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Basically what happened is that Sky Vegas sent promotional email to previous clients that had opted-out of this, now while this many not seem like a big deal, and most of the time it is not, a number of those that received those emails were recovering addicts doing their best to stay away from the temptation to gamble again, an offer like this could be what they needed to go back to the addiction they were trying to overcome, so while I have the tendency to think this could have been an honest mistake it is still very worrying that something like this can happen as it could derail the recovery of those struggling to control their gambling.



https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gambling-commission-b965600.html

I'm not a Sky Vegas user, but it seems the casino is a well-established casino and thus this kind of mistake is unacceptable for a company of that scale. It's also unusual if you already click opt-out and still get the email. However, if you only do self-exclusion, maybe you'll still get the emails. Anyway, this is a great learning lesson when someone use self-exclusion, the casino should also stop sending emails, sms, etc.

The error or mistake could really be simple but the effect is really big into those people who are trying out get rid of gambling addiction and im not surprised that there were people who did really make out such action or complaints about those promotional emails despite of being cancelled or opt out.

Once a user had opt out then they should really be that serious on implementing those and not just simply ignoring.So what are those choices for in the first place?

They should really prepare on what would they would answer in regarding into this one because if there are complaints then expect on something like this.

The word "could" won't affect the casino that much since most casino did it all the time, but I believe that the gamblers have a choice to unsubscribe or unfollow this kind of email if they don't want to receive any updates from the casino. Although, the CEO apologized to the public via tweeter due to unknown reason or someone mistakenly sent those emails.

But I believe it was the casino's fault for breaching the data with their previous customers. I think they could face serious legal action soon because it's clearly a mistake to send an email to a recovering gambling addicts.

It's not only that people opting out of promotional emails of gambling casinos, but there had been casinos that closed their prior gambling website and made a new one,
Then sent emails to the users that were registered on the prior website and those users didn't register on the new website yet.

I'm not sure if i can find the thread of that website here.

That's very interesting.

This will be one of the things that the online crypto gambling space will have to improve upon.

I'm getting a ton of spam emails from a load of crypto gambling providers, and it's pretty annoying to be honest. I've definitely unsubscribed from a few but still getting notifs from them - it seems like that they don't really care about regulatory compliance.

Then why they had opened up their email into those users who had trying to get rid of their addiction?If you do know that you've been able to used it on your gambling activity before then its just right or sensible for you

on not to use or access those emails but if you are using your main ones and cant really be avoided then you could just simply not open those since you know it is from the gambling site/place itself.

Dont know if this would really be a strong legal issue because the house itself could really make out some defend in regarding on the situation.

Definitely should be prosecuted.

Although I don't think that they will necessarily be punished by that much, it'll likely just be a fine or something of that nature.

Companies definitely need to take gambling addiction seriously and make sure that voluntary opt-outs are in place and actually work. Even if it instated, but it fails to unsubscribe etc., then there is really no point of having this in the first place.

It should be applied and never ever tend to go overboard on still sending those emails despite that they had been opt-outs just like what others been saying on here.Companies
should really be that indeed serious on applying those things because on what reason or purpose they had put it in on the first place? For sure they would really be charged
up with some fines which this isnt really that much a big of an issue but still an eye opener for other businesses that they should strictly follow even with this
slightest kind of detail to miss out.

If it was an error/mistake, then yeah, its an expensive mistake. Those who are addicted and trying to recove could actually sue them. I guess others who aren't will also try to take advantage of this. The casino should have been more careful.
Even if it was an honest mistake, they won't be able to prove it. At least they will be learning a lesson from this and make sure they take proper precaution next time.

Certain types of mental illnesses, if not all, live within a critical limit of control and only need a small disturbance to make them lose the ground they have gained and in gambling addicts this is a good example, a "mistake" that has repercussions in a period of indeterminate time for those affected.

Just as everything positive adds up to recovery, an action of this type ruins months or even years of great effort to recover.

If people already opted out of such promotional emails, it is the company's obligation to observe and respect such decisions. Sky Vegas receiving legal repercussions for their actions is, IMO, just and valid. Even if some of the recipients are not recovering addicts, this is still like a breach of trust or agreement. Mistake or not, Sky Vegas should just own up to what happened and face the consequences.

I imagine it must be a big temptation for gambling addicted people to receive free spins emails and not open it. It's like offering to an alcoholic his favorite drink with the perfect look and adornments around the glass expecting he is going to deny it (of course it isn't going to happen). So it's a big mistake from gambling companies to play with the emotional of people passing through an addiction recovery or treatment and with so many new regulations popping everywhere to restrict gambling activity and advertisements even more, I'm pretty sure there are serious legal consequences for these unsolicited promotional emails, otherwise the casino wouldn't be so worried about apologizing for the situation.

In my opinion both party will be at fault in all of this, I mean those recovering addicts that are determined to recover will see this as a challenge for them to see if they'll relapse, I think it's an honest mistake but at the back of my mind says that there's an intent behind all of this because they want to make profit out of these people and we know how addicts that have relapsed do, they are going to go all out with their addiction again. Maybe this can be settled outside of the court to make things much easier.

Sky Vegas take the responsibility for this big mistake which it isn't appropriate to happen by all means on the first place however, the damage has been done, I just do hope that those vulnerable people have had take precautionary measures and hopefully didn't have the guts to open the promotional emails because this will only lead their treatment into nonsense. This kind of incidents will be a big lesson to every gambling establishments or gambling sites to become more aware of whom will of this kind email must receive, let's say even if they change their site and have had used their old records of gamblers I think they must still consider which one of them are still interested or simply have a simple background check to person's profile before they would include them in their chain promotional emails.

I think in this case sky vegas has done quite a big mistake by forcing their users who have quit gambling to go back to doing free online spins on sky vegas, i don't know if the email was intentionally sent to these people manually or indeed this is automatically through a server so that all email ever recorded on the server will receive it?
But what is certain with this incident, sky vegas get a lot of lawsuits and even many petitions asking for the EFL competition to immediately terminate their sponsorship deal with Sky Bet.

Well if the lawsuit actually goes through then this could damage the image of the casino, but only IF it could. I'd reckon the casino would do some PR for this though since they wouldn't want to exactly let this explode out of proportion, touching upon gambling addiction is a sensitive subject for everyone after all, especially since they themselves are a gambling casino. Still it would leave a permanent mark on their names though, they probably need to do some stuff to appease those that were involved as well as the higher ups.

I wish the legal action goes through. they may say that it was an honest mistake or an error of some kind but mistakes like this can be devastating to recovering addicted gamblers. they should be held accountable for this. they should know as a well-established casino, mistakes like this can have serious consequences. I hope if there is a recovering gambling addict who got affected by this, gets helped.

That's why you build your business overseas where the law is not too strict. Otherwise you can get ruined for stupid shit like this. Spam emails... who doesn't do that nowadays? We need to punish every drug company because their viagra ads are targeting recovering sex addicts?

He should have moved his business to Curaçao or somewhere similar.

I really feel for these gambling addicts, because with Google algorithms and historic data .. those people are targeted for that kind of promotions too. Apart from that... Gambling sites other than Sky Vegas are advertising on TV too, so the urge to gamble might be triggered by these advertisements on other platforms too.

This might be one of the reasons why platforms like Twitch are banning gamblers that are streaming and promoting gambling referrals during their sessions.

You will never be blocked off 100% from gambling advertising, even if you opt out of one single casino. Sky Vegas should be given a huge fine, even if this was done by mistake.  :P

It depends on how those people keep trying to recover from the addiction, even if they got so many emails from many gambling websites. That will not stop them to continue the recovering phase to cure their addiction to gambling because if those people do not have a strong heart and big willingness to solve their addiction, they will come back to the gambling games and play some gambling games. If that happens, their addiction can become heavy and that will be difficult to solve as they already failed before.

you have to understand that there were people who unsubscribe so they wouldn't get an email regarding promotions or anything from the casino, yet they still got one.

they should if the drug company still sending emails to the people who unsubscribe from their email subscription.

No wonder they are going to face legal actions to that. Those people are recovering or probably trying to turn their lives to a better one but there you are trying to attract them to your website again. It's like inviting again the drug addicts that after their rehabilitation. Honestly, what they are thinking? I think they're just thinking about the project and not the status of their players, really selfish intentions.

Unlike some others here I think that it should be rather simple to exclude people who have opted out of receiving such emails if the IT systems have been setup correctly. Whoever is responsible for managing the marketing emails should be fully aware of who can receive them (if for no other reason but to be anti-spam compliant) before sending out any communications. There should be a simple flag in the database that determines whether an account has chosen to stop receiving such emails and it should be the first thing checked, otherwise you have to assume that they are actively seeking to target these people - some of whom may have gambling problems. It'd be good to see the regulator impose fines and I wonder if they could be based on the size of any bets from those accounts since the emails were sent out (x2 or x3)

The mistakes I've seen here is that Sky Vegas and I guess all of the casinos in will never care about what you're doing in life, whether you get addicted on gambling or recovering from your gambling addiction, and sending a promotional emails on their players seems a little bit insensitive, especially if that certain client is not playing gambling for years already. So I would understand if someone will definitely goes up against this kind of action.

I think that this is definitely a big mistake made by someone working at the marketing team of Sky Vegas.
However,going to court against a casino just because they sent you a promotional email?Really?
If a guy has truly recovered from his gambling addiction,would a simple email incentivize him to become addicted again?If I was a former gambling addict and I was completely done with gambling,NO email from any casino in the world would convince me to start gambling again.
I think that probably someone is looking for an excuse to sue a casino and get some "easy money" out of his "gambling addiction".

this is a tricky situation, i read some post in this thread that the company has already apologized and i think their apology should be accepted because they are to some extent not blamed for someone becoming addicted to gambling and it is up to the addict to block the emails related to casinos, maybe even abandon the emails you created in the casino account and create another email. when a person creates an account in a casino he knows that he is being responsible for himself, for this reason the casinos warn of this and force that only people over 18 years old use the casinos. I think the apology that the casino gave is a good thing and that the injured parties should accept

they did(read the article). sure we can't blame the casino for them becoming addicted but it is fully on the casino's fault if they sent the emails to those who have opted out from receiving emails regarding promotions or anything from the casino. also, not everyone can easily abandon an email address since they could be using it for other things.

Even without taking into account the dire consequences to which the distribution of these letters could lead, I believe that this should be seriously punished. Spam and irresponsible handling of personal data is something that no one likes and serious punishment will be a good economic incentive for a company to put things in order in this matter.

The complainant has the right to sue the casino since they break there rules about opted-out client even if its by mistake. Being on a serious gambling is very critical especially on psychological aspect. For normal people perspective, This is very simple by just not reading it but this means a lot for people that abstaining on gambling, Probably they lose huge sum of money that can make a fortune that's why they opted-out and seeing a gambling promotion again might get them back to square 1 since they started to become tempted by just seeing a casino promotion mail title.

I'm confused on why the Sky Vegas still save those emails of opted-out players while it should deleted on there data base since these persons account is considered to be deleted at all.

And it's not like a big deal... for some services and casinos, I had to unsubscribe a few times before they stopped sending promotional emails! And I don't think that addicts are some victims here... addicts are always pointing fingers at everyone else, but actually, they are responsible for their actions! Someone who gets triggered so easily shouldn't even be close to a computer or TV! That level of sensitivity is a huge problem, I get it, but there are ways to keep the distance from all possible triggers and to focus on other things... like books, different hobbies, gardening, animals...

It's like with fire... you need to be aware that you can get burned! So don't play with it, don't come close to it... don't even try to watch it from the distance!

Receiving promotional emails wouldn't affect us unless we get attracted to them. It could be an honest mistake or another strategy to attract players again but the decision is still ours. It still depends on how we're going to deal with these emails but I would suggest that if a person is already recovering from a gambling addiction, he o she should know how to ignore promotional emails. It shouldn't be a big deal for those who are recovering.

It is true - you cannot shift your responsibility to someone else. But at the same time, we know that according to the terms (and the law), these services are also responsible for sending spam and especially for processing personal data. I think many people are familiar with the situation when you register somewhere and after that you start receiving a bunch of spam in your mailbox (which obviously was disclosed by service where you registered). I think these are close situations.

I have not thought about that but you bring an important point, those that are trying to recover from a gambling addiction or any addiction for that matter are going to have a more difficult time doing so because targeted advertising will use their data to see what interests they had, and if on their files they see you had interest in gambling then they will serve you gambling ads creating a huge temptation for people to gamble again even if that is not what they want.

on the other hand I seem to hesitate when they say accidentally sent :)
but with something like this especially for addicts I think they subconsciously have the possibility to return to the site with the lure which is quite good.
but things like this will be a different story for people who really want to quit from there.
this is good enough to at least get a reprimand from the authorities.

That's what needs to be done with such casinos that send unsolicited emails even after opting out of them because then, they are not only encouraging spam but also breaching their own ToS by sending such promotional emails that are unexpected by the struggling gamblers. Gamblers who were an addict but are trying to overcome from their addiction get lured by such promotions and can't really stop themselves from gambling again, which could result in losses as well as even more loss of concentration towards other things IRL.

Promotional emails are system generated, you allow this in the first place by agreeing on their terms and conditions without reading it and I can remember that there’s an option for this either not to allow or allow the site to notify you. If you really want to stay away from gambling, you can inform the site you are using about this and they might help you as well, so don’t over react when you still receiving an email from them, you can easily block it.

Honestly not a Sky Vegas user, therefore I don't really know what's going on. When I skimmed the news I was of the opinion that not all casinos would deal with these kinds of things with gamblers. An addiction that continues to be felt even though it has stopped. But the casino contacted him via email. A strategy to keep gamblers from leaving the casino just like that until they have spent all their money. Usually there is a feature to Unsubscribe.

The issue on here is that a certain user had already opted out or did unsubscribe but still the casino did make or sent out those promotional

emails which i could say that they had definitely had some mistakes on here because not all would really be that fine on poking up again

their gambling addiction once they had able to see it once again after they had stopped out on a certain period of time but honestly
we cant really give all the blame into the casino because there are things which that certain person could also have his mistakes on.

This is not the thing we can tolerate. And as i know, in EU and USA it's forbidden to do. So it will be fair enough to punish Sky Vegas for such actions. And they should punish those who came up with such marketing strategy  ;D

If the casino will face some punishments here, I won't be surprised.
This is irresponsibility from their end, they should know the consequences brought by their marketing people.
It is not big deal for those who are not gambling addicts, but for those who totally opted because they are addressing their addiction, this is really a temptation.
Let us see if some of them will sue this casino because of this wrong move.

A wrong move indeed by the marketing team of said casino on why they had pushed out or include those people who had excluded on those sub list

which if they had not checked those then they shouldnt really be included.Turns out that they've been greedy on their part on why they had made
out such action and just like you said then i wouldnt be surprised if they would really be facing up some consequences but most likely they would
really be fined but for sure it wont really be a problem but this is a lesson learned in regarding on the action that they had made.