Virtual Casino's innovative marketing technique

Casinomeister

Forum Cheermeister
Staff member
Joined
Jun 30, 1998
Location
Bierland
In case you missed this week's newsletter, Virtual Casino has implemented a new innovative marketing strategy - dissin' the competition. This was forwarded to me today from a VC player:

From : Danny <danny@casinosupportcenter.com>>
Sent : Tuesday, July 20, 2004 1:28 AM
To : <"Undisclosed-Recipient:, "@sendmail.thevirtualsupport.com>
Subject : new danny letter of the day


There Are Good Ideas
There Are Great Ideas
Then There Are Ideas That Meet A Better Higher Standard
And Those Are The Only Ideas That Matter

That Is Reality
And That Reality Is Virtual Meeting A Better Higher Standard

Have something to say about the casino or myself send it for me to post here

Letter of the Day

Danny I'm sending you a copy of a complaint I have with xxxxxxxxcasino.
You might be able to direct me to someone who can help or maybe you can. I
should have listened to you and stayed away from this casino. I had an
account with this casino for about 8 months. About 3 weeks ago I won $400.
My brother wanted to join so he opened an account at his house. The next
day he played at my house under his account. After a couple of days at his
house he won $600. Then this casino froze both of our
accounts saying we have multiple accounts. I discussed this matter with
xxxxx at accounting he said you need to prove that he is a different
person with a different ip address id and etc. so he did. He sent lots of
identification. They released both of our accounts. I still was waiting
for my withdrawal so was my brother. A few days later they closed both of
our accounts again. They insisted that we have multiple accounts because
he played on my computer. Basically the conversation went nowhere. He just
kept on saying that we have multiple accounts and that we both will not
get paid. There system detected it even though we proved who we both are
and opened separate accounts. We proved who we are but they proved
nothing... they keep saying our system detected multiple accounts and we
will not get paid. They offer no help and wished me good luck when I said
I will complain to someone. I hope you can help or direct me to someone
that can. I played at havana, casino delrio, casino lasvegas, and the
virtual casino. All have paid me with no problem, with a good support
staff. What do I do? I sent this letter to interactive gaming council. I
never heard of them. Ok Danny now my brother is thinking of joining your
casino because he has seen how helpful you are. If he opened an account at
his house can he then play on my computer with his account? Thanks Kevin.
Account namexxxx

Danny comments: Kevin Kevin Kevin. Why didnt you listen? We know you
guys play other casinos, that's fine, but please be careful of who you
choose. There are a lot of fly by nights out there. You are the 4th
player I have to have played there and not got paid. Go to
Link Removed ( Old/Invalid) and file a complaint.
They are very helpful One of my players got paid 36 hrs later after filing and she
waited for a long time before that. Good Luck


I've removed the player's account number which the casino had left in the email. Brilliant!

I think most of us know which casino VC is referring to. :what: This is almost verbatim word for word from the complaint posted here - and which was submitted via "Pitch a Bitch". Apparently the player simply explained his problem to the casino, asking for advice (and asking if this is acceptable at VC). What a clever thing on the casino's part to use this against the competition. :notworthy

Good going VC! :thumbsup: Me thinks you've broken your probation.
 
Well they've crossed the line from marketing to politics with that little bit of mudslinging. I wonder if the casino that was mentioned in their email would have a libel case against them for doing this. I bet their lawyers would like a copy of this Bryan. Setup a rogue casino deathmatch!
 
I have played at Virtual before with no bonus and had no problem cashing out over $4000.00. I had not played there in a while because I thought they were listed as a bad ccasino but I looked in the "Rogue" and "Not Recommended" section and could not see them listed. Were they ever listed? or are they listed and I just can't see it? Let me know because I will play again if all is well with them.
 
Black21Jack said:
I have played at Virtual before with no bonus and had no problem cashing out over $4000.00. I had not played there in a while because I thought they were listed as a bad ccasino but I looked in the "Rogue" and "Not Recommended" section and could not see them listed. Were they ever listed? or are they listed and I just can't see it? Let me know because I will play again if all is well with them.

They were listed there for quite a while. But as of January 2004, I placed them on probation with the agreement that if there were few to no complaints, they would be removed. Fair is fair. Not much of anything came in for a while and they were removed. Redemption is possible at Casinomeister.

But then, this puts them back on the table.
 
Bryan,
First off this was not sent out as spam or any other marketing technique. This was sent to select players who have been asked to be placed on our daily mailing lists. This was also posted on our www.virtualdanny.com website, where we give different daily bonuses. Before making comments or jumping to conclusions, you have jumped into this post in the middle. We asked OUR customers to send in things that they thought were good and BAD, about us and casinos in general. We got a number of responses and told people we would answer and post some. While most gave rave reviews to us and Danny, a number were negative, sighting certain terms and conditions here or past experiences. We posted the good and the bad. We have never claimed to be perfect, and have not always honed up to out mistakes, but we have recently changed that. As you have agreed, The Leaf has changed here. We were responding to a direct customers inquiry, we commented to the customer before he ever posted. We told him to go RTG complaints section. Any customer reading our reply could also have complained about us on the same forum. I think that it is funny that everybody claims that the casinos should help self govern them selves, but when a casino has a problem, we are chastised for speaking up. Have to tell you Bryan, if this is truly how you run your board, than I do not care one way or another, if you want to claim we are rouge, not recommended or whatever.
Ted
 
I think it would have been one thing if you blanked out the casinos name (unless it was one in your own group), but this seemed to be rather blatant competition bashing imo.
 
I have a dream that one day, all rogue casinos will beat, one upon the other, and stop screwing over their customers.
 
virtualted said:
Bryan,
First off this was not sent out as spam or any other marketing technique. This was sent to select players who have been asked to be placed on our daily mailing lists. This was also posted on our www.virtualdanny.com website, where we give different daily bonuses. Before making comments or jumping to conclusions, you have jumped into this post in the middle. We asked OUR customers to send in things that they thought were good and BAD, about us and casinos in general. We got a number of responses and told people we would answer and post some. While most gave rave reviews to us and Danny, a number were negative, sighting certain terms and conditions here or past experiences. We posted the good and the bad. We have never claimed to be perfect, and have not always honed up to out mistakes, but we have recently changed that. As you have agreed, The Leaf has changed here. We were responding to a direct customers inquiry, we commented to the customer before he ever posted. We told him to go RTG complaints section. Any customer reading our reply could also have complained about us on the same forum. I think that it is funny that everybody claims that the casinos should help self govern them selves, but when a casino has a problem, we are chastised for speaking up. Have to tell you Bryan, if this is truly how you run your board, than I do not care one way or another, if you want to claim we are rouge, not recommended or whatever.
Ted

I never claimed this was spam. It is clearly your newsletter. There is no doubt about this.

There is also no doubt that you are attacking one of your own competitors.
Danny comments: Kevin Kevin Kevin. Why didnt you listen? We know you
guys play other casinos, that's fine, but please be careful of who you
choose. There are a lot of fly by nights out there. You are the 4th
player I have to have played there and not got paid.
This complaint was posted in this forum, and it was also submitted to me. Any visitor here would know who you are referring to. This is truely unprecedented. I've never seen a casino disrespect another casino in its newsletters, especially one which uses the same software provider. You guys are probably right down the street from each other. I'd be pissed off royal if I were Mr. Spears.

I'm glad you are getting player responses on what the good and bad are, but it seems like danny is taking advantage of another casino's misfortune. If that's how you feel your casinos should market themselves (this is marketing isn't it?), well my hat's off to you. I've never seen this technique used before.
 
So Bryan, is this any different than you or any other users on your web site, possible bad mouthing or commenting on other forms? We never said who the casino was when we responded to our customer. You allowed the post of which casino that was.
We still stand behind what we did, we our here to give our customers the most enjoyable on line experience as possible. We are here for our players, and if one asks where a good hotel to stay at is, or what movie they may enjoy, or yes, which casino to avoid, than we will help OUR customer. I think someone such as your self dealing in customer service would agree. Nothing we said was not 100% honest, I am asking you, Bryan, should we have not helped the customer? Yes it was done publicly, but that was what the customer asked for, he wanted us to answer on line. What is funny, that post could just have easily been posted about us, because we follow a lot of the same conditions, and we do use the same software. Once again I think that you have your own opinion, and god forbids anyone should ever have the right to quell that. When you use your board as a platform that is where, you have stepped over the line the line. You have always been of service and fair to us in the past, but I have to tell you, you are WRONG on this one.
P.S. This was what a customer responded to us. Once again, we have blacked out which casino they had a problem at.

I would NOT post anything negative about you or your casino. I'm not generally a "poster". I am also intelligent enough to read through the anger that a lot of people spit out and I see that a lot of the bad mouthing is due to misunderstandings or failure to properly read the T&C, etc. Honestly, there are some legitimate complaints against casino's out there but there are just as many, if not more, that are totally unfounded. You can find a complaint against even the most respected casino's if you look hard enough. Everyone has a bitch about someone or something. That will never change because that is just human nature (they didn't win enough or they didn't get paid fast enough or they spent too much or they bet too stupidly, etc etc etc)
You can tell which casino's are really bad because people have valid reasons and aren't afraid to post them (with good grammer!) and there are usually multiple valid complaints against the same casino. These aren't missing some tiny print in the T&C, these are out and out failures to pay, etc. That's the kind of complaint I have with xxxxxx. I fulfilled ALL the obligations, I even have the withdrawal "approved" but can't get them to send me the money. They just choose to ignore me instead. I've been waiting a month yesterday for a measely $45. That's bad customer service and that is the kind of experience that needs to be posted. I didn't run out and start posting against them, I waited until I was absolutely sure I was just being lied to and it wasn't any sort of misunderstanding.
You might be interested to know that even though I see "Virtual" listed a lot on the message boards (i.e. Avoid Virtual casinos, Virtual casinos are bad, etc etc etc), I NEVER see anyone post a reason why they say those things. It's like a snowball effect. They read it somewhere and therefore feel they need to write it somewhere else. I even saw one message board that someone had posted "Don't just say they are bad, say WHY they are bad" but no one did. Obviously they couldn't. If I believed everything I read without an explanation, I wouldn't be putting money in Virtual almost daily. Haha. Even though there are things on a lot of different boards, they are not substantial. I wouldn't get worked up about it. Stupid people write stupid things and even stupider people believe them. You don't want those people anyway because they will just be headaches in the long run.
I personally will make it a point, a personal mission if you will, to counter-act those things I read and write my positive experiences with your casino when I can. Would that make you feel better I cashed out $200 on Memorial Day (hit the nickel progressive on Diamond Mine Deluxe). I provided the documents requested and was paid in a reasonable amount of time. No problems. (p.s. and I HAVE posted that experience on at least one forum!)
And on another note.... why would someone get mad at you for doing the things you do? Certainly not the players. You make us happy and that's all that matters because without players you'd have nothing. Gambling is all about someone willing to put their money on a chance. I don't know about you but if I'm uncomfortable somewhere I won't take the chance. Obviously that's not the case with you or Virtual. And value. That's another IMPORTANT thing. I've played just about EVERYWHERE. Hardly a casino on the web that I haven't at least tried. A lot of them entice you in with great promos but then they just stop. Especially for the small depositor like me (not realizing that even though I deposit small amounts I deposit frequently. Small amounts at a time are just my personal way of metering myself!)
You won my business, my loyalty & my heart when I saw your last letter where you told the player where to file a complaint against another casino. THAT is rare in this business and THAT is customer service above all other.
Don't be discouraged and don't EVER stop what you are doing.
Robin U
 
virtualted said:
So Bryan, is this any different than you or any other users on your web site, possible bad mouthing or commenting on other forms?

Yes its TOTALLY different since Bryan IS NOT RUNNING A CASINO! And neither are 99% of the other posters here. Those that do aren't bad mouthing their competitors, they are answering problems/complaints about their own places. And this is a casino watchdog forum. C'mon Ted, don't play stupid, you're obviously smarter than this.
 
virtualted said:
So Bryan, is this any different than you or any other users on your web site, possible bad mouthing or commenting on other forms? We never said who the casino was when we responded to our customer. You allowed the post of which casino that was.

We still stand behind what we did, we our here to give our customers the most enjoyable on line experience as possible. We are here for our players, and if one asks where a good hotel to stay at is, or what movie they may enjoy, or yes, which casino to avoid, than we will help OUR customer. I think someone such as your self dealing in customer service would agree. Nothing we said was not 100% honest, I am asking you, Bryan, should we have not helped the customer? Yes it was done publicly, but that was what the customer asked for, he wanted us to answer on line. What is funny, that post could just have easily been posted about us, because we follow a lot of the same conditions, and we do use the same software. Once again I think that you have your own opinion, and god forbids anyone should ever have the right to quell that. When you use your board as a platform that is where, you have stepped over the line the line. You have always been of service and fair to us in the past, but I have to tell you, you are WRONG on this one.
P.S. This was what a customer responded to us. Once again, we have blacked out which casino they had a problem at.....

The rest of your post didn't make much sense. I couldn't tell if these were testimonials from your players, or what. Anyway, you missed my point entirely. Sure, you could have helped the customer - descretely in private. But you chose to make it public with your comment:
Why didnt you listen? We know you
guys play other casinos, that's fine, but please be careful of who you
choose. There are a lot of fly by nights out there. You are the 4th
player I have to have played there and not got paid.


Here you are implying that Connecttocasino is a "fly by night" operation, that there are three other players that have not been paid (you didn't say why), and that you had advised this player in the past not to play at Connectto with the comment "why didn't you listen".

But since you are insisting that this is a service and not a marketing ploy (I am guessing that this is what you are arguing), then more power to you. If you can assist your players in avoiding the "fly by nights", by all means do it.

Maybe you could set up an "Evil Section" at Virtual. That would be cool. The sky is the limit.
 
casinomeister said:
If you can assist your players in avoiding the "fly by nights", by all means do it.
I'm not insinuating that Connectto is a fly by night organization, by the way.

Furthering this discussion, as JPM stated - this is completely different than me "or any other users on your web site, possible bad mouthing or commenting on other forms?"

As it was pointed out, I am not a casino. As for me badmouthing the "competition", it doesn't happen. Sure I have been outspoken on some matters concerning a few portals, but I don't consider them competition - just bad/careless portal masters. If you visit the main section of Casinomeister and not just the forum, you will notice links and banners on everypage for other portals and casino information sites. These websites could be considered competition, but they are not. Each site has something different for the players, and we chose to work together in this respect.

Would you link to other RTG sites on your website, or even some Micro or Wagerlogic casinos - without an affiliate link or any monetary exchange? I don't think so.

What I am getting at is that you are comparing apples to oranges. There is no comparison to what I do and what you are attempting to do, so don't compare them.
 
casinomeister said:
Virtual Casino has implemented a new innovative marketing strategy ...

Good going VC!

It seems to me right to take the distances between who tries to work well and thieves
 
Sorry Ted!

I had to take another look at the beginning of this thread and as a result I have to change my opinion on this email that Virtual sent out.

When I first read Bryan's post and the email that came from Virtual, I though it said that he had removed the casino name and account number from the email before he posted it here. Re-reading it, only the account number was removed, and the original email never named the offending casino, is that right Bryan?

In that case, I'd say that Virtual was not out of line with this mailing. I think only a handful of those who got the email would be able to connect the dots, and only IF they've read the other thread that was almost identical to what was stated in the email by Kevin.

Now, if they had named the other casino in the email, that would be out of line. But in this case, it looks like they were indeed just offering the RTG complaint address as Ted mentioned in his reply and not naming the offending casino in the email.

p.s. I don't have an account at any of Virtual's casinos in case anyone is wondering.
 
Last edited:
I disagree that this goes from inappropriate to acceptable on the basis that the competing casino's name has been asterixed-out. The principle here is "They're shit, we're not". In ANY circumstances this is a childish way to run a marketing campain. In the particular case of Virtual, who, current situation notwithstanding, have a history of fraudulent behaviour, it's plenty ironic into the bargain. You don't improve by Emailing your customer base that since the competition is a pile of piss you can only be better - you focus on your own job and let the competition take care of itself. The inclusion of the customer's actual account number just adds to the tacky nature of the whole thing.
 
I don't disagree about the merit of the campaign, I just don't think its as reprehensible as it first appeared to be. It may be a crappy campaign (and leaving the account number in was definitely less than smart), but I don't think its as bad as it first appeared to be. Its not going to change my opinion about playing there, and it was going to the existing customer base, so its not really much of a marketing campaign either.
 
jpm said:
Yes its TOTALLY different since Bryan IS NOT RUNNING A CASINO! And neither are 99% of the other posters here. Those that do aren't bad mouthing their competitors, they are answering problems/complaints about their own places. And this is a casino watchdog forum. C'mon Ted, don't play stupid, you're obviously smarter than this.

I agree completely with the above arguments.


caruso said:
I disagree that this goes from inappropriate to acceptable on the basis that the competing casino's name has been asterixed-out.

Nice, to be able to say that I completely agree with caruso :)
 
Big KUDOS to JPM for taking a stand. Please do not take our reply to that customer that our sxxt dosent stink. I will admidt in the past it has probabaly stunk more than most others. And at times still does. Our point about telling the customer to stay with us comes from a suvery we took, that was responded to by 36000 of our customers. 86% said they play at 5 or more casinos a week. So yes, we tell every customer at every oportunity that we have interaction with "to make Virtual, your number one choice", if you think that is bashing all other casinos, than so be it. Ask any one this is a acceptable marketing tool. Once again, we never refer to any casino by name, we just say we are better.
 
Casino Advocate

Bryan, I believe you are wrong. We tell any and all of our customers who ask, where they can get the best bang for the buck. Since most of our players are recreational players, and looking for the best running overal bonuses out there, we tell them we are the place to be. If they want instant payouts, we are not afraid to sat Phonecian has the best rep going on that lately. Where you can still get a bonus and have a no max payout we say Cirrus, and yes we have told Our players in the past that if you wanted a 999% bonus on certain games to play at Connect to. We normally only refer customers to RTG sites, becuase I am sure of their software. I do not know enough about other companies, and no that is not bad mouthing them. The only time I do refer players to other software is when they ask about where to find more animated slots, because that is something we don't offer. So back to the original question of the day, You stepped in to the middle of a post we had for our customers, and you made your comments, with out being fully aware of all the facts. As you have said before, and I will again. " If anyone reading your board has been or knows of a customer who has been slighted by us in the past, please contact me at Ted@casinosupportcenter.com. We can not move forward, without first cleaning up our past. I thank you for your help in the past on this Bryan. Why don't you put it up to your readers, whether we are currently a rouge casino. Just don't take much creadence to the readers who post, that are affilates of other casinos.
Ted
 
Virtual Casino

I just have to say that I play at Virtual Casino quite often. When I haven't got much to spend and want the most bang for my buck they are definitely the place to be. Good bonuses and reachable playthrough's. I have cashed out there in the past with no problems whatsoever. I enjoy "Virtual Danny" and yes, I got the same e-mail that is the hot debate of this forum. However, I did not take it as a casino bashing a competitor. Nope, never even entered my mind. In fact, my thought's were more like "how cool they are listing Montanaoverseas.com! " Not something I would have thought a casino (RTG) would want to post, opening they themselves up for a dispute. And honestly, I'll bet many of the players that receive Danny's e-mail are like me and glance through the letters and jokes then go straight to the meat. The bonuses. That's what we want. We don't spend a lot of time reading and re-reading and making judgments or assumptions about who the x'd out casino is. We're there to play not read or research. If I want to read, I'll grab a book!

This casino has been fair with me and treats me like more than just a deposit. I do not deposit large sums of money, quite the opposite, but they treat me as if I do. Danny responds quickly, personally, and humorously to any e-mail inquiries no matter what the subject (don't get that much.... "this is an automatically generated casino response"). Recently I won some money but was under a misunderstanding about one of the terms and conditions of a bonus used and I actually should not have received my winnings. Rereading the T&C I saw where I became confused and realized it WAS my fault, not theirs. I was just heartsick. However, Ted, Danny and the casino were very nice with me and understood my incorrect interpretation of the policy. They honored my win and let me cash-out according to the terms as I misunderstood them. That was priceless to me. I know a lot of casino's that would have just said "Sorry, better luck next time. Read the rules fool!"

Virtual might have had a bad rep in the past, I don't know, I didn't play there then. I can say though that I am a happy player there and I will continue to play there until I see something concrete that they have slipped to the bad side. And note that I would do the same with ANY casino I frequent, not just because they are Virtual.
 

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