Not Listed but Still Banned, Who’s at Fault?

[CryptSafe]

Sometimes, such a mistake comes from the casino for failing to do their proper research before publishing their restricted lists. We have encountered lots of casinos here, and we had to call their attention to it. We discovered that they did not really do their findings, and some intentionally did it, but in situations such as this, the player is supposed to unfailingly contact the customer support to confirm with them first before proceeding with registration and playing with them. If, in the future, anything funny happens, the player can hold them responsible, irrespective of whether gambling is permitted in their nation or not.

[Findingnemo]

So who’s really at fault here?

The user is at fault here, and read below to know why

b) Residing in jurisdictions from where it is illegal or gambling is not permitted. Stake is not able to verify the legality of the Service in each jurisdiction and it is the User's responsibility to ensure that their use of the Service is lawful;

So even if the country is not listed in the restricted countries but they are from a place where gambling is banned then they holds the responsibility and I just mentioned what stake says about this and you can find almost similar rules in every casino's terms and conditions page.

But the problem here is no one read their ToS completely.

[boyptc]

Should the casino at least allow withdrawal of funds before closing the account, or is confiscation justified?

They have all the rights to do whatever they want with it but it's not fair if they will confiscate.

I think that the majority of the casinos if ever have found a user from a restricted country, they'll allow them to withdraw their funds.

And after that, they're already banned and even if the country isn't listed, it's always the casino that has the final say.

[Cyber_warrior]

Imagine you’re a gambler from a country where gambling is totally banned, offline and online. You look for an offshore casino, check the restricted countries list, and your country isn’t there. You sign up, deposit, gamble, maybe even win.

Then one day, the casino suddenly bans your account, saying gambling is illegal in your country.

Since gambling is illegal in the country, then why did they allow the person register and even deposit on the gambling site, they are not suppose to allow the person access the gambling site not to talk of creating account on the gambling site. And also the country isn’t part of the restricted countries, so why ban his account all of a sudden?

If there is a change of policy, and they wanted to include your country among the restricted country, then they should inform everyone in the country about it, and they are suppose to give a time frame for everyone from the country to withdraw their money before a specific date, and anyone that ignores that, then they can do whatever they want, but without warning they are not just suppose to ban account.

[promise444c5]

You haven’t made the story clear.. Were there any amendments to the list after the user registered and started gambling, or was there no change and bam! account was banned with no warning?

In the first case, the casino should have restricted user’s  access from the day the list changed, or at least issued some warnings that the user might have missed. Apart from that, the casino seems quite shady here.

In the second scenario, the casino is still at fault.. You can’t just ban a user without a warning, even when it comes to location restrictions.
That said, it’s still good practice for users to check the TOS and keep up with every update of a casino.

[jossiel]

But the problem here is no one read their ToS completely.

You are speaking to all of us with that reality, it's a fact. No one reads the TOS and if someone really goes through with that long TOS, they're a legend.

If there is a change of policy, and they wanted to include your country among the restricted country, then they should inform everyone in the country about it, and they are suppose to give a time frame for everyone from the country to withdraw their money before a specific date, and anyone that ignores that, then they can do whatever they want, but without warning they are not just suppose to ban account.

The problem is they're putting that disclaimer that they can change the rule whether it includes the restrictions or not without prior notice.

And you'll only get to know that once you're from that country that they have added.

[SUPERSAIAN]

We can't legally fight this situation anyway, casinos are banned in the country, and you're trying to gamble in violation of that ban. Here, all the control is with the casino. I've never heard of something like this happening to anyone before. Maybe the casino just made up an excuse not to pay out the money, who knows? What a gambler wants is to be able to withdraw their money before the account is closed, and they consider that their right.

[retreat]

-snip-
Should the casino at least allow withdrawal of funds before closing the account, or is confiscation justified?

Interested to hear your thoughts about this scenario.

If the casino platform doesn't list your country from the start, but claims they will take action against accounts playing in regions where gambling is illegal, then the fault is you for not reading the terms of service of the casino. They have good reason to be able to act on your account and cancel your winnings if they have such a rule. So it's so important to read the terms of Service carefully and not play at a casino that are too strict about how to play on their platform.

[serjent05]

Imagine you’re a gambler from a country where gambling is totally banned, offline and online. You look for an offshore casino, check the restricted countries list, and your country isn’t there. You sign up, deposit, gamble, maybe even win.

Then one day, the casino suddenly bans your account, saying gambling is illegal in your country.

So who’s really at fault here?

The gambler. He knows that gambling is illegal in his country and yet he still engages in online gambling.  This is known as illegal gambling.

The gambler checked the rules and wasn’t listed as restricted. The casino allowed registration, deposits, and betting without any issue. If access was not allowed, why wasn’t the country blocked from the start?

Casino might not know the local laws of a country or failed to implement them, so gamblers from a country that prohibit gambling may access and play on that site.  It is a flaw in the gambling platform, but it is a fault of the player for exploiting such a flaw.

On the other hand, casinos always say it’s the player’s responsibility to know local laws. Fair enough, but then what’s the point of publishing a restricted countries list if it can be ignored anytime?

It is true and just, it is the responsibility of the player to know local law and it is not illegal for casino to ban accounts playing from a country that prohibits gambling eventhough they are not listed on the restricted countries.

Should the casino at least allow withdrawal of funds before closing the account, or is confiscation justified?

The casino can confiscate the winning but not the entire funds, they should allow withdrawal of the deposit (funds-winnings) of the gambler.

[Samlucky O]

From this whole narration, it shows that it is the fault of the casino and not the player. Like me , I have seen many site that doesn't support my country to sign up, and In some places it does allow for signup,  and I managed to fund such Casino that allows me, only to hear that such casino didn't allow me to withdraw after signup and deposit without any problem but only to make this law effective starting from your day of winning and withdrawal. It is entirely a day light rubbery that needs to be handled with care because it' is totally wrong and a criminal offence case.

[Lida93]

Interested to hear your thoughts about this scenario.

It's a very delicate situation which in my opinion it's a fault of both parties, the casino and the gambler.
The gambler: you're gambling from from a country with a legal ban against gambling both on and offshore gambling but still decided to bypass using a VPN to access a gambling site just because your country isn't listed among prohibited countries in the casino list.  Did you confirm if the casino is against the use of VPN?

The casino: I think banning a customer account from a country not listed among your prohibited countries is just another form of taking advantage of the gambler using their own country's extant laws which obviously you have no contract with. A fair action could have being to notify the gambler to withdraw all funds from the account within a stipulated timeframe to have his account closedown after the time elapsed. This what I think.

[maydna]

I am not playing gambling in the casinos that prohibit my country. I don't want to gets into trouble because casinos can do anything to my account. I can use other casinos to gamble so I don't have to still playing there.

But if casinos changing their rules and add my country in their prohibition lists, I will leaves the casinos and withdraw my funds. If I am not doing something suspicious, they will allows me to withdraw my money without takes too long.

If you still playing gambling on that casino, you should realize the risk and ready with anything if casino doing something to you, including banning your account.

[Strongkored]

Interested to hear your thoughts about this scenario.

I'm quite curious about this, even though I've encountered the opposite. I mean, in my country, gambling is illegal, including online gambling, and even ISPs block sites related to gambling. Yet, I often don't find my country's name on the banned list.
As for why players can still register and make deposits, it's probably because they're using a VPN.

[bubilas]

In this situation, everyone is to blame, but I think the casino is mostly to blame. If someone opens their own casino, they should be sure to have a complete list of countries with their IP addresses, and with this list, the casino can block players with IP addresses from accessing the site. But then players will use VPNs. Casinos shouldn't care, after all, the players are the ones making the profit, and they're the ones who will have legal problems.
After all, they'll have to withdraw the money somehow, whether it's crypto or a deposit. In any case, the money will be withdrawn to the card, and then the bank may start asking questions about the origin of the funds.

[yahoo62278]

I feel like both parties are at fault somewhat as you the gambler should already know it's prohibited to gamble from your country and the site should be more diligent in keeping their list of restricted countries updated, but ultimately it's on you. The issue is, sites aren't going to update their ToS every day and they shouldn't have to, and if you really want to gamble you're going to find a way to do so.

[Furious 7]

Imagine you’re a gambler from a country where gambling is totally banned, offline and online. You look for an offshore casino, check the restricted countries list, and your country isn’t there. You sign up, deposit, gamble, maybe even win.

Then one day, the casino suddenly bans your account, saying gambling is illegal in your country.

So who’s really at fault here?

We have to see the reason for the ban clearly here because after all, when a site is operating then surely they know how they have to do including to ban their players.
Sites cannot freeze or even ban players when the reason is still gray.

That's how it should feel for the players. They must be aware of what they are doing when they are banned from certain sites because it could be that we violate the ToS that has been determined from the beginning, do suspicious activities or even deliberately trick us so that we benefit personally.
Currently in my country gambling is still illegal but because the stipulation still cannot really be said to be firm because there are still many unscrupulous government officials who also make this a land of profit (in gambling) so that gambling still continues to exist including for outside sites that I always play and I am still comfortable without any interference freezing or even banning until now because I play according to the conditions that the site has set.

[Kelward]

If gambling is banned in your country and you bypass your county's law to register in an offshore casino site it means that you're at their mercy, you have to accept whatever treatment you're given because your country doesn't have regulations for casinos. If I'm asked who is to blame in such a situation the first person should be the gambler who knows that it is illegal to gamble in his country yet goes ahead. Second entity should be the casino that wants to take advantage of the ban to probably scam the gambler so they won't withdraw their funds. The country has no blame because it has stated it's stance and whoever violates it and gets in trouble should take complete responsibility of their action.

[Sammye3]

You have said it all, because the rules and conditions of the casino should be in accordance to the lawas of all countries so the casinos are wrong to block the account without further warnings. Like you said, why allow deposits only to block the account after several winnings?

Should the casino at least allow withdrawal of funds before closing the account, or is confiscation justified?

What should be best done is notifying the account holder of certain restrictions and give a stipulated date when the account would be blocked so the holder makes certain arrangements as to how to control funds to avoid the risk of loss. This way the casino still keep their reputation intact by making up for the omission and holders are safe with their money.
]

[Youngrebel]

So who’s really at fault here?

The user is at fault here, and read below to know why

b) Residing in jurisdictions from where it is illegal or gambling is not permitted. Stake is not able to verify the legality of the Service in each jurisdiction and it is the User's responsibility to ensure that their use of the Service is lawful;

So even if the country is not listed in the restricted countries but they are from a place where gambling is banned then they holds the responsibility and I just mentioned what stake says about this and you can find almost similar rules in every casino's terms and conditions page.

But the problem here is no one read their ToS completely.

Im sure these casino sights are reviewed over time and it is not all the countries with restrictions rhat are updated at once. Si depending when a particular countries status of eligibility is updated the information will not fully display.  Within that period the player can register because of inadequate information he got. So I'll say its a two ways thing.   Neither the casino or the player is to be blamed in this situation.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

the earlier the better we know these that, the casino will ban us if we violate their rules, they cant ban if we don't go against it, just as some other already contributed, also, if you see any other platform acting contrary to these, then we have to avoid such and give the necessary review about them, to prevent others from being their victim, while the use of vpn comes with the casino terms and condition, which everyone of us should try as much as possible to know what can raise a flag to our user account while using a particular gambling casino.