mcd68024
Moderated User, repeated Forum Rules violations
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- Joined
- Jun 15, 2007
- Location
- Tallahassee
This posting is about my experience at thisisvegas.com ("TIV") and by extension its skins Paradise 8 ( Paradise8 ), Cocoa Casino, and Davinci's Gold. To avoid bloat, I make multiple footnotes referencing files attached at the bottom of this post. Unfortunately, given the number of issues, I've deemed it necessary to relegate many relevant points to these footnotes.
By late January of 2023, I had a combined balance of $140,000+ at TIV and Paradise 8. The sites are clones of each other, and I dealt with the same people. Thus, I will use "TIV" to refer to both. After months of extensive play on TIV's raffles and tournaments, I had VIP status. However, I had also become deeply suspicious of TIV's tournaments (1) which I document fully in a file attached at the bottom. That file is 21 KB in length. It is not ideal that such a subject be footnoted. However, suggesting that any casino added fabricated scores to their tournament leader boards is a very serious allegation and requires serious evidence and dissection. I could not think of a fair way to make an abridged presentation on the subject, and putting the argument in the main section of my post would bloat things beyond a digestible outline. Since it would reflect on credibility, I consider this issue to intersect all other parts of my posting. Also, this is the issue which most affects other players. TIV has long since continued to run tournaments/raffles with advertised prize pools routinely in the $500,000 to $1,000,000 range. Originally, I chose not to disclose my suspicions to TIV fearing I'd be classified as a player of lesser value and my payouts inhibited.
At this point, I had been receiving payouts at a reasonable rate, albeit briefly. No longer trusting TIV, I sharply cut my action and my VIP status and payout frequency diminished. I've no issue that my VIP status was phased out, but the diminishing payout frequency started to violate TIV's own stated T&C (2) and became unacceptable at any status. I've attached a complete accounting of TIV's payouts as well as my deposits (3). In response to receiving no payments between 8/2/2023 and 9/15/2023 (and other lapses/issues), I issued a complaint at Casino Guru. In response to warnings that I would do so, TIV warned that, if I followed through, they would revoke money from my account relating to unspecified prizes and bonuses. I saw this threat as another reason to complain, and TIV revoked $80,150.
Prizes Revoked:
$75,000 (Tournament Prize - 3rd Place) - 01/26/2023
$1,600 ("Cash Back" Deposit Bonus) - 04/05/2023
$700 (Raffle Prize) - 04/06/2023
$1,600 ("Cash Back" Deposit Bonus) - 05/24/2023
$1,250 (Raffle Prize) - 05/25/2023
TIV cited rule 6.5 (4). The rule states that when "cashback money" is won from a tournament/raffle, the casino reserves the right to deduct it from a pending withdrawal. I considered this dubious for multiple reasons. An abridged argument is below. For supplemental, see (5).
-Scattered within emails advertising tournaments, prizes had been labeled "real cash", prize tables had been denominated as "USD", and there was a statement "The rules are straightforward. The player with the most points during the tournament will take the 1st prize of $150,000". All emails advertising tournaments/raffles broke down the prize pools yet referenced no T&C or anything representing the prizes as other than cash. More importantly, support had explicitly confirmed the prizes to me as "cash" multiple times.
-TIV revoked two $1600 "cashback" deposit bonuses which should already have been zeroed out and removed from the picture. The $1250 and $700 raffle prizes I won, even if they were to be considered "cashback", should also have been zeroed out according to rules dictated to me on 4/4/2023.
-If there were "cashback" bonuses on my account in the manner TIV claims, they should have been removed from my account with the first following payout request. This should have included a $75,000 deduction back in January. The only precedent, a $19,000 non-cashable "cashback" deposit bonus, was removed automatically at the first following payout on 1/8/2023. TIV later claimed they were being generous allowing me to request payouts without immediate deductions. If this were true, why hide their generosity and wait months to mention they were even doing this? I had indicated multiple times to TIV that I considered my balance "cash". Support even confirmed my Paradise 8 balance as "unrestricted cash" on 1/16/2023. However, if you were to ignore this, technically speaking, the "reserves the right to deduct" from "a" pending withdrawal clause of their rule, allows TIV to make or not make such deductions from whoever they want whenever they want without notice. However, this would require a very liberal interpretation of their rule (especially given industry norms) or a cynical mindset that TIV intentionally worded the rule to be deceptive and exploitable. So, let's consider some alternative explanations to TIV acting out of generosity:
1. The $80,150 was not originally deducted because it was cash and TIV merely decided to change the narrative later.
2. TIV did consider my prizes "cashback" but deliberately sidestepped the norm of removing it from my payouts to keep me playing under would be false pretenses, i.e. that their tournament/raffle prizes were cash. This would greatly exaggerate their perceived value. For example, a $150,000 "cashback" bonus worth maybe $50,000 real money would appear to be worth $150,000 (7).
-Suddenly issuing a token $1,000 payout after a six-week absence to revoke prizes in response to a player initiating a complaint is unjustified. Worst case scenario, that $80,150 could have been used to wager to win cash that I could withdrawal.
-The clause within rule 6.5 stating "Players who have a pending withdrawal or balance of over 100 $/€/£/ do not qualify to receive Tournament prizes or to receive cash from a Raffle" (note the word "cash") has been contradicted in both word and action, both with respect to balance and pending withdrawals, multiple times by TIV. On an intuitive level, this rule makes no sense. It would imply that if you have a $0 balance you could collect a $150,000 prize but, if you would have a $101 balance, you will instead collect nothing. Thus, any player reading rule 6.5, having been told the things I had been told, would go to support for the definitive version of the rules as this rule would look like some legacy aspect of their website not updated by then new management. While it is certainly possible rule 6.5 existed in January of 2023, I do not remember reading it and I know enough to read the T&C. It is quite possible I read the rule and went to chat for confirmation. It would not be inconsistent with a chat of mine in mid-January of 2023 where I raise only one question, to confirm whether the prizes for the upcoming tournament will be pure cash. The answer was "yes like always".
As for the complaint itself at Casino Guru *snip*
I also tried a complaint at Ask Gamblers *snip*
TIV has publicly made some very charged assertions in response to my posts. (6)
Minor Points: See (8)
[maxd says: your complaints about Casino Guru and AskGamblers are not particularly relevant and we're not here to provide you a platform to complain about them, hence the "snips".]
By late January of 2023, I had a combined balance of $140,000+ at TIV and Paradise 8. The sites are clones of each other, and I dealt with the same people. Thus, I will use "TIV" to refer to both. After months of extensive play on TIV's raffles and tournaments, I had VIP status. However, I had also become deeply suspicious of TIV's tournaments (1) which I document fully in a file attached at the bottom. That file is 21 KB in length. It is not ideal that such a subject be footnoted. However, suggesting that any casino added fabricated scores to their tournament leader boards is a very serious allegation and requires serious evidence and dissection. I could not think of a fair way to make an abridged presentation on the subject, and putting the argument in the main section of my post would bloat things beyond a digestible outline. Since it would reflect on credibility, I consider this issue to intersect all other parts of my posting. Also, this is the issue which most affects other players. TIV has long since continued to run tournaments/raffles with advertised prize pools routinely in the $500,000 to $1,000,000 range. Originally, I chose not to disclose my suspicions to TIV fearing I'd be classified as a player of lesser value and my payouts inhibited.
At this point, I had been receiving payouts at a reasonable rate, albeit briefly. No longer trusting TIV, I sharply cut my action and my VIP status and payout frequency diminished. I've no issue that my VIP status was phased out, but the diminishing payout frequency started to violate TIV's own stated T&C (2) and became unacceptable at any status. I've attached a complete accounting of TIV's payouts as well as my deposits (3). In response to receiving no payments between 8/2/2023 and 9/15/2023 (and other lapses/issues), I issued a complaint at Casino Guru. In response to warnings that I would do so, TIV warned that, if I followed through, they would revoke money from my account relating to unspecified prizes and bonuses. I saw this threat as another reason to complain, and TIV revoked $80,150.
Prizes Revoked:
$75,000 (Tournament Prize - 3rd Place) - 01/26/2023
$1,600 ("Cash Back" Deposit Bonus) - 04/05/2023
$700 (Raffle Prize) - 04/06/2023
$1,600 ("Cash Back" Deposit Bonus) - 05/24/2023
$1,250 (Raffle Prize) - 05/25/2023
TIV cited rule 6.5 (4). The rule states that when "cashback money" is won from a tournament/raffle, the casino reserves the right to deduct it from a pending withdrawal. I considered this dubious for multiple reasons. An abridged argument is below. For supplemental, see (5).
-Scattered within emails advertising tournaments, prizes had been labeled "real cash", prize tables had been denominated as "USD", and there was a statement "The rules are straightforward. The player with the most points during the tournament will take the 1st prize of $150,000". All emails advertising tournaments/raffles broke down the prize pools yet referenced no T&C or anything representing the prizes as other than cash. More importantly, support had explicitly confirmed the prizes to me as "cash" multiple times.
-TIV revoked two $1600 "cashback" deposit bonuses which should already have been zeroed out and removed from the picture. The $1250 and $700 raffle prizes I won, even if they were to be considered "cashback", should also have been zeroed out according to rules dictated to me on 4/4/2023.
-If there were "cashback" bonuses on my account in the manner TIV claims, they should have been removed from my account with the first following payout request. This should have included a $75,000 deduction back in January. The only precedent, a $19,000 non-cashable "cashback" deposit bonus, was removed automatically at the first following payout on 1/8/2023. TIV later claimed they were being generous allowing me to request payouts without immediate deductions. If this were true, why hide their generosity and wait months to mention they were even doing this? I had indicated multiple times to TIV that I considered my balance "cash". Support even confirmed my Paradise 8 balance as "unrestricted cash" on 1/16/2023. However, if you were to ignore this, technically speaking, the "reserves the right to deduct" from "a" pending withdrawal clause of their rule, allows TIV to make or not make such deductions from whoever they want whenever they want without notice. However, this would require a very liberal interpretation of their rule (especially given industry norms) or a cynical mindset that TIV intentionally worded the rule to be deceptive and exploitable. So, let's consider some alternative explanations to TIV acting out of generosity:
1. The $80,150 was not originally deducted because it was cash and TIV merely decided to change the narrative later.
2. TIV did consider my prizes "cashback" but deliberately sidestepped the norm of removing it from my payouts to keep me playing under would be false pretenses, i.e. that their tournament/raffle prizes were cash. This would greatly exaggerate their perceived value. For example, a $150,000 "cashback" bonus worth maybe $50,000 real money would appear to be worth $150,000 (7).
-Suddenly issuing a token $1,000 payout after a six-week absence to revoke prizes in response to a player initiating a complaint is unjustified. Worst case scenario, that $80,150 could have been used to wager to win cash that I could withdrawal.
-The clause within rule 6.5 stating "Players who have a pending withdrawal or balance of over 100 $/€/£/ do not qualify to receive Tournament prizes or to receive cash from a Raffle" (note the word "cash") has been contradicted in both word and action, both with respect to balance and pending withdrawals, multiple times by TIV. On an intuitive level, this rule makes no sense. It would imply that if you have a $0 balance you could collect a $150,000 prize but, if you would have a $101 balance, you will instead collect nothing. Thus, any player reading rule 6.5, having been told the things I had been told, would go to support for the definitive version of the rules as this rule would look like some legacy aspect of their website not updated by then new management. While it is certainly possible rule 6.5 existed in January of 2023, I do not remember reading it and I know enough to read the T&C. It is quite possible I read the rule and went to chat for confirmation. It would not be inconsistent with a chat of mine in mid-January of 2023 where I raise only one question, to confirm whether the prizes for the upcoming tournament will be pure cash. The answer was "yes like always".
As for the complaint itself at Casino Guru *snip*
I also tried a complaint at Ask Gamblers *snip*
TIV has publicly made some very charged assertions in response to my posts. (6)
Minor Points: See (8)
[maxd says: your complaints about Casino Guru and AskGamblers are not particularly relevant and we're not here to provide you a platform to complain about them, hence the "snips".]
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