InterCasino Incident - What is your opinion? (warning: REALLY long)

[DiamondGeezer]

JHV believe me you would have no legal success in the UK over the 'limited withdrawal facility' argument - ie you gambled it and lost because the casino wouldn't let you withdraw.

All these sorts of cases have been pretty well done to death in the UK courts and the casinos always win. The most recent was a guy in Newcastle who lost over £1m to William Hill. The guy self excluded himself saying he was an addictive gambler but later started using the account again and found the self exclusion was not working. He then went on to lose over £1m to them. He then sued WH but lost.

On the face of it that looks pretty harsh to the individual player. But the courts decided that it was not in the public interest as it could lead to a flood of claims. Also WH can afford the very best lawyers who would argue that the guy could just as easily have lost all that money at Ladbrokes, Coral or wherever.

I appreciate these judgements can look hard on the player. But for the rest of us it is not a bad thing. It would not be a good thing if these addicts got all their money back while the vast majority of players had no such recourse. Soon everybody would be using 'hey I'm an addict' argument.

You often hear the argument about slow or limited withdrawals but this is very easily refuted by the money laundering and anti terror laws. It may be true that casinos may hide behind these to an extent but no Judge is ever going to convict a casino for doing due dilligence even if it may be slow at times.

Lastly, for all the gamblers who suffer at bookies you do get situations where the bookies got royally screwed over. Obviously this applies to bookies rather than casinos. For example in the UK there was a mass gamble landed over a match involving Weymouth. There was some dispute of sorts and on the day of the match they had to play the youth team. Word got around in the town and by about 11 O'clock there were long queues round all the bookies. The bookies kept cutting the prices but the money kept pouring on as for about an hour or more none of the bookies infact knew about the substitute team.

Weymouth lost the match 9-0 and the combined bookie losses were well over £1m on this match alone. So it does happen the other way, particularly in horse racing. I think the courts recognise there has to be a lot of give and take in gambling or it would all seize up.

[JHV]

Yea a lot of this makes sense.

Except the nonsense about bookies. Cry me a river

The day I shed a tear over ANYTHING bad happening to a UK/Aust bookie working off 15% margin on w/e...well that day will never come.

[Mouche12]

I appreciate all that is said. However, I am not referring to the limited withdrawal issue (which is bad enough I give you that). I basically meant the amount of software errors (disconnection issues) in combination with the reversal to minimum bet size (which happens to be just the other way around compared to slots, which are being reversed to maximum bet size).

I am not a lawyer, but there is such a thing as the principle of fairness and reasonableness, that is also applied in courts. Given the details of this case, the volume of the total bets, (but not that you are or are not an addicted gambler, I agree that would not work), the email correspondence with CS and above all the game log showing this sudden one-time change to minimum bet size, I would say it is fair and reasonable for Intercasino to offer some compensation (to be determined by the court), also taking into account the the nuisance of all too frequent disconnections.

Why not give it a try?

[JHV]

I appreciate all that is said. However, I am not referring to the limited withdrawal issue (which is bad enough I give you that). I basically meant the amount of software errors (disconnection issues) in combination with the reversal to minimum bet size (which happens to be just the other way around compared to slots, which are being reversed to maximum bet size).

I am not a lawyer, but there is such a thing as the principle of fairness and reasonableness, that is also applied in courts. Given the details of this case, the volume of the total bets, (but not that you are or are not an addicted gambler, I agree that would not work), the email correspondence with CS and above all the game log showing this sudden one-time change to minimum bet size, I would say it is fair and reasonable for Intercasino to offer some compensation (to be determined by the court), also taking into account the the nuisance of all too frequent disconnections.

Why not give it a try?

At the risk of sounding insane and wankerish (but it's more laziness and the fact that I don't think judges should rule on *that* aspect of the issue), it's not really worth my time for the 25k - I would do it if I thought I could bring more public exposure to InterCasino for being unethical in lying to me about waiting for logs which had no impact on the decision (I'll admit that's really sick, and someone will go to a hypothetical Hell for that).

However, please understand that their policy (whilst incredibly confusing and could probably be made better or streamlined to be consistent in some way) - is not a bug. They just have two different policies (and there is almost some logic to having two policies regarding coin size defaults when you d/c).

If in middle of hand, the software replays the hand and your coin size is never altered for future hands.

If NOT in middle of hand, the software defaults to min coin size. There are slight improvements I would / could make to this (hell, maybe if a player has wagered 15,000 wagers on Max Coin in a row, and he's about to press min coin 5c, maybe a popup window like Chartwell has "Are you sure you want to hit on xxx" in Blackjack. I could fix the issue so that the policies are no longer confusing but InterCasino is not paying me, therefore I'm not in the (charity) consultancy business. The point is that the two policies are very confusing, as you can imagine. If every time you login, you never have to change your coin size to the one you want - it's pretty reasonable to assume that every time you login after a server d/c, it would be the same. Only later was it explained to me by CS that they have two policies for whether you're in a hand or not.

In fact, I'm fairly certain the lady herself didn't understand there were two policies. I may have worked it out on my own down the track.

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And, I also have a responsibility to mention they did offer 7500 or so total (? meh) in 2 or 3 small no-deposit (but with wagering requirements - not that I would have withdrawn, I was on sick tilt and chasing my 130k back) "consolation bonuses" in the end - but I found these little token 2k droppings insulting and I told them that. They console me with scraps from the table of a feast I catered for - and they console me after having lied to and effectively tricked me into losing 6 figures after they took advantage of my misunderstanding of a very complex policy system for default bets upon returning from disconnect - to actually steal my money. People won't like that strong word, but I see it as theft.

Now, the money I lost whilst they lied to me about the days waiting for reports which she led me to very much believe (if showing that I telling truth about wagering history), that was not so much stolen as craftily tricked out of me. Maybe a similar analogy would be making a bet with a REALLY drunk friend and lying to him saying you don't know the answer when you really do and he's too drunk to function as well). It's not 'theft' - but it's close. Very, very close. W.C. Fields would disagree, but I try to operate on a more humanistic moral code and will not actively contribute to a situation where I can scam someone - and I was foolish enough to assume they would be ethical as well due to their "good reputation".

I dropped out of Masters Law about 3 weeks into the course and don't know much about law at all. I had to remind myself what the definition of "prima facie" was this morning lol. But imo law, especially financial and contract law, should be very much emotionless and on face value only. The less emotion in the judicial system, the better.

Was that $25,000 rightfully mine? 100% - and anyone who cannot see it disappoints me.

Should a court rule in my favour on it? I'm not sure. Although 6 mil turnover and 15,000 bets at Max Coin can't be argued with - where do you draw the line? Who gets to draw the line? Judges can't rule on that, I don't think - judges shouldn't, imo.

InterCasino should have just NOT stolen the money. I would think they're rich enough that they don't have to take advantage of technicalities and confusing double policies purely to rip off their players.

I won't take them to court. But I will crush them as they deserved to be crushed (verbally) for the rest of my life - and whilst I'm just one rambling writer, I get around a bit. I just hope to make their decision -EV for them...as that will help players in the future.

[Mouche12]

Okay then, maybe it is more in your line to look for some good journalists? Although I still think that the frequent disconnections (the root of the problems occurring thereafter) are still an issue that deserve attention, first of all by consulting a lawyer. But if you don't wish to spend any time on that, okay.

There are various gambling magazines, like Gambling.com (are they still in business, I don't receive any issues anymore), maybe you would like to contact them or perhaps there is someone in this forum who knows a couple of good journalists who would be interested in this matter?

[JHV]

Okay then, maybe it is more in your line to look for some good journalists? Although I still think that the frequent disconnections (the root of the problems occurring thereafter) are still an issue that deserve attention, first of all by consulting a lawyer. But if you don't wish to spend any time on that, okay.

There are various gambling magazines, like Gambling.com (are they still in business, I don't receive any issues anymore), maybe you would like to contact them or perhaps there is someone in this forum who knows a couple of good journalists who would be interested in this matter?

I appreciate that you strongly (and correctly) agree with me that it was a very messed up and sick situation handled horribly, indisputably unethical and (in your opinion, arguably criminally) by InterCasino - the simple fact is that the industry has no incentive to expose or even publicise this type of incident.

These industries make a lot of money. A magazine is a vehicle for advertising / marketing the major online casinos. If they start doing expose's on InterCasino and other major casinos, they would be bankrupt very quickly. These publications, and almost all "online casino review sites" are as about as objective as a mother holding her ugly newborn child in her arms - you simply will NEVER get objective advice or even ethical advice from those sites unless they have someone editorialising who cares about ethics and delists valuable revenue sources for unethical behaviour, as I did twice when Editor of casino.pokernews.com.

Now, the above is valid, but there are some CLEAR exceptions to this rule:

1. Casinomeister.com - obviously

2. WizardofOdds - (to a lesser extent, he's not so much "watchdog" and provides other valuable services)

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I am no longer protecting my former "friends" at PokerNews. When Rome / Top Game fiasco occurred, resulting in my having to chargeback those funds - I sent the CM thread plus a summary email to my friends who are responsible for the site.

I expected Rome to be delisted within hours, if not minutes - a former Editor is saying they stole $3000 from him (in the sense that it was unrecoverable and he was forced to chargeback his card).

If I was Editor (as I was until Dec 08), I would have pulled Rome off based on a random accusation of such behaviour if it looked plausible. If I'm wrong, no foul, I'd put them back up in an hour or two once everything sorted. But you HAVE to protect players in the meantime.

I pulled two Casinos in fury during my time as Editor, and I was wrong to do so on one of them (Casino777 - who you will still see listed at 4th place - there were language barriers creating confusion and I should have been more patient, they were understanding). The other casino I can't remember who it was, I saw them on CM's Rogue List and pulled them. They were never listed again.

One month (?) after I brought my "friends'" attention to how Rome treats their customers, Rome is still listed as the 2nd Most Trusted Online Casino Room (I wrote those words 2 yrs ago) - they were not meant to sit above terrible operators like Rome.

It appears, and I'm waiting on an explanation as to why their behaviour was ignored and they are still recommended as 2nd most trusted - but it appears that my friends value $ > ethics / morals.

If that's the case, and I believe it is, they can go to the InterCasino hypothetical Hell which awaits those that would lie, and have innocents suffer as a result, just to retain / increase incoming revenue.

I'm no saint by any means, but this is disgusting behaviour to me. Disgusting.

[Mouche12]

Point taken, but it just struck me that you mentioned in of of your last threads that Intercasino offered you two ND bonuses of 7,500. I believe you did not mention this earlier. When exactly did they offer you that? Can this not be considered as some sort of compensation? Please elaborate once more, thanks!

[JHV]

Point taken, but it just struck me that you mentioned in of of your last threads that Intercasino offered you two ND bonuses of 7,500. I believe you did not mention this earlier. When exactly did they offer you that? Can this not be considered as some sort of compensation? Please elaborate once more, thanks!

They gave me like 2000 after I emptied my account of 100,000 whilst the lady waiting for those darned wagering logs to show whilst I gambled

Then they gave me like a 5000 one i think AFTER I completely tear the lady apart over her insulting lie in an email telling me she'd "pulled strings and called in favours" to get me into VIP club where I get match deposit bonuses and 1% cashback. Woot.

No, I do not consider them compensation. I consider them insults and told them I would consider them insults before the placed the token bonuses in my account - which they did anyway, busted both in minutes, so they wasted my time even more

[Slotster!]

This is quite an incredible thread.

Excluding 'played through/wagered' winnings - how much have you actually deposited and lost at Intercasino during this relatively short space of time?

[JHV]

This is quite an incredible thread.

Excluding 'played through/wagered' winnings - how much have you actually deposited and lost at Intercasino during this relatively short space of time?

I have a rough idea, but I try not to think about it - for all casinos. It's in the past. Do I wish I didn't lose so much? sure. but I also wish Natalie Portman was here, I wish I could get a decent copy of The Hangover that isn't pirated crap....that's like all my wishes right now - but my point is, wishing is a nice game to play, but I suck at it. So I don't lose sleep over it.