Palace Group Rules Shenanigans

[vinylweatherman]

The terms are better but I still really hate T&C's which carry scapegoat clauses. Notice how they've put "Includes but Not limited to" in there which again gives them the right to confiscate winnings "At their discretion". Don't get me wrong I don't expect casinos to list in their terms every form of bonus abuse going but when reading terms like this you do feel a little cheated, particularly when you hear of casinos invoking terms like this to the maximum extent possible and taking peoples winnings. I am starting to think the safest bet is to not accept bonuses at all because its like signing up for a bank account or a credit card all the legal blurb you have to accept.
And to be honest a fairer approach when dealing with bonuses would be either to either take the bonus off an abusing player, refuse any further bonuses or in extreme cases divide the win into the percentage of the bonus and pay them the win on the portion of their deposit.

For example:

Player deposits £100, player recieves £100 bonus
Player bets £200 on a 35x bet and wins £7000

The player is not allowed by the terms of the bonus to bet the full deposit+bonus balance on a single stake so the bonus and winnings from the bonus are confiscated. The player is returned £3500 which is a 35x win of his original deposit of £100.

This scenario would be a fair approach to both the player and the casino, but again any good casino group should not take confiscating winnings lightly and should try to resolve things with the player so they don't lose what might be a good customer and others through the bad press.

Back to the original player who has had his entire winnings confiscated I still feel he should be given his entire win, from my point of view he clearly did not set out to abuse the bonus in his play, the initial terms weren't worded properly and he just got very lucky on his last bet.

I would hope that Spin Palace would do the moral and decent thing.

Not so. When you sign up to such things you actually have LEGAL RIGHTS over the fairness, or otherwise, of the contract.

The credit card companies had for a long time had contracts with outrageous "penalty charges" for going even 1p over your limit, and resorted to all sorts of tricks. They would meet any complaint with "well tough, you agreed to it".
Unfortunately for the banks, complaints lead the Office of fair Trading to use the Consumer Contract laws to determine that such "penalty" charges were unfair, and were thus legally struck out of contracts RETROSPECTIVELY. This resulted in the issuing banks having to repay MILLIONS of ill gotten profits, and also being forced to make several changes to the terms.

Vague terms, such as the one being discussed, would be deemed unfair in the UK, since it is impossible to comply with a term that fails to specify what does, or does not, apply in a given circumstance.

Credit card terms also have to have a prefix defining the "jargon" used in the main terms. In the casino sense, the words in "equal, zero or low margin bets or hedge betting" are also "jargon", since they are clearly not being used in context of their literal meanings. In fact, they could cover EVERY SESSION at a casino, and taken literally, "zero" means you don't bet at all, which is ALSO now "irregular play".
"hedge betting" is the ONLY one that I can interpret from experience, and come up with it meaning "you can't bet simultaneously on all possible outcomes". An example of "hedge betting" might be 100 chips on red, and 100 on black for Roulette, or 10 chips on each number.

"equal" - equal to what
"zero" - meaning of the word is clear, but NOT it's appearance here, a "zero bet" means you haven't played at all, so this CANNOT be "irregular play"
"low margin" - do we interpret this as meaning games with a low margin, such as blackjack - yet these games are allowed. "margin" itself has a meaning in business, and refers to a margin over cost of a product, which usually means "profit", so it looks like "low margin" betting really DOES mean that if you select the low house edge games, your play is "irregular", and you will have winnings confiscated.

No bet over 30% of the bonus credited - now this IS clear. It is possible to work out your maximum permissible bet by seeing the bonus you have been given, and multiplying it by 0.3 - remembering to round DOWN to the next available bet size available in the software.

I believe the intent is that this term applies to the SUB, rather than the regular offers, and if this is so, there will never be a problem with the lower 25% bonuses offered creating very small permitted bets.

200 on 3 card poker and 500 on Blackjack seems to be MGS standard, and does NOT seem to reflect any lowering of limits due to there being a bonus in play. I have never seen higher limits, but a few casinos have lowered them.

[MJackson]

Bit of a Joke to behonest, players who sit there all day betting $1/hand on BJ regularly get shot down for bonus abuse, yet bet big and its also bonus abuse. These casinos really don't make life easy on themselves or their players when it comes to provision of bonuses do they?.

It really is a laugh. Is this bankruptcy court or casual entertainment? I guess the management thinks if the average player is put off by the terms that they could just go pass the time doing leveraged buyouts or drafting international trade agreements or something.

If what Casinomeister says is true and the average player is well read and informed, then I think Spin Palace might notice an inverse relationship between growth and contractual complexity.

[deltoid]

IMO this case isn't resolved until:

* OP is paid
* Software is updated to limit bets as required by TC. Since the capability is there, to not use it is inviting people to unwittingly break terms and conditions giving additional advantage to the house.

[Pinababy69]

I appreciate the Palace Group changing their T&C's to much more unambiguous wording....but like everyone else, I would like to know if the OP is going to be paid.

The terms have been changed, which clearly indicates they were not fair before, for all the reasons stated in this thread. The OP deserves to be able to collect his winnings. He got lucky, nothing more. Had he busted on that last hand, we wouldn't even be here (until the next time that the original terms came into play).

I sincerely hope that the Palace Group will do the right thing.

[maxd]

[Warning: Max is climbing up on the soap box and looks like he's got something unpopular to say. Please keep in mind that what Max says is what Max says, not what Casinomeister says or any such thing.]

I agree that it would be a nice gesture of Palace to pay this player out for falling afoul of Terms that were ultimately changed but I don't personally feel they are under any obligation to do so.

Fair or not the OP agreed to the Terms before he played and is therefor bound to those Terms. Yes it sucks because those Terms sucked but it equally sucks that the OP say "Yes, I accept these crappy Terms".

If Palace pays it will be a good gesture. If they don't it'll be a bitch for the player but sooner or later people are going to have to start accepting the fact that saying "Yes" to bullshit Terms is a foolish thing to do. It doesn't really matter that they were forced to say "Yes" in order to play there. What matters is that didn't say "Hell No!" and take their business elsewhere. Once you say "Yes" you're in the game and responsible for being there. It's not our responsibility, for example, to undo your "Yes" for you and clean up your mess.

Other casinos have the same Terms you say? I say yes, other casinos have Terms that suck, avoid them too. How else are you going to send the message that crappy Terms are bad for business? If you don't do something then you are, by default, saying "that's ok, I accept your crappy Terms, let's play". You get what you settle for.

All casinos have Terms that suck? Well that's a bitch, no doubt, but maybe it's time to go play something else for a while. Better yet, write to your favourite casino or forum and describe in detail exactly what Terms suck, what about them sucks, and why they should be changed. If nobody is playing and everyone is bitching then I can assure you the casinos will start listening.

And for what it's worth there are some casinos that don't use crappy Terms. Go play there. When everyone is playing at No Crappy Terms Casino and no one is playing at Mo' Crappy Terms Casino then Mo' Crappy will start wondering what they can do to get No Crappy's players .. and that's when the crappy Terms might get the boot.

IMHO crappy Terms should be avoided just like you'd avoid things that make you barf and unattractive suitors: why would you go there? Generally speaking you wouldn't. Same with the crappy Terms: just say "no". Vote with your feet.

[MJackson]

I agree that it would be a nice gesture of Palace to pay this player out for falling afoul of Terms that were ultimately changed but I don't personally feel they are under any obligation to do so.

I think it's already been convincingly shown by Spearmaster and others that the original terms are invalid and would not stand in most jurisdictions.

That aside, I would agree generally with the rest of your post, and I would certainly agree with you if this were say, buying a unit of a bankrupt business, buying a house or even signing up for a credit card. But this is supposed to be casual entertainment.

The only people who actually read terms and conditions are profiteers, real gamblers don't read them. They should be kept simple and intuitive. Anything else is borderline predatory.

[Casinomeister]

I think it's already been convincingly shown by Spearmaster and others that the original terms are invalid and would not stand in most jurisdictions.

You seem to be speculating here, since no one knows how this would be dealt with by differing jurisdictions. These terms have been there for over a year and have been reviewed by the casino, the casino's legal team, their licensing jurisdiction, and (I'm assuming) most players who have taken a bonus there. To argue that the term is "invalid" is debatable and falls in the realm of legalese. Sorry, but we're not here to offer legal help or to give legal advice. I can point you into the direction of some excellent gaming lawyers, but that is about as far as it goes.

We are here to affect change, assist when we can, and to do our best to set a level playing field for everyone. In this situation, we have done all three.

This issue came to us late Friday afternoon, and it was debated amongst us even up until now. The player posted on Monday, I contacted the casino operators on Tuesday letting them know how I felt about the situation. They looked at this and were responsive to your (and my) suggestions, and these terms and conditions were changed within hours.

As most of you are aware, the Palace Group is not some fly-by-night organization, they've been around for years and are committed to providing players an excellent playing experience. I'm sure I speak for many when I say that they are not out to scam or take advantage of anyone. This is the only case that I am aware of where they negated a player's winnings because of breaking this specific term.

Players need to be responsible for their activities. He agreed to this term and he chose to play in a manner that breached this term. This was his choice; not mine, not yours, but his.

Like Max said, if you think a term sucks - don't play there. You know the deal - vote with your feet (wallet).

The only people who actually read terms and conditions are profiteers, real gamblers don't read them. They should be kept simple and intuitive. Anything else is borderline predatory.

Man, I wish it were still 1999 sometimes, but too bad, it ain't like this anymore.

[dancinggoon]

You are right max, but its a shame that a casino thats has these crappy terms in their T&C and even uses them against a lucky player, is still on the accredited list with other Casinos, who really deserve the "accredited" status!

[RobWin]

Mo' Crappy Terms Casino then Mo' Crappy

LOL Max, you been hanging in the hood this week bro??


@The Palace Group, I'm only making a suggestion here that could help you guys tremendously here regarding your (accreditation status as to the way the player community will view your actions) here for years to come now. Why don't you guys at the very least make a goodwill gesture toward the OP here and offer him/her a "Meet You Half-Way" type of deal and pay this amount, settle this issue and put it to bed.

This type of action on your part I believe would be viewed as a fair offer in the player community for the most part IMO and you guys could come out of this saving face and most likely gain yourselves a new level of respect here for doing the right thing..

[gingeanth89]

How much will it cost you to settle this Palace Group? £2263. How much goodwill will you gain for this gesture? Nearly 6,000 views on this thread now. There are a lot of people watching.

Anthony