Online Casino Cautions

Published: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

CASINO CAUTIONS

A case of slow-pay that will not go away

Club Player Casino.com remains under the microscope (see previous Online-Casinos.com and InfoPowa reports) as one of the worst cases of slow-paying a player yet seen in the industry....and as we went to press this week the case was still unresolved and the player unpaid.

Back in July 2006 a player launched a complaint with player advocate Casinomeister.com which in summary went like this:

Exactly a year before, in July 2005 and after receiving a bonus offer from Costa Rican-based Club Player Casino, a high roller in compliance with the relevant T&Cs deposited $20 000. He went on to win a total of $150 000 after the "sticky" bonuses were deducted, only to be told that the casino would only pay him $2 500 a week until his balance reached zero. Nothing was said about interest accrued, of course.

The casino made two payments - one on 11 August 2005 and another on 12 September 2005. In October of 2005, the casino management unilaterally amended their payout policy, adding a clause that 'inactive accounts' (such as the complainant's) would only be paid $1000 weekly at the discretion of the manager.

In March 2006, that amount was again reduced to $500 per week 'at the manager's discretion'.

The supremely patient player finally sought help in July 2006 having received only 17 payments totaling $16 000 since his win...in other words, not even his initial deposit had been returned by that stage.

Still owed $134 350.20 plus approximately 2 700 worth of comp points, the player was faced with a Club Player Casino management that had started to ignore his phone calls, would not respond to his e-mails or address his very legitimate concerns.

By then, the player had called Club Player approximately 70 times and written at least 20 e-mails, but by a remarkable string of unlikely coincidences not once had the manager, Cynthia Williams or even a deputy manager been available to assist. The player was able to speak only to front line customer service employees who lack the authority to make any changes to the account or materially improve what has to be assumed is a deliberate slowpay process.

Despite the stressful situation, the player remained remarkably calm and polite, submitting his problem to Montana Disputes, the player disputes channel for software provider Realtime Gaming. All that achieved was a promise from the casino to pay the weekly amounts on time, a promise that was allegedly immediately broken once Montana had withdrawn.

Casinomeister intervened with the affiliate manager of Club Player in July this year, who astonishingly asked how the dispute could be resolved! The player advocate gave her the obvious solution - pay the player according to the original ($2 500 a week) payment agreement, instead of no payments or the "manager's discretionary" reduced payment of $500 a week.

And here we are - the player has still not been paid 13-some months on.

It is an extraordinarily cavalier manner in which to treat any player, let alone a high roller and sends out a powerful danger signal regarding this casino and its management. The operation has now been flagged in the "Rogue" section of the Casinomeister site, and deservedly so.