Originally Posted by
gregg2012
hello
this is my first post here I am after some advice.
I apparently self excluded myself from a well known bookmaker in January 2010 for two years which expires jan 2012. To be honest I cant really remember doing this but at the time i was losing a lot of money on touch screen roulette and excluded myself from the local shops in my area.
fast forward to july 2011. I opened up an online casino account with one of the well known bookmakers and deposited £600. After play roulette I turned it into 8k. When I went to cash out they restricted my account whilst they look into it. I am obvoiously very worried that I am not going to get paid. I did not pull the wool over anybodys eyes and I did not open a new account at a different address all the details were the same. I did not take a bonus as I am not a new customer. I have a feeling that they are going to try and shaft me by saying i cant gamble there and refund my original deposit. The way i see it i didnt know i was self excuded or i would have just signed up to another casino. I have also lost thousands in their shops in the last year and if they are going to do this then surely i am entitled to all the money back i have lost in that time. I also feel if they go down this road it will open the door for everyone who has every lost any money and is self excluded to get it back. At the moment it is being dealt with by their internal team and I am waiting for an answer. Anybody else had a similar experience and if so what was the outcome. The way i say it is they took the bet and only when i went to cash out they said oh we think your self excluded. If I had lost my £600 the rung up the next day and said i believe i was self excluded i want my money back they would have told me where to go. The casino is on the accredited list.
Under self exclusion rules, they should have blocked the account immediately based on your details having remained the same as when you self excluded at the bookmakers.
Self exclusion does not work all that well at the other shops, since bets can be placed without registering your details, and unless your photo has been circulated, staff have no way to tell.
Online, it is a different matter, as the industry has a self exclusion database, and this should be checked against the details of any new player registering for an online product.
You may have signed the original exclusion order in the "heat of the moment" after a losing streak, but this is a SERIOUS legal document, and would REQUIRE operators with links to UK land operators to do their best to enforce it.
You should ask for a copy of the original exclusion order since you don't remember signing it, and then seek legal advice if they say they are not going to pay the winnings, and are also not going to refund any of your losses.
You should be able to retrieve these losses if you can prove that they failed to check properly whether you were subject to an exclusion when they carried on taking your bets, and only noticed this detail when you came to have a big win, which is really only a return of some of your earlier losses.
You should also stay away from gambling until February 2012, when your self exclusion lapses.
Exclusion orders are designed to be easy to enter into, and near impossible to get out of. This is a feature meant to protect those that lack the willpower not to be tempteed back, and recognises the fact that gamblers often want such protection "in the heat of the moment" after suffering a loss, but know that temptation will get the better of them later on, and they will try to "chase" that loss, which could lead to an even worse problem.
Players HAVE sued the UK bookmakers for refunds of losses on the grounds that they "should have known" the player had a gambling problem at the time. It would be a case of proving this aspect of "should have known", and that negligence in internal procedure allowed bets from a player on the self exclusion database to be taken.
Not all such cases have gone in favour of the player, and if the operator can show there is no way they could have known, whatever checks were made, they will not be liable.
Since this operator DID check when you submitted the withdrawal, they cannot claim there is no way they could have known that you were self excluded, and thus you could argue that they were negligent in only carrying out these checks when players WIN, rather than when they open the account and make the first deposit.
Although you could represent yourself, a lawyer is worth the money given the size of this claim. Many offer an initial free consultation, so that you can at least get some idea as to whether it is worth pursuing this route, and also whether you have chosen the right lawyer, one with some experience in what is currently a "niche" product in terms of litigation.
Perhaps ask for lawyers with experience of "action against internet based businesses".
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