Blocked from Unibet tourneys while high in leaderboard

[bessola]

Hi,
My Unibet account is not blocked, but all my Unibet bonus and tourneys are suddenly blocked since this morning. Reason they give: their tool Player Safety Early Detection System’ (PS-EDS) thinks I 'might play risky.' They cannot give more details because the PS-EDS only looks at the 'total picture'.

At the same I already have several quite strict 'responsible gaming' limits installed such as 'max deposit per day' and 'max play time per day' but that does not matter to Unibet apparently.

The thing is that I had a very high ranking in one of their slots tourneys until this morning, with high money prize. The tourney ends tomorrow, but because I have been suddenly blocked for bonusses since this morning, they also through me out of the tourney so no prize for me ((( It seems so unfair because Ive earned the tourney ranking in the last days BEFORE they decided to block bonusses. depositing and playing according to all their rules and within the agreed limits,

Anyone else has similar experience? or advice?

 

[L&L-Jan]

Depends, can you be more specific about your locations in Europe? Each country might holds different processes/procedure how thing work.
E.g if you reside in the Netherlands, and you are triggered by their PS-EDS system, a RG interaction will take place. By law, after the interaction they are not allowed to offer any bonuses or perks. As a result you will be removed from the leaderboard.

But thats just an example given I dont know your location.

 

[bessola]

Thanks. What's RG? I only received a pop-up about it and then there was no way back.

Sorry forget to mention, I am based in the Netherlands.

The point is that it's not fair if a player made the decision to play at Unibet partly based on the offered bonus/tourneys + the player is investing time and money in the tournament which results are then deleted 5 days later without notice + the player did nothing wrong, because followed all rules and has already set strict deposit limits and time limits offered and agreed by Unibet.

Why playing within this limits is not considered responsible gaming? How can a player ever know how much to play without being suddenly restricted, if Unibet cannot give details about how this decision is made.

Let this at least be a WARNING to other players that it is possible to be nr.1 in a Unibet slots tourney for 6 days with a promising 5000€ prize, , and then on day 7 Unibet throws you out of tourney, without giving you details about what you did wrong.
Even if you follow all rules, are a kind and normal player and play within the limits you agreed with the casino.

 

[L&L-Jan]

@bessola I had a gut feeling

RG = Responsible Gaming or "Verantwoord Spelen".

Bottomline, their system (Verantwoord spelen system) triggered an alert based on your activity. Most likely after that a interaction followed, meaning they contacted you by phone or mail reminding you of their RG tools and informing your playstyle/pattern was detected by their system.

However, the law in the Netherlands state, that upon such an interaction (contact by Verantwoord Spelen team) a customer can not be included in promotional and bonus offers for the duration of 2 weeks up to 6 months.

So if im right in this case, and I pretty much assume I am, it means that you should not blame Unibet at all, but the people responsible for drafting the law. Unibet in the end, is just following the law.

I would try to get a specific answer from Unibet if you got bonus banned due to RG interaction. If you have that on paper, head to the KSA. Ask them if that also applies to tournaments you already participated in, prior before the RG interaction.

To be fair, Unibet is just following the regulations in this case. Not much on them to blame for.

Kr. Jan
Employee of the month at Unibet support

 

[slot_zombie]

A low rolling mate of mine had his account at Unibet summarily closed after going through SOW and submitting payslips etc. Not a big spender by any means but the reason given (after 13 loyal years with them) : we don't think our site is for you.

 

[justdoit]

I play in Unibet and pokerstars a lot never had problem, when i ask for high limits like year ago they ask me for SOW I send all doc never had problem since then, they did say if I have good credit scoring you can get up to £1000pm with out doing SOW, Pokerstars they never ask me for nothing not even id, and I won last week Race $1250

 

[bessola]

@bessola I had a gut feeling

RG = Responsible Gaming or "Verantwoord Spelen".

Bottomline, their system (Verantwoord spelen system) triggered an alert based on your activity. Most likely after that a interaction followed, meaning they contacted you by phone or mail reminding you of their RG tools and informing your playstyle/pattern was detected by their system.

However, the law in the Netherlands state, that upon such an interaction (contact by Verantwoord Spelen team) a customer can not be included in promotional and bonus offers for the duration of 2 weeks up to 6 months.

So if im right in this case, and I pretty much assume I am, it means that you should not blame Unibet at all, but the people responsible for drafting the law. Unibet in the end, is just following the law.

I would try to get a specific answer from Unibet if you got bonus banned due to RG interaction. If you have that on paper, head to the KSA. Ask them if that also applies to tournaments you already participated in, prior before the RG interaction.

To be fair, Unibet is just following the regulations in this case. Not much on them to blame for.

Kr. Jan
Employee of the month at Unibet support

Thank you very much for answering and explaining L&L-Jan, it's appreciated. Although you don't seem very objective here being from Unibet customer support ;-)

I don't agree at all with you that Unibet cannot be blamed. I'm familiair with the Dutch gambling laws, and understand that Unibet is forced to comply with it, but Unibet is simply handling this the wrong way because there are other options to handle this.

First of all, they didn't give me any warning by email or telephone in advance., but I only received a pop-up when I logged in, saying that I was blocked. You are correct there could and should be interaction first. For example I have 2 other online casino accounts in the Netherlands, were there was a similar detection. Both casinos contacted me first (one per email, one per telephone), to ask me questions about responsible gaming etc. and then re-opened my account without any (bonus) restrictions. So doing this interaction first before putting restrictions, and reconsidering restrictions based on the interaction, should also be possible for Unibet within the law.

Secondly Unibet could set my 'responsible gaming limits' in such a way that it always complies with the law. Even if this means only 10 euro deposit limit per month , or only 60 minutes max play time per week, or whatever. Then a player knows that he's playing responsible, and will be sure to comply with the responsible gaming laws and won't be detected, without any risk of being suddenly blocked for a running tournament

Last but not least, if Unibet would have decent customer service and offer Fair Play, they could at least give me my prize anyway, now or after the 4 weeks block: there is no law in the Netherlands that forbids them to send this money to my bank account anyway.

The only effect now is that I wont play at Unibet anymore, but instead only at other online casinos. Simply because I dont want to take the risk in the future to play in Unibet slots tournaments again, get a high position, and then suddenly be banned from it again without any warning or details of what I did wrong. I dont feel that fear with other online casinos, which have clearly different policies on RG interaction.
The main question for the future remains: How can I ever know when there's almost a detection/block, even when I'm playing within the agreed limits?

 

[L&L-Jan]

Although you don't seem very objective here being from Unibet customer support ;-)

That's the point, I'm not working for Unibet, but still providing you the answer

 

[bessola]

That's the point, I'm not working for Unibet, but still providing you the answer

That's the point. You don't work for Unibet but still are very convinced they are not too blame for anything

We both used a ;-) emojicon after our sentence, but you thought you were being ironic, but I was not?


Anyway, I do seriously appreciate you taking the effort of reacting to my questions.

 

[L&L-Jan]

There is an issue to be fair with the bonus ban due to RG interaction and promotional offers. However, the KSA finds player protection more important as a bonus offer/cash reward to a player for participating. So its obvious that Unibet opts for the safe route.

To be honest, how our system and processes are setup, the same would have happened with you on our end.

Thinking about it, I think the most fair route is to create the terms to meet both player and regulations. E.g. As an operator you could state in the rules that upon participating in a tournament, and during the promotional period a responsible gaming intervention took place, that the prize remains pending and is issued when the bonus ban is lifted.

 

[bessola]

There is an issue to be fair with the bonus ban due to RG interaction and promotional offers. However, the KSA finds player protection more important as a bonus offer/cash reward to a player for participating. So its obvious that Unibet opts for the safe route.

To be honest, how our system and processes are setup, the same would have happened with you on our end.

Thinking about it, I think the most fair route is to create the terms to meet both player and regulations. E.g. As an operator you could state in the rules that upon participating in a tournament, and during the promotional period a responsible gaming intervention took place, that the prize remains pending and is issued when the bonus ban is lifted.

Yes I get your point, and I understand that Unibet cares more about their NL license than being fair to players, so therefore works like this. BTW, I'm still waiting for the official answer of Unibet to my questions about it, so that might bring more information soon.

I dont mind playing responsible and following strict RG guidelines, setting limits, playing less, etc. but the way their RG policy works now is they blocked me without being able to give details based on which parameters I was blocked. This way, how can a player ever know when to stop playing or depositing (for example when participating in a tournament) without being detected and blocked?
Wouldn't it be fair to at least make very clear to players in advance what are the exact limits and bounderies before one is blocked?
Also, it's confusing that all the limits a player can set now already are apparently not relevant for the detecting and blocking.