Ladbrokes bonuses: One chip worth $2?

[zreb]

I signed up to Ladbrokes recently, and their welcome bonus states a 100% bonus (up to 500 pounds, 750 euros, or 1000 usd I believe).

After making my deposit, I appeared to receive only 50% and contacted support. They told me that each of the bonus chips I received is actually worth $2, and referred me to the promotion page here:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Does anyone know what they are talking about? I see absolutely nothing about a chip being worth $2 written anywhere on the page, and my normal chips are only worth $1. Further, if I open a game, I see the 150% of my deposit worth in chips.

Anyone know if I might be missing something here or are they crazy?

 

[homerbert]

How much will I get?

Providing you have made the minimum deposit of $20, you will be credited with the same amount of your first deposit up to ($1000).

support takes drugs? or beer? I do not know.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I signed up to Ladbrokes recently, and their welcome bonus states a 100% bonus (up to 500 pounds, 750 euros, or 1000 usd I believe).

After making my deposit, I appeared to receive only 50% and contacted support. They told me that each of the bonus chips I received is actually worth $2, and referred me to the promotion page here:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Does anyone know what they are talking about? I see absolutely nothing about a chip being worth $2 written anywhere on the page, and my normal chips are only worth $1. Further, if I open a game, I see the 150% of my deposit worth in chips.

Anyone know if I might be missing something here or are they crazy?

Another "CS on Crack" episode. Despite Ladbrokes being such a famous name, they seem determined to scrape the barrel when it comes to CS. It has been like it for years, but this outlandish excuse has to be a new low. How would this go down if they got paid only 50% of their salary, and the HR office explained it by saying "No, you have the usual amount, but each $ is actually worth $2, that's why it looks like you only got half pay".

You could also say "well, in that case, each chip of my DEPOSIT should also be worth $2, so I am actually out TWICE the amount I thought I was before I contacted you".

Those terms are also for the Microgaming casino, which has supposedly been closed, or will close once their current license with Microgaming comes to an end due to them having moved to Playtech. It still shows the insane anti Neteller and Moneybookers term of having to wager 30x the deposit before they will even credit any bonus for you to wager 30x. They have not really grasped the concept that "bonus abuse" is not any easier because of where the money came from. Someone who sets out to "abuse the spirit" of their promotions will simply choose a different deposit method if that increases the expected value. The ones to suffer will be the regular recreational players who just happen to use these particular wallets as opposed to a couple of other wallets (such as Click and Buy), or their debit/credit cards.

So, what REALLY happened:-

There are two obvious scenarios.

1) The system was actually set to give you a 50% bonus.
2) You got 100%, but the cap was $250, not $1000 as stated in the terms.

If their explanation is true, it is so bizarre that they would either need a detailed explanation of how the system works in the terms, or there would be a flood of puzzled players posting all over the net asking for some experienced player to explain it all.

As yours is the only such complaint, it looks like CS have simply pulled an explanation from the Encyclopaedia Narnia rather than entertain the possibility that their systems have made an error, than actually do some CS to investigate and correct it.

 

[Borgie]

I signed up to Ladbrokes recently, and their welcome bonus states a 100% bonus (up to 500 pounds, 750 euros, or 1000 usd I believe).

After making my deposit, I appeared to receive only 50% and contacted support. They told me that each of the bonus chips I received is actually worth $2, and referred me to the promotion page here:

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

Does anyone know what they are talking about? I see absolutely nothing about a chip being worth $2 written anywhere on the page, and my normal chips are only worth $1. Further, if I open a game, I see the 150% of my deposit worth in chips.

Anyone know if I might be missing something here or are they crazy?

I think this is to do with the Chip size - for example on Immortal Romance - if you play £3 per spiin it will show chip size as 1, Max bet but if you want to play £6 per spin you click the chip size to 2 and your balance shows as half of what it was before but still shows £3 per spin .
So I suggest reducing the Chip size to 1 and I think the full balance will show

 

[zreb]

I ended up getting a little better answer with a second try to support, but I'll let others decide for themselves whether it's completely satisfactory.

My account is in USD, but since I am in Canada, I'm automatically redirected to the Canadian promotion webpage. Even while I'm logged into my USD account, all figures on the page are listed in "$". But "$" here doesn't mean $USD, it means $CAD, even though I see no mention anywhere of the more specific CAD. (I thought the general convention was to write USD as "$" and CAD as "CAD" or "$CAD" since USD are more universally used, but maybe I just haven't paid enough attention.)

So the promotion page that I was automatically redirected to didn't really apply to my account - instead I was supposed to look at the one with currency listed in pounds, rather than dollars. The limit on the promotion for USD is up to $500, while the limit for CAD is up to $1000, despite the fact that they're nearly equal in value. Consequently, I only received half the expected bonus due to the cap.

Apparently Canadian dollars are counted as some kind of funny money where 1 chip = 2 CAD, but it would take someone with a CAD account to verify whether this is true.

 

[nico]

Apparently Canadian dollars are counted as some kind of funny money where 1 chip = 2 CAD, but it would take someone with a CAD account to verify whether this is true.

This is actually true, or certainly used to be, although I cannot find it on their site (used to be there). Searching around the net found this from years ago:

1 chip = 1 unit except: Hong Kong Dollar (1 chip= 10), Singapore Dollar (1 chip= 2.5), Swedish Krone (1 chip= 14), Thai Baht (1 chip= 65), South African Rand (1 chip= 10), Canadian Dollar (1 chip= 2), New Zealand Dollar (1 chip= 3), Swiss Franc (1 chip= 2), Australian Dollar (1 chip= 3), Danish Krona (1 chip= 12), Norwegian Krone (1 chip= 13).

Very well hidden:
Old / Expired Link

 

[vinylweatherman]

I ended up getting a little better answer with a second try to support, but I'll let others decide for themselves whether it's completely satisfactory.

My account is in USD, but since I am in Canada, I'm automatically redirected to the Canadian promotion webpage. Even while I'm logged into my USD account, all figures on the page are listed in "$". But "$" here doesn't mean $USD, it means $CAD, even though I see no mention anywhere of the more specific CAD. (I thought the general convention was to write USD as "$" and CAD as "CAD" or "$CAD" since USD are more universally used, but maybe I just haven't paid enough attention.)

So the promotion page that I was automatically redirected to didn't really apply to my account - instead I was supposed to look at the one with currency listed in pounds, rather than dollars. The limit on the promotion for USD is up to $500, while the limit for CAD is up to $1000, despite the fact that they're nearly equal in value. Consequently, I only received half the expected bonus due to the cap.

Apparently Canadian dollars are counted as some kind of funny money where 1 chip = 2 CAD, but it would take someone with a CAD account to verify whether this is true.

Nice try, but still BS.

You STILL got a 50% bonus instead of 100%, and it matters not what the conversion factors are for these "strange" currencies, you would STILL have a 50/50 split between bonus chips and deposited cash chips after having received a 100% bonus.

The cap for CAD was not stated, and for US was 1000. If they argue that CAD counts as 2 chips, this might lead the cap for CAD being 500, the same as for the pound, and vaguely suggested by the later explanation.

If so, it would depend on the amount deposited (which you didn't state).

Their claim that one CAD is worth $2 also doesn't make sense. They would lose an absolute fortune if someone with an account in CAD were able to engineer such an exchange rate (and they can, think MPV ;-) ).


MPV uses an exchange rate set once a day, and based on money market exchange rates. Most casinos and deposit/withdrawal transactions involving currency exchange use the same rates, but add on a bit of commission at the players' expense. However, if you can exchange 1 CAD into 2 US then you are laughing, despite the commissions involved, which rather suggests this explanation is almost as BS as the first.

 

[Jasminebed]

I knew what the problem was going to be as soon as I saw your location. Ladbrokes is one of the few casinos I've closed an account with because of the odd way they handle CAD.

I think it ends up coming out all right in the end, because they apply the same illogic on withdrawals. But I'm a low roller, at least some of the time, and it doubles the amount I want to bet.

Had you made a smaller deposit, looks like you would have got a 100% match. But now you have unnecessarily tied up some of your cash for a bonus you didn't get.

I wouldn't be satisfied.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I knew what the problem was going to be as soon as I saw your location. Ladbrokes is one of the few casinos I've closed an account with because of the odd way they handle CAD.

I think it ends up coming out all right in the end, because they apply the same illogic on withdrawals. But I'm a low roller, at least some of the time, and it doubles the amount I want to bet.

Had you made a smaller deposit, looks like you would have got a 100% match. But now you have unnecessarily tied up some of your cash for a bonus you didn't get.

I wouldn't be satisfied.

..but what about MPV? This would be handled by Microgaming, not the specific operator. A gaffed conversion may be fine if it's reversed when withdrawing, but what about where MPV enables CAD to be converted to double the correct value in MPV fees, but the players collude to hatch a scheme whereby the transaction in reverse does NOT get done via Ladbrokes, but by a different casino that treats CAD and $US properly.

It would need an account in CAD to take full advantage, buying in at the inflated Ladbrokes exchange rate, but winning in a $US account. The sit 'n' go events could be controlled by one player through 5 different MGS casino accounts thanks to a change MGS brought in that enabled players to have as many different aliases as they have casino accounts, rather than the former network wide single alias. It would be an effort, but such a large exchange rate error might make the scheme viable. Only MGS would be able to see the big picture and detect the scam, but these is no evidence that they monitor MPV with this level of detail, leaving individual operators to detect and deal with "MPV abuse".

 

[zreb]

To clarify, I had deposited $1000 in USD, they are claiming that the cap on the USD bonus if $500.'' Hence, why I received 50%. I would not have made as large a deposit if I knew the cap was $500. The original answer I was given that 1 chip = $2 apparently only applies to CAD accounts, so the rep had been mistaken.

However, I couldn't find anything on either the webpage itself or the terms specifying that the "up to $1000" only applied to CAD, which I think is the main issue, making the offer somewhat misleading in my view.

I checked the terms of both the Canadian promo page in dollars and "English" page in pounds, as well as the site-wide terms, and nowhere is any relevant distinction made between CAD, USD, or currency equivalents.

(The "English" page has this line: "5. Your first deposit should be equivalent to £10 - £500. Any deposits above £500 will have a capped bonus of £500." But it is not clear whether equivalent is supposed to have some meaning - is £1 equivalent to $1? Or is £1 equivalent to $1.61? The Canadian version only says this, "Any deposits above $1000 will have a capped bonus of $1000.")


So the main issues, I think, are that they have multiple competing sets of terms and conditions, with no clear way for the player to know which set is applicable, and they nowhere make any clarification about whether $ is supposed to refer to CAD, USD, or both.

I think these issues are more likely a case of ignorance than malevolent intentions, but they are still misleading, and even the first customer service rep who responded to me was confused.


On a related note, the English page has a line saying, "Providing you have made the minimum deposit of £10, you will be credited with the same amount of your first deposit up to £500 (500 chips)."
The Canadian page omits the part about chips, saying "Providing you have made the minimum deposit of $20, you will be credited with the same amount of your first deposit up to ($1000)."
I guess they don't want anyone getting confused about the weird $2 = 1 chip thing until after they've deposited.

 

[vinylweatherman]

To clarify, I had deposited $1000 in USD, they are claiming that the cap on the USD bonus if $500.'' Hence, why I received 50%. I would not have made as large a deposit if I knew the cap was $500. The original answer I was given that 1 chip = $2 apparently only applies to CAD accounts, so the rep had been mistaken.

However, I couldn't find anything on either the webpage itself or the terms specifying that the "up to $1000" only applied to CAD, which I think is the main issue, making the offer somewhat misleading in my view.

I checked the terms of both the Canadian promo page in dollars and "English" page in pounds, as well as the site-wide terms, and nowhere is any relevant distinction made between CAD, USD, or currency equivalents.

(The "English" page has this line: "5. Your first deposit should be equivalent to £10 - £500. Any deposits above £500 will have a capped bonus of £500." But it is not clear whether equivalent is supposed to have some meaning - is £1 equivalent to $1? Or is £1 equivalent to $1.61? The Canadian version only says this, "Any deposits above $1000 will have a capped bonus of $1000.")


So the main issues, I think, are that they have multiple competing sets of terms and conditions, with no clear way for the player to know which set is applicable, and they nowhere make any clarification about whether $ is supposed to refer to CAD, USD, or both.

I think these issues are more likely a case of ignorance than malevolent intentions, but they are still misleading, and even the first customer service rep who responded to me was confused.


On a related note, the English page has a line saying, "Providing you have made the minimum deposit of £10, you will be credited with the same amount of your first deposit up to £500 (500 chips)."
The Canadian page omits the part about chips, saying "Providing you have made the minimum deposit of $20, you will be credited with the same amount of your first deposit up to ($1000)."
I guess they don't want anyone getting confused about the weird $2 = 1 chip thing until after they've deposited.

There is no mention of there being a cap of $500 anywhere on the site, if the term is not published, it does not form part of the contract, whatever the CS may think. The ONLY mention of a cap involving Dollars is $1000. All other offers are in Euros, and for the UK in pounds. There is no page for "US English" as it's Microgaming, and so does not accept US players, thus they don't have terms for $US available, yet they allow the registration of $US accounts. If they don't cater for the US Dollar, it should not be available as an account currency, and everyone should have to choose between the Euro or the Pound.

The current site therefore breaches a number of UK advertising rules, not to mention rules governing the accuracy and clarity of the terms. Pity you are Canadian, and can't really create a stink with the ASA and Trading Standards over here, as their UK version does NOT breach any of the rules.

A telling sign is the confusion that reins within CS, you now have THREE differing explanations, none of which are fully accurate.

You would have been better off having a CAD account, as you would have gotten the full 100%, and you would not suffer the fees for swapping between CAD and $US. You could even have checked out MPV to see whether you really did get a gaffed exchange rate that meant you paid half what you should.

 

[GrandMaster]

This is actually true, or certainly used to be, although I cannot find it on their site (used to be there). Searching around the net found this from years ago:

1 chip = 1 unit except: Hong Kong Dollar (1 chip= 10), Singapore Dollar (1 chip= 2.5), Swedish Krone (1 chip= 14), Thai Baht (1 chip= 65), South African Rand (1 chip= 10), Canadian Dollar (1 chip= 2), New Zealand Dollar (1 chip= 3), Swiss Franc (1 chip= 2), Australian Dollar (1 chip= 3), Danish Krona (1 chip= 12), Norwegian Krone (1 chip= 13).

Very well hidden:
Old / Expired Link

It is very odd. The American, Canadian and Australian dollars are almost equal in value, yet 1 USD=1 chip, 2 CAD=1 chip and 3 AUD=1 chip.

 

[vinylweatherman]

It is very odd. The American, Canadian and Australian dollars are almost equal in value, yet 1 USD=1 chip, 2 CAD=1 chip and 3 AUD=1 chip.

How the hell do they handle MPV buyins

When I purchase an MPV entry from my UK Pound account, there is a conversion to the currency of the tournament, but this is handled by MPV/Microgaming, using a proper money market exchange rate. This must surely fall outside the remit of the weird Ladbrokes exchange system, and the values are only reconciled if ALL transactions stay in Ladbrokes. With MPV this is not the case, unless it's a Ladbrokes exclusive tournament.

It seems that if I have an account in AUD, 1 chip = $3.

So, if account A is in $US, I can purchase a seat in a sit 'n' go for, say $10.

Lets say I have accounts A,B,C,D, all in $US at different casinos, but none at Ladbrokes, I could purchase 4 of the 5 seats for a total of $40. I then purchase the remaining seat from my Ladbrokes account, which conveniently is in AUD. Now, I lose out on this one purchase due to the seriously gaffed exchange rate, as MPV uses the proper exchange rate, not the Ladbrokes one.

As I control all 5 seats, quite legitimately since the changes to MPV made by MGS just prior to the first Grand Slam tournament, at the request and considerable pressure of operators, I can choose which account wins the pool. I choose Ladbrokes, and I win, say $45 (for simplicity a winner takes all event, less the 10% cut for the house from the buyins).

The issue is what happens when MPV pays my $45 into my AUD account using Microgaming's currency exchange rules, not those of Ladbrokes. I do know that whatever chips I end up getting will be multiplied threefold upon withdrawal from Ladbrokes, so will get back AUD 3 for every chip.

Unless Ladbrokes' gaffed exchange system has been fully implemented within MPV to cater for Ladbrokes players, we could run into problems where money either disappears or is created within the system. It can become a serious problem if enough players figure out how to arrange their transactions so that the "drift" is always in their favour.

It is, of course, nothing less that a "chip dumping" scheme, so may get noticed by MGS. The same trick might work with Poker, but checking for this sort of scheme is much more robust, so arranging for the AUD account to consistently win tournaments where one individual controls all the seats is going to get noticed straight away.

An MPV scheme would have more chance as it seems that little is done over the considerable volume of complaints where small groups of aliases are quite blatantly "gaming the system" on a number of these tournaments. The view seems to be that even though individual players or colluding groups are taking several seats and dominating the leaders, they are doing nothing wrong since this has been allowed within MPV since the first Grand Slam tournament.