AFRICAN PALACE wont give promised bonus

[jetset]

The African Palace casino management would like to respond to the statements made on the Casinomeister blog on the 12th July 2009, in particular the comments submitted by Vinyl Weatherman, as follows: “The problem here is that African Palace HAD THE MONEY, and IN FULL from Playtech, SO WHERE IS IT, there should have been no problem at all in continuing to pay the instalments. The only explanation I can see is that they used the money within their business as operating capital, whereas it should have been set aside to pay the instalments. Something went wrong with their calculations, and they found themselves unable to replace the money they had "borrowed" from the progressive payout in time to pay further instalments. It was because this player ignored the casino and went to the press that we are even hearing about this. I believe this casino is at high risk of "going bust" if it has to start using monies it is holding in trust for players to keep itself running”

Any delays experienced by the player in relation to the jackpot payout was due to circumstances beyond the control of African Palace and the reasons for such can only be disclosed by the player. The hold up was not due to cash flow problems as alleged by Vinyl Weatherman and his statement that the casino is “at high risk of going bust” is completely unfounded and incorrect. The Playtech portion of the progressive jackpot payout was never at any time utilised for any operational costs and was never used for any reason whatsoever other than the payout of the said jackpot to the player.

While we appreciate that the bloggers on the Casinomeister forum are not restricted in commenting on various issues, the statement from Vinyl Weatherman was entirely false and without substantiation.

With regards to the outstanding bonus amount due to Zapotek, our Customer Services department is more than willing to assist with tracing the matter through his account. We would like to recommend that Zapotec contact support@africanpalacecasino.com, marked for the attention of Clyde, Blake or Noeleen for personal assistance in this regard.

IMO this official African Palace comment raises more questions than it provides answers.

Simply telling us that the failure of African Palace to meet its commitments to a player was for reasons "beyond it's control" which are not explained negates any value in making a statement anyway imo.

And implying that only the player can explain these reasons passes the buck instead of addressing the issue imv.

How can the player be responsible for not being paid instalments by AP that were previously agreed (which is the problem with the South African winner of a big progressive at AP who ended up going to the national press in desperation)?

And it is still not clear what AP is claiming here.

Are large progressive wins paid out in full from Playtech to the operator of the winning casino?

If these are, does that operator pay the winning player in full - it would appear not if we are talking 'instalments' here.?

What is the current position with the South African player who complained to the national press that AP had defaulted on its agreement to pay her in instalments?

[vinylweatherman]

IMO this official African Palace comment raises more questions than it provides answers.

Simply telling us that the failure of African Palace to meet its commitments to a player was for reasons "beyond it's control" which are not explained negates any value in making a statement anyway imo.

And implying that only the player can explain these reasons passes the buck instead of addressing the issue imv.

How can the player be responsible for not being paid instalments by AP that were previously agreed (which is the problem with the South African winner of a big progressive at AP who ended up going to the national press in desperation)?

And it is still not clear what AP is claiming here.

Are large progressive wins paid out in full from Playtech to the operator of the winning casino?

If these are, does that operator pay the winning player in full - it would appear not if we are talking 'instalments' here.?

What is the current position with the South African player who complained to the national press that AP had defaulted on its agreement to pay her in instalments?

This is not the FIRST time a Playtech casino has effectively defaulted on a progressive payout. This incident seems to be less that a year after the Sylvia P scandal. Naturally, with this track record I am bound to speculate negatively. If Playtech pass the monies over to the casino to forward to the player, there should be no need to even THINK of negotiating an installmant plan. Simply pay in one go, have a publicity event (and NOT with a fake cheque). We recently had a discussion about Playtech, and it seemed MANY were paying in installments, some over many many years, not just 6 months.

I doubt this player would have felt the need to go to the press if there had been meaningful dialogue between African Palace & the player to resolve the issue.
For this money that comes in full (or nearly full) from Playtech, and dribbles out in instalments, the rest of it must be doing something. Even if it is just gathering interest, this STILL goes towards "the running of the business", the player never sees it.

Playtech casinos should start doing the right thing, and paying progressive jackpots in one go. After recent events, which player in their right mind is going to trust a Playtech installment payment plan now.

As for cashflow, if numbers of players are pointing to increased delays in receiving payments, it IS "cashflow", the cash isn't flowing like it was before - it has got stuck.

Either the river has been dammed, or the lake is empty - we can only speculate which it is as we cannot see from here, but our riverbed is dry.

[jetset]

I don't want to go too far O/T here, but it seems pretty strange to me that the African Palace spokesperson has not returned to answer the questions raised at Post 11, having taken the trouble to come here and issue a confusing company statement previously.

There's something not right with this Playtech progressive payout question, because everyone - including Playtech - appears unwilling to give a straight answer.

I've just encountered another example with the Playtech-powered Europa Casino. Having contacted them a week or more ago on the same questions I asked African Palace at post #11, I am still awaiting the courtesy of a management response.

This makes me suspicious about the apparent widespread lack of an honest answer to perfectly clear questions regarding the progressive payouts.

[jetset]

BUMP!