Betfair issues (was On Probation)

Betfair has requested consideration for removal from the Rogue Pit. We are honoring this by placing them under review for 60 days (On Probation). During this time, players are encouraged to give feedback and/or submit any complaints past or current eith via our PAB service or posted here in this thread.

Their casino rep can be contacted here:
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/members/

Betfair's listing is here:
Old URL

More about the probation process here:
Old URL

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/betfair-bonus-fiasco.41102/

I'm still at work so everyone can be glad I'll keep it short and sweet

My 2 cents: Leave them in the pit.

Mousey said:

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/betfair-bonus-fiasco.41102/

I'm still at work so everyone can be glad I'll keep it short and sweet

My 2 cents: Leave them in the pit.

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They can start by putting any money they took from players' BANK accounts back again. This went beyond a contractural dispute, and was a misuse of the banking system, and may have violated banking regulations.

Next, any players who did not break the terms of this infamous promotion should get their confiscated winnings returned to them for withdrawal.

If they decide these players should remain banned for being too clever, so be it, it will still meet the high standards they promised to adhere to before this fiasco, and when they were accredited here.

Internally, they should have taken measures to ensure they don't screw up like this again.

I'm afraid I agree with Mouseys' comment above. They were rogued for a genuine reason - and as VWM said, unless they can fix up their previous messes, leave 'em in the pit. Its where I personally think they should stay anyway.

Zepher said:

I'm afraid I agree with Mouseys' comment above. They were rogued for a genuine reason - and as VWM said, unless they can fix up their previous messes, leave 'em in the pit. Its where I personally think they should stay anyway.

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It was 2 years ago, so maybe they think they should now be forgiven rather than have to fix what they did back then. If players went away, it was because they were completely stonewalled with nowhere to complain to, not because they accepted they were in the wrong.

Maybe they think players won't come back to revisit the issues after so long, however I hope the opposite happens, and that after biding their time for 2 years, affected players descend like locusts on this thread and ask that these old cases be reopened.

The odd Betfair issues are still cropping up from time to time, and it seems again that players are getting the "we are right, so talk to the hand" response.

Leave them in the pit, what they did was unforgivable.

I see they are now advertising on TV here in Canada, and that makes me want to make my own commercial (similar to the political ads) explaining what happened and why people shouldn't play there.

I wasn't affected in any way, but I did follow the story and couldn't believe they would actually take money out of someones bank account after THEY screwed up. That's beyond rogue.

I would never play there, and I certainly would never promote them.

One of the conditions of coming out of the pit is to ensure that all past issues have been dealt with fairly. This is not a "Get out of the Pit for FREE" card. We still have the old PABs and will be contacting those players shortly.

I have to agree with Perc; unless they return the money they stole from EVERY single player effected - leave them in the pit.

What they did was beyond despicable IMO.

KK

Have to agree with all comments posted above. What Betfair did was one of the worst cases of mass thievery I have personally witnessed in my eight plus years here, and my decade of gambling online. Every single player who had money taken back from bank accounts, ewallets, etc., and every single player who had their legitimate winnings denied from that clusterfuck of a promo....needs to be taken care of. Nothing else will suffice.

Casinomeister said:

One of the conditions of coming out of the pit is to ensure that all past issues have been dealt with fairly.

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What I don't think would be fair is if they'd pay people with the old PAB's just to get out of the pit and not all the other people that got their money seized from their bank accounts.

That said, that would cost them way too much money so I don't see it happening. Personally, pit or not, I'm going to stay away.

FWIW all the original PABers have been emailed asking them to come and comment here as to whether their issues were resolved.

Curious as to whether this is new management or owners? If so, there may be a chance for them. If not...well, making restitution is a step in the right direction, but only if it really happens.

Balthazar said:

What I don't think would be fair is if they'd pay people with the old PAB's just to get out of the pit and not all the other people that got their money seized from their bank accounts...

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It's not only PABs, but any complaint. So if you are aware of anyone who may have a past grievance, please point them in this direction.

I contacted them a few times asking for the money that they'd removed from my Betfair account. Initially, they told me to contact the gaming authority in Malta, which was a waste of time. I contacted them again recently, after they sent an email entitled "A Further Update to Our Customer Commitment" (lol). I didn't even get a reply.

I don't think it'll take a genius to work out whether I think they should be removed from the Rogue Pit or not....

FiletOFish said:

I contacted them a few times asking for the money that they'd removed from my Betfair account. Initially, they told me to contact the gaming authority in Malta, which was a waste of time. I contacted them again recently, after they sent an email entitled "A Further Update to Our Customer Commitment" (lol). I didn't even get a reply.

I don't think it'll take a genius to work out whether I think they should be removed from the Rogue Pit or not....

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Well, if you didn't before, send in a PAB right now, if they give Max the "talk to the hand" treatment, they may well end up staying in the pit.

It is clear that after 2 years of a "who cares" attitude to being blacklisted by many internet sites, they have now concluded that they DO care, and this may be down to it causing them problems in attracting new players.

They may, of course, be trying to pull the wool like 888 tried, and Virtual group try repeatedly. If found out though, they could just end up deeper in the pit than before.

vinylweatherman said:

Well, if you didn't before, send in a PAB right now, if they give Max the "talk to the hand" treatment, they may well end up staying in the pit.

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Cheers. I put a PAB in back in November 2010. I was also responsible for the second, poor imitation of the first Hitler video.

And what about Portuguese guy they took €32.000 from? They charged it back from his BANK account. IIRC, he didn't get him money back. Correct me if I'm wrong.

SlotMonster said:

And what about Portuguese guy they took €32.000 from? They charged it back from his BANK account. IIRC, he didn't get him money back. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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He was told the action was illegal under Portuguese banking laws, but there was little that could be done since Betfair were not based in Portugal, and his bank didn't want to take the blame for allowing it to happen and refund the money themselves.

Betfair probably relied on this being the situation, but I do recall some UK players tried to haul Betfair into court, but no news of whether this got them anywhere. I also believe the ASA made a ruling against Betfair over this promotion, but their powers were limited to issuing a "don't do it again" notice.

It seems they have spent 2 years giving everyone who tried to get information about this the "talk to the hand" treatment, and now all of a sudden they want to talk and get out of the pit.

I can't see them being willing to put right those affected in 2010, so I think this is an exercise in hoping that 2 years is long enough for the act to be mostly forgotten, and that few players affected will actually step forward now.

Hopefully, they will be wrong, and news of this exercise will spread beyond CM, and will draw in most players who felt they got screwed over and only let the issue rest, rather than having forgiven.

SlotMonster said:

And what about Portuguese guy they took €32.000 from? They charged it back from his BANK account. IIRC, he didn't get him money back. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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Yes, it is my understanding that he didn't get any of that money back. I recall he also challenged his bank to return the 32K because they shouldn't have let a "chargeback" to occur on funds already paid to a bank account. Since when can you reverse a payment to bank account just like credit card payment? It shouldn't be possible.

However, shortly before this player had the 32K seized from his bank account, he was bragging on another forum what naughty tricks he had done at Betfair and had amassed that win from a small deposit by compounding the unlimited bonuses during the small 3-hour time window the promotion was active. So I'd say that the affected players must have understood the potential problems involved with this clearly misthought promotion, and were not as gullible as it sounds.

Jufo said:

Yes, it is my understanding that he didn't get any of that money back. I recall he also challenged his bank to return the 32K because they shouldn't have let a "chargeback" to occur on funds already paid to a bank account. Since when can you reverse a payment to bank account just like credit card payment? It shouldn't be possible.

However, shortly before this player had the 32K seized, he was bragging on another forum what naughty tricks he had done at Betfair and amassed that win from a small deposit by compounding the unlimited bonuses. So I'd say that the affected players did quite well know the potential problems involved with this misthought promotion.

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It wasn't against the terms and conditions though, which was the whole issue. Betfair cocked up in a major way, and it was Betfair that made the offer available "unlimited times" so that players COULD do this.

Mathematically, it makes no difference whatsoever whether the player fully withdrew and redeposited, or simply withdrew to the sports purse. The problem was the unlimited number of bonuses allowed, and the very low WR.

Far from learning their lesson, Betfair REPEATED the promo the following week, knowing full well that this vulnerabilty existed. They must have considered it worth doing as in the first week very few players seemed to know the "trick". Unfortunately, in week 2, it was widespread.

They really compounded the issue when they paid some players, and then took the money back from bank accounts and wallets. This is no different from a player who loses, and then a couple of days later decides the games were "unfair" and charges back the losses. This is the BIG sin, and one that should NOT be forgiven. Players who charge back losses are blacklisted for LIFE, it should be the same for casinos. The ONLY way some players have managed to get off the life ban blacklist is to make good on everything they charged back, and so Betfair need to do the same. No need for players to get involved either, Betfair have records of EVERY chargeback they made from players' banks and wallets, along with the contact details for each of these players.

vinylweatherman said:

Far from learning their lesson, Betfair REPEATED the promo the following week, knowing full well that this vulnerabilty existed. They must have considered it worth doing as in the first week very few players seemed to know the "trick". Unfortunately, in week 2, it was widespread.

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No, you are confusing this with some other incident. The Betfair happy hour promo ran only once. It was indeed scheduled to run every week, but was obviously cancelled after the very first time it ran. APs knew to take their shot at it at the very first opportunity. Betfair sent e-mails about the promotion beforehand so people were well aware of it coming up and marked the date on their calendars.

If betfair come out the rogue pit it makes a mockery of this entire site in my opinion.

Must stay rogued!

This whole Betfair thing was before my time at CM, so I have spent some time getting up to date and reading the thread linked to by Mousey.

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/betfair-bonus-fiasco.41102/

In short, I can only echo what others have said, Betfair should be rogued, they should stay rogued and god forbid they should be thinking that they could ever in a million years be worthy of accredited status here at CM again.

Bryan's own summary says it all IMO.

Old URL

My PAB was never resolved. The worst thing about it is that as well as reversing winnings they removed some of my own funds from my account. So I ended up in a worse position than almost everyone, as most people did get their starting balances returned.

We all know there have been several rogue casinos that came to Bryan making promises and then failed to carry through and so remained in the pit. But in the meantime, while the casinos were blowing sunshine up our bums, some players that had been shafted got paid.

IMO that's a huge benefit to letting Betfair *try* to climb out of the rogue pit - that possibly the players that were affected by that fiasco will get paid.

And even if they do clean up their act - that means paying up all past issues and having no complaints for a certain amount of time - and they DO manage to get out of the pit, it doesn't mean they'll be accredited.