A player made a post on Casinomeister.com which complained that he had been found to be in breach of the following term:

“Before any withdrawals are processed, your play will be reviewed for any irregular playing patterns e.g. playing of equal, zero margin bets or hedge betting, placing single bets using your entire or the majority of your account balance and bonus, all of which shall be considered irregular gaming for bonus play-through requirement purposes. Should the Casino deem that practices such as this have been utilized, the Casino reserves the right to withhold any cashins and/or confiscate all winnings.”

The player had deposited $150, collected a bonus of $150, and proceeded to place bets on 3 Card Poker.  His first three bets of $120, $60, and $90 all lost - so with his remaining $30, he placed one more bet… and won.

After completing playthrough on slots, he tried to cash out - and the casino returned his deposit and stated that his winnings were void because he was in breach of the above term.The problem with the term is this - even a bet of one cent - if that is what remains in your account - breaches this term.  

After heavy pressure, the term was changed as it was clearly an unfair term which affects any player down to his last bet, no matter what size - be it one cent, one dollar, ten dollars, a hundred dollars, 1000 dollars - every single one of these bets is in breach if it is the player’s last bet.

Clearly this was undesirable so it had to be changed - but the casino reasoned that the player’s activity was still considered irregular gaming - even though he did not breach any part of that term except the part which was clearly invalidated.

Therefore, the casino has apparently come to the conclusion that the player should not be paid.  Yours truly unsuccessfully tried to debate this with Casinomeister and eCOGRA - and needless to say this is very frustrating because I was unable to show them how bad this term was.

But now I’ve come up with another way to describe the problem - which I address below by rewriting the original term in a way which makes more sense.

“Before any withdrawals are processed, your play will be reviewed for any irregular playing patterns e.g. playing of equal, zero margin bets or hedge betting, or winning with your last bet of any size which constitutes all of the funds remaining in your account, all of which shall be considered irregular gaming for bonus play-through requirement purposes. Should the Casino deem that practices such as this have been utilized, the Casino reserves the right to withhold any cashins and/or confiscate all winnings.”

Now you tell me - would anyone consider this term just crappy, or would they consider this somewhat illegal?

The casino should pay the player - no questions asked.  I’m willing to give the casino the opportunity to demonstrate its integrity by paying the player.