CIRRUS Casino Warning: Won't Pay On Blackjack Tournament

Neil

Dormant account
Joined
May 17, 2004
Location
Ontario, Canada
This email is about a promotion offer from by Cirrus Casino which they refuse to honor. The promotion was a blackjack tournament during the week of May 7 through May 13. The tournament offered to put the blackjack odds in the player's favor by treating each 2-card 20 losing hand as a winner. Also, there was a 15% deposit bonus, with a 15x playthrough for blackjack. A screenshot of their offer is shown below. According to the rules they posted, I should have had a credit of $508, but they only gave me $100.50. Their excuse is that the posed rules were not the real rules of the tournament!

On Friday May 7, before making my deposit, I clarified with the casino manager, Christine Jennings, using their online help chat, that using the codes shown on the web site would give the 15% bonus as well as make my blackjack games operate under the special tournament rules. So I deposited $725 and received a bonus of $108.75. Christine told me to keep track of the hands where I should get a bonus, because the software would play using regular rules, and I would be compensated for those hands at the end of the tournament. She also said to email the casino when I got such a hand. As strange as that sounded, I agreed and began to play.

After playing blackjack for an hour or so, I chatted with support again to clarify the rules. I had a 2-card 20 hand that resulted in a push. The support person, Brian, was unsure of whether a push on a 2-card 20 would qualify for the promotion, so he went to check, and came back and told me that this was not my win. Fair enough.

On that Friday and Saturday I played over 4000 hands of blackjack, and I recorded 44 2-card 20 hands where I lost betting $5, and 17 hands betting $2. During that time, I sent them 3 emails listing what I had recorded, along with my calculations of how much I expected back for these hands. I asked them to reply and confirm the amount I was owed, but I received no responses to my emails. The amount I had calculated was as follows:

For each $5 hand, the program took my $5, but under the tournament rules the hand is treated as a winner, so I should have been given $5 instead. That is a $10 difference. Similarly, for each $2 hand, I should be credited $4. This gave a total of 44*$10 + 17*$4 = $508.

At least twice during the week, I chatted with Christine and asked her to confirm how much I was owed. She said that she would do it but that it would take time, and that she would get back to me when she did it. I didn't hear back from her about that. However she did tell me that once I received my bonus credits, they were subject to a 15x playthrough, and that I could not cash out more than the original amount of the bonus credits! This came as a complete surprise to me, and I don't see anything on their web site that explains this.

When the tournament was over on Friday May 14, I contacted Cirrus support and they told me to send an email requesting my credit for the tournament. So, I sent yet another email, and got the following response:

Date Time Bet Dealer's Cards Player's Cards Credit
5/7/2004 8:55:18 PM $2.00 10D, AH QD, JS $3.00
5/7/2004 9:13:58 PM $2.00 QH, AC 10H, JC $3.00
5/7/2004 9:34:02 PM $2.00 AH, QH KS, QH $3.00
5/7/2004 10:08:01 PM $5.00 KS, AS QS, JC $7.50
5/7/2004 11:35:35 PM $5.00 AS, JD KH, 10S $7.50
5/7/2004 11:42:03 PM $5.00 QS, AC 10C, 10S $7.50
5/8/2004 12:25:00 AM $5.00 QD, AS JC, QH $7.50
5/8/2004 12:28:29 AM $5.00 QH, AD QC, 10S $7.50
5/8/2004 1:06:17 AM $5.00 QD, AS KH, KS $7.50
5/8/2004 8:27:01 AM $5.00 KC, AC KH, KS $7.50
5/8/2004 1:25:54 PM $2.00 AS, QD 10C, 10C $3.00
5/8/2004 1:47:15 PM $2.00 KS, AH JS, JD $3.00
5/8/2004 2:18:14 PM $2.00 JH, AS JC, KS $3.00
5/8/2004 2:52:17 PM $5.00 JS, AS JC, QC $7.50
5/8/2004 3:29:13 PM $5.00 JS, AH KC, KC $7.50
5/8/2004 3:43:21 PM $5.00 AH, JS 10S, KH $7.50
5/8/2004 4:29:28 PM $5.00 AS, KC KD, 10D $7.50
Total credits $100.50


First of all, the credit should be twice the bet, not 1.5 times. I have no idea how they came up with that. But worse, they missed most of my 2-card 20 loss hands. They only counted the hands where I had a 2-card 20 and the dealer had a BlackJack,, not hands where I had 2-card 20 and the dealer got 21 with more than 2 cards, and I lost. The web page very clearly said "Every time you lose on a 2-card 20 CIRRUS will treat your game as a WINNER!!".

Cirrus was trying to pay me only $100.50 when their tournament rules clearly indicate that they owe me $508! What a rip off!!! Do they think I'm stupid?

I replied to the email, explaining their error, and chatted with Christine Jennings again. She said that the rules posted on the web site were wrong, but that they could not correct them that day because the person who makes web site changes was not there. And she said that she personally explained to everyone who played the game that only dealer BlackJacks count. I told her that she did not explain this to me, and that this was unacceptable because it is not what was promised on the website. I also said that as casino manager she knows that it is important to have written rules. By the way, the web page stayed as it was all week long, and was not changed to indicate different rules.

She said that she would check with accounting to see if they could "bend the rules" for me, and that I should contact her on Saturday. On Saturday I talked to her by phone and she said that she had not yet talked to accounting, but that she would in 2 hours or so, then get back to me. She didn't get back to me yet.

This is extremely unfair. Not only did I spend most of my weekend playing thousands of games of BlackJack under false pretenses, but I also would have cashed out earlier when I had played as much as I really wanted to, and I was ahead in winnings. But I was doing so well because of the tournament rules, that I just kept playing and playing, and I ended up cashing out less than I could have.

Does everyone else reading this agree with me that this was deceptive and misleading false advertising? Did anyone of you also play in this tournament and feel cheated? I would love to hear.

Regards,
Neil Lefebvre
 
Neil said:
Does everyone else reading this agree with me that this was deceptive and misleading false advertising? Did anyone of you also play in this tournament and feel cheated? I would love to hear.
I totally agree with you. You are right and they are clearly wrong.
No I didn't fall for this trap.
When a casino with questionable reputation purpose a promotion too good to be true, I'd rather think twice before I jump in.
I hope you can get your money in the end. Your best chance is to find a good portal owner for help.
You can pitch a bitch here. The problem is they are on meister's rogue list so they might just ignore him. :(
Here are two more portal owners that still promote cirrus:
Guru in casino guru has helped many players before:
You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Cindy at video poker junkie helped caruso for his famous dispute with cirrus:
You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Good luck.
 
They are wrong and you are owed the full amount you calculated, assuming your numbers for lost hands are correct. If they screwed up the rules and couldn't fix them in time, that is not ANY player's problem. It is the casino's problem. The buck stops there. They SHOULD have taken that page down if they couldn't fix it and knew it was wrong before the "tournament" started (which the clearly did by their own admission).

I just wonder how many hundreds or thousands of other players that don't know about the Casinomeister got screwed by this.

More proof that a leopard doesn't change his spots. Stay away from Cirrus!
 
Cindy offered to mediate disputes as part of the house-cleaning job following my resolution. I would suggest that the player contact her forthwith to get this sorted. The rules posted on the website are binding, so assuming the poster's hand-numbers are as stated he's owed what he claims. Casino mistake = casino makes good.

I notice he also posted at WOL. Since this is Bryan's site I do feel slightly awkward again recommending the services of another affiliate, but since I'm barred at WOL I don't have any option. No offence, Bryan.
 
I contacted Cirrus and got this response:

"Dear Bob,

Thanks for contacting us and for your concern as well....

This was clearly a mistake on our side as we failed to include an important part of the offer at the website and the promo mail...

Player has been given all credits that he claimed he should had received and he was notified as well...

Kindest regards,


Christine Jennings"

I havent heard back from the player yet to see if the money has for certain been refunded, but Im assuming it has.
Cheers
 
Update

Thanks to Cindy, Cirrus credited my account today and now I have the $508 I was owed.

I still am required to wager this money 15x now, with the condition that if I make money while playing, I can't cash out my winnings. (No, the offer didn't clearly state this, but then, their rule spage says that for "FREE CHIP" this rule applies.) I have to play $7620, and if I have more than $508 when I'm done, I lose the extra.

I shouldn't have to worry about that though: So far I've played 132 games of $2 each, and I'm down $81.

Thanks a lot to Cindy.

Neil

P.S. Even with the rules that Cirrus tried to follow, this would have been a good deal. But what is the point of giving people a promotion if you are going to insult their intelligence after they play and win, and alienate them?
 

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