Thievery of Unified Gaming and Gamblers Palace

A

Angry Newbie

Guest
Here's my entire tale of woe regarding my very first foray into online gaming:

I became a user of Gamblers Palace on Sunday February 25, 2001 (perhaps it was after midnight so it could have been Monday, February 26, 2001). I deposited $500 in my account by credit card and immediately started playing single-deck blackjack. I had a few computer glitches that I was able to live with but the game would continually freeze up (something that plagued me each session I played).

Playing basic strategy, I was very successful the first few days and my account grew to the $6,000-$7,000 range. The next few days were very up and down but I was able to get my account to $9,000. Around this time I put in an online redemption request for my $500.00 deposit to be credited back to my credit card (redemptions are only processed on Mondays). On Friday March 2, 2000 I played some more and broke the $10,000 mark. On Saturday March 3, 2001 I decided to change my redemption request to $5,000 and did this by telephone. That night I played some more - and I had a huge swing of luck with my account shrinking to the $6,000 range and then growing back to a bit over $10,000. During each of these sessions my computer would freeze requiring me to sign back onto my account.

On Sunday morning, March 5, 2001, I tried to sign on to my account and I received the message that my user ID and password were no longer valid. When I e-mailed and called the site I was informed that my account was under investigation for some unknown reason. They told me to talk to the manager but he was unavailable at the time. Later that afternoon, I finally got through to the manager and he nastily accused me of playing "illegally" as he claimed that I had, on four occassions, been doubly signed on to my account (meaning that my sessions over-lapped). I asserted that I did no such thing. As a result, he froze my account so I could not play and could not get my money redeemed. He said that if I were honest, as I claimed, then I had nothing to worry about. He said the "investigation" would be over by Monday morning. After that I wrote an e-mail to the site telling them that I find their reasoning unacceptable. I received an e-mail back with my alleged transgression (a supposed abstract showing one, not four, time overlaps between two sessions - it was a 10-minute overlap). The manager also wrote that I have nothing to worry about and that my money will be waiting for me when the investigation was over (Monday morning).

As of that Monday afternoon, my account was still frozen and my redemption had not been processed. In an e-mail that morning I demanded the entirety of my account be sent to me (over $10,000). I received an e-mail back that basically called me a crook and said that investigation will not be over until later that week and they will not process any of my redemption requests.

I wrote another e-mail demanding answers to questions such as during that one alleged ten-minute overlap does their computer indicate whether more than one hand was being played at once. Did I win or lose during that one period? How much? Certainly, their computer glitch during that one alleged ten-minute overlap period does not cover a large amount of money - certainly not an amount that would give them reason to withhold over $10,000 of my money.

Upon a later exchange of e-mails (where the casino manager was a bit nicer after I told him I was going to post on the boards)the casino manager demanded to know why I was playing 2 games at once. I denied playing 2 games at once and suggested that perhaps when the my computer window got frozen it's possible that their server did not have me logged out, so when I logged in again it looked like I was logged on twice. I told the Casino manager to investigate the matter further and I am confident that he will see that I was not playing 2 sessions or 2 hands at once.

Finally, after I e-mailed (without responses) and called many times throughout the week I was able to speak to the manager of Gamblers Palace again. He told me that the "audit" of my account was over and that I had been cleared of any wrongdoing (although he never apologized for accusing me of being a cheat). He assured me that my $10,000 withdrawal request will be processed immediately.

WRONG!!

Although my credit card was credited back with $500; I never received my $9,500 bank wire. In the past two weeks, whenever I called Gamblers Palace asking about my money they would tell me that I will be getting it any day.

This past weekend Gamblers Palace changed their story and told me that they cannot pay me and the decision to not pay me was made by UNIFIED GAMING. It appears that after two weeks of being strung along, Unified Gaming has now decided to "audit" my account. Gamblers Palace told me that since it was not their decision to do this new audit, I now have to contact Unified Gaming. Well, my e-mails to Unified Gaming have gone unanswered.

I won my money fair and square. I weathered many downswings and was able to capitalize on winning streaks by increasing my bet. I am outraged and incensed that Unified Gaming is witholding money that I fairly won. I find it highly suspicious that they started "investigating" me only right after I put in my first redemption request.

I am completely distraught.

By the way, the manager at Gamblers Palace saw my postings on another board and he was outraged. Serves him right for accusing a customer of thievery (he actually never apologized after he cleared me of any wrongdoing) and for running a crooked casino.

I would suggest that nobody give their patronage to Unified Gaming casinos based on these unethical actions.

I lodged a complaint with the OPA - complaint number 601. You can check it out on this site. I hope Steve will be able to assist me.

If anyone has any other ideas please let me know.
 
Your money is not lost yet. These audits do not necesarrily mean that you will not get paid, so don't give up hope yet.

Gambler's palace actually has a pretty good reputation for paying out. I have only heard of them taking back money when people were using multiple accounts and gp was able to trace things back to one person.

You have tried to contact all three parts of unified gaming? legal , technical and sales? I have found these guys to be fairly responsive in the past.

You might also want to lodge a complaint with gambling grumbles at www.gambling.com -- they have a decent record of helping players.

Some friendly advice -- take the calmest tone possible with these guys -- remember that they have your money and you can always go ballistic on them later if they don't pay. It's hard when people are trying to screw you, but I have found that the best attitude is to be firm but friendly. When they tell you they are auditting you, then find out as much about why and when it will be done.

Unified gaming is most likely being called in because they want to see if you are using a robot. According to your post, you are not, but if you did use a robot, then they do not have to pay you -- it says so right on their web site.

I know it's hard, but you might want to stop for a second and think about it from their point of view. You started with $500 and got to $10,000 playing BLACKJACK. This is a very nice run of luck. A player might win 10 grand playing vp, but turning 500 into 10k playing bj is pretty uncommon -- which is why they might be looking into it.

There is a huge difference between delaying payment and not paying and I hope this is the case here.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
 
Anyone that runs $500 up to $10,000 in a short ammount of time should expect to get audited.

If you are a cheat and they send you this money they will kick themselves.

They have every right to insure that you did not cheat. It might take a little while to get your cash.
 
Yes, these robots exist. It's just a software program written by a smart person who knows how to program. It would be a lot of work to do, but some have probably thought it would be worth it if you could set up the software and just let it run and (hopefully) make the player money.
 
I understand what you are saying but the problem is that they already audited me and cleared me of any wrongdoing.

Now, after stringing me along for over 2 weeks by telling me that my money was being wired, they decided to "audit" me all over again. It's now been over three weeks since I made my withdrawal request.

I am not a cheat. I played all of those hands myself using perfect basic strategy fortified with some charts I got off of the wizardofodds.com that were tailored for UG blackjack.

Just to let you know, during the course of my playing, there were times where I lost thousands of dollars in just a matter of a couple of hours. I just happened to persevere and be get lucky.

I am an honest man looking for an honest game and I am just distruaght that I am being denied my rightful winnings.

I still have not gotten a response from UG from the two e-mail addresses that GP provided me or from UG's legal department. I will now try the other 2 UG departments.

Thanks for the support.
 
Robots exist; the casino program itself is a robot. What I find astounding is that they expect to use "the robot excuse" on a player winning in a negative expectation game. The Unified gaming bj and video poker used to be ppositive expectation games, and as far as I recall, they changed them. If so, they should welcome robot play.
 
I just received this email from the casino:

This guy's account is under SERIOUS review. As soon as we get our results and are 100% sure we will resolve the matter.
We've been screwed many times in the past and won't allow that to happen again. We pay fair for fair play.

Regards,

Roger
 
The blackjack rules for most unified gaming casinos actually give the player a 0.58% advantage for perfect play. (according to Casino Player Magazine)

A robot player would play perfectly and ALWAYS win. I think Unified Gaming wants only humans playing their games. A land based casino would not allow you to hook up a computer to a video poker machine or bring a laptop to the blackjack table. Why should online casinos allow a computer program to take advantage of an above average payout percentage?
 
Angry newbie

I'd be as furious as you sound.

Like you...I have had wins of $10,000 and more over the last 12 months. I can think of nothing worse in playing BJ and not getting my winnings. I know how hard you would have worked..playing through the rough patches...watching the dealer make 21 out of their 5s when you have a descent double bet out.
Try and stay cool( if possible ) I just wish you well in getting your$$$....and quickly
 
OK, here are the rules as explained on Gambler's Palace web site for both single and six deck games. They do not address surrender.
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PLAYING BLACKJACK

To begin play, press the 'DEAL' button. Two cards are deal to you (the player) and two are deal to the dealer. The first dealer card is face down. Unless your hand is a Blackjack, you now must decide whether to "HIT" (draw another card) with the goal of bringing your score closer to 21, or "STAND" if you think that hitting will not improve your hand. In some cases, you also will be allowed to Split, Double Down, or take Insurance.

Splitting
If you are dealt two cards of the same rank, you may lay down your original bet again and split the hand into two hands. The dealer hits each hand immediately, then you play each as a separate hand. You may split up to a maximum of three hands. If you split aces, you may not take additional hits.
Doubling down
After the first two cards have been dealt, you have the option of doubling your original bet and taking one, and only one, hit.
Insurance
If the dealer is showing an ace, you may buy insurance against a dealer blackjack. Insurance costs half your original bet. If the dealer has blackjack, the insurance bet pays 2-1, offsetting the loss (usually) of your original bet.
You may continue to hit until you reach 21, bust (exceed 21), or decide to stand.

Dealer Rules

The dealer is not allowed to make any playing decisions. The dealer must hit 16 or less and stand on 17 or better.
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According to the Wizard of Odds, if you add in surrender, the player has an edge of 0.58%

Under those conditions, I support the casino banning robot play and subjecting player accounts to a "robot audit". That said, I do want to point out that the "robot excuse" cannot be used for a negative expectation game such as roulette or craps, and I would like to know how they determine robot play. *BUT*--and this is a big BUT-- I can understand why a casino would not want to reveal the criteria they look for to determine robotness, since it would be very easy to program a robot to mimic human behaviors such as bathroom breaks.

I was not aware that there were still Unified Gaming sites offering positive expectation games--the sites I played at had changed their rules to no longer offering surrender, restricting doubling, and just being pains to deal with in trying to make withdrawals or collect bonuses.

Frankly, there is room for abuse on both the player and the casino side here. I wish there were better standards of dialog between Unified Gaming and the OPA such that we could come to an agreed upon Procedure such that live players could play with confidence that they could collect their winnings for skilled or lucky play.
 
I just read the post from Admin where he talks about getting an e-mail from the casino. That really angers me: the casino will write to a website about me but will not write to me; not even to respond to my e-mails.

How much worse can they look? They accuse me of wrongdoing and audit me. THEN THEY CLEAR ME OF ANY WRONGDOING. Then when faced with the fact that they have to pay me a sizable amount of money they put my account under "serious review" again. How does this make sense?!

I am an honest player and was hoping to play (and get paid any winnings) by an honest casino. This whole experience has soured me to the whole industry. Lucky me, I was fortunate enough to get screwed my very first venture into internet gaming.

Thanks for the thoughts and support.
 
Newbie, As I've said in the old WOL forum, I still think that you WILL get paid if you did play honestly. Look at it this way... Unless UG and Gamblers Palace have hard evidence that you
did something dishonest they would be fools not to pay you, IMO. Conceivably they have much more to lose than the $$$ they owe you thanks to the
publicity this matter has generated.
 
I'm just curious: did Gambler's Palace ever pay? What's the latest on all the drama?
 
4 months after my woes began I finally got my money (less $15 - I don't know how to account for that but "oh well").

It was a long, hard road but I finally got justice.
If it wasn't for sheer patience, perseverance and tireless hours of work by my champion - Julie of Gambling Grumbles - I fear I never would have received my winnings.

Unified Gaming and Gamblers Palace should be ashamed of how they treated me and the pure shenanigans they engaged in (including accusing me of foul play (multiple times),clearing me of wrongdoing (multiple times) and then still refusing pay me for a long time,etc.).

Suffice it to say that I would never recommend any Unified Gaming site and I believe that anyone who continues to use a UG site is a major sucker. I am sure there a more respectable sites out there.

Thank you to all who helped me.

Lastly, if anyone ever has a problem with a site go to Gambling Grumbles. JULIE IS THE BEST!
 
Gamblers Palace is still not paying their winners. After many audits and clearance to play but not to cash in; I ran my total in my account to $25,000 only to be put on audit again and then denied redemption when I tried to withdrawl a partial amount. If ever there was a casino that should be thrown off of the internet....it is the fraudulent GAMBLERS PALACE.
 

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