Beware the Gibraltar Regulatory body and companies licensed by the GRA folks! Don’t worry, I’m not a rigtard or anything.
I was playing at Jackpotjoy and realised I had no idea what the fee structure was for Bingo on there (I was just clearing a bonus and Bingo was the quickest way). I decided to ask the in-game host and she directed me to a big Ts and Cs page. Unfortunately, this page had no info about fees on it (wasted 30 minutes reading it all).
I shrugged it off and went into Live Support to ask them:
Kate E: Unfortunately we do not have this information within support. Last time I look into it I can remember being a small percentake of each game pool.
Ok, still no answer. But this is just a support rep, so maybe she just didn’t know? Either way, between the in-game support rep, the Live Support host and a search of their website and Google I really should have been able to find it.
I work in the gambling industry, so I would expect any other company to do as we do in poker and provide any information like this on request. Since I couldn’t find the information it seemed like the best thing to do was to get on to the licensing body to ask them how the fees work and why Jackpotjoy don’t seem to have to provide this info on request.
This is where sh1t gets really shady!
Dear xxx
Thank you for your email below.
Online bingo does not work on the same basis as either online poker or land based bingo in terms of prize calculation. The prizes, generally, are guaranteed irrespective of the number of players. [NOT TRUE, the prize pool started at £0 in every game and ticked up as players bought tickets!]
I can also advise you that Alderney bingo providers (e.g. Virtue Fusion and Gala etc) work on exactly the same basis.
As an industry 'professional' you should be aware that poker and bingo are structured in very different ways, as are online and offline bingo, and 'rake' is not a term associated with bingo anywhere in the world.
Yours Sincerely
Paul Fox
Wowzer! Not the response I was expecting. Why is everyone refusing to tell me how much the fees are and how they work? This is starting to get very suspicious! I don’t need to be patronised and told “they’re complicated”, nor do I need someone to put ‘professional’ into inverted commas – this has nothing to do with whether I work in the same industry or not. I can see the prize pool tick up as more people buy tickets, so surely fees of some kind are taken from the prize pool? Why won’t anyone reveal how they work and how much is taken? Surely this can’t be legal?
Ok, so now I decide to send an irate email to Paul’s boss (Phill Brear) telling him I don’t think they should be patronising or ignoring a legitimate question from an upset customer, no matter how petulant or frustrated the tone of his email might be.
I then get a very long email back from Phill Brear that goes into great detail about why Alderney are no better than the GRA and explains why Paul put ‘professional’ in inverted commas. He comments about my childish over-use of exclamation marks and he then repeats Paul’s sentiment that it is “very different to poker, more complicated and they don’t call it rake”?!? I won’t paste the whole email in because it’s prohibitively long.
In all this defensiveness and misdirection I still haven’t received any kind of response about what the rake charges are (I now have 8 emails from the GRA in totaland none of them answer my simple question) and how I might find out how they work on Jackpotjoy Bingo. I also think I know why they don’t want me to know. From a sketchy guesstimation it looks like between 30-80% of the prize pool ends up with the operator in each 5 minute game (150 runners spending between £1 and £9 per game and a total prize pool of little over £200). I think most people buy ‘Max tickets’ so it’s probably closer to 50%+, but there’s no way for me to find out apparently!
Anyway, I still don’t have any kind of answer despite having 5 emails from Phill Brear that provide no answers, just veiled insults. However, I gamble and I work in gambling, so I also feel very strongly that bad practices like this give the whole industry a bad reputation and we should be speaking out to stop it wherever we find it.
So this is me, a very frustrated customer, doing my bit to let people know that they should steer clear of Bingo in general, Jackpotjoy and GRA licensed operators in particular if openness, clarity and fairness are important to you.
If you don’t believe me then just have a go at finding out fees charged for Jackpotjoy Bingo yourself!
Play safe and stick to responsible operators who provide information on request folks. Voting with your feet is the best way to send a message and letting others know is the best way to ensure people work hard to maintain good reputations and working practices.
I will be sending a petition to the Cheif Minister in Gibraltar, asking for all Bingo games to have clear fees, prize pools and numbers of tickets bought displayed on the playing screen and broken down and explained fully on all operator sites, but it would be good to hear people's reactions and to get some idea if I could count on people's support and some signatures from casinomeister.
Thanks for reading!
I was playing at Jackpotjoy and realised I had no idea what the fee structure was for Bingo on there (I was just clearing a bonus and Bingo was the quickest way). I decided to ask the in-game host and she directed me to a big Ts and Cs page. Unfortunately, this page had no info about fees on it (wasted 30 minutes reading it all).
I shrugged it off and went into Live Support to ask them:
Kate E: Unfortunately we do not have this information within support. Last time I look into it I can remember being a small percentake of each game pool.
Ok, still no answer. But this is just a support rep, so maybe she just didn’t know? Either way, between the in-game support rep, the Live Support host and a search of their website and Google I really should have been able to find it.
I work in the gambling industry, so I would expect any other company to do as we do in poker and provide any information like this on request. Since I couldn’t find the information it seemed like the best thing to do was to get on to the licensing body to ask them how the fees work and why Jackpotjoy don’t seem to have to provide this info on request.
This is where sh1t gets really shady!
Dear xxx
Thank you for your email below.
Online bingo does not work on the same basis as either online poker or land based bingo in terms of prize calculation. The prizes, generally, are guaranteed irrespective of the number of players. [NOT TRUE, the prize pool started at £0 in every game and ticked up as players bought tickets!]
I can also advise you that Alderney bingo providers (e.g. Virtue Fusion and Gala etc) work on exactly the same basis.
As an industry 'professional' you should be aware that poker and bingo are structured in very different ways, as are online and offline bingo, and 'rake' is not a term associated with bingo anywhere in the world.
Yours Sincerely
Paul Fox
Wowzer! Not the response I was expecting. Why is everyone refusing to tell me how much the fees are and how they work? This is starting to get very suspicious! I don’t need to be patronised and told “they’re complicated”, nor do I need someone to put ‘professional’ into inverted commas – this has nothing to do with whether I work in the same industry or not. I can see the prize pool tick up as more people buy tickets, so surely fees of some kind are taken from the prize pool? Why won’t anyone reveal how they work and how much is taken? Surely this can’t be legal?
Ok, so now I decide to send an irate email to Paul’s boss (Phill Brear) telling him I don’t think they should be patronising or ignoring a legitimate question from an upset customer, no matter how petulant or frustrated the tone of his email might be.
I then get a very long email back from Phill Brear that goes into great detail about why Alderney are no better than the GRA and explains why Paul put ‘professional’ in inverted commas. He comments about my childish over-use of exclamation marks and he then repeats Paul’s sentiment that it is “very different to poker, more complicated and they don’t call it rake”?!? I won’t paste the whole email in because it’s prohibitively long.
In all this defensiveness and misdirection I still haven’t received any kind of response about what the rake charges are (I now have 8 emails from the GRA in totaland none of them answer my simple question) and how I might find out how they work on Jackpotjoy Bingo. I also think I know why they don’t want me to know. From a sketchy guesstimation it looks like between 30-80% of the prize pool ends up with the operator in each 5 minute game (150 runners spending between £1 and £9 per game and a total prize pool of little over £200). I think most people buy ‘Max tickets’ so it’s probably closer to 50%+, but there’s no way for me to find out apparently!
Anyway, I still don’t have any kind of answer despite having 5 emails from Phill Brear that provide no answers, just veiled insults. However, I gamble and I work in gambling, so I also feel very strongly that bad practices like this give the whole industry a bad reputation and we should be speaking out to stop it wherever we find it.
So this is me, a very frustrated customer, doing my bit to let people know that they should steer clear of Bingo in general, Jackpotjoy and GRA licensed operators in particular if openness, clarity and fairness are important to you.
If you don’t believe me then just have a go at finding out fees charged for Jackpotjoy Bingo yourself!
Play safe and stick to responsible operators who provide information on request folks. Voting with your feet is the best way to send a message and letting others know is the best way to ensure people work hard to maintain good reputations and working practices.
I will be sending a petition to the Cheif Minister in Gibraltar, asking for all Bingo games to have clear fees, prize pools and numbers of tickets bought displayed on the playing screen and broken down and explained fully on all operator sites, but it would be good to hear people's reactions and to get some idea if I could count on people's support and some signatures from casinomeister.
Thanks for reading!