MGA answer
I just got an answer from the Malta Gaming Authority. I will copy it to the end of my post.
What they did basically is that they asked Royal Panda and accepted and repeated whatever they told. They did not address my following issues at all.
My problem is twofold:
First, they have ambigous bonus terms:
Please remember that the maximum bet permitted when playing with bonus money is $7.50, €7.00, £5.00, or its equivalent in another currency.
However, please keep in mind that there are games that offer different bet limits. You can find more information here:
. In the event of a breach of this rule, the player agrees that his
bonus, and any associated
winnings, may be void.
Which they apply as follows:
Your
deposits, bonus and winnings
will be void.
Second, they have confiscated not only my winnings, but my deposits as well. This is especially disturbing as a big part of the deposits (350 USD) were done after I had winnings on my account, but I needed deposits to fulfil the wagering requirement due to their special bonus setup (only cash bets contributes to the wagering, bonus bets not).
I have replied to MGA asking for their comments, but I won't hold my breath.
I have not played at Royal Panda since the incident (I guess Videoslots and Casumo was happy to get my business
) and I will close my account when I get the final word from MGA (probably siding with the casino).
I hope at the end Royal Panda will find it was worth to alienate a loyal player (and probably others too) where a little goodwill would have gone a long way.
Sorry for the long post.
Here is the MGA answer:
Further to the below case, please be informed that we have received information from the representative of Royal Panda Limited (Royalpanda.com) who have informed the MGA that you have deposited on 15 January 2016, claiming a 50% bonus. You then contacted their customer service team via chat the following morning at 11:13AM, requesting information on how to meet the bonus wagering requirements. This was explained by one of their support (Please find below the chat from their support):-
· 11:24 Mateusz: The wagering requirement is only met using the cash balance. However unlike in other casinos the cash bonus wins are also added to cash even when you claim a deposit bonus. Which means that you can withdraw your cash when you score a big win while playing with it. To answer your question, if you play for bonus the wagering requirement will not be changed, unless you start playing for your cash.
· 11:24 Mateusz: Please remember that the maximum bet permitted when playing with bonus money is $7.50, €7.00, £5.00, or its equivalent in another currency.
Whilst their agent was explaining to you, you have proceeded to make another deposit via Skrill (which was processed at 11:23AM), you then resumed play at 11:25AM, which is to say AFTER you had been informed of the bet limits by their agent. They have also informed us that you have actually managed to release the bonus money you had amassed on 15 January. Specifically, you did so at 12:56PM on 16 January, using cash balance bets from the funds you deposited at 11:23AM. These were done using bets which were all within the limits, so there was no breach of Terms on this. You requested a withdrawal of the said funds shortly after this (at 12:58PM), which was duly checked by their payments team and as the bonus had been unlocked in the correct manner, this was paid out to your Skrill account at 12:23 on 17 January.
They have also informed us that on 22 January at 11:01 you claimed another bonus, receiving a further $50.00 bonus. You proceeded to place cash bets (i.e. from the $100.00 deposited) until 11:21, when the funds had been exhausted you than continued to play using your bonus balance. In this instance however the bets placed were largely in excess of the €7.50 limit, which their agent had explained to you on 16 January. You kept playing in this manner until 1:30 pm that day, by which point your bonus balance has risen to $1,261. You then made a further deposit of $100, at which point you returned to playing with your cash balance. You continued to place wagers using the said deposited funds until 2:31PM at which point these funds had been played. You then deposited a further $100 at 2.33PM, continuing to play with these funds until 2:42PM when you also played these funds. After playing with your bonus balance for a couple of minutes a further $100 deposit was made at 2:44PM. You then continued to make wagers until 2:48PM when with $9.80 left on your most recent deposit, you then deposited another $100.00 and you continued to play using this amount, eventually releasing your bonus to give you a combined withdrawable balance of $1,365.10 ($86.05 of your remaining deposited funds; $1,279.05 of released bonus funds) as 2:54PM. Then you continued to play. The wagers made were done so initially using your remaining deposited funds, until you had exhausted these funds at 2:59PM. You then continued to play using funds from your $1,279.05 released bonus.
On 22 January at 3:05PM and with $1,201.50 of unlocked bonus funds the only funds left on your account – you entered a withdrawal request for $1,200. This was rejected by the operator at 10:35AM the following morning and the funds confiscated on the grounds that your bonus bets violated their bonus betting limits.
With a summary of all this please note that you have been notified of the relevant limits when playing with bonus funds and how the wagering requirement for bonus funds can be met. You have successfully met the wagering requirements for the first bonus you received on 15 January and these were paid accordingly the following day after your withdrawal was requested. You have violated the terms limits by placing bonus bets in excess of the limits you had been informed of. Your deposited funds were not seized, because you have always played with deposited funds first before using the bonus balance (including released bonus funds), you had full use of the funds that were deposited on 22 January 2016. The only funds that were withhold were the remaining 1,201.50 of the remaining 1,279.05 bonus funds you had released in a manner that was not compliant with their Terms and Conditions after concluding your session on 22 January.
We wish to remind you that when you created your account you agreed to adhere to the Terms and Conditions and therefore the MGA cannot offer you further support with this specific case seeing that you had agreed to such Terms. We will have to consider the complaint case closed.
) and they said it's OK.
).
