if they can respond to my specific points explaining just why they feel Interwetten was correct in the action it has taken.

[DiamondGeezer]

VWM makes a very good point about how all accounts were treated the same. Even if you accept the IW argument about the bonus being paid at a later date there still would have been accounts that never dipped into bonus funds. If you started with a large balance and won form the outset then the only dispute would be over the timing of the bonus payment.

As it happens I started out with a four figure deposit but did lose heavily. So even though I don't agree with the 'next day bonus argument' I could accept that I may not be entiltled to much if it was shown I did dip into bonus funds. But players that won from the outset would never have had this sitution and the only argument would be over the timing of the refund. It makes no difference to a winning player if they got their refund on the same day or a later day.

I have never accepted this next day bonus argument because they ran the promotion on the first week with the same situation. So what are they saying exactly - that they ran the promotion for two weeks and only noticed on the second week? Or was the real reason that they made a profit on the first week so were happy to let it run again?

The bottom line is that if they made a mistake and failed to spot it for two weeks they should be made to honour it. I don't know the total amount they lost on the second week but I believe they made about €3m profit last year. Very likely the amount lost as a % of profit was small.

The promotion did give a player advantage but it was still possible many players could have lost on the second week and IW could have made a profit then. I doubt they would have cancelled the promotion then.

Part of the judgement mentions that IW meant to refund players on total losses and not €10 for every €100 lost. If that was the case why did they state in their terms that €10 would be refunded for EVERY €100 lost and then they set their software up to do exactly that? Maybe they could argue it was a bad translation but it is impossible to refute that they set their own software to refund €10 for every €100 lost. And then they called it 'Sunday Cashback Madness'.

Make your own minds up. Who do you think is in the right? The LGA who take seven months and then come up with a blanket and factually incorrect judgement? Or some players who got an advantage and won enough money as to scare the casino into locking accounts and claiming it had all been a horrible mistake?

[thelawnet]

Learn to live with the fact that they don't care.

Shameful indeed. Malta is as bad as Kahnawake when it comes to player support.

Another email went out to see if anyone is alive on the island - this time, no auto responder.

Incidentally Antigua recently got 'whitelisted' in the UK. I never got any response when I emailed them a few years back. Maybe once they found they could make more money by acting responsibly they improved a bit. Or maybe they just have good lobbyists. I guess a week on the beach at the St James' Club is probably more appealing than a tour of the Kahnawake nation.

No idea.