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.... as I was saying earlier, and kept getting shot down with "players must read the term and conditions.......",
Online gambling firms may be breaking the law by making it very difficult for players to collect their winnings, the competition regulator has said.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said gambling "shouldn't be a con" and is launching an inquiry into whether customers are treated fairly.
Online gambling has grown dramatically, and 5.5 million Britons now regularly log on to betting sites.
The industry said it would co-operate fully with the CMA's investigation.
'Unfair conditions'
The competition watchdog said many people found it hard to win the money they are expecting.
"Gambling inevitably involves taking a risk, but it shouldn't be a con," said Nisha Arora, the CMA's senior director for consumer enforcement.
"We've heard worrying complaints suggesting people may be lured into signing up for promotions with little chance of winning because of unfair and complex conditions."
Sarah Harrison, the chief executive of the Gambling Commission, which will work alongside the CMA on the inquiry, said: "Gambling, by its very nature, is always going to involve risk, but customers must have faith that if they win, they will not end up feeling that the deck is stacked against them because of an obscure condition that they did not properly understand."
The investigation could result in enforcement action against individual gaming sites, or prosecution in the courts.
fruit machine + gambling chipsImage copyrightTHINKSTOCK
Hard to challenge
Online gambling firms typically advertise welcome bonuses of up to several thousand pounds, or supposedly free bets.
But the small print may disqualify certain games, or require customers to spend large amounts of money before they qualify.
The CMA is also concerned that:
Consumers can find it difficult to withdraw their deposit when they want to stop playing
It is difficult to challenge any decisions made by the betting site
Complaints sometimes have to be made within 7 days
Betting sites can alter the odds without the knowledge of gamers
However, the Remote Gambling Association - which represents the industry - said there was no reason to believe there were widespread failings amongst its members.
It said it would be wrong to pre-judge the outcome of the CMA's inquiry.
I 'won' £35,000
dice and phoneImage copyrightTHINKSTOCK
Chris Sattin from Gloucester was playing roulette on a website called Maria Casino and won £35,000, but he wasn't allowed to withdraw his winnings.
He told Radio 4's You and Yours: "I was shaking, my adrenaline was pumping. I pressed on the iPhone to withdraw, but nothing was happening. Because I'd never won these sums of money before, I thought maybe it's only happening because it's a large sum of money and I need to contact customer services."
Maria Casino told Chris he had an account with its sister company Unibet, and he had used a self-exclusion feature on the site - something introduced by the Gambling Commission to help problem gamblers.
Chris told the company he had self-excluded only to close his account. But Maria Casino said this breached the company's terms and conditions.
You and Yours contacted Maria Casino about Chris's case and they decided to pay him the £35,000 winnings.
I have no real issue with any casino putting as many restrictions onto bonuses as they like, but make them...
A) Readable
B) Logical
C) All on one page of the casino website, not tucked away neatly and across 3 pages
It's good to see them going after stuff like this though, the next thing they want to look at is the likes of those Playtech progressives being held onto by companies depsite the money being funded centrally. That is still disgustingly allowed at some places.
All this 48 hour pending crap has to stop.
One point they should look at is that whatever the terms, they take the bet and resolve it, crediting the players' account so that they carry on betting without having been notified of the breach. They should decide whether to deem acceptance of an invalid bet an agreed variation of the terms, and that once accepted and resolved, the bet becomes legally binding even if the policy of the operator is to not accept such bets. This is how things work in other areas. One example is where a store gets it's pricing wrong, and their cashier still accepts the lower payment for the item and the customer leaves the store. Even though it's not the correct price, once the transaction is completed the store cannot recall it by demanding the customer return the item for a refund and repurchase at the correct price.
In a land setting, a contract is formed when both parties accept the bet, and there is no option for either party to legitimately and unilaterally change their mind after the bet as been resolved (except in cases of fraud). Online casinos operate differently, they can reverse a bet days, even weeks later, simply by taking the money back from the players' account.
If this interpretation is accepted, it will force online operators to use software enforcement of any variations of the built in default limits due to specific terms and conditions.
We would like to hear from you if you have experience of these issues. Please contact us at Gambling [AT] cma .gsi.gov. uk and state clearly in the subject line of your email whether the information relates to sign-up promotions, altered odds or cancelled bets, or terms that restrict the ability to claim.
The bottom line here is the huge discrepancy between the abilities, will and capabilities of the UKGC and the reality of the industry.
You don't have to be a bloody lawyer to understand the basic tenets of consumers laws and statutory rights of customers in the UK - after all the 'barrack room lawyers' primarily myself and Vinyl have called this right and predicted it for a while now.
I understand there will be a learning curve when a relatively new QUANGO like the UKGC is created to oversee a big industry like this one, but they have fallen well short of the mark because they could have prevented most of the issues today with a few tiny amendments to their terms, and clarifying others.
If the press and MP's etc. are getting involved, it simply exposes the UKGC's lack of capability and fitness for purpose. Despite being aware of the EMSEB and other issues they can't even add a line making licensees be honest with their sign-ups. This suggests they are entirely incompetent or simply that they are more interested in the casinos' opinions and revenues rather than the consumer.
As I said before I have a detailed complaint with the UKGC at the moment so this couldn't have come at a better time for it. EMSEB is part of it, along with terms which allowed (or weren't specific enough to prevent) actions like those of 32red back at Easter (TAB/SE). I have also suggested that for RG reasons all withdrawals are final irrespective of processing times and if not it is prohibited to offer incentives/bonuses to reverse.
Can I assume that Max/Bryan's enquiries into the EMSEB CCJ have yet to be answered?
It looks like the UKGC are the ones to start this by referring a bunch of issues to the CMA. This may be an indication that the UKGC were out of their depth, and knew it, but didn't want this to become public knowledge. This might be why it looks like they have spent the best part of a year dithering and sitting on their arses whilst things like EMSEB made a mockery of fairness to the consumer and the RG it was supposed to be policing.
The UKGC will also have had information passed to them by the various ADRs, which would have shown them how the regulations were working in practice. They may even have been given details of court cases between players and operators, and the outcomes.
If anyone wants to make their opinions known, this page has all the information and a contact email address:
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Personally, I think it's a good opportunity to spell out just how much promotions now trap players.