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I had a very negative experience recently with a Royal Vegas tournament and would like to advise everyone who plays in satellite tournament offered by the Fortune Lounge group. I appologize this is so long, but I wanted to provide complete information.
As customers of the Fortune Loung group may be aware, they are running the International Casino Games tournament series where the first prize of $250,000 will be given away on a cruise this spring. I played in a cash buy-in tournament on October 1st which was a satellite for another satellite on December 10th. I was the winner of the tournament and won an entry into the December 10th satellite which was advertised as limited to 54 players awarding the cruise/tournament finals package for 1st, $1000 for 2nd, and $500 for 3rd. Due to the 54 player limit and the prize structure, the entry I won was quite valuable.
Later I received an email from Kevin at Royal Vegas advising me that the IGC tournament I qualified for was cancelled and that they were entering me in a tournament on December 13th instead. This would have been fine except for the fact that the replacement tournament was not of equivalent value.
For starters, there was only one cruise package being offered even though there was no limit on the number of participants. Although there was $2000 being offered for the runner-ups instead of the $1500 I was promised, I do not believe this $500 was of much value considering the circumstances. In addition, the tournament I won the entry into was a freezeout and the replacement tournament offered rebuys and add-ons.
I contacted Keven at Royal Vegas asking about the disparity and was told that Royal Vegas would not be willing to give me any compensation to make up for the disparity.
I then contacted Tex at eCOGRA asking them to look into the problem. Tex investigated my complaint and replied:
I have investigated your query with the casino and have found that the casino has acted according to their T&C’s which state the following;
“The Royal Vegas Poker Room Promotions department will be the sole judge in respect of honoring any promotional offer. Royal Vegas Poker reserves the right, exercisable at its sole discretion, to discontinue or cancel any promotional offer at any time for any reason whatsoever and without any prior notice. Any person deviating from the promotional rules may be disqualified.”
This is point 5 under their Promotional Terms and Conditions - http://www.royalvegaspoker.com/terms...Direct#general
The free entry into the finals is a promotion and as such is subject to the above rule.
Bearing the above in mind I must inform you that I find your dispute to be invalid.
Kind Regards,
Tex Rees
It seems that eCOGRA will treat any satellite tournament offered as being a promotion regardless of whether there was a cash buy-in and will allow the casino the change the value of prizes won even after the satellite tournament has been completed. This is very alarming to me since Fortune Lounge offers many satellite tournaments offering very valuable entries into other tournaments. I wrote Tex back questioning eCOGRA's decision since the tournament I won was was a cash buy-in and not a freeroll. Royal Vegas returned my $11.00 buy-in from the satellite I won and Tex decided that was an acceptable solution.
The only way I can see returning my buy-in would be acceptable was if Royal Vegas also returned the buy-ins/rebuys/and add-ons to everyone who participated in the tournament I won which I assume they did not. Just returning the buy-in to the winner seems unacceptable to me.
By the way, the replacement tournament did end up having more than 54 participants and had many rebuys and add-ons.
I also sent a PM to the Forune Lounge representavie via the Casino Contacts page on December 7th. To date, the message still has not been picked up.
After basically getting nowhere with eCOGRA and the PM, I filed a PAB with Casinomeister on December 13th. However, I have not heard back from Bryan even though I sent a couple of follow-ups so I assume that he has exercised his right to refuse to look into complaints from non-accredited casinos like the Fortune Lounge group. I guess we should all be very careful playing at non-accredited casinos after we have used our one non-accredited PAB.
I hope this information is of some use to anyone who is a customer of Fortune Lounge. Hopefully, no one else falls into the same trap I did. I would be happy to reply to any questions anyone has about this problem. Thank you.
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