Again - with the aliceK issue.
I know what this this thread is all about, it's about the fraudsters from the UK which was <gasp> initiated by "Brucake". alicek was clearly colluding with other players - (to include other members of this forum btw), and it didn't only happen at iNetBet. She's given me a laundry list of casinos that she has participated at to try and clear her name, and so far not-so-good.
She broke the rules at iNetBet - get over it. There have been enough threads derailed because of this by about four of five members, and yes I'm fed up with it.
iNetBet did not share with GamblingGrumbles what they have shared with me, so we are working off two separate sheets of music.
Let's define "many" with proper perspective. Is "many" three people, five people, or ten? Or is it twenty? Give me an accurate head count and we can continue that discussion. Bogus or frivolous complaints don't count. Then take the sum of "many" and figure what percentage it is of the membership of Casinomeister website to include the forum membership and the subscribers of our three newsletters. I believe your definition of "many" is very underwhelming.
And I am not "threatening" your account - I'm merely warning you to be careful on how your comments can be taken. I am not the only one who has called you out on what you seem to be implying - that iNetBet are paying me mucho dinero to keep them on the site.
I really don't have the time to continue arguing about this.
It seems that it is the fact that iNetBet didn't trust Gambling Grumbles enough with the whole story that has triggered this "debate". Gambling Grumbles could only work with the evidence it had, and from this they decided that iNetBet had no case against Alice K, and indeed lied to both the player and Gambling Grumbles throughout the case.
The additional evidence submitted to Max and Bryan showed what was REALLY going on.
Collusion is a rather wooly term, and leaving it at this also creates problems. This is not poker, therefore collusion offers no advantage to a player because they are playing against the software, not against other players. Other operators have been more specific, and have ruled that simply following the same radio tipster is "collusion" enough to have winnings confiscated.
The Alice K group must have been pretty clever, as they fooled Gambling Grumbles, and managed to present their case as a win without a bonus involved. This appears to remove all motives for engaging in any kind of "advantage/abusive play". These players also managed to produce genuine documentation, so the casino has not been able to get them on this.
What they were up to has to be more than mere "collusion" as we understand it, such as using some kind of system to beat the RNG (which as we know, does not work in the long run). The only other thing that springs to mind is that they engaged in some form of "money laundering", using the casinos to move money around to hide where it originated from. It may be that iNetBet were the laundry for fraud committed elsewhere. Unlike poker, there is no way to pass money from player to player (chip dumping) in a casino, so it seems an odd venue for such activity.
The only other thing I can think of is that the somehow managed to hack the casino server, and screwed with the RNG/outcomes on their accounts. Officially, no casino will ever admit to such a vulnerabilty, but I have come across a very small number of cases where such vulnerabilties have existed, even if only for a short while. If a group of player collude to exploit such a vulnerabilty, they can make a great deal of money by working as a team, much more so than individual players working by themselves. They will also look at ways to increase the number of accounts at their disposal, which is easily done by "renting" IDs from others who have no interest in online gambling, but are happy to take a cut in return for allowing their details to be used on multiple accounts. I bet THIS is what this group started doing, and they got caught.
The rule they would have broken is not playing on their own accounts for "personal entertainment". They would put forward "specimen" players to dispute resolution channels, and would of course be able to supply genuine sets of documents, including bank account details. However, there would be a number of indicators as to what was really going on, and no doubt these were not shared with Gambing Grumbles.
The perceived policy and ethics of Gambling Grumbles, whether accurate or not, may be the reason for iNetBet being unwilling to share with them what they shared with Max.
The ONLY way to know what really happened is to ask Alice K, and hope that she is prepared to admit what she did, even if she believed it was OK at the time.
Back to the original derail.
Having said all that, I should also point out that I do take down casinos that I decide are indisputably dishonest. Quite frankly, I'd be surprised if anyone found a truly rogue casino advertised on my sites.
It all boils down to different opinions. As far as Gambling Grumbles and the rest of the network are concerned, Virtual do not meet this criteria, even though they both meet and EXCEED that criteria here. It has often been asked of Virtual "How the hell do they manage to stay in business given how bad they are". The answer is that all they need do is keep a few major portals "sweet" in order to get enough exposure to carry on doing what they have always done. This is how rogue businesses have always worked, not just online.
Virtual are very clever at what they do, and don't screw over ALL their players. They screw over the few big winners, but the many that consistently lose are treated like royalty, hence they have an army of satisfied players who will leap to their defence. We had one here, treated like a queen, and couldn't understand why we were all warning her to steer clear. One day, she hit big, and then found she was kicked off her throne and made to wander the streets looking for help in getting paid. Only then did she understand the bigger picture of how Virtual operate, and what a sucker she had been falling for the lavish treatment whilst she was losing thousands per month with them.
Virtual also operate from Costa Rica, which offers absolutely NO regulation of how they conduct their gambling operations with players (unless they screw over a Costa Rican national, which is why you will find they don't accept players from Costa Rica).
They were SO bad they couldn't even get a license from the KGC in the "bad old days" where they too seemed to take little interest in players getting screwed over.
Any site that decides to earn money by having links to Virtual will be judged as unethical because it is prepared to profit from the misery of others, even though they are not directly causing the suffering. It's like knowing a product is made in an unethical manner (such as child labour in a "sweatshop"), but buying it anyway because it is cheaper than a similar item made in an ethical manner. Whilst not employing the child labour directly, the purchaser is ensuring that the unethical business model is perpetuated by feeding it money. The only way to make such unethical businesses change their ways is to starve them of revenue, which in the online world means taking down ALL promotional material, banners, text links, etc - thus denying them of all positive publicity.
Such sites will STILL make money, since the players that visit them will be looking for somewhere to play, and will simply choose from what remains on offer.
Even though CM isn't driven purely by profit, it still has to make money to keep it going, pay employees, and provide Bryan with the means to provide for his family. It is done by having a list of accredited sites, personally assessed and vouched for by Bryan, who are then allowed to buy additional advertising space, as well as run special promotions in the forum for CM members.
From an affiliate perspective, Virtual pay HUGE rates of commission compared to other casinos, but are also willing to screw over their affiliates as well as players unless it is one of their "special" affiliates they dare not annoy.
