Problem with casino Bellini

[Sweety]

Hello! I make deposit, after i met the weagering requirements i win about 400 euro, so i try to withdraw money from casino Bellini. When i start withdraw request, i get email from casino Bellini support:

"...Please note that your withdrawal request will not be processed without the Notarized ID, that you will send via courier to :

ID Verification
14/F Yuchengco Tower 1,
RCBC Plaza, 6819 Ayala,
Makati City 1200,
Philippines "

Make Notarized ID and send it via coirier will cost ~200 euro or takes 2 month. So i ask casno Bellini support:

"I already send to you photo of my passport. That is ID and proof of address. Have you get it?
Make Notarised ID and send it via courier from Russia to Philippines will cost 200 euro or takes about 2 month! That is too much for my withdraw.
Can i send to you a copy of a paper utility bill or bank statement? Can send it by fax or make scan or photo? Maybe i can make my withdraw via check, so i can get it only if my registration data same with data in my ID?"

But they answer : no, no aaand NO:

"Moreover, the request for documents is clearly stated in our Terms and Conditions in which we have assumed that you understood and are willing to comply with.

You shall provide us with all information requested by us and necessary for the operation of the Player Account, including, but not limited to, proof of identity, notarized documentation, proof of address, utility bills, bank details, bank statements and bank references. You shall provide us with any such requested documents immediately upon request and not later than within a reasonable time of response."

As i can see nothing about way of delivery in T&C. So now i can spend 200 euro, and after they ask for utility bills, bank details etc via courier. I think casino cheat to avoid withdraw, because they have russian site, russian support but when you talk about withdraw, you must send documents to Philippines! What can i do in this situation? abort withdraw and try double/tripple, or loose all, so profit from all this will cover all my troubles? Or i can do something else? Thanks for reading, hope my bad english don't hurt you much=)

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hello! I make deposit, after i met the weagering requirements i win about 400 euro, so i try to withdraw money from casino Bellini. When i start withdraw request, i get email from casino Bellini support:

"...Please note that your withdrawal request will not be processed without the Notarized ID, that you will send via courier to :

ID Verification
14/F Yuchengco Tower 1,
RCBC Plaza, 6819 Ayala,
Makati City 1200,
Philippines "

Make Notarized ID and send it via coirier will cost ~200 euro or takes 2 month. So i ask casno Bellini support:

"I already send to you photo of my passport. That is ID and proof of address. Have you get it?
Make Notarised ID and send it via courier from Russia to Philippines will cost 200 euro or takes about 2 month! That is too much for my withdraw.
Can i send to you a copy of a paper utility bill or bank statement? Can send it by fax or make scan or photo? Maybe i can make my withdraw via check, so i can get it only if my registration data same with data in my ID?"

But they answer : no, no aaand NO:

"Moreover, the request for documents is clearly stated in our Terms and Conditions in which we have assumed that you understood and are willing to comply with.

You shall provide us with all information requested by us and necessary for the operation of the Player Account, including, but not limited to, proof of identity, notarized documentation, proof of address, utility bills, bank details, bank statements and bank references. You shall provide us with any such requested documents immediately upon request and not later than within a reasonable time of response."

As i can see nothing about way of delivery in T&C. So now i can spend 200 euro, and after they ask for utility bills, bank details etc via courier. I think casino cheat to avoid withdraw, because they have russian site, russian support but when you talk about withdraw, you must send documents to Philippines! What can i do in this situation? abort withdraw and try double/tripple, or loose all, so profit from all this will cover all my troubles? Or i can do something else? Thanks for reading, hope my bad english don't hurt you much=)

This is common with the lesser "white label" Playtechs. It's the same company behind them all, "Paragon International Customer Care" operating from that Manila address. They collate information from all (or nearly all) Playtech casinos and use it for a common database that operators can use to weed out undesirable players. Sending notarised documents to Manila seems to be their hallmark, and this rather odd request has been a subject for complaint elsewhere on this forum. No point spending all that money on express delivery, it won't make them pay any faster, they will still take weeks to verify it.

They have at least learned there is no point in requesting notarised documents, and then just getting the player to fax over the notarised copy.

They must be pretty certain you have been up to something to take this measure, and they don't intend to pay unless you can prove them wrong, such as by them managing to verify your documents via a notary.

Players from the ex Soviet countries, and that includes Russia itself, are often subject to more scrutiny, and less benefit of the doubt is likely to be granted. A player from a lower risk country may have been able to negotiate something along the lines that you have asked for, such as payment by cheque to your address, which you wouldn't get if it was false, and would be unable to cash if you gave a bogus set of personal details. Others have been able to send a photo of themselves holding their documents instead of getting them notarised.

You are right about this not being in the terms, they don't want to scare players away by even hinting that they may be asked to send their documents by post to Manila, so they shouldn't really be saying you agreed to this specifically just because you accepted that you would be asked to supply documents. By "send", most players understand that this means scan and send via email or fax, not physically post it. The Manila address is not usually mentioned either, being the address of the company behind the white label arrangements, not that of the nominal operator who holds the gaming license.
This has come out when Playtech casinos supposedly based within the EU, and holding EU gaming licenses, started telling player to send their documents to this Manila address, and claiming that their official address registered with their gaming license has no facilities for dealing with this kind of thing (it won't, it's just a box in some lawyers office, not an actual office with workers).

If the cost of sending the documents is greater than the withdrawal, there is no point, you would save money kicking up a fuss and making them spend their own money dealing with it. If your withdrawal is more significant, send the documents the cheapest way, and have a nice windfall in time for Christmas (and the chance of some decent casino promos).

 

[rainmaker]

This is common with the lesser "white label" Playtechs. It's the same company behind them all, "Paragon International Customer Care" operating from that Manila address.

Yes, and this company is 100% owned by Playtech.

I personally would have found it unacceptable to send notarized documents in the mail to the Philippines. My advise is to stick to larger Playtech casinos like Bet365, Paddy and Betfred.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Yes, and this company is 100% owned by Playtech.

I personally would have found it unacceptable to send notarized documents in the mail to the Philippines. My advise is to stick to larger Playtech casinos like Bet365, Paddy and Betfred.

Of course, but carefully structured so as to appear not to be. Remember, they lied to Bryan who visited them and said he had "seen Playtech's offices in the Phillipines" by saying he had not, and that Playtech don't have, and have never had, offices in the Phillipines.

Has Playtech now exercised it's options and bought out the other shareholder and made it a 100% Playtech subsidiary on paper?

 

[HIGHIQ]

i have played so many casino online and bellini is the first one did something wrong to me aswell... i know they have some sister casinos and they are titancasino and europa casino 32vegas ect. i won some money on titan casino and they let me wait for 3 weeks... and been complaining everyday.. and at end they paid me.. then few days later i get a mail from titan casino to invite me to play at casino bellini and in mail said if i deposit i get 100 on top of the existing offer... which i did i downloaded bellini after a week and then before i deposit i asked support and explained how i get here and if i still can take the offer and she checked and then say ok u can get it and dont worry about the bonus... so i deposit 200 .. after i deposit she let me wait for 15 minutes and comes back and says sorry no bonus for u its a management decision ..lol how can this place go this low...and i thought they are a solid casino group..

 

[rainmaker]

.

Has Playtech now exercised it's options and bought out the other shareholder and made it a 100% Playtech subsidiary on paper?

It was "revealed" in a prospectus (related to them being upgraded to the London Stock Exchange's main market) document published in June or July this year, that this company is owned by Playtech.

Paragon is listed as 100% owned by Playtech on page 114 in that document with this info:


Paragon International Customer Care Limited - British Virgin Island and branch office in the Philippines

100% English customer support, chat, fraud, finance, dedicated employees services to parent company

 

[vinylweatherman]

It was "revealed" in a prospectus (related to them being upgraded to the London Stock Exchange's main market) document published in June or July this year, that this company is owned by Playtech.

Paragon is listed as 100% owned by Playtech on page 114 in that document with this info:


Paragon International Customer Care Limited - British Virgin Island and branch office in the Philippines

100% English customer support, chat, fraud, finance, dedicated employees services to parent company

Funny how Playtech needs all this support when as they say "we are only the software provider" when asked what they intend to do about an operator that screws players and steals progressive jackpot pools confiscated from players rather than return the money to the game.

The main market has stricter rules, which is probably why they had to come clean about this Phillipines connection.

 

[rainmaker]

Funny how Playtech needs all this support when as they say "we are only the software provider" when asked what they intend to do about an operator that screws players and steals progressive jackpot pools confiscated from players rather than return the money to the game.

The main market has stricter rules, which is probably why they had to come clean about this Phillipines connection.

Yes, main market has stricter rules. I was actually a bit surprised that they even got accepted at this time. Their relationship with their biggest shareholder Teddy Sagi has been quite messy. Playtech has basically bought everything he has sold.

Here you can find the prospectus (direct link):

( subsidiaries listed on page 113 - 115)

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[vinylweatherman]

i have played so many casino online and bellini is the first one did something wrong to me aswell... i know they have some sister casinos and they are titancasino and europa casino 32vegas ect. i won some money on titan casino and they let me wait for 3 weeks... and been complaining everyday.. and at end they paid me.. then few days later i get a mail from titan casino to invite me to play at casino bellini and in mail said if i deposit i get 100 on top of the existing offer... which i did i downloaded bellini after a week and then before i deposit i asked support and explained how i get here and if i still can take the offer and she checked and then say ok u can get it and dont worry about the bonus... so i deposit 200 .. after i deposit she let me wait for 15 minutes and comes back and says sorry no bonus for u its a management decision ..lol how can this place go this low...and i thought they are a solid casino group..

Clear case of bait & switch, and you didn't walk in blindly, but checked repeatedly that the offer would be honoured.

So many Playtech operators get clean away with this crap because Playtech don't see why they should do anything other than supply the software, and keep supplying it so long as the operator pays Playtech on time. Coupled with inattentive licensing jurisdictions, nobody is really policing some operations at all.

When sending documents to the Phillipines, you are not sending them to the casino, but to Playtech itself. It is Playtech, not the casino, that decides whether you should be paid, or are a fraud. Normally, you don't see this because you scan and send the documents to the casino, but they end up with Paragon in the end, you just don't see it because it is just an email address. Paragon also run the notorious "bonus abuser database" alongside the fraud database, and operators can use this to see whether players have used bonuses at other Playtech casinos, and whether this has been considered "abusive" by the operator, or even Paragon itself after looking at the player's data across a number of Playtech casinos.

THis process could also partly explain the high rates of "bait & switch" that seems to happen when one operator invites you to join a sister casino. They think you are OK, but when you take up the offer and register, a fresh "bonus abuser check" can get done on you, a bit like a credit check, and this may decide that you have now been flagged as a "bonus abuser", hence the systems won't credit the offer. When you query with CS, they see the flag "bonus abuser at other Playtechs", and say "management decision" to explain it. The actual managers are the ones that made the offer, so the check overruled them, so clearly it is not the managers calling the shots over this, but Paragon/Playtech. If the managers WERE in charge and had regard for the value of a promise, they would honour their word, and then say "nothing more for you" to the player based on the updated check.

 

[guybrie]

When sending documents to the Phillipines, you are not sending them to the casino, but to Playtech itself. It is Playtech, not the casino, that decides whether you should be paid, or are a fraud. Normally, you don't see this because you scan and send the documents to the casino, but they end up with Paragon in the end, you just don't see it because it is just an email address. Paragon also run the notorious "bonus abuser database" alongside the fraud database, and operators can use this to see whether players have used bonuses at other Playtech casinos, and whether this has been considered "abusive" by the operator, or even Paragon itself after looking at the player's data across a number of Playtech casinos.

The situation is a little more intricate than that: Playtech powers two types of operators, "managed" (by Playtech) and "non-managed" (eg. managed by the operator itself); the term "white label" is incorrect - that's something done by an operator (of either type) under his own umbrella. They both use (to the best of my knowledge) the services of Paragon (

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), which is owned by Playtech, but the independence of the decision-making varies: the employees which service both types of operations receive instructions which come either from the Playtech managers or from the casino operator's managers. There may be a similar arrangement with the Bulgaria-based CSMS customer services center (Playtech owned). Playtech receives fees by "managed" operators which use Playtech's services through Paragon and CSMS - that's what Playtech has to benefit from having these branches. Depending of the agreements, it may be possible that Paragon shares negative data between both managed and non-managed operators.

As regards casinos owned by Playtech, such as Bellini, officially these are just the ones that are under TheNationTraffic.com (europartners.com) which Playtech bought for $500m a few ago from Teddi Sagi (Playtech's chief shareholder), and are called "PTTS" (Playtech Turnkey Services). With that purchase, Playtech became both a software supplier and an operator.

There are other casino operators owned by Sagi but not owned by Playtech. In the past these were IOG and CPays (maybe also affeurope). A very rough rule of thumb here is, the more obscure the Playtech powered casino the more likely it is connected to Sagi (as opposed to a truly independent 'owner'). Their casinos are of two types - very transparent, like Betfair, Betfred, WilliamHill, Bet365, Paddypower etc., and more obscure or totally "shady" ones like "majesticcomet". One present example - a little complex - is winner.com/nethive.com: it doesn't belong to Playtech but it's based in their building and owned by Sagi. Winner's portfolio includes sites/products which may be owned by Playtech, like RummyRoyal and CTXM games but it's technically a business separate from Playtech. Most recently Sagi tried to sell to Playtech the social games arm of Winner (probably

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), but the stock market analysts raised an outcry, Playtech's stock fell and the deal was cancelled.