Casinos refusing to close a player's account

[orion]

I recently decided to close some accounts on casinos where I hadn't played for a long time, or had been particularly unlucky. I am talking about ".com" casinos.

In almost all cases the procedure was pretty quick and smooth, except for two cases, where the casinos refused to accept my request for closure. They asked me for a formal email requesting closure, but even after sending it, nothing happened.
Afterwards, I asked via chat what the problem was, but they didn't want or didn't know how to help me.

One of these two casinos, instead of closing my account, begun bombarding me with promotional mails.
This a casino with MGA license.

The other one, simply ignored my request, but did not start any promotional campaign on me. It is greyzoned here, Curacao licensed, and its Rep is awol from long time. I sent him a PM but no reply, he is not logging from many months ago.

Now, fortunately I am not a problematic gambler and I am in full control of myself, if they don't close my account, I simply don't play there and adiòs, but however I am somewhat disturbed and annoyed by this behavior. I wonder how this can be in compliance with the RG guidelines. My question is what if, if I was an addicted or problematic gambler ?

I am perfectly aware that both MGA and Curacao don't give a **** about these issues, and I am not going to begin a useless complaint there.

No damage was done, but I'm still very disappointed, so I thought I'd write this post, maybe someone can give me a different opinion or view.

 

[BetterValueCasino]

That's definitely not compliant at all by the two casinos! It should be easy or at the very least relatively easy to close an account with them. That is totally non compliant with UKGC rules, and also Curacao rules (I don't know much about the MGA license). Thank goodness you didn't get sucked in by the email bombardment of promotions. That's not good that you asked what the problem was and there was no proper response, I'm not surprised you're very disappointed!

 

[justdoit]

That's definitely not compliant at all by the two casinos! It should be easy or at the very least relatively easy to close an account with them. That is totally non compliant with UKGC rules, and also Curacao rules (I don't know much about the MGA license). Thank goodness you didn't get sucked in by the email bombardment of promotions. That's not good that you asked what the problem was and there was no proper response, I'm not surprised you're very disappointed!

even UKGC casinos will refuse to close account, only option is self exclude for 5 years, and they still use your data for 5 years,

 

[nfehily]

even UKGC casinos will refuse to close account, only option is self exclude for 5 years, and they still use your data for 5 years,

Not entirely true, many UKGC sites will close your account indefinitely on request.

 

[justdoit]

Not entirely true, many UKGC sites will close your account indefinitely on request.

ask the expert @maxd or @L&L-Jan

 

[Guntis]

In the UK now, players often have the option to close their casino accounts within their account settings. But a few years back, in general, your only choice was to claim you had a gambling problem and wished to self-exclude.

I recall making up stories, saying that I urgently needed my account closed due to discovering negative reviews about the casino where player banking details were used to buy different stuff on eBay, and many players hadn't received payouts for months. This worked then fine lol

 

[L&L-Jan]

ask the expert @maxd or @L&L-Jan

Upon a request for closure, we block deposits and ask: "Why". This helps us to determine the reasoning for the request and apply the relevant closure.

Generic request = closure which basically last indefinite, until customer comes back to ask to re-open the account - we check if we can before we do so.

Problem gambling issue = Full ban

I want to self exclude = we ask again why (to determine no problem gambling issue) and ask for duration of exclusion.

Not acting upon such a request shows the operator has no interesting in helping the customer at all, just trying to gain a few bucks extra profit.

 

[Guntis]

even UKGC casinos will refuse to close account, only option is self exclude for 5 years, and they still use your data for 5 years,

For self-exclusion, it's a different story, i guess they can retain it forever. This is a chunk from Leovegas data retention:

If you are permanently self-excluded from any of our services, we will retain this information indefinitely.

'Indefinitely' means there's no predetermined end date which could mean tomorrow or when pigs start to fly.

 

[justdoit]

Upon a request for closure, we block deposits and ask: "Why". This helps us to determine the reasoning for the request and apply the relevant closure.

Generic request = closure which basically last indefinite, until customer comes back to ask to re-open the account - we check if we can before we do so.

Problem gambling issue = Full ban

I want to self exclude = we ask again why (to determine no problem gambling issue) and ask for duration of exclusion.

Not acting upon such a request shows the operator has no interesting in helping the customer at all, just trying to gain a few bucks extra profit.

I ask to close my account on Rizk Casino Casumo Leovegas, all UKGC they all refuse to close my account for good, they BS something by UK LAW we cant close your account we can only Self Exclude, I ask my Data to be remove they refuse, I was not playing on any of this casinos for last 12 month before I ask to close my account, no problem gambling

 

[justdoit]

For self-exclusion, it's a different story, i guess they can retain it forever. This is a chunk from Leovegas data retention:

If you are permanently self-excluded from any of our services, we will retain this information indefinitely.

'Indefinitely' means there's no predetermined end date which could mean tomorrow or when pigs start to fly.

m8 they cant close your account for good, they tell us we close your account but you will be self-exclusion by casino

 

[goatwack]

The industry loathes players leaving and so have set up a system that benefits them.

Recall wanting to close a few chaff accounts years back and soon realized I'd have more success playing pick-up-sticks with my buttcheeks than getting them to make anything permanent.

It's a win/win for casinos, as leaving them means you're a problem gambler (when you're not) which impresses the regulatory gods, and they can all give each other reach-arounds for adhering to Responsible Gambling.

Yet simply wanting to 'close' an account and not wanting to self-exclude, the only 'other' (supposed) option is keeping your account temporarily locked, which can be unlocked....at any time

So in effect, the player can never 'leave' without effectively blacklisting themselves, and so will wonder if it's even worth bothering going through each individual casino for such a needless toll.

I'm sure many players will sign up to many casinos over the years, often for a promo or two, before eventually settling on a handful of regular places at which they play. Good luck trying to close those superfluous accounts afterwards however, even though it ought to be the easiest thing to do.

They'll pretend not to understand want you want, or immediately treat you with suspicion, whilst no doubt hindered by the crap options given unto them by regulatory bodies. You know the ones - the ones that treat gambling customers as useful idiots, and whose 'guidelines' are drawn up by people that have never gambled in their life!

Easier then in my case to have simply Gamstopped and be done with it than go through 40 separate casino interactions for the next six months. Not for any nefarious reason, but rather, 'it was just easier'

 

[Guntis]

m8 they cant close your account for good, they tell us we close your account but you will be self-exclusion by casino

I 100% agree with this. A time ago i closed an account at Bet365 specifically mentioning that i have no gambling problems and simply want to close the account because i do not like casinos that mix sports and casino games on the same site. They closed it.

However, more than 5 years later i decided to re-open the account but to do that i had to speak with one of them on the phone. So, once he picked up, the first thing he said that "you are self-excluded from our casino" on this date then.

And then he asked me about where i was playing after the self-exclusion.... this to me was like WTF, seriously... I said, i was playing offline and sometimes here and there online. But then he said something like -- since the exclusion is to prevent from gambling harm and you've been playing elsewhere during these 5 years, we can't let you back in.

My emotions were the following --->

 

[nfehily]

ask the expert @maxd or @L&L-Jan

I've closed several accounts by requesting a permanent self exclusion. I dont wanna play semantics. A permanently closed account is a permanently closed account in my eyes.

 

[justdoit]

I 100% agree with this. A time ago i closed an account at Bet365 specifically mentioning that i have no gambling problems and simply want to close the account because i do not like casinos that mix sports and casino games on the same site. They closed it.

However, more than 5 years later i decided to re-open the account but to do that i had to speak with one of them on the phone. So, once he picked up, the first thing he said that "you are self-excluded from our casino" on this date then.

And then he asked me about where i was playing after the self-exclusion.... this to me was like WTF, seriously... I said, i was playing offline and sometimes here and there online. But then he said something like -- since the exclusion is to prevent from gambling harm and you've been playing elsewhere during these 5 years, we can't let you back in.

My emotions were the following --->

yes thats true you ask to close you account they target you as problem gambler WTF, All I sad I am not using this account I want to close and never played again on this casino, they BS me something about UKGC rules anti money laundering, Rizk casino was refusing to remove my data I was so close to take them to court just to prove them wrong,

 

[justdoit]

I've closed several accounts by requesting a permanent self exclusion. I dont wanna play semantics. A permanently closed account is a permanently closed account in my eyes.

you can check if you try to login and you get massage contact support, your account is self excluded or Blocked , they still hold your data for 5/7 years,if you get massage this user dont exists you know you account was closed

 

[Guntis]

you can check if you try to login and you get massage contact support, your account is self excluded or Blocked , they still hold your data for 5/7 years,if you get massage this user dont exists you know you account was closed

Yeah, that's the way to check whether your data is gone or not. I did that too, but i was trying to register again because i don't remember the details that i used. The soon i entered my username; it said "This user already exists". So it's clear; my data is with them.

For players' data retention, most casinos have different retention policies. And i would say they can hold the data for a duration that depends on individual circumstances, especially if it's a problem gambler's data or casino abusers. This would give them a valid reason to keep it forever. I guess it's not a simple thing for a serious casino operator to just delete the data and that's it.

 

[maxd]

As mentioned above, "close my account" requests are routinely ignored by many casinos. The problem being that their licensing jurisdiction doesn't make it mandatory for the casinos to respect such requests so nothing is done.

What we've seen is that most EU jurisdictions _do_ honour such requests with the glaring exception of Malta where most -- but not all -- casinos mumble some bum-fluff about "legal requirements" or whatever but in the end do nothing.

• Outside the EU, the UKGC-licensed casinos will usually honour such a request.
• Many but not all Kahnawake-licensed casinos will do the same though we have seen cases in years past where the player lodged a complaint with the KGC and the end result was account closure per request.
• Curaçao is much less reliable, to no one's surprise. Since there's no licensing requirement for closure requests to be honoured they usually are not. But here, as with most things regarding Curaçao licensees, it's up to the individual operator so the end result is that most won't but some will.
• Most other off-shore jurisdictions don't even respond to account closure requests: no incentive to do it and lots of incentives not to so you can guess which way that goes. We've even seen claims that they "can't" do it because it would "crash the software" or similar nonsense. In the end it's just their way of saying "no".

- Max