[RESOLVED] Virgin Casino - Poor treatment of High Rollers.

[rpalmer83]

Yesterday (Sunday 18th November 2007) I deposited 400 into Virgin casino and hit an 8,000 Royal Flush playing 40 per hand Lucky Draw Jacks or Better. This was my own funds and no bonus was claimed with it. I am currently awaiting this withdrawal appearing in my bank account. At the time of this writing my win is being advertised on the front page of the casino. Giving the impression that Virgin creates happy winners and customers. Well I am neither at this moment in time.

This evening I recieved the following email:

We are writing to you with regard to recent betting activity on the
account you hold with Virgin Casino.

As you may be aware, Virgin Casino reserves the right to prohibit or
exclude certain individuals with immediate effect if any offer abuse
is identified or suspected. Our Terms and Conditions are quite clear
on this matter and can be reviewed by clicking on the terms and
conditions link on any of the promotions on our promotions page.

To visit the promotions page, click below:
Link Removed ( Old/Invalid)

Our analysis of play patterns has identified you as being in breach
of those terms and conditions. As such, with immediate effect, we
regret to inform you that you are no longer eligible to receive
promotional offers and bonus credits from Virgin Casino. Your Virgin
Casino account will remain open and your ability to play will be
unaffected. However you will not be able to take part in any of our
promotional offerings.

At Virgin, we believe in looking after our customers and ensuring
that they have as good a time as possible. This is not just done by
providing the best games on the market but also by rewarding our
players for their loyalty. The Terms and Conditions that govern how
our customers enjoy Virgin Casino are there to protect the interest
of our gamers; when a minority of individuals engage in what we
believe to be "bonus hunting", it affects our ability to reward the
majority who abide by the terms of the service. It is on this basis
that we have taken the decision to temporarily restrict your account.

We will of course be happy to review the restrictions placed upon
your account in the future, but for now you will remain restricted.

If you have any questions with regard to this correspondence, then
please do not hesitate to contact our support team at
support@casino.virgingames.com.

Kind regards,

The Virgin Casino Team

Therefore I have now been restricted from recieving any promotions at the casino, It is their right to do this however below is a summary of my transactions in the casino over the last 30 days:

Games Room Bet (165,650.20)
Games Room Payout 170,933.00
Loyalty Cash 12.81
Converted Bonus Credits 410.00
Withdrawal (15,093.63)
Non-playable Cash Awarded 410.00
Manual Adjustment 68.02
Deposit 9,320.00

As you can see, I am no bonus abuser. I have been a customer of Virgin for about 3 years and over the last year I have put thousands in there and at times when they have not been offering any bonuses. Granted I have won significantly from them but I could quite easily have lost a hell of a lot of money there as well. The game I play most there has been Lucky Draw Jacks or better, quite simply because I feel it offers good payback and I enjoy the gameplay.

With wagering figures like the above I would have expected to have been invited into some kind of VIP scheme but nothing from them, and now I can't help but think that because I had a big win yesterday is the only reason they have pulled me out of recieving any benefits by playing there.

Things like this certainly make you wonder how much I can trust online casinos.

 

[lifechooser]

It's not just you.

I recieved the same email today. Mostly I played at virgin when they had a bonus on, but when they do bonuses twice a week, it seemed a bit pointless playing at any other time, though I did usually play far more than I had to to get the bonus money.

I did notice their T&C's changed in the last week or so - you had to play the bonus through within 2 days, and the 50 bonus became a 30 bonus. Perhaps they've decided the bonuses are costing them too much money?

It seems very odd to ban you when you are so obviously not abusing though. I'm very suprised.

 

[rpalmer83]

Glad to see im not the only one then!.

The bonuses aren't very generous anyway and exclude a hell of a lot of games, it just scares me that if they are flipping switches like this on their high wagering customers then what other switches can they flip?.

So much for Virgin being a brand thats supposed to be 'trusted' and 'rewards' its customers.

If the bonuses are costing them too much then maybe they should consider dropping them and offering them exclusively to loyal customers but then that probably wouldn't work for them because I'm pretty confident that if i'd have lost 8,000 yesterday I would probably still be on their bonus list.

It would be nice to hear Virgin clarify what 'bonus hunting' actually means to them because I do not see how depositing over 9k and wagering over 150,000 over a month would be worth the risk to anyone to try and profit by 410 worth of bonus money.

 

[bash_2357]

Doesn't look like very good treatment to me.

I suspect the Virgin Rep ( Virgin Ace) will be on his way soon. However, you may like to draw his attention to this thread. I think he/she will find it rather interesting.

 

[hitobito2005]

I got the same email.

Over the last two months, I have bet 86k at the casino and received a total bonus of just over 1k. However, I have made a profit of 6k in that time (NB. Most of that win is from luck at gambling). I was formerly a "Red Room" member and many of my deposits and much of my gameplay was without a bonus.

I am not impressed. Virgin is a reputable and public-friendly brand and the casino is CM accredited, although it doesn't even need to be with such a strong name behind it. Such bonus banning tactics should not be used by straight-forward casino. If you don't want people to make money from your bonuses, either don't offer them or change the terms to make them unprofitable.

 

[GrandMaster]

Richard Branson needs the money to buy Northern Rock. This must also be the explanation for the negative bonus points balance I have.

 

[uki]

Well that treatment is just appalling!

Perhaps the Rep would be kind enough to outline the sort of customer they are after - Just losers I expect.

 

[topoor]

I won 4k on 4 play poker on Friday night and today I received the same mail. I have lost thousands at Virgin playing on 10 play poker in the last few months which has been a bonus excluded game for ages now.

I too believe that if I had lost 4k I would not have received this email. It is an appalling way to behave and I urge everybody to take their play to paddypower which offers the same games - I know I am!

 

[uungy]

Same thing here. I must have lost loads there, and been in the redroom for a while. They must have screwed up big time!

It must be a new manager, or someone has made a big mistake.

By the way is this you rpalmer? seems a reasonable win, surely at 5p a hand (bonus baggers) would find it hard to win that sort of wins on Jacks or better.

 

[rpalmer83]

Yes uungy, that win was mine. I won it playing 2 per hand (40 per sheet) Lucky Draw Jacks or Better, the game is now banned in the T&C's from play with a bonus but as I mentioned in my first post I deposited my own cash on sunday and didn't even claim a bonus when I got that win.

Even if I was playing just to redeem bonuses, they offer 2 a week at 20 and 30. Would I really play 40 a hand merely to try and profit from these bonuses?.

My issue isn't really about the fact that I am not entitled to any bonuses there now, they are poor value anyway. It's more the fact that im being treated as something I'm not and have been cast as an 'outsider' for simply winning money there.

I suspect if I continue playing there and win anymore money then they'll shut my account down entirely. That's really unfair, considering if I lost thousands they'd probably be throwing money at me and begging me to deposit and lose more.

Punishing customers for winning money is something a backstreet arcade would do, its not something i'd expect from something with the Virgin name on it.

 

[hitobito2005]

I just received the weekly "Red Room" email inviting me to participate in a bonus on Thursday. I'll see if it works, but if i'm bonus banned and still receiving the emails then i'll be even more disgusted.

 

[uungy]

Sent a messaghe to Virgin Rep and notified her of this thread, she has been online and chosen not to respond obviously!

 

[Casinomeister]

Sent a messaghe to Virgin Rep and notified her of this thread, she has been online and chosen not to respond obviously!

Let's try not to jump to conclusions - the casino rep has been in contact with me and is looking into this, and will either reply shortly or ask me to.

And I believe she is a he

 

[Casinomeister]

Let's try not to jump to conclusions - the casino rep has been in contact with me and is looking into this, and will either reply shortly or ask me to.

And I believe she is a he

Hey that was my 12,000th post. I should get an award or something for that

 

[tim5ny]

Hey that was my 12,000th post. I should get an award or something for that

Nice going Bryan! You've posted 12 thousand times without ever getting banned from the forum That's something to be proud of!

 

[suzecat]

Hey that was my 12,000th post. I should get an award or something for that

Okay........here you go.........

 

[SomeOtherSucker]

Dear XXXX

We wanted to let you know that you will be eligible for your weekly Red Room 20% Cash Back and Red Room 100 Bonus from Virgin Casino this week. We know that you received your Red Room promotional email at the same time as you were notified about your exclusion from Virgin Casino promotions. Naturally, if you would still like to play in this week’s Red Room promotions, you can do so.

To clarify, and sorry for the confusion, following the week ending at 23h59 (GMT) on 25 November 2007, you will no longer be able to play in promotional offers at Virgin Casino.

This is by no means a permanent status and as previously stated, we will be happy to review the restrictions placed upon your account in the future, but for now you will remain restricted.

Your Virgin Casino account will remain open and your ability to play will be unaffected.

If you have any questions with regard to this correspondence, then please do not hesitate to contact our support team at support@casino.virgingames.com.

So after being a VIP here for 3-4 years, I guess I won't be getting my christmas bottle of wine from them anymore.

 

[rpalmer83]

So they've told you that your banned from recieving ANY future promotions there but as your a member of this 'Red Room' (I presume VIP scheme) you can still claim bonuses until the end of this week?.

This is crazy, how on earth can you have any trust in an outfit that says one thing and then half changes its mind for the remainder of the week?.

See the thing is now that they have done this bonus banning and gone about it in such a way, I don't know whether I dare play there anymore. Even though I know its a random number generator and it would be illegal for it to get tampered with, In my mind I am thinking "will they 'tamper' with my account?" and then should I go back there and lose money I'm going to think that they have somehow fixed my account.

With my wagering, I mean I have deposited a total of 36,000 with them in the last 6 months you would think i'd have been invited into to this Red Room but not once have I being asked and now with the confidence I had with them, I feel penalised.

Yet more evidence to suggest that Virgin casino rewards its losing customers and punishes its winners.

The 8k win has now hit my bank account BTW so there was no issue with them paying out, but I never thought there would be anyway.

 

[SomeOtherSucker]

I received the ban email yesterday.

I received the standard Red Room weekly bonus invite this morning.

I sent an email to the red room support querying it.

They appeared to be as shocked as I was about the bans.

They told me they were looking into it.

I haven't had a personal response, just the blanket response quoted above (which appears to have gone to all red room members).

I've been a VIP/red room member for about 3 years now.

They've constantly been telling me how much they like my style of play. Now, without my style of play changing, or any warning, I'm banned from bonuses.

What a great way to launch their new vpoints scheme!

 

[hitobito2005]

I'm in the same position as you, SomeOtherSucker.

I've been a member of Red Room for about a year and a half, and now have suddenly been banned from promotions effective the end of this week.

I'd quite like a response from the rep here.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Sadly, this is all to common with the "Virgin" brands. While they trade on the good name of Virgin, many are franchises, and can deliver poor service. Virgin Trains have delivered some apalling customer service recently, and Virgin Media are continually breaking down, and now expect us to pay through the nose at 25p per min just to tell them they have a fault

I rather suspect these bans have absolutely NOTHING to do with "bonus abuse", but are due to said players achieving a lifetime profit above a certain level, whether bonuses were involved or not.

I have been bonus banned from Roxy Palace because I went 5000 ahead, and the last spurt was achieved without a bonus. They didn't have even the decency to inform me, I literally had to wring the truth out of them by complaining here about the inconsitent responces from CS. Initially, I was lied to by being told there was "no promotion this week", but in the lobby the weekly newsletter, slots, and VP tournaments were still billed as running, and I 100% knew this to be a tactic to obscure what had been decided at management level. Previously, I was told I probably did not get the E-mail because I was not registered, had a spam filter, etc..... Oddly enough, I was STILL getting offers from Casino Splendido, and these stopped after a brilliant streak that again had me 5000 ahead.

It seems that these cases are similar, players hitting a Royal Flush for around 4K followed by a bonus ban. The "review" is because they will put you back on the promotions list if you continue to play and give back the winnings.
I have also been bonus banned from Club USA due to a big win at their version of Cyberstud poker, being dealt 4OK and having the dealer qualify (for a change) .

Casinos that do this risk alienating good customers who just happen to have had a damn good win. The way the Virgin E-mails are formulated is accusatory, and leaves the player feeling they have been accused of "cheating" by trying to manipulate the bonuses.

The damage is done, and just like the back street (or even seaside) arcade, have shown that winners are not welcome to have the same advantages to prolong their play as losers. This does make one wonder about this whole RNG thing. If the games were unpredictable, and no playing style gave an advantage (outside of bonuses), the casino management would actually step up their efforts to get these high rollers to try for ever more wins by designing promotions to lure them into depositing some back. They would know that in the long term these players would suffer from the relentless house edge, and all they need do would be to ensure their promotions never presented +EV opportunities.

I don't think Virgin is alone, I suspect the majority of online casinos treat net winners this way, even if not in the terms and conditions. If these were playing style or bonus abuse issues, these players would have been locked out of promotions after their first couple of bonuses, not after a couple of years loyal play.

 

[paul02085]

I cant wait to hear what the rep has to say about this.

 

[chuchu59]

If they are really harassing players like that, their philosophy is totally different from the huge land casinos. They dont care who wins and actually welcome back winners with open arms because they should have a bigger bankroll thru their winnings. Furthermore, they tend to make larger bets because they 'feel' lucky. There is nothing worse than having less people patronise your casinos unless they are fraudsters.

Unless Virgin admits the e-mails were sent by an incompetent manager I honestly cannot see how this fiasco can be explained fully. They have sent e-mails en masse which was rude in content.

 

[bash_2357]

U Turn surely?

 

[GrandMaster]

The damage is done, and just like the back street (or even seaside) arcade, have shown that winners are not welcome to have the same advantages to prolong their play as losers. This does make one wonder about this whole RNG thing. If the games were unpredictable, and no playing style gave an advantage (outside of bonuses), the casino management would actually step up their efforts to get these high rollers to try for ever more wins by designing promotions to lure them into depositing some back. They would know that in the long term these players would suffer from the relentless house edge, and all they need do would be to ensure their promotions never presented +EV opportunities.

It has been demostrated a number of times that casino managers don't understand the mathematics of gambling. Nevertheless, I would not have expected Virgin to worry about a few thousand pounds.