MG "free" Tourneys, I am officially an idiot!!

[JHV]

JHV,

I think you were only half-drunk. At least you didnt mistake a Joker for a Jack.

When I was laughing (gallows humour - really half-crying) about it to my friend on Skype, he's like "how long were you playing for?" - and I'm like "I dunno, 20 or so, I lost (large amount)."

He's like, "Um run the maths on how often you expect to see a Joker - and you saw one only after 20 mins of dealing? How drunk were you exactly? And how many Jokers do you think you missed?"

And I wanted to laugh. I really did.

But I think crying was the more...socially acceptable...response to his alerting me of this fact I could have happily lived without ever being alerted to.

[lauram]

Thought I would share my huge mistake that I made today. I played at one of the MG casinos last night, cleared my bonus requirements and got up to over $600. Played a bit this morning, down to $500 and thought, okay, I'm not going to play any more back! I will cash out when I come back home later today.

So I logged in early this evening to cashout and thought I would check to see if there were any free tourneys I could play at while I had the casno open. I saw there was a free blackjack one and have never played one of those before... mainly just play the Grand Slam ones, but sometimes one of the Avalon or Tomb Raider ones if I happen to be on line when they are on.

Since I had never played a blackjack one, I didn't know what was "normal" with them... didn't see a timer or anything. Anyways, I played away, thinking that blackjack sucks and I can never win at them... and this is why I never play it in real. I lost my chips pretty fast betting $85 or something a hand, not expecting to win... never win free tourneys!

I exited the tourney, only to see my cash balance was almost zero... holy crap... I just played away my $500 in no time flat!! You might imagine how sick I felt... I didn't even have fun! If I was blowing some $$ on video poker or slots, at least it would have been entertaining. I never find blackjack that entertaining.

So, lesson to you all who may not be aware of this... beware of "free tourneys"!!

I am hoping the casino will have mercy on me, but ultimately know it was my mistake. I am hoping, since I never play blackjack with cash that they will at least believe me. Okay... I am going to go some more now.

I have played a few bj free tourneys. I never once saw the play for real button. I would log back into the casino and check your play logs and see what went wrong. When you play the bj tourney so many from each table move on to the next round, the others are done playing. So im not sure how you would of used your own money to continue on, unlike the the other tourneys you can rebuy to keep competing.

[pinkfloyd]

i once had $120 in my slots account , jumped on a machine and was betting and watching tv , unknown to me i clicked bet max and only noticed when it said i dont have enough credits for the spin


hope you get something back

[trade]

Well, as I mentioned previously, I really didn't know how I could have possibly made this mistake as I thought I was playing a free blackjack tourney. Today, I received this message from support, which gave me some hope!
Hi there Anne,

Account Number: xxxxxxxx

I have reviewed your concerns and would like to confirm that the exact same difficulty was experienced when I entered the freeroll a few minutes ago. I have logged an inquiry with our developers as both us should have received 2500 start credits after entering and not have our own balances deducted. This defeats the purpose of it being “free”.

I do hope to receive feedback within the next 24 hours and will advise further once received.

Thank you for your patience Anne.

This was followed by this email:
Hi there Anne,

Account Number: xxxxxxxx

After further review I have managed to figure out why we were charged. The reason for this is because we both entered tournaments that were complete. I have attached a screenshot showing that the “Play Single Player” button which actually re-directs all players to the European Blackjack game itself.

I do hope that this clarifies what happened Anne.

AussieDave was kind of right re. what must have happened. When I entered, there was a "play single person" button, and I assumed this was what you did to play the tourney. I never realized/ noticed that the tourney was complete because I thought you would not be able to enter the tourney if it was complete, as is the case with the attached picture. If I wanted to play blackjack (which I never do!) I would have entered it through the games tab for blackjack.

It was kind of support to really try to figure out what happened because I had no way to explain it. Now I understand perfectly what happened, but that sure doesn't make it better.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that further steps to return my balance will happen. This wasn't a case of mindless playing or being high. I was without alcohol in my system and I will take a drug test!!

Thanks to those who helped me try to figure this out.

[vinylweatherman]

This is plain wrong. Trying to enter a tournament which is unavailable for any reason should NOT just seamlessly put the player through to a REAL MONEY game. It should do what the slot tournaments do, show an error code making it CLEAR the tournament is unavailable.

It is highly irresponsible for these tournaments to have been released in this manner given that tournament play is HUGELY different to play with "real money". Most players would use a high risk strategy in a tournament, going for "glory or bust", something they would NOT do if they KNEW they were using their own money.

[trade]

This is plain wrong. Trying to enter a tournament which is unavailable for any reason should NOT just seamlessly put the player through to a REAL MONEY game. It should do what the slot tournaments do, show an error code making it CLEAR the tournament is unavailable.

It is highly irresponsible for these tournaments to have been released in this manner given that tournament play is HUGELY different to play with "real money". Most players would use a high risk strategy in a tournament, going for "glory or bust", something they would NOT do if they KNEW they were using their own money.

Hi Vinyl,
Fortunately the support person did have the same experience as me and is empathetic as to how easy it is for someone who has never played a blackjack tourney, especially if you never play blackjack. I realize in the attached pic that it shows the tourney is completed, but I do not recall it saying "completed" before I entered and can only assume it said "in play". Once I entered, I now I remember I saw the choices of play single player or return to lobby. When I clicked the single player button and it let me play, I assumed I could still play in the tourney (which I now realize was not a tourney afterall).

"Single player" to me meant maybe I would be playing against a single player. When there was no other person, I figured...kind of weird, but really did not give it any further thought. I know this might seem bizarre to those who do play blackjack regularly... or to tourney players as well who scratch their head saying "but the tourney says it ended" when you entered, but given the fact that I entered through a blackjack tourney tab, I never considered that choosing "single player", meant I would then be playing in real.

The fact that a seasoned support person made the same mistake, because as he said, he had never played blackjack tourneys either, gave me some comfort that perhaps I was not an idiot afterall. (I would like to change the title of this thread now!!)

I suggested that the simple fix to this is if a tourney is over, you can't click on it and enter unless you were a player who wanted to check on their standing.

Support is working on getting me a successful resolve and after his email today...
"I will try my best to get all resolved and the $501.00 credit returned. This may take a little longer than anticipated however achieving the desired result will make the wait worthwhile I am sure.

Thank you for your patience."

... I am both optimistic and very grateful indeed! I hope they are able to set up a better system which will prevent this happening again to another inexperienced blackjack &/or tourney person.

[chuchu59]

Kudos to the casino for doing the right thing and saving its name in the process. The OP is now officially a happy player.

Edit:

I hope the casino will do the right thing and return the $500 to the OP. Future tense but still hopeful.

[big_mac]

Did I miss something? I didn't think that the casino has actually agreed to do anything yet.

[chuchu59]

Oops! You are right big_mac. I misread the italics part and thought that the case was resolved. Nevertheless, it does seem that at least they are working on it and $500 is no big deal for the casino who wont be blamed as this is essentially an MG feature.

[vinylweatherman]

It is Microgaming that should be doing something. That "single player" button is IN ADDITION to the "back to lobby" one, and is ONLY going to create confusion, since the equivalent button in a SLOTS tournament is "rebuy", and sometimes slots tournaments have 3 buttons, NONE of which "short circuit" the need to go "back to lobby" before REAL money can be put into play.

This design falls short of "player protection", and indeed "responsible gambling", since it represents such a danger to the novice player who can easily ASSUME, quite logically, that one MUST go "back to lobby" BEFORE any of their own cash can be risked on a game.