Duckdice Reputation Thread

[TwitchySeal]

Last week a mod from Duckdice.io reached out to me to offer $100 in exchange for looking into and commenting publicly on some accusations that were made the site.  They were very explicit that they only wanted honest feedback and I'm convinced they aren't just looking for someone to shill for them.  I agreed, they paid me $100 in btc yesterday and today I received what you see below.

For the record: I know very little about Duckdice.io .  Never played there, never made an account, and (someone correct me if I'm wrong) I'm pretty sure I've never even posted in any thread related to them.  All I really knew about them is that they're a dice site that's been around for a while, they have (had?) a signature campaign with orange signatures, and there were a couple scam accusations against them.  Before the last couple days I didn't know any of the details surrounding any of these accusations. 

Since they already paid me, they owe me nothing, and all I owe them is my opinion on the accusations below, (which I'll get to one by one in the thread) so I hope the perception of any conflict of interest is minimal.

Without further adieu...

Why this thread?
DuckDice has been around since November 2016 —- since then we have grown into what we would consider an excellent dice site with some of the most advanced features, deposit and withdrawal options and UI on the market. We have a very loyal following and a very solid regular community.

What our problem has been for some time is what we would consider a perception issue of our services on forums such as bitcointalk and other websites such as Trustpilot; whilst on the one hand, we deliver excellent customer service and attention to detail on all issues, we initially made some grave communication errors and handled situations, frankly, poorly, although where it was right to do so, have always corrected, reimbursed and resolved any issue where appropriate.

We would like to use this opportunity, with help of legendary members, to put everything on the table and discuss issues that might be of concern to the bitcoin talk community and allow this thread to be a focal point for us to learn and improve from.

We will take this opportunity, with help of our live support members bobstone, and kirito89 to comment on anything you might want answers for as well as layout some of our more notable accusations and how each situation was dealt with.


Legendary member help
To be upfront we have made the payment to two legendary members for use of self-moderated threads (of which only the legendary member posting will have influence) to ensure constructive and clear feedback.

We just want to increase awareness of the service we are very proud of in the best manner possible using the tools available to us, we will ask negative comments not to be removed unless they are intentionally false or malicious.

What we are paying for is the time and attention to posts, not to take our side but ensure that vital questions are asked of us and of any criticisms or allegations posted and ensuring a fair and neutral platform for us to engage on.


Accusations
So we’ll take our very first major issue, it was early on in the site and was involving our deposit bonus at the time. We have an in-depth explanation here: https://help.duckdice.io/hc/en-us/articles/360007748833-DuckDice-scam-bonus-accusation


The original accusation on the forum:
The original poster of the above was credited a refund, the deposit bonus was removed and re-worked before re-release much later on with lessons we had learnt.

The basic summary of what happened is the user in question used one of our deposit bonus offers, played through and was up with some considerable profit, however, decided they did not want to continue with the bonus and cancelled it (there were warnings this would mean losing both the initial commitment and profit) that were missed by the user.

His scam accusation was that this was unfair and we should refund the balance (which we did) however our initial response was not fantastic and actually a bit standoffish. We have apologised and recognised this is not the way to handle complaints and was extremely early in the experiences of DuckDice and its team.

This was perhaps our biggest mistake and where most of our reputation damage has come from. However, we have had most negative trust ratings removed and placed as neutral from this time because we have clearly demonstrated that we have resolved it fairly.



Mishandling a multi-account situation in private messaging:
While this was poorly managed by us on a communication level — the user was linked to several other accounts that were trying to promote child pornography; which of course on so many levels we absolutely do not tolerate.

However, our approach towards the user in question was (and not on the same scale) also intolerable; because although we had evidence that they were possibly the same person, there is absolutely no way we should make such accusations without it being absolutely definitive they were the same person.

We have addressed this with training and guidance with the member involved.



Scam accusations involving pending reviews:
While this user’s withdrawal went under review, he has received his withdrawal after a few hours.   Basically, our system sometimes flags transactions and automatically sends them for review by a finance admin,  this happens very occasionally. 

There are a few reasons why a withdrawal might go under review, some for a security or compliance matter, some are to ensure there is no bonus abuses happening.

The vast majority of reviews taken are then approved and sent to the user, in rarer circumstances further information or KYC is required.



The 3.11btc rain per user bug:
Basically, we had an issue with our system which meant our rain bot rained an extraordinary 3.11 btc to 10 users. This user felt it was unfair that we blocked the attempt to withdraw it, and then subsequently returned the balance to duckdice.

Pretty much all financial institutions and companies will reserve the right to claim back money that is given due to an error and these weren’t small sums. Some users actually returned their balance realising it was a bug without question and were given bonuses for doing so.

We also had a problem that many people tried to avoid detection by further raining and tipping segments of balances in the hope they could circumvent our auto-detection systems that were triggered by such large amounts being rained.

However, we have now come to peace with this user who we will invite onto the thread for comment.


Nomercy lossback:
I will try to keep this short, but basically, before we introduced the daily, weekly, monthly Rakeback bonuses, we were offering a loss back of up to 10 % for our players, which meant anywhere from 1 % to 10 %,   the highest tier 10 % was given to our regular players, regular depositing players etc.     

This certain player, Nomercy,  a high roller, was playing for about 2-3 weeks, he won a pretty big amount then proceeded in losing it he got approximate of 6 % of his total losses back, and then, about 6 months later he came back asking for more ( prices already exploded so I’m assuming that’s the reason he did it ) ,

Regardless, this user was actually compensated at the time, he was happy with it.  But come back after a few months, demanding more, and threatening with bitcointalk accusations.

There was also some suspicion the original owner was not the one contacting, and the ask was very very large, a further few % of losses at a much much higher crypto price. It seems likely we would have obliged a smaller ask for such a player even after already crediting nearly a bitcoin in bonuses but the demand we felt was very unreasonable.



Richardo30  aka Screwing1000 aka multiple other bitcointalk accounts , aswell as duckdice accounts:
This user recently you may have noticed wrote a lot of accusations on our main thread as well as individual threads, as well as our trust pilot score being much lower than it is now. Most of this has been removed by the user.

It ultimately stemmed from him seeking loss back (a mechanism we no longer offered) and the short term disruption he was creating to our reputation was very impactful, we, unfortunately, did end up paying him a relatively small sum (7% of his losses on the site) and he has since deleted most of his posts and trust ratings (made via various accounts).

We as a team are not very happy with this decision we took, but in this one instance, bowed to pressure, which is why it's so important we write this thread and why we're being open about it now — there is a more comprehensive answer posted on our main BTT thread, here; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1676313.3360



The good stuff!
So what does DuckDice actually offer players?

We offer near on 24/7 live support with a very quick turnaround on the completion of rectifying issues. This has improved year on year and now we offer some of the most robust support of any casino.

We’ve paid out literally hundreds of thousands in bonuses, both in opportunity and actual withdraws from our faucet program, Rakeback, rains etc. There is a lot of bang for the buck for players, especially for the average gambler.

We also offer one of the best, lively, communities for actually having discussions, chilling out with your gambling, with a solid emphasis on chat quality, sometimes it’s serious, sometimes it’s a laugh but it’s always real.

We really do respond to feedback, constantly updating and improving the game, our reward structures, our policy towards people based on community feedback, and we won't stop. It really is one of the most fully fleshed-out feature-rich dice games available with a UI that works extremely well across tablet, mobile, pc, laptop and operating systems.

And, we’ve been running for half a decade —- in this space, that’s no small feat, and we plan to go on for a decade more; we have an extremely dedicated team who really care about the site and the user’s experience of it and we are very proud; sometimes too proud, of our work, which has been shown from time to time in our responses too unfair, or even outright false allegations.


Summary
If you spent time reading all of this, I genuinely thank you; I also thank you for any questions you may give us, I really hope this community sees what we are trying to do, and give us a fair shake, we will continue to grow and offer people a great experience, but it would be even better if we could do so with the bitcointalk community and wider giving us the appropriate criticism, and actual-time too understand that past mistakes are past and people with vendettas will always poison the water. For the future, we always have been listening, and caring about our reputation but it’s often a very hard mountain to climb, especially in this business.

We thank you too, our loyal customer base who’ve been with us all this time and are very grateful for the support over the years that allow us to offer such a great game.

Local Rules:

- All responsibility for any decision to remove or not remove a post falls on me (TwitchySeal), not Duckdice.
- No signature spam.  If your post smells like sig spam I'll delete it.
- No derailing.  The topic is duckdice.io issues.
- If I ask you not to post in the thread anymore, then don't.
- If you have a 1xbit advertisement in your signature don't post in this thread.

[TwitchySeal]

The original accusation on the forum:  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2022797.0)
My Response


Mishandling a multi-account situation in private messaging: (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5369223.0)
My Response


Scam accusations involving pending reviews: (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5144652.0)

The 3.11btc rain per user bug: (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5090388.0)

Nomercy lossback: (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364266.0)

Richardo30  aka Screwing1000 aka multiple other bitcointalk accounts , aswell as duckdice accounts: (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5381469.0)

[DuckDice.io]

Just posting from our official duckdice account that the main body of the thread was indeed written by DuckDice, and posted on our behalf by TwitchySeal — we have done so in the hope a self-moderated thread allows for the creation of a platform for people to properly assess what we do as a casino without the additional worry of signature campaign posting clogging up the thread, as well as generally allowing a good conversation to be had.

Bobstone and Kirito89 as our support members will be the ones primarily handling questions, but this thread is actively monitored by all our team in hope of learning from you as the community what we can do better, and what we are doing right.

Thank you so much for taking the time to interact with this.

[Poker Player]

What I don't quite understand is why this is a self-moderated thread. If you want to discuss in an objective and unbiased way, a self-moderated thread is not the right way, unless you convince me otherwise, I don't see it.

If by some chance I get this comment deleted I will open another thread to discuss this.

[Kirito89]

What I don't quite understand is why this is a self-moderated thread. If you want to discuss in an objective and unbiased way, a self-moderated thread is not the right way, unless you convince me otherwise, I don't see it.

If by some chance I get this comment deleted I will open another thread to discuss this.

Hi there , TwitchySeal created the thread  , he's not related to duckdice in any way whatsoever , but we agreed on self moderation , just in case we get bot spammed , we had some issues in the past with this where our threads were constantly attacked/trolled by a user creating multiple accounts , so Twitchy will have complete control over deleting any troll messages.    As duckdice representatives we have no control over what comments are on the thread, which I believe is the right way to do a reputation thread.

[TwitchySeal]

The original accusation on the forum:
The original poster of the above was credited a refund, the deposit bonus was removed and re-worked before re-release much later on with lessons we had learnt.

The basic summary of what happened is the user in question used one of our deposit bonus offers, played through and was up with some considerable profit, however, decided they did not want to continue with the bonus and cancelled it (there were warnings this would mean losing both the initial commitment and profit) that were missed by the user.

His scam accusation was that this was unfair and we should refund the balance (which we did) however our initial response was not fantastic and actually a bit standoffish. We have apologised and recognised this is not the way to handle complaints and was extremely early in the experiences of DuckDice and its team.

This was perhaps our biggest mistake and where most of our reputation damage has come from. However, we have had most negative trust ratings removed and placed as neutral from this time because we have clearly demonstrated that we have resolved it fairly.

Everyone seems like an asshole in this thread.

I know this happened almost 5 years ago, but it's a good example of why deposit bonuses are basically a red flag these days.  Someone's getting exploited - if there's value in the bonus - the casino gets exploited, otherwise it's the player, it all comes down to terms and conditions....  And any time terms and conditions allow the possibility of a player accidentally giving their balance to the casino without actually gambling it - those are predatory terms.  

The player handled it in probably the worst way possible, which kind of sucks because he basically got rewarded for being both an idiot and an asshole.  But keeping the money would be like a real casino keeping a players money because he dropped in all in the hotel pool or something.

But yeah, not a good look for anyone.  Luckily it was almost 5 years ago.  Not much else to say on that.

Next one coming up "Mishandling a multi-account situation in private messaging"

What I don't quite understand is why this is a self-moderated thread. If you want to discuss in an objective and unbiased way, a self-moderated thread is not the right way, unless you convince me otherwise, I don't see it.

If by some chance I get this comment deleted I will open another thread to discuss this.

So thread doesn't get over run with sig spam and a couple trolls with lots of accounts.

[Pmalek]

I just read the original accusation case and this is how I see it. I hope TwitchySeal doesn't mind other users posting their feedback and opinions.

Ozafejyw782 made a deposit of 2 BTC. The 100% deposit bonus credited him with another 2 BTC as a bonus.
Ozafejyw782 now has 4 BTC in his account, and if I understood correctly, he was able to make bets with those 4 Bitcoins. Is that correct?

He made a few bets and managed to win one extra Bitcoin. He now has 5 BTC as a balance, but he still hasn't met the wagering requirements, which means he can't request to withdraw those coins. At one point, he gives up and wants to withdraw everything. His original 2 BTC, the 2 BTC as bonus, and the additional 1 BTC of profit that he earned with help of his original deposit + the bonus.

Duckdice obviously won't allow it because the bonus rollover requirements haven't been fulfilled. I don't think Duckdice acted wrongly unless their TOS and Bonus TOS stated that the player has the right to cancel the rollover requirements at any time, and that he would be credited with the money he won until that point. I don't think that was the case, was it?

The issue was resolved by returning the original 2 BTC deposit. That's OK. But there is one more issue. The player can obviously not be allowed to withdraw 5 BTC. He can also not be allowed to withdraw 3 BTC (2 BTC original deposit + 1 BTC of earnings) because that 1 BTC of extra profit came thanks to wagers made with the bonus funds as well. But if he played with his own 2 BTC as well, shouldn't he be allowed to withdraw winnings that would represent the profit he would have made if he placed wagers only with those 2 BTC? In this case, instead of 1 BTC of profit, only 0.5 BTC. Maybe that would have been the most optimal solution.

[TwitchySeal]

Ozafejyw782 made a deposit of 2 BTC. The 100% deposit bonus credited him with another 2 BTC as a bonus.
Ozafejyw782 now has 4 BTC in his account, and if I understood correctly, he was able to make bets with those 4 Bitcoins. Is that correct?

I believe you're correct up to this point^^

He made a few bets and managed to win one extra Bitcoin. He now has 5 BTC as a balance, but he still hasn't met the wagering requirements, which means he can't request to withdraw those coins. At one point, he gives up and wants to withdraw everything. His original 2 BTC, the 2 BTC as bonus, and the additional 1 BTC of profit that he earned with help of his original deposit + the bonus.

Duckdice obviously won't allow it because the bonus rollover requirements haven't been fulfilled. I don't think Duckdice acted wrongly unless their TOS and Bonus TOS stated that the player has the right to cancel the rollover requirements at any time, and that he would be credited with the money he won until that point. I don't think that was the case, was it?

But when he cancelled the bonus, his balance went to 0:

I click cancel and are you sure yes in 1 second, without reading anything ( My fault) but I never thought there was a shady feature like that.(The proof it is shady, the admin stan talked to me and told me they will change it on monday)

BOOM : 0 balance. I refresh : 0 balance.

There actually is a scenario where this would be acceptable, now that I think of it.  If his balance at any point dropped more than the amount of the deposit, then it would be a fair argument that after cancelling the bonus the player is not entitled to anything.

Regardless, if a player does something stupid like turn their balance into 0 without actually gambling, and he immediately comes to support to say "this is not what I meant to do", imo there's never a situation where it's ok for the Casino to say "sorry, thats our money now".  

If you leave the possibility of that happening, no matter how dumb someone would have to be to do it, it's going to happen.  - and so now you basically have predatory terms as a revenue generator for your business - which is never ok.  And by never ok, I mean that's my opinion.

But again, this is 5 years ago and they've admitted their mistakes in the past.  I've got issue #2 response on deck, I almost skipped to the "We accidentally rained 3 btc per user" issue but decided to go in order....stay tuned.

I just read the original accusation case and this is how I see it. I hope TwitchySeal doesn't mind other users posting their feedback and opinions.

Not at all, open thread for a reason.
  

[LoyceV]

The issue was resolved by returning the original 2 BTC deposit. That's OK. But there is one more issue. The player can obviously not be allowed to withdraw 5 BTC. He can also not be allowed to withdraw 3 BTC (2 BTC original deposit + 1 BTC of earnings) because that 1 BTC of extra profit came thanks to wagers made with the bonus funds as well. But if he played with his own 2 BTC as well, shouldn't he be allowed to withdraw winnings that would represent the profit he would have made if he placed wagers only with those 2 BTC? In this case, instead of 1 BTC of profit, only 0.5 BTC. Maybe that would have been the most optimal solution.

I don't think returning 2.5 BTC would have been better. I assume that's not according to the deposit conditions. The whole point of a deposit bonus is to make you wager more (and increase the chance to lose). It's no charity, it's designed to give the casino an edge, not the player. If the conditions aren't met, the user can't withdraw winnings. What if the user would have lost instead of won? He wouldn't be allowed to keep his 2 BTC that way either.

[Pmalek]

But when he cancelled the bonus, his balance went to 0:

Yes, but that shouldn't have happened no matter what their pop-up window displays. The casino can't just take your real money just because you stopped wagering bonus funds. His bonus going to 0 is Duckdice's wrong setup because the player didn't lose the money by betting. If I understood correctly, they admitted this mistake and fixed it.

What if the user would have lost instead of won? He wouldn't be allowed to keep his 2 BTC that way either.

If the player lost part or all of his funds, my view of this case would of course have been completely different. However, he won, he didn't lose.

I think Duckdice found a suitable compromise by refunding the 2 BTC. If we knew what the Bonus T&C were that the player agreed to at that time, it would be easier to comment on whether or not he had a right to claim any part of his 1 BTC winnings.

[Kirito89]

But when he cancelled the bonus, his balance went to 0:

Yes, but that shouldn't have happened no matter what their pop-up window displays. The casino can't just take your real money just because you stopped wagering bonus funds. His bonus going to 0 is Duckdice's wrong setup because the player didn't lose the money by betting. If I understood correctly, they admitted this mistake and fixed it.

What if the user would have lost instead of won? He wouldn't be allowed to keep his 2 BTC that way either.

If the player lost part or all of his funds, my view of this case would of course have been completely different. However, he won, he didn't lose.

I think Duckdice found a suitable compromise by refunding the 2 BTC. If we knew what the Bonus T&C were that the player agreed to at that time, it would be easier to comment on whether or not he had a right to claim any part of his 1 BTC winnings.

 

Usually all casinos don't offer the option to cancel deposit bonus , and any balance won  is withdrawable once the wagering requirements were met .  Basically 5 years ago when we did our first deposit bonus ,  the cancellation policy was that if you cancel the deposit bonus without finishing the wagering requirements , you forfeit the balance ( deposit + bonus ), while the user was informed 2 times before cancelling it that this would happen , this was a thumble on our part ,  and we quickly re-worked the terms of the deposit bonus so that this never happens again . ( we also refunded the user 2 btc ) .  Since then we conducted deposit bonuses  around 50+ times without any issues,   but because  of that first incident , our reputation suffered greatly here .  So while I know the negative feedbacks are hard to take back , especially since Lauda left the forum and Zepher sadly passed away ,  we'd like at least to manage to address all issues in a constructive way and hear the community's oppinion on how we can improve going forward.

[bobstone]

If you leave the possibility of that happening, no matter how dumb someone would have to be to do it, it's going to happen.  - and so now you basically have predatory terms as a revenue generator for your business - which is never ok.  And by never ok, I mean that's my opinion.

I'm actually in agreement here that it should never be ok and I understand from that time (i joined a few months after we had already stopped the deposit bonus following this) it wasn't the intention to be predatory, and more just a very naive oversight at the time (i genuinely believe that though I would not expect for one moment for any critical thinker too actually believe that regardless sadly)

I would actually welcome some additional feedback for people to see how we're running our current deposit bonuses;

https://duckdice.io/bonuses?modal=wagering-bonus-choose&bonusHash=692a53da85

they're much more favourable with the ability to cancel with your initial commitment intact, (obviously still forfeiting any profits), with varying but reasonable wagering coefficients (mitigated with higher house edge) 35x 2.7% and a max win per bet of the bonus amount.

It basically is an aim at the delicate balance already alluded to, it's extremely difficult to find a level playing field for both player and casino with these types of offerings but we've found our new format to be much more favourably viewed.

I just read the original accusation case and this is how I see it. I hope TwitchySeal doesn't mind other users posting their feedback and opinions.

I am extremely happy you found the time to add your feedback and discuss it, it's exactly the purpose thank you.

Bobstone
Live Support for DuckDice

[LoyceV]

I would actually welcome some additional feedback for people to see how we're running our current deposit bonuses;

https://duckdice.io/bonuses?modal=wagering-bonus-choose&bonusHash=692a53da85

I checked faq#depositbonus:

To set a bonus you need to specify your share that will define the leverage, aka credit, from DuckDice. The bigger balance allows you to place more bets, play with bigger stakes and as a result win much more. It works similar to margin trading.

I haven't done the math, but I'm wondering if this is true. The user can also lose more, and considering the player loses on average, "win much more" seems misleading.

Deposit Bonus increases your odds for higher win

Here too: I'd like to know if this is true (on a mathematical level). This also seems misleading.

DuckDice can not it all the time and will give the chance to participate only occasionally for a limited segment of players.

I think a word ("give"?) is missing. I would expect Terms to be absolutely clear.

Reasons to cancel Deposit Bonus:
Bonus Lost - when the Bonus Balance is spent before the wagering requirements are cleared.

Say I deposit 1 BTC and get a 1 BTC bonus. I play a bit, lose the 1 BTC bonus, and have 1 BTC left. According to the above, this would be a reason for me to cancel the Deposit Bonus. But if I do:

Return = Current Bonus Balance - DuckDice initial share

This would mean I get nothing! So I'm better off if I continue playing, hoping I'll either increase my balance again, or reach the wagering requirement before my funds run out.
Or do you mean you call the full 2 BTC (including the 1 BTC I deposited) "Bonus Balance"? If that's the case, I'd say it's misleading.

I'm not a native English speaker, but while reading through the Deposit Bonus Rules, I get the feeling it needs proofreading.

Disclaimer: I'm not much into gambling, and I've never liked "deposit bonuses" because I know they're designed to make me lose more. So you can consider my input a bit of an "outsider" view on this, and the Terms are not as clear as I would have hoped. Ideally, I would want the Terms to be very easy to understand, and fair to the player without giving me the feeling the casino is trying to trick me into accepting sneaky Terms.

[bobstone]

https://duckdice.io/bonuses?modal=wagering-bonus-choose&bonusHash=692a53da85

I checked faq#depositbonus:

To set a bonus you need to specify your share that will define the leverage, aka credit, from DuckDice. The bigger balance allows you to place more bets, play with bigger stakes and as a result win much more. It works similar to margin trading.

I haven't done the math, but I'm wondering if this is true. The user can also lose more, and considering the player loses on average, "win much more" seems misleading.

I'll note it, i don't think it's necessarily misleading but certainly noted; i'm personally not a fan of marketing that makes any claims but it'll make more sense when i clarify the bonus terms you highlighted later in the post.

Deposit Bonus increases your odds for higher win
Here too: I'd like to know if this is true (on a mathematical level). This also seems misleading.

Again, not a fan of making these claims nor am i the best-qualified person to tell you the odds (I'm more on the people side of things than anything else) but it'll make more sense in a moment.

DuckDice can not it all the time and will give the chance to participate only occasionally for a limited segment of players.
I think a word ("give"?) is missing. I would expect Terms to be absolutely clear.

Yeah, noted but not too unclear, we're just trying to say we'll only run them on a limited basis.

Reasons to cancel Deposit Bonus:
Bonus Lost - when the Bonus Balance is spent before the wagering requirements are cleared.
Say I deposit 1 BTC and get a 1 BTC bonus. I play a bit, lose the 1 BTC bonus, and have 1 BTC left. According to the above, this would be a reason for me to cancel the Deposit Bonus. But if I do:
Return = Current Bonus Balance - DuckDice initial share
This would mean I get nothing! So I'm better off if I continue playing, hoping I'll either increase my balance again, or reach the wagering requirement before my funds run out.
Or do you mean you call the full 2 BTC (including the 1 BTC I deposited) "Bonus Balance"? If that's the case, I'd say it's misleading.

I'm not a native English speaker, but while reading through the Deposit Bonus Rules, I get the feeling it needs proofreading.

My understanding of it is that you'll get the initial share back *if* you are above that initial share, losing any additional bonus balance and profit (if above profit) or you can cancel under the initial share, and only get what you haven't lost below that initial share.

So you're dead right it needs proofreading, but you can see how some claims (that I'd rather not see) can be made on it offering an advantage for bigger wins.

[Pmalek]

Basically 5 years ago when we did our first deposit bonus ,  the cancellation policy was that if you cancel the deposit bonus without finishing the wagering requirements , you forfeit the balance ( deposit + bonus ), while the user was informed 2 times before cancelling it that this would happen , this was a thumble on our part ,  and we quickly re-worked the terms of the deposit bonus so that this never happens again . ( we also refunded the user 2 btc ) . 

I have never used a deposit bonus on any of the casinos I have played on, so I don't know if the way you handled the bonus cancellation policy was normal on other platforms as well. But I don't think it was, and honestly, it was an awful way to do it. I can't help but wonder if and how many other players lost their coins due to that policy of yours. It's a positive thing that you changed it, but negative that it was there in the first place. 

[bobstone]

Basically 5 years ago when we did our first deposit bonus ,  the cancellation policy was that if you cancel the deposit bonus without finishing the wagering requirements , you forfeit the balance ( deposit + bonus ), while the user was informed 2 times before cancelling it that this would happen , this was a thumble on our part ,  and we quickly re-worked the terms of the deposit bonus so that this never happens again . ( we also refunded the user 2 btc ) . 

I have never used a deposit bonus on any of the casinos I have played on, so I don't know if the way you handled the bonus cancellation policy was normal on other platforms as well. But I don't think it was, and honestly, it was an awful way to do it. I can't help but wonder if and how many other players lost their coins due to that policy of yours. It's a positive thing that you changed it, but negative that it was there in the first place. 

firstly, I will totally agree it was an awful way to do it.

however it was offering 200% not just 2x, and I actually think not many people were affected by it -- from that time it was just this very high profile case that came to light i think not many were affected as it did literally warn twice what would happen if you cancelled, and the terms were set before joining the bonus, so you have to consider a) people participating should be aware of the terms b) the higher offer making people realise there has to be a 'catch'  c) it warned twice before cancelling what would happen if you did cancel, each time having to submit. ]

in some ways, I don't want to dwell on this one case, because I think it has been rectified, when helping write this thread i felt it important to raise it again, because, it was glaringly obvious we didn't conduct it the best way, in the original terms, or how we dealt with the complaint initially, but we eventually saw the errors we were making.

actually, as an aside, when i first joined their moderator team, i wasn't even aware of this drama as it happened some months before, but when i became aware of it, i was quite shocked, but in earnest discussions, i realised it was a genuine human and basic error, rather than purposeful predatory and greedy like behaviour that led to this and i was actually thanked for being so candid about where and why i think they went wrong.

[TwitchySeal]

Mishandling a multi-account situation in private messaging:
While this was poorly managed by us on a communication level — the user was linked to several other accounts that were trying to promote child pornography; which of course on so many levels we absolutely do not tolerate.

However, our approach towards the user in question was (and not on the same scale) also intolerable; because although we had evidence that they were possibly the same person, there is absolutely no way we should make such accusations without it being absolutely definitive they were the same person.

We have addressed this with training and guidance with the member involved.

So basically a user was linked to another account called 'ChildrenFucker', (and from Duckdice comments later on, he had other connections to child porn related stuff).  After cashing out, his withdraw was put under review rather than processed instantly and he got these messages from admin:



In the end he received his money and deleted his account along with creating a thread here.

I don't see any scam happening here.  Probably the best way to handle this kind of thing in the future, assuming you are confident they are using your site to share child porn, is to contact authorities, ban the accounts, send them their balance, and leave the investigating and accusations up to law enforcement.  In fact, tipping them off that you're contacting LE would only really benefit an actual pedophile in that situation.

You'd need more than just an account called "ChildrenFucker" though, which it appears you had, but just want to point out that that's a text book "let me think of the most offensive name I can" troll username, not something that should make you think the guy actually fucks children.

[actmyname]

I haven't done the math, but I'm wondering if this is true. The user can also lose more, and considering the player loses on average, "win much more" seems misleading.

Deposit Bonus increases your odds for higher win

Here too: I'd like to know if this is true (on a mathematical level). This also seems misleading.

Assuming you eat into the true balance before the bonus balance (usually the case, as the converse allows for risk-free gambling esp. if you can cancel) then as long as the expected return to wager through the turnover is higher than the reciprocal of the bonus multiplier.

For example, if the house edge of 1%, accumulated over 40x wagers produces an expected return of 66.9%, then a deposit bonus with an extra 49.48% would be break-even.
  In other words, if you have some return R, 1/R multiplies together to produce 1.Of course, a casino must be profitable. I haven't checked any bonuses on my own, but I doubt they would be particularly +ev, or if they were, it would be akin to the marginal benefit of rakeback or (done carefully) lossback.

For the deposit bonus I found on the site:
 At a 35x wagering coefficient/turnover, a 2.7% edge and 100% bonus (i.e. 2x multiple), you have an expected return of 38.36%. You would have needed a 160%+ bonus, as this bonus is effectively as expected: a -ev promotion. Overall, the expected return is 76.73%. Though, for plenty of gamblers, house edge doesn't matter in the first place and a larger bankroll to start results in a longer session (of 'potential' rewards).

Deposit Bonus Cancellation
Deposit Bonus can be canceled. In this case, you will get a Return which amount is calculated by the following formula:

If current Bonus Balance is equal or greater than initial Bonus Balance:

Return = your initial share

If current Bonus Balance is less than initial Bonus Balance:

Return = Current Bonus Balance - DuckDice initial share

If calculated Return amount less than zero, nothing will be returned on the Game Balance and no penalty applies, so no changes to your Game Balance occur. The Return will be credited to the game balance as soon the bonus is canceled.

So if you enter the bonus, you're subjected to the 23% house edge if you play it all the way through and/or have a positive return. Even if you don't and if your balance is below where you started, then your main balance is down. Kind of a lose-lose situation, unless I'm mistaken somewhere: high edge or guaranteed losses. Feel free to correct me.

[Pmalek]

I just read the second case titled "Mishandling a multi-account situation in private messaging".
There isn't really much to add. Unless you had substantial proof that the player was connected with other accounts that shared or tried to sell children pornography, such an accusation should never have happened. Could you tell us how you came to such conclusions? Was it only IP logs? Did that user AslanM4 write anything in the chat that seems to suggest he is interested in such things?

In the end he received his money and deleted his account along with creating a thread here.

Did he get his money? He said that he closed his account and refused further communication with the DuckDice team. 

[bobstone]

I just read the second case titled "Mishandling a multi-account situation in private messaging".
There isn't really much to add. Unless you had substantial proof that the player was connected with other accounts that shared or tried to sell children pornography, such an accusation should never have happened. Could you tell us how you came to such conclusions? Was it only IP logs? Did that user AslanM4 write anything in the chat that seems to suggest he is interested in such things?

In the end he received his money and deleted his account along with creating a thread here.

Did he get his money? He said that he closed his account and refused further communication with the DuckDice team.  

The conclusion was made via our multiple account detection systems, which includes things like IP and other elements that i would rather not disclose all tools we have --- it wasn't made via his actual chat discussions a definitive match, just a rather inconvenient leap of conclusion (currency of choice, matches on the system, and pm behaviour once asked)

regardless, it was obviously NOT the way to conduct ourselves in messaging the user, and I won't make excuses for how that was conducted. as the OP's of the thread even highlighted, we wouldn't risk our reputation to hold such a small sum and it was done out of genuine worry it's the same guy, but yeah.....no way should of happened.

As to actually being paid, as far as I'm aware we have not still -- we will of course pay the account holder if he gets in touch with us however he has yet to. It's not a lack of willingness, would be very nice to actually sort it sooner than later but we simply need that contact. The money is still being held on that account ready for him to come back to claim it.

Bobstone
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