Miami Club - Bonuses only for Credit Card???

hoff1985

Dormant Account
mm1
Joined
Jul 15, 2012
Location
Switzerland
Hey Guys,

just tried Miami Club again... I played there often until a couple of months ago and always had good bonuses.... I just realized that they changed their terms recently... Deposited USD 108.- and wanted to catch today's 70% bonus then customer support told me, not for Skrill users. Only for Credit Card... What the heck? I got then a 25% bonus but still...

What sense does it make for a casino to allow bonuses only for Credit Card Depositors??? Don't get it!

But yeah, let's see how it goes...
 
Hey Guys,

just tried Miami Club again... I played there often until a couple of months ago and always had good bonuses.... I just realized that they changed their terms recently... Deposited USD 108.- and wanted to catch today's 70% bonus then customer support told me, not for Skrill users. Only for Credit Card... What the heck? I got then a 25% bonus but still...

What sense does it make for a casino to allow bonuses only for Credit Card Depositors??? Don't get it!

But yeah, let's see how it goes...

They obviously want you to play on money you have borrowed and have to pay back at the end of the month, rather than money specifically set aside for gambling. It shows that responsible gambling takes second place to maximising profit, which is presumably what the bean counters think will be the result. It won't be their problem if people chase the bonuses using their credit cards, and are not stopped by running out of funds as they would when using their usual deposit method, and find they face a very lean following month because of the bill the get from the card company.

It may all backfire in the long term, because card companies may see an increase in the use of cards for gambling along with the bad debt it creates an unacceptable risk, and like some UK cards have already done, cease allowing such transactions altogether, even by the responsible customers.
 
Thanks... I mean they have it clearly written in their terms, still it's weird....

But for me it looks good. I just (because i was a bit pissed) did 4.00$ bets on reel deal and finished a bonus round with over 1000$, now made it through wagering (continuing on the same slot with the same bet size of 4.00$) with around 1150$ in my account, did some more spins (also 4$, same slot) and then decided to cash out 1000$ :)

Yeeey. Good Times. Let's see how it long it takes until it hits my Skrill Account :)
 
Another one who's doing it is smart live gaming. you can't even get a SUB if you use an e-wallet

11.3 Players that register and are connected from same IP address, of which also claim any bonus offers will have their accounts closed, winnings withheld and initial deposits refunded. Each promotion has its own terms and conditions which the player must abide by in order to qualify for the bonus or prize. Players who deposit via E-Wallets such as ( Moneybookers, Neteller or Ecocard) are not eligible to claim any Welcome bonus or other deposit bonus promotions that Smart Live Gaming offer.
 
Another one who's doing it is smart live gaming. you can't even get a SUB if you use an e-wallet

11.3 Players that register and are connected from same IP address, of which also claim any bonus offers will have their accounts closed, winnings withheld and initial deposits refunded. Each promotion has its own terms and conditions which the player must abide by in order to qualify for the bonus or prize. Players who deposit via E-Wallets such as ( Moneybookers, Neteller or Ecocard) are not eligible to claim any Welcome bonus or other deposit bonus promotions that Smart Live Gaming offer.

The eWallets also just sit back and suck it up. THEY could do something about it, after all, it's taking business away from them. If they told these casinos that they either removed those terms, or had their ability to take ANY deposits via the eWallets removed in response, they might have a rethink.

It may however be an indication that the eWallets have lost their power because there are so many other deposit options now available.

It seems odd because card deposits present greater risks to operators because they are more easily manipulated by fraudsters. Maybe the fraud issue isn't as bad as they would have us believe, and the risk is minimal compared to the extra money they think they can make through steering players towards using credit cards. Probably true because one can gamble right up to the credit limit on the card, whereas with an eWallet, you have to have funded it before being able to use the money.

In another way though, the difference is not so great given that eWallets can be funded by credit cards.

In an earlier discussion thread about 32Red dropping weekend payments, they stated that 90% of their customers used cards, whereas only 10% used the eWallets. If this is reflected throughout the industry, then these casinos are only irritating 10% of their players, who could simply switch to using their cards just for those casinos that have these terms, and carry on using the eWallets for the rest.

It doesn't seem to be something the UKGC has considered in the forthcoming regulations, so whilst land casinos are banned from allowing chips to be bought on credit cards, it has been left up to the card issuers as to whether they allow customers to gamble on credit.

Of course, all we need is a pre paid card for eWallets that DOES allow gambling transactions, then such terms would have little effect on the player who could still use the funds in their eWallet, but still deposit via the method preferred by the casino. Neteller and Skrill both offer pre paid cards that work like credit cards or debit cards, yet block gambling transactions.
 
Theres a lot of casinos that for some reason dislike ewallets or think they are more open to fraud or abuse. Even Ladbrokes when I played there when it was microgaming if you took a bonus using neteller the WR would be a lot higher and some bonuses you would not get if you deposited by neteller. Was one of reasons I only ever funded Ladbrokes by cash or debit card.
 
Hey Guys,

just tried Miami Club again... I played there often until a couple of months ago and always had good bonuses.... I just realized that they changed their terms recently... Deposited USD 108.- and wanted to catch today's 70% bonus then customer support told me, not for Skrill users. Only for Credit Card... What the heck? I got then a 25% bonus but still...

What sense does it make for a casino to allow bonuses only for Credit Card Depositors??? Don't get it!

But yeah, let's see how it goes...

It could be that they are tailoring their bonus structure to attract players more from countries that use credit/debit (USA) rather than e-wallets?
 
Theres a lot of casinos that for some reason dislike ewallets or think they are more open to fraud or abuse. Even Ladbrokes when I played there when it was microgaming if you took a bonus using neteller the WR would be a lot higher and some bonuses you would not get if you deposited by neteller. Was one of reasons I only ever funded Ladbrokes by cash or debit card.

I just stopped playing there altogether when they brought in that daft rule.

There are still a couple of casinos that will give you a little extra for NOT using a card, but using an eWallet. Maybe the casino operators have fallen out "big time" with the eWallet operators, but as sensitive commercial discussions, we as players have not heard, or been told, a thing. It could even be that these operators are putting the squeeze on the eWallets by trying to shift business away from them through offering players incentives to use an alternative method. Perhaps they wanted the eWallets to implement additional measures that the casinos though would protect them from frauds and scams, and the eWallets refused because it didn't affect them, but they would have to spend more money implementing such measures. One thing that seems to irritate casinos is the peer to peer functionality offered by eWallets as it allows players to quickly move money away from danger should they be up to no good, but get caught before they would normally be able to get the illicit gains out of the eWallet and into the bank. We know that if the money has been spirited away, the eWallets will not give it back to a victim of fraud because they would end up footing the bill. They prefer the casino to foot the bill instead.

Credit cards don't have such functionality, but in a way, debit cards do because we now have the "faster payments" system that means money can be moved between bank account almost instantly. It's also a better method for multi accounters and other scammers because whilst the eWallets have been known to release information about peer to peer networks to casinos who feel they have been taken in by a group of players, the banks would not be allowed to release any data about any "faster payment" networks to an operator without either permission from the customer, or a court order requiring them to do so.

I was able to put this question to my VIP manager at Neteller when Ladbrokes started this silly game, and he confirmed that this should not be happening, but it seems they can't (or won't) do anything about it.

What I find even more surprising is that casinos will accept UKash vouchers, yet say they can't accept cash because it is untraceable and would make it hard for them to comply with anti money laundering regulations. They are putting all their trust in the procedures in place at the corner shop where one buys the UKash vouchers. These are minimum wage shop staff, untrained in looking out for money laundering. You flash your ID, hand over the cash, and if you are lucky, they have been trained how to produce the UKash voucher from the machine. They are easily fooled by fake IDs, which are often used to enable under age purchases. Not all may even realise that they should be asking to see some ID when issuing UKash, as usually this is not a requirement when using the Paypoint system for the usual purpose of paying bills.
 
Talking of ukash which I use sometimes ive never been asked to show id in a shop ive purchased it. I only use it at a couple of sites normally like William hill and coral and used to occasionally use it to fund neteller if my neteller account was empty. But ukash are now blogging transactions regularly not to casinos but to neteller. Ive used it 3 times in last 4 months and every time the voucher was blocked and I had to send a copy of the voucher to ukash telling them where I purchased it etc , and had it explained to me as I was mad it happened 3 times in a row that for security they are blocking a lot of transactions to neteller etc. till you show them proof of purchase. Was a pain but only took 20minutes to get voucher working again but not worth hassle of doing it again.
 
Talking of ukash which I use sometimes ive never been asked to show id in a shop ive purchased it. I only use it at a couple of sites normally like William hill and coral and used to occasionally use it to fund neteller if my neteller account was empty. But ukash are now blogging transactions regularly not to casinos but to neteller. Ive used it 3 times in last 4 months and every time the voucher was blocked and I had to send a copy of the voucher to ukash telling them where I purchased it etc , and had it explained to me as I was mad it happened 3 times in a row that for security they are blocking a lot of transactions to neteller etc. till you show them proof of purchase. Was a pain but only took 20minutes to get voucher working again but not worth hassle of doing it again.

Pretty obvious money laundering path, probably reached a point where they had to step up the security. The problem is that whilst they have done KYC on the "clean" end of the chain, the person owning the Neteller account, they have no idea who is exchanging cash for the vouchers, and thus cannot trace the source of the cash used to buy it. This security step means they get to verify both ends of the transaction, and know that you were the one buying the voucher, and thus the one who had the cash to start with.

I wonder if this is what has scared off the casinos from eWallets, because if this was actually a money laundering exercise, the Neteller money might be further laundered through the casino, providing some justification for when it comes back out of Neteller. It would look pretty odd if someone funded their Neteller with UKash, and then withdrew the money to their bank without it having passed through a few casinos first.
 
This ironic, as I swear I saw a few casinos with terms offering extra bonus incentives to deposit by webwallets like Skrill/Neteller not so long back. As these webwallets are linked to credit cards usually, what is the difference? Is that not encouraging gambling on borrowing too, Vinyl?
Secondly, credit cards are the have the highest chargeback potential of all deposit methods, so if a casino was promoting their use I'd wonder why too. :what:
 
If a site is offering regular bonuses. Could the 'exclusive' use of cards be to slow down the withdrawal process?

If you'd deposited by E-wallet, took a bonus, won something, withdrew back to E-wallet, depending on the processing times, you could re-deposit some of those winnings within hours of the withdrawal, and take advantage of the next bonus.

But if you use a card, although the deposit is instant, you wouldn't have the cash from a subsequent withdrawal for maybe 3 to 5 days
 
This ironic, as I swear I saw a few casinos with terms offering extra bonus incentives to deposit by webwallets like Skrill/Neteller not so long back. As these webwallets are linked to credit cards usually, what is the difference? Is that not encouraging gambling on borrowing too, Vinyl?
Secondly, credit cards are the have the highest chargeback potential of all deposit methods, so if a casino was promoting their use I'd wonder why too. :what:

It would seem that they don't consider the risks of chargeback all that serious, so are prepared to take it, even though the eWallets do not allow chargebacks. Maybe the fraudsters have found a loophole. Although one can link an eWallet to a credit card, the casino cannot itself verify the card being used, this is down to the eWallet. If the player charges back, or has funded the eWallet with a stolen card, the first the casino knows about it is when the eWallet pulls the money back from the casino. It's a way of getting around the no chargeback rules. Where the casino accepts the card directly, it has the card number and expiry date, so is able to run it through the fraud and chargeback databases itself, so maybe they consider this a lower risk than accepting a card deposit "blind" because it has gone via an eWallet.

If a site is offering regular bonuses. Could the 'exclusive' use of cards be to slow down the withdrawal process?

If you'd deposited by E-wallet, took a bonus, won something, withdrew back to E-wallet, depending on the processing times, you could re-deposit some of those winnings within hours of the withdrawal, and take advantage of the next bonus.

But if you use a card, although the deposit is instant, you wouldn't have the cash from a subsequent withdrawal for maybe 3 to 5 days

With the new faster payment system, there is no longer this 3 day wait for money to show as available on a credit card. Payments to a card account should clear by the next working day, so only a day slower than an eWallet.

The main issue is that they are pushing gambling on credit, whilst discouraging gambling with money specifically set aside for the purpose.
 
Gaming T&C's - vinylweatherman

Hi vinylweatherman,

Not saying you're wrong and that there aren't any unscrupulous Casino's out there but I'd say that the decision is most likely more down to either potential fraud or charges rather than a wish to push customers to gamble with credit. I've been in these situations twice, one company allowed a player to open 27 accounts with the same e-Wallet and take advantage of a welcome offer. We discovered hundreds of other players doing the same thing after an investigation and when we contacted the company we were told that they wouldn't do anything to help. That was 3 years ago however I know that some e-Wallets, while they take the chargeback risk, don't offer the protection that is needed to Casino's in my opinion.

The other reason could be charges, some e-Wallets charge companies receiving the funds 3-4% of the transfer amount, again that depends on the companies agreement with the vendor however if you think that a game with a 95% RTP and the company has to pay 3% or 4% for each transaction it can be in their interest to not offer a bonus to those players as they could make 1% over time.

For the Coral Welcome £10 Bonus we ask customers to register a Credit or Debit card simply as its much easier for us to verify the player as genuine with a card. We don't require a deposit, even if you complete the wagering and request a withdrawal. For us its not about getting a customer to use credit they don't have (I'd assume they could as easily load up an e-Wallet with funds from a Visa card and splurge on any Casino) its about verifying the player but I can only tell you from Coral's perspective.

Hope that helps

Anthony
 

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