Poll The Great PAB re-do of 2023

[maxd]

Ok, so! As many of you will know Casinomeister has been offering the Player Arbitration (PAB) service to all forum members in good standing for over 20 years now and the backbone of that has always been 100% privacy. Back in the day, and well up to the time I took over managing the service in 2007, privacy was pretty much expected by everyone involved in complaints so we didn't really make a big deal of it, aside from our policy of NOT sharing casino info. That was always something we felt was necessary in order to get the casino people to be straight with us regarding their actions against players.

Well, it's not the 00's anymore, it's not even the teen years, it's 2023 and things have changed a little. Social media is the norm now and we've become pretty old-school in the way we handle PABs, the "all private, no publicly-facing complaints" thing has become the oddball way of doing things. I hear that from players and casino people all the time. I sometimes feel like a guy trying to sell deck chairs on the Titanic, privacy is a hard sell these days.

So now we -- meaning "me" 'cause I have to admit that not all of my work mates here at Casinomeister are on board with this -- are looking at doing a bit update to the way we do things. I get that people want to see other people's complaints. Some want it to help keep them up to date on how a casino is behaving, what pitfalls to watch out for, and suchlike. Others say they'd use it to research a casino's history. And some tell me they just enjoy the voyeristic side of it. I figured it was high time to see what you guys think.

• What changes do you think are called for in the current PAB system?
• What pisses you off about the PABs as they currently work?
• What should we do to make PABs work better for you?
• Why would you take your complaint somewhere else instead of having us do it here through the PAB system?

I'll stick a few questions in the poll to make some of this easier but comments below are very much welcome and appreciated. I can't promise we'll do everything everyone suggests but we'll certainly take it all to heart when we are deciding what changes can and/or should be made.

I should mention that we've already talked to a small group of trusted industry people about this and their input has strongly guided the way we're looking at shaping the future of the PABs. Many, MANY, thanks guys. Your input has been invaluable.

 

[Webzcas]

I have voted for opening up the process somewhat. Obviously there will be certain information that will and does need to remain private. However, I feel by having 'real time' updates, this could be of benefit to everyone and certainly will be of interest I am sure to players, operators and forum participants.

 

[maxd]

Hey all, so far "A record of past complaints open to the public would be a useful resource" is the most popular item in the Poll.

Are people thinking this would be:

1. the full threads of the past cases? In other words the whole discussion on each case through to the conclusion.
2. Or is it a one-page summary of the year's cases that people have in mind, like we used to do?: 2015 Complaints Summary

 

[Guntis]

An open discussion with the conclusion likely would be the most interesting for the readers.

 

[maxd]

Hmm, obviously it's early days but it seems that people might be thinking that seeing complaints in real time is less important than having access to past complaints. In other words a case would become publicly readable AFTER the conclusion was reached. That's a very interesting discovery, if I'm reading that right.

Thoughts anyone? Real time vs historical?

 

[L&L-Jan]

I've voted for the last 3 options, unfortunately not each case is the same.

What about no pay out due to doctered documents, that should remain private imo.

However transparancy and an open process might help other players, preventing from not making the same mistake (on purpose or not on purpose).

 

[jasonuk]

I agree with opening up the process somewhat - although I would be thinking along the lines of summary updates and outcomes (which sounds like more work, sorry!)

Having participated in a number of recent (pre-PAB) discussions where it felt like the author was trying to strongarm the casino with "bad publicity", I'd be wary of it being completely open (respecting privacy of course) and with real-time visibility.

Similarly if the process is too open it gives clues to bad actors on how to exploit the process.

The PAB process is an important part of this community - but it is important that it remains sustainable for the three parties involved.

<edit>
Having another look through Online Casino Complaints Summary 2023 , which I appreciate ticks some of the boxes I've mentioned above, I think better surfacing the status / conclusion would also help:

For example, the report currently has Resolved (positive for the player), Closed (various) and Cancelled - but then "player did not respond" or "already taken [to] ADR" are reasons for the PAB to be cancelled (but often listed as closed); and similarly there's a world of difference between player innocently broke a rule vs premeditated player fraud vs talk to the hand casinos - and having that "at a glance" visibility would be useful.
</edit>

 

[Eliot85]

Nr 2… Then we players also can se how casinos respons to Pab..i mean if we se a casino dont respond to a couple of PAB then we now maybe it is not the best site to play on.

 

[maxd]

... Having another look through Online Casino Complaints Summary 2023 , which I appreciate ticks some of the boxes I've mentioned above, I think better surfacing the status / conclusion would also help:

For example, the report currently has Resolved (positive for the player), Closed (various) and Cancelled - but then "player did not respond" or "already taken [to] ADR" are reasons for the PAB to be cancelled (but often listed as closed); and similarly there's a world of difference between player innocently broke a rule vs premeditated player fraud vs talk to the hand casinos - and having that "at a glance" visibility would be useful.

This is a very good point. In fact our internal case records show exactly the type of thing you've mentioned: Closed (Fraudster), Closed (OP AWOL), Closed (Talk To The Hand) and so forth. We could definitely look at bringing that stuff into the public record. Good news there is our Tech guys tell us it's already there to be used, we just need to decide where and in what form and it should be relatively straightforward.

 

[maxd]

... What about no pay out due to doctered documents, that should remain private imo. ...

@L&L-Jan , are you thinking that the "doctored documents" bit should remain private, or the whole complaint?

I ask because we never reveal that a case was dismissed for faked docs, that's private stuff between us and the casino and -- I would think -- it would stay that way. All we say in such cases is "player fraud" and remain adamantly non-specific about it. We do this, of course, out of respect to the casino and their Risk evaluation procedures that must (obviously) remain confidential.

In the new (still imaginary) system should a case go down that path all that would appear in the case thread -- the publicly visible stuff -- would be something like "case dismissed based on evidence of fraud provided to us by the casino", end of. If the evidence is conclusive then the player's account here at Casinomeister usually gets closed without further discussion.

 

[chayton]

I voted for 2 (I like reading past stuff, it's entertaining and sometimes hilarious! - plus it's good to see maybe which casinos might be problematic to play at),
3 (because the same as the last one, may be helpful to have a "search by casino" feature?) and
5 (In some cases I think that because of security issues etc, you don't want to have everything be public knowledge. Perhaps there could also be an option for players - maybe only those who have a successful PAB - to be able to opt out of sharing any info except the basics. Because some people may not want people to know if they won or if they did something stupid or whatever.)

I didn't choose 4 because I can see it turning into a big CF. The more people you have telling "their side" of any story, the messier it gets.