SOW..

Isn't that the country where you can play slots in almost all the supermarkets, petrol stations etc.. and use your card to it? Can they really make a difference if it's debit or credit card or as many cards are, both where you just have your limits depends between your card provider and you? Finland really when read articles about gambling monopoly are really happy to add slot machines everywhere and let you use your card (as said before, not sure how well they can make difference if it's credit or debit one you use and if combined, how they know when you go to credit?).

Only the debit part of a card with debit/credit combination is allowed to be used for gambling. Also the membership in their loyalty program can only be registered using a debit (part of the) card.

It's nonsense if you ask me. When the player can just as easily transfer funds from credit to debit and therefore use these funds to gamble anyway.

The Finnish monopoly uses mandatory deposit, play and loss limits and in the near future it will be mandatory for the player to verify their indentity before playing (either with their loyalty card or a debit card). Even with those supermarket slot machines.

And their slot payouts are horrible. No wonder they are raking in over a billion EUR every year. Their purpose is to make profit, so their games are available everywhere. There are lines of (especially) old people in every supermarket waiting to feed their pensions into these machines.

The Finnish monopoly system is a form of legalised robbery by the state and they justify it by distributing their profits to common good. It's like a twisted form of secular penance by the state. It should be abolished imo.
 
My personal opinion...

I think the whole things smells of corruption. We are at the mercy of those who when they see fit (most likely when you have been fortunate enough to win a sizeable sum) will do everything they can to withhold, stall, forfeit your winnings.

Note how it only happens on withdrawals.

Online casinos are always happy to take your money by whatever means of payment, no questions asked, on the condition that you keep losing, never withdraw and smile while you are doing so. Remember, when the fun stops, stop. Don't ever stop having fun whilst losing your wages, your Wife, your home, your dignity, your very sanity, or you will be pulled aside and made to feel guilty and banned for being a problem gambler....reverse phycology.

Please remember casinos state it's a form of entertainment. When you see your life savings dwindle away in front of your very eyes just keep saying to yourself 'it's only entertainment' if you say it lots of times you will begin to believe it.....

You see, most, if not all gamblers are problem gamblers. They have all at some point spent too much, chased losses, borrowed money etc. They are probably struggling financially and dreaming of a big win to change their circumstances. Casinos know this and use great advertising and subliminal messages to get you to depart with your cash

Gambling is addictive by nature...fact.... Casinos know this and entice you with free spins much like giving an alcoholic a free drink. They are happy to give you a percentage back when you are losing or a bonus with ridiculous wagering terms because they know that the longer they keep you playing the more you will want to play and become addicted.

Don't be fooled with all the rep talk. Open your eyes and smell the coffee. It's a losers game. A no win situation.
The only winner is the casino. They know this also. All these rules and regulations would make any sane person run a mile.
The intrusiveness is shocking.

Rant over..... if you think what I have said is nonsense then that's fine....you are entitled to your view.

Happy days everyone.
 
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Seriously.

You will have very few players that are not in debt or have loans of some sort.

Also how can you stereotype against people on welfare . Some people on benefits especially enhanced ones for different reasons have more disposable income than your average paid worker.

I would seriously love to see you withholding winnings from a player for the reasons above. Any court would rule against you. Think it is really time you reread the guidelines from UKGC and actually followed the correct procedures.

This is from the casino that seemed to lose all players details when they transferred platform. The same one that needed another deposit from verified deposit method as they no longer had it and the same casino that has asked players to reverify accounts several times for no reason.

Its true.

My dads cousin is on disability because of his heart. He gets approx $1200 a month and is in housing which he pays approx $300 a month for rent, $50 phone bill $200 in groceries. Hydro and water are covered in the rent. He basically has $500+ in disposable income. There arent many families around who make 50k+ a year who have that much.

Same with welfare. They get what $700 a month plus $500 a kid in child tax credits. Housing costs $300 a month. They have about $500+ in disposable income after everything.

Yet casinos and others look at these people like they cant afford a thing.

SOW is ridiculous. You get $100 as a bday gift, go buy a prepaid because you want to have some fun. The casinos says no you cant afford it. LOL. You know things are getting bad when casinos/commissions are acting like the moral police.

Its like going to see a movie with 5 people and they refusing you because they know its about $200 to see that movie and you shouldnt be using it on that because they made the decision you cant afford it

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:
 
Shall we do some odds for if the Guts rep comes back after that comment

1/20 Don't see them in the thread again
1/2 Claim they didn't mean it like they wrote it (however clear it was)
5/1 Claim the UKGC force all casinos to do it (like some casinos say they are told to use thresholds)
10/1 Claim their account was hacked because of a third party mailing list provider they have never used
25/1 Claim Aliens took over the GIG office for a day
100/1 Claim a new rep has taken over the account and they have no idea why the previous one wrote what they did, as GIG would never profile customers in this way
150/1 as the 100/1 but the following day someone open a PAB because GIG withheld their winnings as they are on benefits.
 
Isn't that after all simply to know players financial situation when decided it's needed (based on several risk factors)? No comment how much it is casinos business but seems they want to be in safe side and some have chosen to take it to really extreme level why we have these topics...

But at least that should be ok that if you take deposit which trigger you to request SOW, you will pay out winnings, if there are no valid reason to think you are laundering money. If trigger is that withdrawal, same thing, if they suspect somebody laundering money you should have quite strong ground for that but if it's just some threshold decided, pay that money and prevent further deposit.

If they think you might play too much and are worried about that, same could apply, if they already took your money, how in earth if they are worried and want to take care of vulnerable players not to play too much it help that you take deposit and don't want to pay to that possible problem gambler his winnings that he could pay that rent what he used for playing and trigger SOW to prevent further deposit before it satisfies them or you have agreed to add limit what they think is suitable for your incomes.

These two reasons i have heard SOW is used and my very limited common sense says as above, suspects of money laundering or terrorist financing could be only reason not to pay out withdrawal before SOW is completed. As this is now really new thing anymore (been around over year), maybe there would be place for sull review of process for some operators if not all as this was really just thrown to them and all tried to figure out something to get process in place asap to be compliant and results we can see.....
 
Sorry for coming back a bit late, Aliens took over the office yesterday for a day.

The information provided earlier is correct. SOW is related to both AML and RG. AML because of the obligations brought in by the 4th AML directive and RG because we need to check on our players' affordability - Something the customers need to understand is that for 10 people we "bother" with these requests, there are thousands who did not reach any threshold and who are not being asked anything apart from basic KYC. We only ask these things when we believe that they are required. It is easy for customers to feel "targeted" but we are simply fulfilling our legal obligations.

The UKGC has good guidelines at this link:
You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.


Also, we have the right to ask for any type of documentation at any time if we believe that it is needed in order for the relationship with the customer to keep on going. This is part of the regulation and also part of our T&Cs. This can be found in the T&Cs of all main online operators.

That being said, we are aware that the process is not perfect and that it may create frustration on occasion and we are not against discussion and trying to iron things out where needed. This is also still quite a new process for us as well and we are still in a learning phase. This is still a work in progress and we are expecting for some severe improvements in the future.
 
Sorry for coming back a bit late, Aliens took over the office yesterday for a day.

The information provided earlier is correct. SOW is related to both AML and RG. AML because of the obligations brought in by the 4th AML directive and RG because we need to check on our players' affordability - Something the customers need to understand is that for 10 people we "bother" with these requests, there are thousands who did not reach any threshold and who are not being asked anything apart from basic KYC. We only ask these things when we believe that they are required. It is easy for customers to feel "targeted" but we are simply fulfilling our legal obligations.

The UKGC has good guidelines at this link:
You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.


Also, we have the right to ask for any type of documentation at any time if we believe that it is needed in order for the relationship with the customer to keep on going. This is part of the regulation and also part of our T&Cs. This can be found in the T&Cs of all main online operators.

That being said, we are aware that the process is not perfect and that it may create frustration on occasion and we are not against discussion and trying to iron things out where needed. This is also still quite a new process for us as well and we are still in a learning phase. This is still a work in progress and we are expecting for some severe improvements in the future.

Thanks for replying
However, nothing on the link you gave gives any thresholds, nor does it mention them, apart from the one for CDD, can you point me to anywhere that states you should be using thresholds to establish risk for AML purposes? The link I posted suggests the opposite.

What about the other statements you made? To make sure players aren't in debt, aren't on benefits etc? I will pretty much guarantee there is nothing issued by the UKGC stating you should stop people playing in those circumstances. Presumably you have blocked all credit card deposits now? As a deposit from a credit card is both borrowing money and debt?
You really should put something in your terms and conditions stating that if you are on any kind of benefits, or say, have a mortgage, you cannot play at Guts. Is that GIG policy or just something Guts have decided on? Is that a sanction or something the UKGC have gave you as it certainly does not apply to other casinos?

Just to remind you what you said

The Source of Wealth is mostly asked for UK players, in order to make sure there are players who're not playing if they're loaning funds, in debt, unemployed with no income, low salary, or on welfare.

This is something the UKGC has ruled which we need to follow in order to be able to operate in the United Kingdom.
 
"The UKGC has good guidelines at this link: Outdated URL

Also, we have the right to ask for any type of documentation at any time if we believe that it is needed in order for the relationship with the customer to keep on going."

There is where we focus the problem (not a simple "not perfect"). You don't have the right or at least you shouldn't have the right to do anything you believe.
Especially not without any reasonable risk factors and definitely not at the withdrawal stage.

It is unreasonable to give thousands of casinos the right to do anything they want, simply because of a $20 deposit per week.
This is happening now ($20 per week will hit an x deposit limit at some point).
 
Sorry for coming back a bit late, Aliens took over the office yesterday for a day.

We only ask these things when we believe that they are required. It is easy for customers to feel "targeted" but we are simply fulfilling our legal obligations.

Just to be curious and as OP brought this public, in this case when you gave the player no deposit free spins and the player was lucky enough to get some winnings to withdraw, did you believe that he/she is laundering money or that he/she have gambling problem?

- AML is quite hard if you are giving him spins to get money, or then there is something really hard to understand behind of this logic and would be nice to understand it.
- RG if you think player have problems with gambling, is it bit unethical to encourage player to come to your site and play?

In first post by you were mentioned that all who reach 2000€ threshold lifetime, you are obligated to request SOW, you've been in business quite a long time, so it's hard to believe that only one percent (you mentioned 10 to be asked and thousands not so even less than percent) are reaching lifetime threshold of 2000€ which you do if you deposit 50€ monthly 3 years and 4 months (assume that active players make more withdrawals and deposits which is making lifetime total threshold way faster to reach that limit even player haven't lost to you much in 3 years but been lucky and won time to time, withdraw and deposit again).

As you said, it's very true that you have right to ask documents from anybody at any point when you think that it's needed, but this OP:s case and what you mentioned of 2000€ lifetime threshold are not really make sense, are they?


edit: Ps. in link you posted, 2000€ threshold really suggest more that you need collect KYC and below that when you need to complete ecnhanced due diligence checks.
 
Yeah, I deposited at VS almost every week last year, by debit card, and was forced to withdraw to Neteller every time I made a withdrawal request.
Because I'd made most of my deposits, the previous year via Neteller
Actually, I've just realised something...

My bank often issues new debit cards. I've used at least 3 different ones at VS, last year alone.
All the cards are attached to the same, one bank account. BUT the last 3 digits of the long number changes each time.
AFAIK most cards don't change the long number when reissued, they only change the dates and CVS number

I've probably had 10+ different cards during the time I've been playing at VS. But only one Neteller account.

So, if VS's accounting system is balancing deposits from Neteller against each separate card (based on the full 16 digit card number), rather than the one Visa account (based on the first 13 digits 'identification' number).
Then the way my bank issues replacement cards so frequently, each card might never balance out the Neteller deposits, and I'll have to withdraw to Neteller forever.

Maybe @Team.Videoslots can comment on how their system works. And also check that they're compliant under these circumstances
 
I was asked by Betat to send SOW documents, which I refused, and told them to close my account, which they haven't done.

Apparenty this was for responsible gaming reasons. So, why is my account still open, and why are they constantly sending me 100% deposit bonus offers?

It doesn't seem very responsible to me

ha!
they asked me for SOW and i refused and asked them to close my account which they promptly did...might have to do with the winning streak i was on for 7 days straight.
 
Hi Colin,

I don’t have any links I can share but I’ll see what I can find when back in the office.

With regards to SOF & SOW it’s not quite the same and they will usually be required at different times.

SOF - source of funds, proof of where the cash came from e.g. making sure the deposit method belongs to you.

SOW - making sure you earned the funds deposited legitimately.

As I said above policies vary in different businesses and with no strict guidance it can often vary depending on other influences such as RG. It’s a challenge for sure but ultimately it’s in place to help prevent fraud and protect players.

Mark

Did you manage to find any links that you could share please Mark?
 

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