Hello,
a few weeks ago, I took a no deposit bonus at Blackjack Ballroom. After fulfilling all the requirements, I had to deposit 20 Euro and wager the amount won several times. After doing this, I requested a payout of about 700Euro to Neteller and waited. No funds were sent though so I tried to login but my account was frozen due to TaC violation. The agent told me that I bet too much (exceeded 25% of the bonus amount) and that they would only refund my deposit. The strange thing about this is, that they have a bonus TaC directly under that promotional offer with no mention about that issue and you can only find it in another section. Anyway I asked them to send me that 20 Euro I deposited and after verification they finally told me they had proceeded the payment. However, I waited 5 days and still no money, so I wrote them an e-mail asking whats happening which they until now (been 4 days) have not answered. Anyone sharing my experience?
A few, this rule itself is NOT malpractice on the part of the operator, but failure to make it CLEAR to the player IS malpractice.
25% is a pretty big proportion of the bonus to be betting in one go, but it does depend on the size of the bonus. If the bonus is small, and the player does well, it is easy to then exceed this limit during the course of "normal play" with no intent to "abuse" anything.
This particular group has a long history of over zealous use of "bonus abuse" to deny winnings. This works AGAINST their interests though, because it means there is far more sympathy for players making this complaint because so many innocent players are getting screwed because of the highly technical nature of this rule, and overzealous application to do all they can to protect the bottom line.
There is another complaint about casino classic (same group), where a player has been similarly accused of "bonus abuse", yet according to their tale of woe ONLY PLAYED SLOTS!!!
When a casino starts calling SLOTS "subject to manipulation by betting patterns", you are looking at a group that is lying about the "spirit" of anything, they are deliberately scanning withdrawals for reasons NOT to pay, rather than looking for patterns of overt "bonus abuse" to punish.
If you used any of the "standard" methods of gaining a mathematical advantage due to leverage of your bonus balance (bonus abuse for short), on NON slot games, you have VERY little chance of seeing your winnings.
This group also spam freely, and it is THEM doing it, not a "rogue affiliate". On the one hand, they DISLIKE players signing up sequentially at their casinos to "do" the welcome bonus at each, yet if you sign up at one, they will SPAM you with "personal invites" to sign up sequentially at their other casinos and "do" the welcome bonus.
IF you ask to be taken of this list, they say it CANNOT be done UNLESS you ALSO come OFF the list for "normal" promotions too. This means that by accepting regular loyalty promos, you MUST agree to also accept their SPAM.
They never used to confiscate winnings, in the past they would lock down the rewards account, which meant you couldn't redeem any bonus credits, but they WOULD pay any EXISTING winnings from bonuses already redeemed.
They also use the MGS bonus system, so "bonus abuse" was SUPPOSED to have been designed out of the system altogether, leaving no reason for players to have winnings confiscated. Operators seem to have been unhappy that MGS did something for the player's benefit, so now use the MGS bonus system, but have brought back all the nasty and obscure terms and conditions that this system was supposed to have eradicated by introducing WEIGHTED contributions to WR, such that low risk games could be given very low weighting, making it impossible to "grind" out your 40x on, say, Blackjack - which was a very popular form of "bonus whoring" some years ago, and DID involve signing up at casinos, taking ONLY the welcome bonus, and moving on.