Sorry guys but IMO the notion that legit casinos write their Terms specifically so they have lots of nice ways to screw players is fundamentally flawed and a gross distortion of reality, regardless of how popular this notion may be with the player base.
Generally speaking such a thing is completely unnecessary because their games are all designed to make them the real winners anyway. 'House edge' anyone?
Secondly, at least in my experience having done about 900 PABs (literally!), the players very seldom actually get boned in this way. We're talking 5% of the cases, give or take, and remember that's cases from _all_ casinos out there, the good the bad and the ugly. Compared to player fraud which is running somewhere around 30%+ these days it's a pretty small slice of the pie.
Finally, and I believe most significantly, the real purpose of many Terms is to cover the casino's ass. Being legalese it's going to end up convoluted and full of wiggle room for the casino. All of which means it plays directly into the player perception that they're being set up to take a hit.
So why don't the casinos enforce the Terms in software? Cost mostly. The more complicated you make your system the more expensive it is to build, the more difficult it is to maintain, and perhaps most important, the more likely it is to have serious bugs. Since we're talking about money here that translates into significant potential costs/losses to the casino for something that from their point of view can pretty much be covered in text of the Terms. I promise you the text route is very Very VERY much the more attractive option.
Anyway, doesn't this idea that 'the Terms are written to screw me' strike any of you as just a little too 'black hat VS white hat' to take seriously? Remember,
I'm talking legit casinos here, not the dodgy places which there are all too many of.
Nevermind, I know what some of you are going to say. "Max hates players" or "casinos pay you to say that" or whatever.
As you wish, have it your way. If you ever want to actually start seeing the real picture though you might want to give it some thought.
What of the player that got "boned" by Purple Lounge. It was accredited at the time, but it made no difference. The player was NOT a fraud, he was a victim of being too trusting of the software features, and presuming the casino to be a good one, who would not punish him. He ONLY asked to be allowed to continue playing, he did NOT press to benefit from the botched implementation.
In the case of MGS, the feature ALREADY exists, so there are no excuses for not using it.
The casinos DO need to take this perception that they are out to screw the player seriously, and think of the cost implications of lost customers, and loss of customers that might have joined had they not read the bad PR.
Software implementation would remove the need to audit for playing patterns, and would get rid of advantage players because the methods they try to get past the casino would be blocked by the software. There would be no need to confiscate winnings because of the way a player played, and thus the focus would be more about fraud. There would be a stronger connection between instances of confiscated winnings and fraud, and confiscating winnings for fraud is acceptable to most (except other fraudsters).
Software ALREADY has bugs, but this does NOT prevent the technology from being pushed further, despite the risk of introducing further bugs.
The bugs that DO exist tend to stick around for months, years in some cases, despite the software supplier having been told about them from several sources. Clearly, they do not believe bugs in the system are that important an issue, so surely bugs in software implementation of simple measures such as max bet limits and game exclusions would only present minor issues. These simple measures would prevent the innocent players from accidentally breaking the rules, because it would be much harder to do, and any breach would more likely come from an advantage player having found one of these bugs, and a way to exploit it.
Whilst the rate of fraud is said to be around 30%, how many of these 30% have WRONGLY been accused of fraud. This figure will be too low, because many that have been wrongly accused will not have the determination to fight on, but will always believe the entire industry is one big cyber con, and will spread this view to anybody who asks about their experience.
The perception that casinos in particular are screwing the players is that they are not answerable to "proper" laws, and do NOT have to give players the consumer rights they have come to expect from business in general. Where consumer rights are violated in other industries, it is often because the company doing the violating IS screwing over it's customers, and the authorities are constantly having to intervene, shutting down many rogue businesses, and increasing the regulations for the rest.
As a whole, this has taught consumers that business is NEVER your friend, but often your "pretend friend", and will ALWAYS do what it thinks it can get away with to part the customer from as much money as they can, as fast as they can.
I don't trust ANY business, and I find that a regular squeeze of the corporate testicles works wonders. I saved myself £25 yesterday doing just that to my Home insurance provider, and I got a better product too
I have to squeeze the corporate testicles of Virgin Media on a regular basis, twice so far this year (£20 + offer of free HD PVR box). They are still pretty hopeless, and are due their third squeeze next month (no email for 2 days, intermittent internet, etc....). I plan to erect a terrestrial aerial, connect it to a DVD recorder, and THEN get their engineer round to diagnose the problems
The way to squeeze the corporate testicles of your favourite casino is to suddenly stop playing for a month or two. When they ask why, tell them what irked you, and that you started playing at one of their competitors that did not present the same irksome problem.
