Palace Group Rules Shenanigans

[dancinggoon]

It seems obvious from the OP's wagering that the goal was purely to exploit the bonus on offer in the hope of hitting a big win as he then grinding through the attached WR.

The palace group are one of the better casino groups and I never worry about getting paid when i make a cash out. The purpose of a sign up bonus is surely so new players can try the casino out, to try a variety of games, and so make your money last twice as long.

It is only because of sign up bonus abuse that the terms and conditions are getting more and more complicated in an effort to combat this. I remember back in the old days the rules would be wager 3 x deposit and bonus, no roulette or craps. How times have changed.

I cant agree here, he just did what everyone else is doing (or at least should do!) in such a situation, he was taking care, that he is able to withdrawl his big win, to enjoy it in real life! Tell me whats wrong with this?

[liquuid_fusion]

I don't usually bet less than £25-50 per hand.

Therefore, I will no longer play at Palace Group since playing a £30 hand while in receipt of a bonus seems to have been deemed in breach of the rules. I'm not sure if they'll be sorry to see me go but I was a VIP for some time last year so my deposits must have meant something to them!

[rpalmer83]

This is ludicrous. There would be an issue if the player had claimed a bonus and lumped his entire deposit and bonus on one hand as that is clearly a violation of the terms but the player reduced his betsize as the balance was reducing and were significantly smaller than the amount deposited + bonus. He appeared only to be reducing his betsize because he wasn't winning. It was just fortunate that he got dealt a good hand on the last deal with the last of his remaining balance.

To not payout on this is a serious breach of trust IMO, many casinos today seem to be excercising outrageous terms in order not to payout.

This player deserves his money, as another poster has said, if he had £1 left and hit a £5,000,000 jackpot on his final spin the casino could exercise this term and refuse a payout because 100% of the remaining balance was used to win the prize. It's a very similar situation. If the casino had a problem with his method of play they could have paid out and told him he wouldn't be welcome to bonuses to do the same with.

Far better procedures of going about things can be achieved when an operator treats its customers in a proper mannor and not making them feel like criminals. Confiscating winnings should always be a last resort and not be a decision taken lightly. Learn about your players and listen to them rather than immediately taring them with a brush of bonus abuse otherwise your just setting yourself up for bad publicity and hassle.

[deltoid]

It's all been said before by those smarter than me, but I want my voice heard on this.

This is pure fraud on part of the casino. Miester, I know you've coined the term but I think you haven't fully grokked it quite yet - here is my understanding. A blue hat term is a condition placed on the player that is unfair and may restrict the player from collecting their winnings. Limiting payments to 9k a month on a 4million plus win is blue hat. Making it so that it's technically impossible (key point) to be able to cash out (at the discretion of the casino) with a bonus is also blue hat.

It's a "Blue Hat" condition because AS Spearmaster pointed out, it's impossible for you to not break this rule at some point. The casino gives the caveat that "well, it's at our discretion" - which is about as fair as requiring the player to wear a blue hat. On top of that, in the LIKELY chance that the player loses, the BLUE HAT disappears and all is well with their play.

The casino has the capability of limiting bets to cover themselves. They in fact DO it, but not to the extent that they actually want. Why? Because that would limit players TOO much and they wouldn't play. So instead they apply the BH term (bonus hunter? blue hat?) and it lets them win regardless of whether or not the player wins or loses. It's win win for the casino, and LOSE LOSE for the player.

Sorry CM, this is fraud pure and simple on the casinos part. Unintentional, maybe, but it's fraud. Fraud in that the player is given the appearance of a chance of winning, but technically cannot.

And again - stressing this, the casino HAS the option of using a much FAIRER and CLEARER term that steers completely clear of Blue Hat territory. But they choose not to use it, as it gives them less leeway in how they can apply it.

Palace Group - Yes, I'm accusing you of fraud, and YES, I'm accusing you of theft. Maybe you haven't really thought it through, and I do doubt that it was your intention, but that's what it is! And if we let you get away with this, well it's a slippery slope as to what kinda terms and conditions, or treatment of players, we'll see next!

[MJackson]

The palace group are one of the better casino groups and I never worry about getting paid when i make a cash out. The purpose of a sign up bonus is surely so new players can try the casino out, to try a variety of games, and so make your money last twice as long.

It is only because of sign up bonus abuse that the terms and conditions are getting more and more complicated in an effort to combat this. I remember back in the old days the rules would be wager 3 x deposit and bonus, no roulette or craps. How times have changed.

Gosh, those darn bonus abusers! If those silly market participants wouldn't have been so hell bent on arbitraging wild inefficiencies then we wouldn't have been callously robbed of our glory days. Days when we could "try the casino out, try a variety of games, and so make [our] money last twice as long", with perhaps 1/15th today's wagering (making it last 1/15th as long).

32 Red is by all admissions one of the more reputable casinos, I certainly wouldn't disagree. They seem to think that in some cases the bonus can help players last much more than just twice as long.

32Red, no interpretation involved. The maximum bonus you can receive is $32and therefore the maximum bet that you can place prior to clearing WR is $8...it doesn't get any clearer than that. They must have a bunch of rocket scientists working at 32Red.

Yes they are pretty clear...

Any winnings derived from bets placed to the value of 25% or more of the bonus before wagering requirements for that bonus have been met will initiate a further wagering requirement of 100 times the amount won.

So with your maximum $8 bets and a win of say $200, you would have a total wagering requirement of 670x the bonus amount. Judging from their promo page, even a monkey can figure this one out. Since the rocket scientists who must work there know that most players aren't rocket scientists themselves, they instead use a computer science based analysis by assuming that all who read the T & C's (presumably every player who accepts a bonus) knows the laughably obvious difference between > and >=.

It is a well known fact that the vast majority of end users never even glance at the terms and conditions despit box-checking to the contrary. What are the chances that the same people who favor stimulation by something like "Track and FieldMouse" are going to be found delving into the fine points of a highly complex legal document when it is not directly required? And for that matter, what are the chances that even a highly competent lawyer could decipher one of these contracts?

Originally Posted by Palace Group
The problems come in when we look at trends and play and see definite signs that someone is betting a certain way after receiving bonus money which is not in the spirit of fair play and not the reason we give offers and bonuses to our players.

I would contend that the reason you give offers and bonuses to your players is not in the spirit of fair play.

I would contend that the reason you give offers and bonuses to your players is not separable from the reason that you exist as a business, namely to maximize profits. The history of capitalism will show that the goal of maximizing profits seldom overlaps with the spirit of fair play.

Gambling is one of the few examples of a pure game-theoretic zero sum contest. In this contest one side is the winner with grossly skewed frequency. In fact is it the absolute end goal of one player to use asymetrical information and active deception to gain an advantage over the other player. This, incidentally, is an application very similar to warfare. When someone "plays back" a little, then it's time to take even more extreme measures so that the business may "protect itself" i.e. maintain it's advantage. No, I'm sorry sir, this doctrine has little to do with fair play or any spirit thereof.

Your own play is not fair in general. But in this case you got called out because it was particularly egregious. You should remediate this.

The 20% bonus offer on the reversal was an error and should not have been sent out. This does not detract that once the withdrawal was submitted and analysed the player did in fact break terms which they agreed to when registering with us.

It looks like plausible deniability minus the plausibility. I would say make it go away.

[EasyRhino]

Must chime in:

1) The terms are not well written

2) The terms, if interpreted literally, are mathematically illogical and impossible if a player loses a substantial portion of their original balance. Such terms should be stricken from the T&Cs.

3) The terms, if interpreted on a more 'reasonable' basis compared to original balance, which is somewhat common, would at least make sense, and could definitely catch some bonus exploiters. But such terms would still be a cop-out on the part of the casino. A bet played should be a bet paid. Go ahead and restrict or close the account, but still pay the winnings. It's not like he hacked the software.

4) The vagueness and lack of software-enforcedness of the terms allows the casino to enforce it arbitrarily.

4b) Even the scummy Virtual Group, when printing similarly ridiculous restrictions, is more explicit about them.

In conclusion, since this appears to be an intentional enforcement of faulty T&Cs on the part of the casino, I vote rogue.

[chuchu59]

At Jackpot Capital and a couple of Rivals, paigow poker is allowed even when bonuses are claimed. Well, I claim the bonus, place the full amount on one hand and maybe even double-up if I won the first hand (constrained by table limits though) and then proceed to play slots. If I am lucky I cash out but even if I win that first hand I might still bust out. The casinos do the math and they still send me similar offers without a single mention of bonus abuse. Why? Because if you continue patronising them, they eventually win albeit at a slower rate.

In the present case, it was not exactly an even-money win so the casino should pay the winnings, congratulate the player and move on. They could even pubilicise this as a winner who got lucky with a str. flush at 3-card poker on his last bet.

[spiderlegz]

From my inbox. The way to deal with issues like this. I hope Im not the only one, its time for us players to show that we dont accept these kind of actions.

Hi there Johnny

Account number: TMGDxxxxxxxx

Thank you for contacting Mummy's Gold Casino.

It is with great disappointment that we have closed your casino account as per your request. Kindly note that we have also forwarded your email to our Operations department for their attention.

We trust that you should be receiving a response within the next business day.

We thank you for your patience and appreciate your understanding in this regard.

Should you require any further assistance, feel free to contact us at our friendly helpdesk which is available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week at your convenience.

Kind regards,

Taz
Guest Services

[Casinomeister]

Just so you know I'm not ignoring this issue

I'm in contact with the casino and they are looking into this matter. More later.

[Jufo]

Regarding the bet size limitations, even extremely low maximum bets wouldn't help the casino against advantage strategies because the player could play high variance & low house edge game such as All Aces to use the bonus as betting leverage to get a large payout and grind out the WR.

If you can't afford to pay out the player profit from bonuses, then the only way is stop offering such bonuses.