Joyland Casino: Problem withdrawal request

[thelawnet]

I don't think I would go so far as to say that Playtech has endorsed Joyland's conduct just yet, based on my own exchanges with Playtech management so far in trying to find a solution to this.

It is true that their initial handling of this issue was an inexperienced and regrettable wave-off sending players back to an uncommunicative casino, but since then they are I believe re-examining this issue in more detail and trying to find an equitable solution.

So I for one will reserve judgement regarding their alleged support for the casino's position until I see something more concrete from them.

This question of transparency on who owns a particular online casino is a recurring problem that bedevils the online gambling industry, and I understand that one of the new UK regulatory requirements will be that this information is easily available - that would be an excellent regulation imo for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it puts a name to the conduct of a casino.

I'm a little troubled by all these casinos being construed as belonging to one group (Crown Solutions etc) From recent Empire Online press releases it is clear that Monaco Gold, Club Dice, Carnival and YouBingo, together with Noble Poker are probably one ownership, but it is not clear to me where Joyland fits into this.

It could be that Crown is perhaps a holding entity of sorts that Playtech uses as a licensing vehicle? Just a thought.

Well the obvious solution is for them to explain what's going on. They are part of the same affiliate network (Casino Pays). Their websites say that they are 'owned' by Crown Solutions.

The poker site Noble Poker, says it is 'owned' by Imperial E-Club, which is a different set of casinos (del rio, tropez, etc.). There are very obviously connections.

They have the same address in Antigua, same web servers, etc.

[caruso]

This wasn't the best organised coup, and the analogy with CON 007 isn't perfect on all front's: even way back then, CON was the market-leader. In addition, that promo was unequivocal. On the other hand, here we have a lil' ole' Playtech casino, and a "mistake". The player mustn't be made to pay for casino mistakes, but mistake it was nonetheless - of gargantuan proportions.

I would put a conservative per-player take on this, maxing out with sleeping and eating time kept to a minimum, at about $200,000 over the course of a week on this manna-from-heaven 103.5 / 104% return casino. Taking a conservative (again) estimate of the players in the group, say 15, that's $3,000,000 for the lot of them. Kudos to whichever member it was who found the "mistake" and passed it on to the other 15 or so, but this was a disaster waiting to happen. At the very least there was never going to be less than an almightily bloody fight, and even then, at this level, chances of payment were slim - maybe 5%. The amount of money involved is simply too great for even Playtech to cough up. Remember RTG and the "Pirate"? Did he get his $1,400,000? Not even close - and that WAS unequivocal, with no possible opt-out clause for the casino.

Kudos to you folks for a ballsy coup attempt in which the potential rewards MIGHT have outweighed the absurd risks, but this wasn't a wise endeavour. Best of luck to you, though.

[thelawnet]

This wasn't the best organised coup, and the analogy with CON 007 isn't perfect on all front's: even way back then, CON was the market-leader. In addition, that promo was unequivocal. On the other hand, here we have a lil' ole' Playtech casino, and a "mistake". The player mustn't be made to pay for casino mistakes, but mistake it was nonetheless - of gargantuan proportions.

I would put a conservative per-player take on this, maxing out with sleeping and eating time kept to a minimum, at about $200,000 over the course of a week on this manna-from-heaven 103.5 / 104% return casino. Taking a conservative (again) estimate of the players in the group, say 15, that's $3,000,000 for the lot of them. Kudos to whichever member it was who found the "mistake" and passed it on to the other 15 or so, but this was a disaster waiting to happen. At the very least there was never going to be less than an almightily bloody fight, and even then, at this level, chances of payment were slim - maybe 5%. The amount of money involved is simply too great for even Playtech to cough up. Remember RTG and the "Pirate"? Did he get his $1,400,000? Not even close - and that WAS unequivocal, with no possible opt-out clause for the casino.

Kudos to you folks for a ballsy coup attempt in which the potential rewards MIGHT have outweighed the absurd risks, but this wasn't a wise endeavour. Best of luck to you, though.

That's an 'interesting' assessment.

$200,000? I don't think so.

I've gone back through this thread and here's the numbers

4029 euros
$1000
$10,000
$5,700
$356.75
$2,000
£3000
$20,000 ($100 Royal Flush)
$1600
amsterdam: $??
cardsandmore: $?? ('meagre')
thebloke: lost money chasing comp points: not refunded
$200,000 is a dramatic number to pluck out of the air, but there's zero evidence it's remotely accurate. Your amusing image of people keeping sleeping and eating activity to a minimum for a week, doesn't appear to have any correlation with reality.

Calling it a coup is pretty interesting as well - casino offers favourable terms, players take advantage - not my idea of a coup.

I have no idea how much this casino lost (or now, won, having conficated the winning players' money, while keeping the losers), but to say this was a mistake is a little strange - on the one hand, claim people were playing for a week straight, and we've seen that the casino actually adjusted their comps to the still highly favourable ratio of 2.66% at one point. What kind of mistake is that? The only mistake is them offering a promotion they didn't assess the implications of, but that should not be a get-out clause.

And finally, they might be a 'lil old Playtech', but with the $40m purchase of three casinos owned by 'Crown Solutions' selling for $40m in cash, and playtech itself undoubtedly making millions per month, the numbers we are talking about are not insurmountable.

[120sam]

200000 seems like a wild over estimate to me, theoretically possible perhaps but there's no evidence that anyone made that much. I think 20000 is the most anyone is claiming to have made. If Joyland wanted to they could tell us how many players tried to withdraw, and how much for, their total estimated liability, plus how many extra losing players they had as a result of people telling their friends to go and try it too etc.

At least they could if the records still existed, but they've been changed, and I don't think they're claiming that that was a mistake, or addressing that issue at all. When they wiped players' transaction records did they make back-ups for themselves? Either they're keeping two sets of books now or the information has gone forever.

One issue that hasn't been mentioned yet is insurance. Can online casinos insure themselves against this kind of loss? Do they have a duty to? I don't know anything about that aspect of things but I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who does.

[freakin]

200000 seems like a wild over estimate to me, theoretically possible perhaps but there's no evidence that anyone made that much. I think 20000 is the most anyone is claiming to have made. If Joyland wanted to they could tell us how many players tried to withdraw, and how much for, their total estimated liability, plus how many extra losing players they had as a result of people telling their friends to go and try it too etc.

At least they could if the records still existed, but they've been changed, and I don't think they're claiming that that was a mistake, or addressing that issue at all. When they wiped players' transaction records did they make back-ups for themselves? Either they're keeping two sets of books now or the information has gone forever.

One issue that hasn't been mentioned yet is insurance. Can online casinos insure themselves against this kind of loss? Do they have a duty to? I don't know anything about that aspect of things but I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who does.

Luckily, players received automatic withdrawal emails from Joyland when they initiated their cashout. These email contain the correct amount of the withdrawal. If a player left money in their account, there is probably zero record of it.

Freakin

[ElDuderino]

Luckily, players received automatic withdrawal emails from Joyland when they initiated their cashout. These email contain the correct amount of the withdrawal. If a player left money in their account, there is probably zero record of it.

Freakin

I took screenshots of both my pending withdrawals page and my livechat confirming my cashout(s)... I wouldn't have done so if I hadn't discovered CM months ago... Thanks to all the horror stories, I figured it would happen to me sooner or later. I'm sincerely glad I did.

[The Gunslinger]

This wasn't the best organised coup, and the analogy with CON 007 isn't perfect on all front's: even way back then, CON was the market-leader. In addition, that promo was unequivocal. On the other hand, here we have a lil' ole' Playtech casino, and a "mistake". The player mustn't be made to pay for casino mistakes, but mistake it was nonetheless - of gargantuan proportions.

I would put a conservative per-player take on this, maxing out with sleeping and eating time kept to a minimum, at about $200,000 over the course of a week on this manna-from-heaven 103.5 / 104% return casino. Taking a conservative (again) estimate of the players in the group, say 15, that's $3,000,000 for the lot of them. Kudos to whichever member it was who found the "mistake" and passed it on to the other 15 or so, but this was a disaster waiting to happen. At the very least there was never going to be less than an almightily bloody fight, and even then, at this level, chances of payment were slim - maybe 5%. The amount of money involved is simply too great for even Playtech to cough up. Remember RTG and the "Pirate"? Did he get his $1,400,000? Not even close - and that WAS unequivocal, with no possible opt-out clause for the casino.

Kudos to you folks for a ballsy coup attempt in which the potential rewards MIGHT have outweighed the absurd risks, but this wasn't a wise endeavour. Best of luck to you, though.

What if a player hit a sequential Royal Flush at iNetBet playing Joker Poker with $5 coins? Would they pay? Would they be expected to pay? That's a quarter million dollars, which I'd assume the sum in the Joyland case does not reasonably exceed.

Chips in Vegas are covered 1:1 by cash on hand. Even if this is not the case with online casions, the same principle should hold true. If they don't have $80,000 on hand, they shouldn't have a $5 coin size on 4-line Video Poker, period. All of this is adjustable within the Playtech back-end I'm sure, and for this reason. If I've only got $50,000 in my bank to pay players, I can't let four of them play $5 coin single line JoB now can I? Why? Because if I can't pay them, I can't accept their wager. This is custom accross the gambling world, Joyland has violated this compact, and should be held accountable. A casino should not except wagers that may result in wins beyond what they are capable of paying. Period.

The Gunslinger

[caruso]

This wasn't my point, which seems to have been read into beyond its scope. I made no comment about the rights, wrongs or anything else of the case - simply that to take advantage of this error - and error it was, ain't no doubting that - was highly risky. At the end of the day, this is a Playtech we're talking here, who, with all due deference to Bryan's recently improved relations with them, are dodgy. Risk / reward: was it worth it? Taking all the factors into consideration (Playtech, gross casino oversight, huge potential winnings, etc) I would say, no.

Again I repeat: this is not a comment on the rights or wrongs of the actual situation as it now stands.

[Amsterdamn]

For what it's worth (maybe offtopic?):

I've generated a list of all casino's listed on the Playtech Portfolio and sorted them on their primary IP number. This shows which casino's are hosted by the same provider or share the same physical server.

A fragment:

clubdicecasino.com.     83831   IN      A       212.111.40.5
usacasino.com.          84004   IN      A       212.111.40.5
newyorkcasino.com.      84026   IN      A       212.111.40.5
carnivalcasino.com.     84339   IN      A       212.111.40.5
monacogoldcasino.com.   84228   IN      A       212.111.40.5
joylandcasino.com.      86400   IN      A       212.111.40.5

The full list is attached.

[jetset]

I regret that I have to report that after four days of exchanging views with both Joyland and Playtech management there has thus far been no useful progress on this matter.

Joyland is adamant that the only players penalised were taking blatant advantage of their comp point miscalculation, and they have not shifted a millimetre from their position posted earlier by LiatK in this thread.

I would therefore urge players directly affected by this to consider what action they intend taking in the immediate future.

Using the Playtech disputes channel would not appear to be a viable option in this particular Joyland case, as imo the management there would appear to be supporting the casino.

I would therefore suggest that PABs to Bryan here at Casinomeister is the best way forward. Bryan will hopefully be able to achieve a better result with these people than I have.