I agree, a mistake can easily be made - and casinos should also take this into consideration. BTW, I did not know that pressing the space bar when playing MG slots results in max bet... pfff, one could easily slip one's finger and **ooops** your (7K) winnings are down the drain.
Nifty, what do you consider an advantage player? Someone who deposits no less than one thousand, claims a merely 50% bonus, and then makes one single unfortunate bet?
Of course a mistake can easily be made. It is why reputable operators WILL let it slide or come to some reasonable agreement IF you report the mistake AT THE TIME. If you don't, it appears to the operator like either it was deliberate, or the player is trying to "get away with it". I'm not saying that IS what the player is doing (which I hope answers the OP last question)...I'm saying that is what the CASINO will most likely think. Whether the bet is a loser or a winner is irrelevant, as the player doesn't know this beforehand. The worst thing that can happen when reporting it is that the casino resets your balance, which is far better than losing $7.5k.
Nobody has done anything "wrong" per se in this case. The player accidentally (AFAWK) pressed the space bar and made a bet over 20% (they did NOT press MAX BET as others have decided), which contravened the bonus rules, and the casino enforced those rules.
The question is.....who is ultimately responsible for the "mistake" happening? Logically, the only party that caused it to occur is the PLAYER. The casino did absolutely NOTHING to force the player to bet over 20%, nor "make" them press the space bar. In this kind of case, the responsibility must be borne by the party "at fault" i.e. in this case the player. We all make mistakes at various times in our lives, and we have to bear the consequences of those mistakes. We make decisions, like the OP did in not stopping play, and we have to live with the results. We cannot go around expecting everyone else to accept responsibility for OUR errors, and that includes businesses.
@Mouche
You didn't read the thread properly.
The player did NOT press "max bet", nor did the space bar initiate "max bet". The bet amount was $110, which it appears is LESS than max lines. The space bar just spins the reels at whatever setting they are on at the time i.e. if you currently have 5 lines selected at .50c per line on a 20 line slot, pressing the space bar DOES NOT make the slot spin 20 lines @ .50c...it just spins at the 5 lines @ .50c. As the OP states, they were in the midst of "changing bets" on the slot, so obviously they had not quite finished deselecting/selecting lines at that moment. We need to get this erroneous idea of "accidental max bet" out of our heads....and this is the problem when some people state something as fact when it clearly is NOT.
Whether someone is an advantage player or not has nothing to do with "single unfortunate bets", nor whether they deposit $1000 for a $500 bonus. You're trying to relate things that are unrelated.
The reason I mentioned advantage play is that some APs take a bonus and make bets at or just below the max allowed bet, and often use less lines at higher per-line bets to increase the variance i.e. when they hit something nice it will be REALLY nice. People who do this do the math beforehand (the smart ones do anyway) and work out whether doing so produces a positive expected value (EV+) i.e. they work out, based on allowed games and % contribution of those games, bonus % amount, total WR, and bonus cashability etc whether the bonus is worth taking, then work out the best way to achieve a positive outcome. Some play the largest possible bets to obtain a large balance, and then "grind" out on minimum spins to preserve as much of their bankroll as possible. Whilst this does result in more cashouts, it does not necessarily produce a higher profit in the long term, as the less spins you make, the less you expose your bankroll to the house edge.
Anyway, as I said, being an AP has nothing to do with "unfortunate bets/mistakes", save perhaps that APs play things pretty close to the edge so one might expect more "mistakes" to occur in such circumstances. The smart APs know this, and take every possible precaution to stop it from happening, but also know if it DOES occur, it is a "cost of doing business" that most will take in their stride, as making a commotion every time just attracts more attention to what they're doing.
