Bogus Complaint Betfred Casino Issue: player account suspended pending investigation.

[jetset]

O/T for a moment and harking back a page or two to the Betfred vs. Granny issue, the latest reports indicate that the bookie paid by cheque...but by mistake left it unsigned. The same error occurred on the cheque made out to granny's sister, which could be just a batch screw-up or something more sinister.

Hardly worth it for GBP 1000, and after all the PR damage caused by this incident you would think that Betfred's management would have been super-careful on the payments

 

[raj]

Apologies my maths was slightly wrong (I did it quickly on a calculator late at night , but it does remain the case that this promo had a HUGELY positive expected return for the determined and disciplined player. The actual odds and numbers involved do depend on the game played , number of decks, etc .

I still await with interest the outcome of the PAB, as this is one of the more interesting cases to appear on hear for some time.

Raj

 

[vinylweatherman]

Can I just point out that yes, whilst it is 213,000/1 THAT DOES NOT MEAN that the OP played 213,299 hands then got the hand. He could have quite genuinely played 2000 hands and got the 3 7D hand!

The Betfred rep says that the playlogs will back up their accusations of breaches of the terms, and hence justify voiding the winnings. It does give the impression that Betfred think he played an impossibly large number of hands in too short a time to hit this win. Everything else he did was not against the terms. Playing Pontoon - not an issue; multihand - not against the term; tiny stake - also not against the term. The only thing that IS against the terms is using a bot to achieve this.

What still puzzles me is that the Betfred rep thinks bot use is not something they can discuss openly, yet it is hardly a big secret, and is nothing like discussing the details of fraud cases. A simple "we have evidence of bot use" would have killed off much of the speculation as to what he could possibly have done, along with speculation that it was something pretty sinister because of the weird happenings with the pontoon game and website that followed the voiding of this hand. It also fails to explain the sudden banning of Canada, unless it is a large number of Canadian players that are showing evidence of using this bot, and better to ban the lot rather than seek to prove bot use in each case as they get this hand.

There are loads of Blackjack playing bots around, but I have not known of a Pontoon one. All are marketed as a means to grind WR on a +EV situation. It wouldn't be that hard to alter one to have a "stop on <hand>" feature added for doing this type of promotion.

 

[Casinomeister]

PAB closed

Just to keep everyone up to speed, I've decided to shit-can the PAB. Here's why:

I had selected a qualified neutral third party to review the player's game play. The player was instructed to contact the casino rep via email giving the casino explicit permission to send me and this qualified third party a copy of his game play. Yes, he was accused of using a bot, and this would have been a prime opportunity to prove his case against bot play.

One of his sessions was for 44 hrs 53 minutes with 57.6 rounds per minute. The casino reported a number of other sessions like these.

Instead of cooperating, he began to debate the terms and conditions of the casino trying to convince us that bot play was not disallowed for this particular session of game play. He also stated that reviewing the game logs would not be necessary since bot use can't be determined. Sorry, but that is bullshit in my opinion. Either you cooperate - or you don't.

My suggestion to the player is "shit or get off the can" - shut the hell up in the forums, get a lawyer, and seek justice via the GRA:

Gambling Division
Government of Gibraltar
Suite 771
Europort
Gibraltar

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

tel+350) 20074636
fax+350) 20072166

In essence, case closed in my opinion. If he truly wished to have been redeemed here, he blew his chance.

 

[raj]

Thanks Bryan,

I think we suspected bot use would be the reason, and the sessions you describe would kind of confirm that.

The puzzling thing is, for many of us, why did Betfred not just come out with this at the start, "suspected bot play", instead of all these silly removal of games, removal of countries, different excuses to player etc. Which only made the whole thing more suspicious.

Anyway glad it is now closed and we have some answers

Raj

 

[Nifty29]

Thanks Bryan,

I think we suspected bot use would be the reason, and the sessions you describe would kind of confirm that.

The puzzling thing is, for many of us, why did Betfred not just come out with this at the start, "suspected bot play", instead of all these silly removal of games, removal of countries, different excuses to player etc. Which only made the whole thing more suspicious.

Anyway glad it is now closed and we have some answers

Raj

It appears the removal of pontoon may have been unrelated, as there had been previous issues with this game apparently.

I also remember it being stated that there were several players doing exactly the same thing from the same area (same city in fact) which indicates a syndicate of sorts.

It's a timely reminder that even though the legitimacy of bot play may be debatable, and although many think it's actually in the casino's interests to allow it, if the use of bots is specifically banned then you have 2 choices......choose somewhere else to play that doesn't have such a rule, or go ahead and use one and hope you don't get caught. Unfortunately for him, the OP chose option 2.

Rules are rules, regardless of how stupid. I think the OP knew this, and figured it was worth the risk to pickup $30k. He lost. Tough cookies.

 

[threescatters]

Sounds pretty guilty of bot use to me from what casinomeister said, in which case fair enough by BetFred. Thanks for clearing this up casinomeister.

 

[Deanna]

I don't know a lot about using Bots, obviously it's a form of automatic gameplay so you don't have to sit at your computer. But...why would you be silly enough to have it run for 44 hours straight if you know you're doing something that could get the huge win you're chasing disqualified? It seems if you have some common sense you'd run the Bot program for different times, a few hours, stop an hour, even if you went 10 hours and stopped for an hour, etc. and so on. 44 hours straight? You're peeing in your Depends and have an I.V. full of Red Bull in your arm?

Not to be too offensive but that's just dumb thinking.

 

[jetset]

The trouble with this sort of complaint is that it soaks up everyone's time and resources, because this sort of complainant typically persists to the bitter end.

This thread runs to eleven pages and is a good example.

If a plaintiff is given the opportunity to resolve his/her problems through an independent third party and refuses to cooperate, you have to doubt their motives in the first place imo

 

[Black2999]

Wow, I was thinking of doing this promotion myself, but figured it was quite a long shot to hit the 3 sevens.
44 hours straight? Not impossible. I remember playing Championship Manager for well over a day solidly.
Were there any small (pee) breaks in any of the 44 hours? If not, I think it's safe to say he used this 'bot'

 

[chuchu59]

Since 'bot play' is the issue and the OP knew about it he did himself no favours by disguising it as 'pontoon -related'. It was a cheap shot to divert attention from the real issue.

Betfred is not free from blame either. Once it involved itself in this thread it should have stated that the issue was on suspected bot play and point out where the Ts and Cs state this. Whether a third party should be involved in scrutinising the logs should not prevent them from voicing this out unless they arent sure it was explicit that bot play was disallowed. No wonder Betfred gets more than its share of bad publicity. They dont know how to perform damage control.

 

[threescatters]

Wow, I was thinking of doing this promotion myself, but figured it was quite a long shot to hit the 3 sevens.
44 hours straight? Not impossible. I remember playing Championship Manager for well over a day solidly.
Were there any small (pee) breaks in any of the 44 hours? If not, I think it's safe to say he used this 'bot'

I tend to err on the side of players against casinos but in this case I think the refusal to provide logs coupled with the exact 57.6 rounds per minute stat that was repeated is very damming against the player and I am frustrated he wasted everyones time by lying in the OP that he did not use a bot.

 

[naththo]

Ah now that story make sense. It was the bot used and over 44 hours straight of playing poker. Naughty! That rule said NOT allowed. I hope he learnt a lesson. His winning is void and deposit may or may have not return as a penalty for using bot. I hope he gets a kick out of casino of Betfred and banned. Because there is no way if you were an op of casino you cannot trust someone who use bot to abuse the bonus by playing poker several hours straight without attending the game on the computer. (Also I think bot is a cheater too because it has integrated maths to work out if that card is good or no good so the bot auto fold or play on, so on etc) Thanks for clearing up by the way. Good work on Betfred for investigating so quick to find the problem well done.

 

[Jasminebed]

Well, given the OP's failure to cooperate, I think he did indeed use a bot. If the promo was only for a weekend and he'd played 44 hours straight, maybe. But not several times.

One thing that still bothers me is the complete ban of Canada as a result of the OP and his friends' dishonesty. Surely there were other Canadians playing that weren't suspected of bot use whose participation was terminated as a result? While there's no guarantee they would have won anything, they were kicked out of a very favourable promotion.

I see from the terms that participation in publicity is one of the terms. I do hope Betfred comes back and updates the thread with the list of happy winners.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Well, given the OP's failure to cooperate, I think he did indeed use a bot. If the promo was only for a weekend and he'd played 44 hours straight, maybe. But not several times.

One thing that still bothers me is the complete ban of Canada as a result of the OP and his friends' dishonesty. Surely there were other Canadians playing that weren't suspected of bot use whose participation was terminated as a result? While there's no guarantee they would have won anything, they were kicked out of a very favourable promotion.

I see from the terms that participation in publicity is one of the terms. I do hope Betfred comes back and updates the thread with the list of happy winners.

Given how good this evidence was, surely Betfred should have simply banned his mates who used the same bot, not the whole country. I am sure a medical expert would consider 44 hours, no breaks, no mistakes, and a hand a second, as impossible for even the most dedicated human player.

He must have realised the game was up as soon as game logs were mentioned, so decided to stall the process by not giving Betfred the formal permission to show them to a third party.

Bot users are usually more subtle, realising that they may have to argue that the playlogs do not show anything that would be impossible for a human player. Whilst my nephew did the 33 hour PC session, there were breaks of a few minutes throughout, and of course mistakes made due to tiredness and loss of concentration.

Maybe he should have spent more money on a better bot, one that will make mistakes, take random breaks, etc.

 

[GOCC]

2 things and I am not sticking up for the player as his responses when challenged do heavilly suggest Bot play

1. On Playtech, even if you are logged in and not playing. Thats a session.
2. 57.6 plays per minute when playing 5 hand pontoon IS NOT excessive. If this was the average over 44 hours, then yes, it is.

 

[Betfred]

Hi all,

We’re delighted that we can draw a line under this and continue offering generous promotions for players. To that end we will be extending the Blackjack 7s promotion soon, and we’ll be giving Casinomeister players the first chance to go for it. I’ll be in touch with more details shortly.

Cheers,

Aaron

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hi all,

We’re delighted that we can draw a line under this and continue offering generous promotions for players. To that end we will be extending the Blackjack 7s promotion soon, and we’ll be giving Casinomeister players the first chance to go for it. I’ll be in touch with more details shortly.

Cheers,

Aaron

Careful, the bot play here is not the only issue. It was still +EV for the less greedy player prepared to put the effort in themselves, and with the boost in publicity this case has given, you may have more participants than before. You should also realise that the bot players you didn't catch will be a bit more careful next time. It might also be worth having a minimum stake term else the obvious strategy of playing (without a bot of course) a 5 hand multiplay version at $1 per hand is still going to be used.

You could also limit the risk by having a first past the post system for awarding a finite number of the top prizes, rather than having anyone who gets it due the rough equivalent of a Jag.

 

[raj]

As far as promos go , this is a pretty bloody good one, I dare say a few here will have a crack at it if the terms are the same (without using bots of course )
Kudos for Betred for bringing it back (even knowing the risks), I think if they had been more open about what had happened from day one then that would have stopped a lot of speculation.
People generaally know the rules as far as bots are concerned and most here will side with the casino not the player if the casino is being fair and open .

Raj

 

[Betfred]

We always wanted to give the Jag away - the idea of the campaign was for new and existing players to get more from playing their favourite games at Betfred. Let's hope someone lands it next time.

I didn't disclose more on the forums because I didn't want to prejudice the decision making process, nor ridicule a player's claim in public. We tried to do this on a 1:1 basis but unfortunately the player preferred this medium.

Some very interesting comments here references the T&Cs, btw, and we'll be trying to find a balance between generosity and parity when the promo is relaunched here.

Cheers,

Aaron

 

[Black2999]

So did the player play 44 hours non-stop with no breaks @ 56 hands a minute? What was the breakdown?

 

[KasinoKing]

2. 57.6 plays per minute when playing 5 hand pontoon IS NOT excessive. If this was the average over 44 hours, then yes, it is.

Sounds pretty excessive to me! That's just about 1 second per play.
I assume each "round" was 5 "plays" as he (the bot) was playing multi-hand - I can't imagine the casino software would be quick enough to play out 5 hands in 1 second...

KK

 

[GOCC]

was 57.6 hands per minute the average, peak or what? We dont know.

What im saying is, over say 3 minutes on 5 hands it isnt. But over 44.6728 hours it is.

 

[Nifty29]

was 57.6 hands per minute the average, peak or what? We dont know.

What im saying is, over say 3 minutes on 5 hands it isnt. But over 44.6728 hours it is.

Bryan stated it was the average over 44 hours.

Not possible without a bot.

 

[AlexanderK]

ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: The player's gameplay was analyzed by an independent third party, and it was determined that the player used a computer program to assist in his game play. In other words, he used a bot.

One of his sessions was for 44 hrs 53 minutes with 57.6 rounds per minute. The casino reported a number of other sessions like these.

This is the first time I see the concrete numbers backing the bot accusation. These numbers are complete nonsense. I never played for even a fraction of that. Like I said in the OP, "my play never went beyond the human capacity". And then I said further down the thread that my play resembled a workman's shift.

In fact this was the very reason I had doubts about going to independent investigator - I know that there was nothing evidently non-human in my play and yet I was told that their "assessment" found the bot play. So I suspected they are using some weird techniques. And that's when I started reading the T&C and arguing with Bryan.

Well, this is all irrelevant now. I totally agree my attitude did not look well and I apologize. Here is my suggestion. I post a bond of 1000 dollars via Moneybookers. The case is being reopened and my logs looked at. If a 44-hour 57 round per minute straight playing session is found, you keep the bond. If not, I get my prize.