Bwin Poker is holding players' money without explanations!

[SlotMonster]

I've read several issues about Bwin taking players' deposits, not letting them to withdraw their winnins and closing their account without any explanations on one of the biggest russian casino and poker forum - cgm.ru - and thought that I should share this information with CM members. All excuses Bwin is giving to players are "we can close or block your acct without explanation" and "when you regisrerd - you agreed with our T&Cs".

There are also several threads about this issue at 2+2 forum, sorry I don't have the link.

This is inappropriate practice for respected poker-room to close players accounts and hold their winnings without any reason.

P.S. I'm curious about these issues happened only with players from CIS?

[same_old]

I would speculate to much right now Slotmonster- I mean a russian forum saying all this probably smells of a syndicate or something.

[jetset]

Bwin is also a publicly listed company on a respectable exchange (Vienna) and a leading member of EGBA, and it has poured literally millions into industry ethical research projects.

It additionally has a high operating profile in sensitive dedicated areas like Italy and possibly soon France, and has a rep for strictly adhering to the regulatory requirements in those areas, and legally challenging nations that it claims have contravened EU principles of free movement of goods and services.

That being the case, I think there's a good chance that there's something more to this than a straight player ripoff for monetary gain, but I'll keep an open mind until more details emerge - possibly through a reputable third party investigation.

[SlotMonster]

Here is the link to 2+2 thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...do-now-759652/

I also pasted the link to the cgm.ru, but you can read it only with Google translation:
http://forum.cgm.ru/okolo_pokernogo_...na_pomosh.html

[jetset]

Thanks - I've flagged it for the Bwin media liaison people.

[SlotMonster]

Thanks - I've flagged it for the Bwin media liaison people.

Thanks jetset. Just to bring in a little more information, here is the translation from the thread at cgm.ru (the very first post):

Player deposited $5k and asked support to up his limits. The support haven't been responding for few days, so the player emailed them that he will withdraw his money if they won't do that.

As the result, they blocked his acct and asked for the docs, which were almost immediately sent. Player sent the same docs several times, because Support didn't accept them with several excuses. After they accepted documents, the player started playing and won about $15k, and then again got banned.

Phone call:

Support: you were blocked by Secutity Department
Player: what is the reason of blocking? I have almost $20k sitting on my account! I can send any documents you need!
Support: Secutity Department can block any player without any explanation given.

There are also several players who are in the same situation, and they are postin in the same thread.

[pokeraddict]

They don't exactly have the best reputation in the sports betting industry:

http://www.sportsbookreview.com/sbr/bwin/

I'm not sure why poker would be different. Of course there are always two sides to every story and sometimes rooms get a bad rap even when they did the right thing.