Casino Caution

08.02.2008

Still at the epicentre of an intense and widespread Internet message board furore over the disqualification of hundreds of players from its generous sign-up bonus rewards, Luckyace Casino has lumbered into the second week of its crisis with little sign of any intention to address the problems.

The white label operation owned by industry newcomer Kamay Holdings and powered by Gibraltar-based online gambling group 888.com has been accused of:

* Unfair and indiscriminate confiscation of winnings and bonuses earned legitimately by players in compliance with the casino's T&C's

* Non-specific broad accusations levelled at winning players of "bonus abuse."

* Failing to provide gaming logs timeously when asked by aggrieved players.

* Displaying a "Safe and Fair" eCOGRA seal dishonestly and without undergoing the requisite inspection, probity checks and monitoring demanded by that non-profit, player protection organisation.

* Spamming affiliates to market the operation.

Within days of launching, Lucky Ace started generating an alarmingly large and diverse number of bonus abuse disqualification complaints, judging by message board postings and player advocate approaches.

The complaints all have a similar theme: Player deposits and receives a matchplay bonus; play is compliant with the casino's promo T&Cs, leading to wins on allowed games; player cashes out, and finds his or her account locked pending despatch of ID documents. The casino security staff then advise the player that his/her play has been classified as bonus abuse without giving any explanation of how they came to this conclusion, and then all winnings and bonuses are chopped, with deposits only returned to the player.

In many cases, players assert that their bad experience occurred on their one and only visit to the new operation.

Staffers with the experience that 888.com has amassed over many years of operations must know that if a player meets the T&Cs applicable to an offer, without involvement in any illegal or fraudulent activity, then he or she should be paid. If the casino for some reason does not want to do business with the player, then the place to exclude him or her is at registration - not after the fact.

Where a casino wishes to lock a player's account it is perfectly entitled to do so in enforcing its right of admission - but only after paying monies that are due to those who have met the T&C requirements offered.

Until this debacle involving numerous locked accounts is sorted out, players should continue be extremely cautious around this new arrival, which is now believed to have Russian connections. Players are increasingly asking how effective 888.com's "due diligence" has been in taking this problematic white label on board at the risk of its own reputation.