WARNING Lapalingo is rebranded PlayBet24, denying responsibility

[maxd]

This issue came to our attention via a PAB against Playbet24.com: the player had been given a 50€ free chip, had won and requested the max payment of 100€. The casino gave a variety of excuses for denying payment and then shut down without notice. With the casino site gone and no response to emails there wasn't much we could do and the case pretty much died there.

Fast-forward about a year: I receive an email from the original PAB guy. He'd been sent the following email:

From: Anna Donca (anna.donca@gmx.de)
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2016 1:47 PM
To: *snip*
Subject: Erinnerst du dich noch an playbet24?

Hi *snip*,

wie geht´s dir? Echt lange nichts mehr von dir gehört!
Wir sind endlich wieder da! Und zwar unter dem Namen lapalingo.com !
Deine Lieblingsspiele wie New Crazy Seven, Golden Fruits, Treasure Island, Lucky Unicorn und Rise of Napoleon warten auch hehe!

Extra für dich konnte ich mit meinen Chefs einen 20 Euro Gutschein für dich aushandeln!

Gehe jetzt einfach auf lapalingo.com und gebe diesen Code ein:

*snip*

Da du jetzt auch meine private E-Mail Adresse hast kannst du mich hier jederzeit kontaktieren und ich kann dir somit viel schneller weiterhelfen!

Deine Anna Donca

When I approached Lapalingo and asked "will you honour Playbet24 obligations to players?" they said:

lapalingo is not renamed from any other casino. So unfortunately we can´t do nothing in this case.

When I mentioned the email the player had received:

We know this kind of emails being send from an old affiliate of this casino. Lapalingo.com is a complete new casino ... we could give him a bonus for lapalingo.com as compensation.

When I mentioned the fact that playbet24.com redirects to lapalingo.com:

The domain playbet24 points to lapalingo because the old owner of playbet24 become an affiliate of lapalingo.

When I said I wasn't buying their "affiliate" story and are they sure they wanted to stick with that:

... do you have Skype so we could have a chat regarding this.

Needless to say the whole thing reeks of BS. So ...

WARNING: Lapalingo.com is almost certainly a re-brand of Playbet24.com which left players unpaid when they disappeared last year. Players are strongly advised to avoid Lapalingo.com unless they are willing to waste their time trying to get paid and kiss their casino balances goodbye when these rogues decide to do another disappearing act.

 

[maxd]

In the interest of allowing these guys to speak in their own defence I offer the text of an email I received:

Dear Max,

Hopefully within the few next sentences we are able to tell you more about the history of lapalingo. I think the main problem is that in a few mails we couldn´t explain to you why playbet24 is not lapalingo.com.

Before 2015 playbet24 operated on a Montenegrin Gambling License using the platform of KGR-Entertainment GmbH from Germany. KGR-Entertainment have had its own developed casino platform including several casino games. They offered as well online casinos as a business to business model to operate an online casino. One of these casino clients was the operator of playbet24.com.

In 2015, KGR-Entertainment within the software and all assets was sold to Löwen Play GmbH, a company which operates around 320 gambling arcades in Germany. Löwen Play is the German market leader in operating Gambling-Arcades and employs more than 3.200 people in Germany.

To entrance the Online Gambling Market Löwen Play GmbH founded the co-subsidiary Lionline Entertainment GmbH & Co. KG. They took on the work on the software development and certified all components of the software as well as the RNG and the games from GLI (Gaming Laboratories International), the largest network of global companies dedicated to provide independent testing and evaluation of gaming technology. Furthermore, Lionline Entertainment GmbH & Co. KG cooperates with a counterparty, who’s held a legal European gambling license from the MGA (Maltese Gaming Authority). They licensed a Class 4 Software License and two Class 1 on 4 operating licenses. Today, Lionline Entertainment GmbH & Co. KG integrated the most relevant game providers like Microgaming, Greentube, NetEnt, Edict and others into the platform. They of course offer the service to operate online casinos in Malta. And one of the clients is lapalingo.com.

Just for clarification, after Löwen Play GmbH respectively Lionline Entertainment GmbH & Co. KG bought the assets of KGR Entertainment, they required to close all existing casinos which used the old casino platform from KGR. So casinos like playbet24.com were closed by the old operators. Thus it is clear that there has never been a business relationship between Löwen Play Group of companies and the casino playbet24.com.

A few weeks ago, an old affiliate of playbet24 took his player data and wrote them e-mails with bonuses for lapalingo.com. With lapalingo.com we have already an online casino which is trustful! Players can now complaint directly to the Maltese gambling authority if they have any kind of unresolved issues. In a few weeks lapalingo.com also starts with the NetRefer Affiliate solution. Over and above that, Lionline Entertainment GmbH & Co. KG with his counterparty will get a German gambling license from Schleswig-Holstein in few months. Another point that underlines our professional processing.
We would really like to show you more about lapalingo.com and would be also interested in a complete review of our services, because it´s really sad that our relationship is starting this way.

If you have any questions we could clarify please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards
lapalingo.com Management