So... I've gotten into quite a complicated situation with Staybet. I've spoken with one of their customer support reps, and PM'd their rep on here (who hasn't been on for over a month, and I highly doubt I'd get a different answer), so now I've decided to turn to the general public for advice on what to do next.
It started a couple of months ago when I deposited and claimed a bonus offer. I beat the wagering requirements, tried to cash out, but the withdrawal was rejected because my account wasn't verified. It wasn't an extraordinary win or anything, so I felt no need to go out of my way to verify my account, so the money stayed in my balance for quite some time. Skip forward to mid/late September, where I receive a new bonus offer from them. I decide to claim it, so I log in to my account, see that I have money in my balance (which I had honestly pretty much forgotten about), submit a withdrawal request along with some verification documents, then deposit €50 to claim the new bonus. All good so far.
I start playing with this new bonus, and I get quite lucky. My balance was around €2770-ish when wagering was finished, so I was naturally very happy with my session. I then make a second withdrawal for this newly-won amount, and leave it at that. After a bit of a back-and-forth regarding documents for verification, my account is verified, and they begin processing my payout(s). Shortly afterwards, I'm contacted by a customer support representative, who's saying that my funds have been confiscated, and the deposit I made to claim the second bonus has been returned to my account. Turns out I had made a bit of a blunder when reading through the bonus rules.
In the terms and conditions on their website, they have a set of bonus terms near the very bottom of the page. This includes all the information you'd expect; wagering requirements, country restrictions, etc. I was specifically set out to look for any rules regarding how much certain games contribute to the WR, and something to the tune of that I did find. This is from clause 4 of their bonus rules:
Now, I made two mistakes when I read this clause initially. #1 is that I didn't see the game "300 Shields" listed, which I was intending to play. But even if I had seen it: #2 is that the wording in this clause gave me the idea that playing these slots with bonus funds wasn't explicitly disallowed; the catch was just that these bets wouldn't count towards the wagering requirements. Clearly stating that "wagering is possible on these groups" when in reality wagering funds on the games in Group B is not actually allowed didn't exactly make things clear for me, either. Then there's the fact that a lot of these games seem to exclusively be on this list for no reason other than to trip up players (is there any legitimate reason why Thunderstruck is on here but Immortal Romance isn't, for example?), but that's just my opinion. The real kicker is a clause that can be found further down in the bonus terms, namely 12. b. x.:
That's... very different from the clause which simply says that these games don't contribute to the wagering requirements. When I look at a casino's bonus rules, I don't really think to look for two clauses regarding restricted/non-WR-contributing games. This could and should be clarified in the same clause. Some casinos are thankfully more lax when it comes to problems caused by this, choosing to maybe confiscate winnings earned from just the specific restricted slot, or add some more wagering requirements to the total winnings, as opposed to just confiscating everything. But this situation goes further than that. Let me explain.
The restricted game that I played on was 300 Shields. The customer support rep I spoke with insists that my winnings on this slot were significant (even though my starting balance was €150 and I think I exited the game with a balance of around €200), and that it was thanks to these winnings that I could build my balance to what it ended up being after the WR was met.
Naturally, in disputes like these, the original deposit is returned to the player. Which they've done in this case; there's currently €50 in my balance. But if you recall the start of this post, you'll remember that I deposited and wagered through a bonus a few months back as well. This was done fair and square, the money was fully withdrawable, but according to the support rep, these funds (nor the original deposit that I used to claim this first bonus) will be returned to me. I don't know if there's some form of miscommunication going on here, but if this is the actual decision, then that's objectively unfair.
So now I'm kind of at a point where talking to the support rep won't get me anywhere, their rep on here seems unlikely to respond, and I've used my one free shot at a PAB already (although it was for an accredited casino, but that still counts towards the one free shot rule I think). I'd really like to have some thoughts and opinions on what to do next, or if pursuing a solution to my situation here even seems like a sensible idea. Sorry if the whole story seems a bit long-winded, but I wanted to be sure to include all the details about the issue here. It's the first time I've had a large sum like this confiscated, so naturally the whole situation has me pretty frustrated.
tl;dr: Claimed a bonus months back, wagered through it, didn't fully withdraw it, did so recently to claim a new bonus, unintentionally broke a vaguely-worded rule while playing with the new bonus, all winnings from new bonus + old bonus were confiscated.
It started a couple of months ago when I deposited and claimed a bonus offer. I beat the wagering requirements, tried to cash out, but the withdrawal was rejected because my account wasn't verified. It wasn't an extraordinary win or anything, so I felt no need to go out of my way to verify my account, so the money stayed in my balance for quite some time. Skip forward to mid/late September, where I receive a new bonus offer from them. I decide to claim it, so I log in to my account, see that I have money in my balance (which I had honestly pretty much forgotten about), submit a withdrawal request along with some verification documents, then deposit €50 to claim the new bonus. All good so far.
I start playing with this new bonus, and I get quite lucky. My balance was around €2770-ish when wagering was finished, so I was naturally very happy with my session. I then make a second withdrawal for this newly-won amount, and leave it at that. After a bit of a back-and-forth regarding documents for verification, my account is verified, and they begin processing my payout(s). Shortly afterwards, I'm contacted by a customer support representative, who's saying that my funds have been confiscated, and the deposit I made to claim the second bonus has been returned to my account. Turns out I had made a bit of a blunder when reading through the bonus rules.
In the terms and conditions on their website, they have a set of bonus terms near the very bottom of the page. This includes all the information you'd expect; wagering requirements, country restrictions, etc. I was specifically set out to look for any rules regarding how much certain games contribute to the WR, and something to the tune of that I did find. This is from clause 4 of their bonus rules:
Now, I made two mistakes when I read this clause initially. #1 is that I didn't see the game "300 Shields" listed, which I was intending to play. But even if I had seen it: #2 is that the wording in this clause gave me the idea that playing these slots with bonus funds wasn't explicitly disallowed; the catch was just that these bets wouldn't count towards the wagering requirements. Clearly stating that "wagering is possible on these groups" when in reality wagering funds on the games in Group B is not actually allowed didn't exactly make things clear for me, either. Then there's the fact that a lot of these games seem to exclusively be on this list for no reason other than to trip up players (is there any legitimate reason why Thunderstruck is on here but Immortal Romance isn't, for example?), but that's just my opinion. The real kicker is a clause that can be found further down in the bonus terms, namely 12. b. x.:
That's... very different from the clause which simply says that these games don't contribute to the wagering requirements. When I look at a casino's bonus rules, I don't really think to look for two clauses regarding restricted/non-WR-contributing games. This could and should be clarified in the same clause. Some casinos are thankfully more lax when it comes to problems caused by this, choosing to maybe confiscate winnings earned from just the specific restricted slot, or add some more wagering requirements to the total winnings, as opposed to just confiscating everything. But this situation goes further than that. Let me explain.
The restricted game that I played on was 300 Shields. The customer support rep I spoke with insists that my winnings on this slot were significant (even though my starting balance was €150 and I think I exited the game with a balance of around €200), and that it was thanks to these winnings that I could build my balance to what it ended up being after the WR was met.
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. I screenshot pretty much any win worth capturing. I'd argue that my bets on 300 Shields hardly influenced the final outcome here. I should add that their wagering requirements are also quite ridiculous from the get-go, 60xB for casino bonuses (and remember, NetEnt/MG slots only contribute 70% towards WR!), so wagering through a bonus at this place is a pretty daunting task in itself, with the house edge being unusually large. If all this wasn't bad enough, I can't seem to access bet history or transaction history on Staybet either. There appears to be options to do this on their site, but said functionality appears to be broken. But oh boy, this situation isn't over yet.Naturally, in disputes like these, the original deposit is returned to the player. Which they've done in this case; there's currently €50 in my balance. But if you recall the start of this post, you'll remember that I deposited and wagered through a bonus a few months back as well. This was done fair and square, the money was fully withdrawable, but according to the support rep, these funds (nor the original deposit that I used to claim this first bonus) will be returned to me. I don't know if there's some form of miscommunication going on here, but if this is the actual decision, then that's objectively unfair.
So now I'm kind of at a point where talking to the support rep won't get me anywhere, their rep on here seems unlikely to respond, and I've used my one free shot at a PAB already (although it was for an accredited casino, but that still counts towards the one free shot rule I think). I'd really like to have some thoughts and opinions on what to do next, or if pursuing a solution to my situation here even seems like a sensible idea. Sorry if the whole story seems a bit long-winded, but I wanted to be sure to include all the details about the issue here. It's the first time I've had a large sum like this confiscated, so naturally the whole situation has me pretty frustrated.
tl;dr: Claimed a bonus months back, wagered through it, didn't fully withdraw it, did so recently to claim a new bonus, unintentionally broke a vaguely-worded rule while playing with the new bonus, all winnings from new bonus + old bonus were confiscated.
