Hi All,
OK, this thread has raised a few issues I hope I can address them all:
Special Promotions Page
We have a range of special promotions and events that we run from time to time in the casino. We provide details of these events on the special promotions page of our website so that our players know what they can expect and what they should be looking out for in their emails and on the promotions schedule.
I realise that although the wording that explains this was at the top of the page it was quite small and not terribly clear so I have updated the special promotions page to improve this.
These events are open to everyone except the very small minority of players who have been restricted from claiming any of the promotions in our casinos, which leads me onto...
Bonus Statuses
We do restrict the bonuses available to certain players to the Continual Bonuses only. The algorithm we use to identify accounts that may require restricting looks at a wide range of factors and only a tiny proportion of our players are affected.
As you will have guessed VWM has had his account restricted in this way and is not terribly happy about it. While I cannot post details from his account in a public forum I can let you know that this is not the result of a single big win.
I have noticed that a lot of the more vigorous posts in this thread are coming from players who have been restricted from claiming promotions. I realise that this has cut off a source of income and therefore there will be some bitterness involved, but we play this as fairly as we can paying the balance in full before restricting access to further promotions.
If any of you feel that you have been restricted from claiming bonuses in error just PM me your username and I will review the situation.
Feedback
I do welcome feedback from the player community, especially the CasinoMeister regulars. This does need to be constructive however. Just calling me a liar and pointing out how rubbish you think we are does not help anyone.
You guys have been around this industry for a long time and I value your opinions so it is a shame when the opportunity to make improvements is lost amongst fruitless arguing.
Regards
Tom
Well, this looks like our answer. The algorithm looks for what other casinos might call "bonus abuse". The problem is that this accusation has been so intertwined with "player fraud" by the industry that it is a VERY NEGATIVE thing indeed to "restrict" a player's availabilty to redeem promotions. It gives the player the feeling that they have not "played fairly", and are thus being punished by the casino. Naturally, this can lead to negative sentiment since whilst "everybody else" is being showered with the comps, THEY are being given "second class" treatment.
The answer is to CELEBRATE those players who are so good at playing that they no longer need the help of promotions, make them feel they have won that thing called "kudos", and then they can wear it as a badge of honour that THEY are better than the rest, and have "beaten the house" at their own game.
We all know that bonuses are an income generator FOR THE CASINOS, except for the few "loss leader" bonuses used to entice new players to sign up.
I would have felt better if the rep had said it WAS down to me winning that I was dropped from the list, rather than me having done something "wrong", which they usually cannot disclose.
What I find odd though, is that I am now being invited to try the OTHER Club World casinos. Surely it is completely daft to consider me too good for bonuses at Club World, yet start enticing me to sign up at the other two with the "loss leader" welcome bonus, plus the fact that any algorithm they are using will NOT be aware of any play at the original Club World casino.
Look at CWC500 - $150 for $500, looks pretty good, till you see it is SLOTS ONLY, and 45x D+B, and PHANTOM - this just keeps you playing longer, and it is merely LUCK that lets you beat these types of bonuses.
Incidentally, my play at Club World has been SLOTS ONLY this year, and since the first time I got "bonus banned", I have steered clear of games like 3 card poker, vegas rummey, and stud poker (where there IS an element of skill, and where I believe I earned my first bonus ban).
This algorithm clearly believes the SLOTS can be beaten if the general promotional bonuses are taken into account, but CANNOT be beaten with access only to the continuous bonus, which I believe is 35% on all deposits. This idea that SLOTS can be beaten, even with bonuses, has come as quite a surprise to many players (provided the bonus has sufficient WR to balance against the RTP of the slots). It is hard to accept that this is nothing more than a casino bonus banning players simply because they have been lucky at slots. When WE have questioned CASINOS about seemingly long periods of BAD luck on the slots, we are told it is all down to luck, we have had an unusually bad run - but it was nevertheless within expected parameters...etc.
I, however, have had a GOOD run at Club World, on SLOTS, yet this is now something the algorithm has picked out, and has considered NOT to be within "expected ranges", but something that means the promotions "provide a source of income", and therefore need to be restricted, otherwise I will continue to make a steady income by playing the slots promos, and will, in effect, beat the slots over the LONG TERM. Surely this is nothing more than the "gambler's fallacy" in reverse. In players, leading them to "chase" a badly paying game in the belief that it must pay back the excess it has taken in, and WILL if enough has been fed into it. In operators, it seems to make them fear that minority of players that have been unusually lucky, making them believe that this luck is a "force" associated with that player, and not something that is merely a manifestation of the laws of probability.
In short, I firmly believe that my bonus ban is SOLELY to do with me having won at the casino, my withdrawals having exceeded my deposits over the lifetime of my account. Nothing really wrong in that, except getting a casino to ADMIT this is like getting blood out of a stone - I know, I have tried, and SUCCEEDED by being persistent, in extracting such an admission from a couple of casinos.
If this is the case, I am considered to be too skilled for the promotional program. The thing is, Lauren has started emailing me again
First was the September newsletter, and this was followed by a mailer telling me that there was a program of promotions coming up, detailed on the website.
Incidentally, Club World is the ONLY RTG casino that thinks me too skilled for the bonuses, and as far as I am concerned, this is a discussion of WHY this small minority of players, seemingly at random, get "bonus banned" from one casino or another. It is certainly bad press for a casino to "bonus ban" players that have done nothing wrong, so it has to be thought that the risk of bad publicity is worth it when set against the risk of not running any kind of algorithm to check accounts that need to be restricted.
When players like myself get "bonus banned", it makes us worry that there is some wrong information held about us somewhere, which is somehow making us look "suspicious" - it might be a wrongful association with other players who have done something more serious, such as using fake details to open accounts. The problem here is that if this is shared between other casinos, we could end up at one that does NOT pay up and then remove us from the list, but denies payment altogether.